Synchronicity

How delightful it is when two books one is reading, (I read multiple books at once), overlap in themes and discussions.

I have been continuing my review of Manning and St. Angela on this blog in the past many days.

St. Angela’s amazing experience of the Illuminative and Unitive States allowed her to know God in His Attributes, something I can only do through study and reflection.

That God is Good seemed to be the attribute which encompassed the entire spectrum of St. Angela’s experience of God’s relationship to the world. Angela’s words remind me, as I have noted before, those of Julian of Norwich. The mystical experience of the Goodness of God, of God as holding the entire creation in His Hands is described by both women.

Both Manning and Angela write of the gift of wisdom. Manning is describing it from theology and Angela from experience, yet their descriptions overlap.

In this post, I only want to highlight one aspect of wisdom which is this--that we must not seek knowledge which is not to be known. Here is St. Angela on this point: “There I beheld the ineffable fullness of God; but I can relate nothing of it, save that I have seen the plenitude of divine wisdom, wherein is all goodness.”

She continues, “In this plenitude I saw that it is not lawful to seek or desire to know that which  the divine wisdom is going to do, for this is a forestalling and dishonouring of it. When I persons, therefore, who seek to know such things, I am persuaded that they do err.”

Me, too. I have warned and warned people about over-concentrating on private revelations instead of praying day by day and reading the Scriptures, going to Mass and Adoration, praying at the abortion mills, working for Project Rachel.  St. Angela tells us all to be involved in prayer, fasting, penance. She states, “By Thy Passion deliver me, oh Lord.”

Angela says she was “in love” at this stage. She never doubted that God was with her after her Illuminative and Unitive experiences. She said, however, that she was in some darkness even after those experiences.  

One of the results of encountering wisdom according to St. Angela is the enlargement of the mind.  This enlargement of the mind is connected to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the gifts of understanding and wisdom. St. Angela writes that this is the way of perfection.

I shall continue this posting on St. Angela and Cardinal Manning in another post.