Cynthia Bourgeault - Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God

Cloister Books are inspired by the monastic custom of walking slowly and reading or meditating in the monastery cloister, a place of silence, centering, and calm. Within these pages you will find a similar space in which to pray and reflect on the presence of God.

This is a grace-filled book for those who are learning to swim in the deep waters of Gods mercy and lovewaters in which we already swim but hardly know it. Cynthia Bourgeault shows us the road to a deep and lasting hope.

Alan Jones

It is unusual to encounter a book that brings together to this degree metaphysical depth, practical spirituality, and sparkling writing. True to the dynamic of the spiritual life, Cynthia Bourgeault follows the path of hope inward to the center and then back outward to the world.

Bruno Barnhart, OSB Cam.

Dr. Bourgeault, an experienced guide to centering prayer, offers some profound and amazing insights into an inner joy that can be found in the midst of personal disappointment. She reveals friendship as living together in hope, which she experiences as Gods warm-heartedness.

Beatrice Bruteau

Mystical Hope

Cynthia Bourgeault

2001 by Cynthia Bourgeault. All rights reserved.

Published in the United States of America by Cowley Publications, a division of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any meansincluding photocopyingwithout the prior written permission of Cowley Publications, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Bourgeault, Cynthia.

Mystical Hope / Cynthia Bourgeault.

p. cm.

ISBN 13: 978-1-56101-193-3

1. HopeReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Mysticism. 1. Title.
BV4638 B62 2001
248.22dc 21

2001028443

Scripture quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible. Psalm quotations are from the Psalter in The Book of Common Prayer (1979).

Cover design: Vicki Black; photograph: 2001 William Neill / www.WilliamNeill.com, Half Dome and pine in clouds, Washburn Point, Yosemite National Park, California

A COWLEY PUBLICATIONS BOOK

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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www.rowmanlittlefield.com

Estover Road
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To Lynn Bauman
without whose encouragement and support
this book would not have been written

One
Journey to the Wellsprings

Two
Living in the Mercy

Three
Meditation and Hope

Four
Dying Before You Die

Five
Hope and the Future

We awaken in Christs body

as Christ awakens our bodies,

and my poor hand is Christ. He enters

my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully

my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him

(for God is indivisibly

whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once

he appears in a flash of lightning.

Do my words seem blasphemous?Then

open your heart to Him

And let yourself receive the one

who is opening to you so deeply.

For if we genuinely love him,

we wake up inside Christs body

where all our body, all over,

every most hidden part of it,

is realized in joy as Him,

and He makes us utterly real,

and everything that is hurt, everything

that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,

maimed, ugly, irreparably

damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,

and radiant in His light.

We awaken as the Beloved

in every last part of our body.

ST. SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN (949-1022)

What you dare not hope forthat is what He gives you.

Frre Roger, Taiz Commuity

In this short book I would like to invite you on a journey. It is a journey that may begin in despair, in hopelessness. Perhaps someone precious to you has died. You may have lost a job, a family, a lover. Perhaps you were unfairly passed over, slightedeven betrayed. You may be living under the heavy cloud of a depression that will not lift or an addiction that will not release its grip. Your life seems to be swirling downward; you do not see how to reverse the trend. There is no hope.

Hope, you feel, could help you live. It would provide a new surge of energy that would make life feel possible again. Perhaps all you need is some reassurance that the situation will change; things will get better. Perhaps it is even simpler than that: just an attitude shift, a new way of looking at things. But whatever it is, you know hope is the missing ingredient. And you want to find it.

Even if your situation is not so desperate, if the ups and downs of your life are merely the rough-and-tumble of daily living, you wonder sometimes if the roller coaster ride is really necessary. Must we be whiplashed incessantly between joy and sorrow, expectation and disappointment? Is it not possible to live from a place of greater equilibrium, to find a deeper and steadier current?

The good news is that this deeper current does exist and you actually can find it. I hope in this book to show you how. But I should warn you from the outset that we are not going to go by the easiest route. There are plenty of books out there that can give you gimmicks, psychological techniques, comforting platitudes, and timely advice. But for me the journey to the source of hope is ultimately a theological journey: up and over the mountain to the sources of hope in the headwaters of the Christian Mystery. This journey to the wellsprings of hope is not something that will change your life in the short range, in the externals. Rather, it is something that will change your innermost way of seeing. From there, inevitably, the externals will rearrange.

In our usual way of looking at things, hope is tied to outcome. We would normally think of it as an optimistic feelingor at least a willingness to go onbecause we sense that things will get better in the future.

I hope I get the job. I hope the book contract comes through, I say to myself, idling my mind ahead to the pleasant chain of events that will be set in motion by this outcome. Or, on a darker note, Oh, I hope its not cancer, as I await the results of the biopsy. Suddenly the whole tapestry of joy and sadness hangs in the balance of events beyond my control, and I await the verdict with heart in mouth.