Master Eckhart: "Clothing Yourself with Christ"

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Bruce Michael

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Hi All,
On the question of "clothing yourself with Christ" the Meister had some great ideas for us all. It is in fact a remedy for some mystic practices:


"for the danger on this descent into a man's inner being is that his Ego may assert itself for its own selfish aims. Long speeches may be made about finding the God within. But people who talk in this vein have usually not made much real progress. If they had, they would inevitably discover that the self-seeking Ego asserts itself with terrific force. It may often be found that such people, when following the ordinary conventions of life, are good and decent characters, but directly they practice mystical deepening and ignore influences from outside, their inner self asserts itself."
Click to expand...
"Macrocosm & Microcosm", R. Steiner, lecture five.

He then goes on to explain how mystics with good and healthy propensities, like Master Eckhart, protect themselves. This was by Eckhart's taking up and making a reality of the saying "Not I but, Christ in me."
-Br.Bruce


God is always "in the beginning"...Eckhart says, "The first gift of the spirit is newness."
 
Hi Bruce –

The same is said of St Padre Pio, and whereas Eckhart might be considered a theological or speculative mystic, St Pio was a pastoral mystic, in the style of St Francis of Assisi, in whom the Holy Spirit was visibly to many (including members of my own family), in the healing charism of Love that marked their particular mission – the ultimate mark of Love being the Mark of Sacrifice – the stigmata.

St Pio was asked many times to explain the apparent phenomena of his acts, in word or deed, and his answer was always the same, "When I am in Christ... "

I have on my site an item aposite here, Eckhart's '24 Signs of the True Ground':
Contemplating the Christian Mysteries

Thomas
 
Hi Bruce —

Thank you. I hope you find it interesting. Knowing your interests, I would recommend St Dionysius the Areopagite. You'll find the complete corpus there, the only place on the web, I think.

As an aside — St Thomas has always been considered an Aristotelian, simply because he deployed Aristotle's method of argument, which stands even today as a paradigm of the philosophical process. Yet if we count his reference to sources, then Dionysius (and Augustine) stand well to the fore, both men well schooled in the Neoplatonic Tradition of Plotinus.

I am coming to realise that Aquinas is the master of Christian philosophical esoterism, or more precisely, Christian metaphysics. The UA of Meditations, I would consider a master of Christian phenomenological esoterism — the language of symbol.

The Veil was founded on a certain epiphany of mine with regard to Christian symbolism, and it was this that led me to its esoterism, and thence its metaphysic. My language now has moved away from the tradition of the Hermetic symbolist discourse (exemplified by the Meditations) and the structure of symbol, to one of the structure of relation which holds those symbols in unity.

Hence my utter delight in the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church — a heritage that finds its heart in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas.

Pax

Thomas
 
I heard it might have been battery acid, not God's love, with regards to the stigmata and padre pio...

I also heard that he may well have been a holy man who was almost forced into behaving in this way because of catholicisms' almost medieval doctrine regarding the confirmation of saintliness?
 
Hi Francis –

I know, that's the trouble with rumour, but the points you make are revealing because:

I heard it might have been battery acid, not God's love, with regards to the stigmata and padre pio...
So he's a fake, and the Church is at fault for making him a saint and 'cashing in' on his piety, or

I also heard that he may well have been a holy man who was almost forced into behaving in this way because of catholicisms' almost medieval doctrine regarding the confirmation of saintliness?
So he's genuine, but it doesn't matter because the Church is still at fault, whatever.

This is indicative of the type of stuff that goes round, which broadly covers the whole spectrum of opinion, as long as it's axiomatic that the Church is at fault, that all that really matters.

Poor old Padre Pio — he can't win —

His principle charism was as a confessor, and this is a charism not unique to him. St John Vianney – the Curé of Ars – was another, and yet another lives and works today, I believe, in Switzerland. Padre Pio's stigmata is in light of this charism, it is not the point of it, as there are other stigmatics who do not acrue such controversy to their names – Adrienne von Speyr, for example (1902-67).

As we have a 'miracle' in the name of Padre Pio in my own family — the recipient being an uncle who was non-religious in any sense — then those who can sit in the comfort of their armchairs and ridicule such notions can shove it, as far as I'm concerned.

Thomas
 
hey, thomas, I wasn't criticising padre pio! by all accounts he was deserving of his beatitude, but....

maybe I was criticising the church though... and their canonisation rules...
 
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