Watch as Msgr. Don explains the true nature of holiness and your direct connection with the divine.

Good morning. Mysticism. Holiness. Those two things are synonymous. They mean the same thing. Holiness is also a word for wholeness. So what I'm looking at when I think about the spiritual life is what is it about? It's about union with God. Connecting with God, connecting with the truth. Jesus is the truth incarnate. He comes into the world to make a connection with human beings, to give them an example of what it means to be fully engaged in a relationship with God that is intimate.

So holiness in my growing up was always, well, in fact, one of my favorite lines is, “I wish people wouldn't compare holiness with metabolism because holy people were always quiet and walked really slowly and things like that.” But that image of holiness as otherworldliness is dangerous, to say the least. But what it really means, holiness means that you have a direct connection with the divine. Now, think about that. Does that sound presumptuous? Is that saying it is something you have to earn and work for?

I can remember when, you know, before the Vatican Council, there was a tremendous kind of, at least in my mind, an image of the only really holy people were the priests and the nuns. Everybody else was sort of, you know, you weren't really disciplined enough to be connected to God because you lived too worldly of a life as if God isn't interested in being in the world with you.

So what mysticism really means is that there is a sense in a human being's essence that there's a God who is so real to them it is a part of them. It's a direct contact. It's like you're walking along and you can hear God's talking to you through thoughts and ideas, and you're not having to go to a church and kneel down and pray. Not that that isn't a wonderful thing to do, but it's not the only way you can get to God. 

It's interesting how people in the Roman Catholic Church had responded to the Tabernacle and the Eucharist, and that's God, that's God's present in the Eucharist. We would be so in awe of that. Yet if you ask God, is that the only place you are present in that in that consecrated bread and wine? He would say, “Of course not.” The most delightful place for God is in your heart with you. Pumping through his spirit, pumping through your blood. I mean, that's mysticism. It seems really otherworldly, but actually it's not. It is the one gift a person can have. The answer that helps him to enter into the reality of the world without fear or shame or anger.

It's a kind of it's experienced by other people, not as a holier than thou attitude, but as something resonating truth, you know, resonating life. So mysticism is not a unique gift of monks and nuns and priests. It's your inheritance. So live with it. It's your right. It is his gift. What a horrible thing is to leave his gifts sitting outside unopened.

Have a great day.

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