Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Thirty-one

The Rhineland Mystics

The Need for Mysticism
Sunday,  August 2, 2020

We live in a time of both crisis and opportunity. While there are many reasons to be anxious, I still have hope. Westerners, including Christians, are rediscovering the value of nonduality: a way of thinking, acting, reconciling, boundary-crossing, and bridge-building based on inner experience of God and God’s Spirit moving in the world. We’re not throwing out our rational mind, but we’re adding nondual, mystical, contemplative consciousness. When we have both, we’re able to see more broadly, deeply, wisely, and lovingly. We can collaborate on creative solutions to today’s injustices.

I’m glad there’s renewed appreciation in the Christian tradition for people who modeled such wholeness. This week I’ll turn toward my own cultural roots in the Rhineland. These mystics were mostly German-speaking spiritual writers, preachers, and teachers, who lived largely between the 11th and 15th centuries.

You might already be familiar with the Benedictines, Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) and Gertrude the Great (1256–1302); the Beguine Mechtild of Magdeburg (c. 1212–c. 1282); the Dominicans, including Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1327), Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), and Henry Suso (1295–1366); and Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), in what is now Switzerland. Another Rhineland mystic in recent history who might surprise you was psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961). Jung admits to being influenced by Hildegard, Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa—especially Nicholas’ fascination with “the opposites.” [1]

After the Protestant Reformation, the mystical path was largely mistrusted. Some would even say it was squelched because of Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) emphasis on Scripture as the only source of knowledge about God (sola Scriptura). To be fair, Luther’s contributions led Christians to an early stage “rational” use of the Scriptures as a corrective to Catholic over-spiritualization. Within his own Lutheran tradition, profound mystics arose such as the German shoemaker Jacob Boehme (1575–1624) and the inventor Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).

In the following centuries, German academic theology flourished, relying almost exclusively on Post-Reformation rationalism. While theological study continues to be an immense gift to the world, one can easily get trapped inside of endless discussions about abstract ideas with little emphasis on experience or practice. In contrast, mystics honor the experience of the essential mystery and unknowability of God and invite us to do the same. The more you know, the more you know you don’t know!

Over the next couple of days, we’ll focus on one Rhineland mystic in particular: Hildegard of Bingen. She was far ahead of her place and time, a Renaissance woman before the Renaissance, who led a monastery north of the Alps. Hildegard combined art, music, poetry, ecology, medicine, community, healing, and early feminism. She preached on her own, stood up to bishops, and was persecuted for it. No wonder it took a German Pope, Benedict XVI, over 800 years after her death to declare her a saint in May, 2012, and then name her a Doctor of the Church on October 7, 2012.

Gateway to Action & Contemplation:
What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?

Prayer for Our Community:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.

Listen to Fr. Richard read the prayer.

Story from Our Community:
Our half-acre to grow flowers, vegetables and fruits to share with others [is my sanctuary]. Today began with a friend coming to pick in our 10 x 10-foot raspberry patch. The crop is abundant and luscious this year. Tempting, beautiful red berries! We laughed and shared a moment of respite from the chaos in the world. It is here I meet and am fed by God every day. —Marilyn U.

Share your own story with us.

[1] C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffé, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, rev. ed. (Pantheon Books: 1973, ©1963), 338.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate: Seeing God in All Things, disc 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), DVD, CD, MP3 download; and

“The Rhineland Mystics,” the Mendicant, vol. 5, no. 3 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2015), 1, 6.

Image credit: Motherhood Through the Spirit and Water (detail), c. 1165; Source: Wikimedia Commons, PD-Old-100.

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Action & Contemplation

2020 Daily Meditations Theme

What does God ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. —Micah 6:8

Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. If we pray but don’t act justly, our faith won’t bear fruit. And without contemplation, activists burn out and even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good. In today’s religious, environmental, and political climate our compassionate engagement is urgent and vital.

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Inspiration for this week's banner image: Speak out, Hildegard says. And when you do, when you recognize that inner voice as the voice of God and say what it has taught you, the sickness in your heart will melt away. The fatigue you have lived with for so long that you did not even notice how weary you were will lift. Your voice will ring out with such clarity and beauty that you will not be able to stop singing. To speak your truth, Hildegard teaches us, is to praise God. —Mirabai Starr