How Mystical Poetry Disposes the Soul for Union with God

Carmelites have written a lot of mystical poetry. In Sally Read’s compilation, 100 Great Catholic Poems (Word on Fire, 2023), six of the 100 poems are written by Carmelites (John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, and Jessica Powers). There are also many more poets in the 100 poems who weren’t Carmelites, but were contemplatives (e.g., Thomas Merton, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Gerard Manley Hopkins). The link between mystical poetry and contemplation isn’t a coincidence—there is a strong connection and a reason that contemplatives write poetry.

St. Teresa of Avila talked about “how the mystic sometimes feels the impulse to express in poetry a deep spiritual experience, even though talent as a poet may be lacking” (Kavanaugh, 2017, p. 510). St. John of the Cross agreed, saying that his poetry was “…utterances of love flowing from mystical understanding” and was like “…outpourings from the balsam of God” (Kavanaugh, 2017, p. 510). In fact, John even hesitated to write the commentaries on his poetry without first becoming “recollected,” a term used for the inward contemplative focus. This was also likely true of his poetry writing. After becoming recollected, “…he wrote the work, immersed in the flame, in the shortest space of time…” (Kavanaugh, 2017, p. 694). 

How is mystical poetry related to contemplation?

Mystical poetry is poetry about a direct experience of God. French Catholic philosopher and theologian Jacques Maritain wrote extensively on poetry in his philosophical works on aesthetics, including poetry’s connection to contemplation.

In his book, Art and Scholasticism, Maritain’s descriptions of poetry sound very similar to John’s descriptions of contemplation. Maritain even uses the term contemplation to describe the poet’s work, saying that poets: “…aim at producing an intellectual delight, that is to say, a kind of contemplation; and they also presuppose in the artist a kind of contemplation, from which the beauty of the work must overflow” (Maritain, 1930, p. 24). 

Poetry and other art prepare “…the human race for contemplation (the contemplation of the saints), whose spiritual delectation exceeds all delectation…” (Maritain, 1930, p. 54). As the French poet, Baudelaire, wrote, it is  “…by poetry and through poetry…that the soul divines what splendors shine behind the tomb; and when an exquisite poem brings tears to the eyes, such tears are not the sign of an excess of joy, they are rather a witness to an irritated melancholy, an exigency of nerves, a nature exiled in the imperfect which would possess immediately, on this very earth, a paradise revealed” (Maritain, 2018, ch. 5, sect. 3). In other words, the beauty of poetry can open for us a veil to the Divine, especially when the poetry’s focus is mystical union with God.

Maritain believed that poetry could turn a person “toward God-given mystical experience” (Maritain, 2024, p. 45), and that the poetic experience “would obscurely predispose the poet” towards contemplation. It should be noted that both John of the Cross and Maritain were clear that true contemplation can only be infused by God, and all a person can do is predispose themselves to God’s action.

Can reading poetry really help prepare a person for contemplation?

Thomas Merton, building on the work of Maritain, asked the question, “Can the poetic sense help us towards infused contemplation, and, if so, how far along the way?” He answered in the affirmative, saying that “…the esthetic experience introduces us into this interior sanctuary of the soul and to its inexpressible simplicity and economy and energy and fruitfulness,” adding that poetry somehow naturally prepares and disposes us to contemplation by removing some of the main obstacles to contemplation (Merton, 1947).

By “removing obstacles,” Merton means that poetry isn’t as much a thinking-about process as a gazing-at process. St. Teresa of Avila said the same thing when she wrote, “I’m not asking you now that you think about him or that you draw out a lot of concepts or make long and subtle reflections with your intellect. I’m not asking you to do anything more than look at him” (Kavanaugh, 2000, p. 171). Teresa’s “look at him” is a poetic gaze.

Reading poetry quiets the mind and the intellect, and leads to silence—a necessary precursor to contemplation. Cardinal Robert Sarah eloquently expressed this when he wrote, “How else but in silence can we contemplate a painting or a sculpture, the beauty of a color and the correctness of a form? Great music is listened to in silence. Wonder, admiration, and silence function in tandem (Sarah, 2019, p. 34). Wonder followed by silence is an outcome of reading mystical poetry.

Infused wisdom and creative intuition are two parts of the same path

Fr. Bonaventure Sauer, OCD,  says that “Poetry means what it means not so much by direct statement as by evocation and suggestion. With its use of images and metaphors, it works upon our imaginations and draws us into a kind of interior ‘experiencing’ of the poem. We live the poem, in other words, rather than simply think it” (Sauer, 2014, p. 5). 

Poetry provides a pathway into silence—the reverse pathway that the poet took when writing the poem. This pathway links what John describes as infused wisdom and what Maritain calls creative intuition. John tells us that communication with God “…is secret and dark to the work of the intellect and the other faculties. Insofar as these faculties do not acquire it but the Holy Spirit infuses it and puts it in order in the soul…” (Kavanaugh, 2017, p. 487). But John goes further, saying that God’s communication with the soul makes the recipient both unwilling and unable to express it. “Even if the soul should desire to convey this experience in words and think up many similes, the wisdom would always remain secret and still to be expressed” (Kavanaugh, 2017, p. 487). Yet we know that John felt called to express his mystical experience in poetry, as did Teresa. There is often a strong impulse to express deep spiritual experience in poetry, regardless of the poetic talent of the contemplative. For example, John was a great poet in his own right and is considered one of the greatest Spanish poets of all time. St. Therese, on the other hand, was not a great poet, although her union with God still flowed from her hand as poetry.

Maritain describes creative intuition as the place from which poetry originates, which, with mystical poetry, is always God. It is an “obscure grasping” and “a knowledge through union…which is born in the spiritual unconscious” (Maritain, 2018). Like John, Maritain recognized the inherent conflict in attempting to express the inexpressible. Poetry “…wants to speak; whereas mystical experience, because it emanates from the deepest longing of the spirit bent on knowing, tends of itself toward silence and internal fruition” (Maritain, 2005, p. 21). Creative intuition attempts to grasp infused wisdom and the experience of God, even when its attempts are never fully adequate.

John and Maritain are discussing a similar experience, one from the perspective of a mystic and the other from that of an artist. Maritain says that for the poet—like the contemplative— “…the first obligation imposed…is to consent to be brought back to the hidden place, near the center of the soul, where this totality exists in the state of a creative source” (Maritain, 1953). This is why so many contemplatives also write poetry. Creative intuition and infused wisdom are two parts of the same pathway. Poetry seeks to convey infused wisdom and mystical experience. This doesn’t apply to all poetry, but it does for mystical poetry.

How can the poet—and the poetry reader—best enhance creative intuition? In much the same way as the contemplative says Maritain: “…the poet can make himself better prepared for or available to it by removing obstacles and noise. He can guard and protect it, and thus foster the spontaneous progress of its strength and purity in him. He can educate himself to it, by never betraying it (this is a serious school in discipline) and by making everything second to it (this is a serious school in sacrifice)” (Maritain, 1953).

This sounds very much like John of the Cross’ thoughts on detachment and silence in prayer. It also sounds like Teresa’s “determined determination.” And this is why mystical poetry is a useful gateway to deeper prayer. The reader’s creative intuition interprets and feels the poem, allowing them to experience something akin to the poet’s experience. It opens the person to God, allowing greater and more complete surrender, even when intellectual understanding is absent.

While the connection between mystical poetry and contemplation is clear, how to best approach reading mystical poetry is another matter. Many people find the process of reading poetry frustrating and difficult. How do we read something without a focus on intellectual understanding? In a future second part of this series, I’ll discuss seven ways to help you read mystical poetry and rediscover the transformative power of John of the Cross’ poetry.

References

Kavanaugh, K. & Rodriguez, O. (translators). (2000). St. Teresa of Avila The Way of Perfection: Study Edition. ICS Publications.

Kavanaugh, K. & Rodriguez, O. (translators). (2017, Third Edition). St. John of the Cross. The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross (includes The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night, The Spiritual Canticle, The Living Flame of Love, Letters, and The Minor Works). ICS Publications.

Maritain, J. Translated by Joseph W. Evans. (1930).  Art and Scholasticism and The Frontiers of Poetry. Jacques Maritain. University of Notre Dame. https://maritain.nd.edu

Maritain, J. (1953). Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. Bollingen Foundation.  https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9099

Maritain, J. (2005). The Range of Reason. University of Notre Dame. https://maritain.nd.edu

Maritain, J. (2018). Creative Intuition in Art & Poetry. Cluny Media.

Maritain, J. (2024, online edition). The Responsibility of the Artist. University of Notre Dame. https://maritain.nd.edu

Merton, T. (1947). Poetry and the Contemplative Life. Commonweal. https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/poetry-and-contemplative-life

Sarah, Robert. (2018). The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise. Kindle Edition.

Sauer, B. (2014). On the Poetry of St. Teresa of Jesus: A Presentation for the 2014 OCDS Regional Congress. Speech transcript.