Webster’s Dictionary has this definition of mystical: (adjective) “involving or having the nature of an individual’s direct subjective communion with God or ultimate reality.”

I know this is a bit frightening or strange to many. Throughout the centuries, Christian mystics have been defined by this: the biblical Jesus, as Risen Savior, is available to us here and now. In the present. Through the Holy Spirit, the Godhead is always drawing near to us for connection.

The Apostle James, offering practical promises for real life, writes, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (James 4:8) Jesus is waiting to draw near to us.

Communion with God is the design of the spiritual life. John of the Cross writes the following about this.

O Lamps of Fire!

In whose splendors

The deep caverns of feeling,

Once obscure and blind,

Now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,

Both warmth and light to their beloved.

How gently and lovingly

You wake in my heart,

Where in secret you dwell alone;

And in your sweet breathing,

Filled with Good and Glory,

How tenderly you swell my heart with love.

— From John of the Cross, Saint, Doctor of the Church, Spanish church reformer and mystic (c. 1580).