ABOUT

Karl Rahner, the German Catholic theologian said,

“In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic
(one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all”.

Angela Hazebroek has a passion for the mystics- those people who find ways to let God know them and love them.

"And once that happened the love that filled them flowed out like water from a spring nurturing their spirits and blessing all who came in contact with them."

So, who is a mystic and how can you tell?

The first mystic I encountered during a long period of darkness is one of the most recent, Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk who spent 26 years of his, sadly too short, life in Gethsemani Abbey near Louisville Kentucky.

Merton captured my attention with prayers that started with words like these.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so….

Good Shepherd, You have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles.

But please don’t get tired of looking for me! I know you won’t.

For You have found me. All I have to do is stay found.

April 11, 1948, 11.198-199

With “Through the Year with Thomas Merton” on my bedside table and “The Pocket Thomas Merton” in my handbag, I began a renewed relationship with the God who knows me better than I know myself.

The first step was to try this silence and solitude that Merton suggested were essential “antidotes to illusion.”

I began with quiet mornings and day reflections with the Centre of Ignatian Spirituality in Norwood and graduating to three, then five, and finally eight-day silent retreats at Sevenhill in the Clare Valley. As I got to understand the teachings and personality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, I was drawn to go deeper.

In October 2013, I journeyed to Guelph in Ontario, Canada to participate in the Thirty Day Spiritual Exercises with 40 people – lay and religious - all kinds of Christian affiliations, and aged between 30 and 80 years. The forty days at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre, staying in the Loyola House, walking through the woods and wetlands and eating the delicious organic food grown on the Community Farm, were a turning point in my life.