Call of Lay People to the Mystical Life

Abstract

The subject of this article is the call of lay people to the mystical life. The topic under consideration indicates two poles, around which the main reflection revolves: the mystic and the lay state of life. The call of lay people to mysticism is not just a hypothesis, but a real experience, researched and decribed by theologians. So reflecting on the call to the mystic life of lay people is not so much a matter of ‘whether’, but of ‘how’. In the light of the above, four issues are fundamental: the impossibility to provoke the mystical experience, its dependence on the spirituality of the baptism, the relation of contemplation to action and the relation to the world. It occurs however, that every Christian, together with God’s life of grace bestowed in baptism, receives the basis for the mystical life. Neither an active life in the world, nor work or marriage, hinders the development of this gift.