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Is this for you?
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“Draw me: we will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments. The king hath brought me into his storerooms: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, remembering thy breasts more than wine: the righteous love thee.” (Canticle of Canticles 1:3, Douay-Rheims)
Mystical France
Should this interest you?
The greatest gift we can receive from God is a single encounter in the world, the meaning of which we must spend the rest of our lives discovering. This encounter is the pearl of great price for which one sells all one owns to acquire. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”1
Mystical France appeared as a single encounter. It is as if the trajectory of my entire life beforehand prepared me to receive it, and the purpose every day after was to interpret its meaning. It was my “pearl of great value.” The appearance was a confrontation in the world, a resplendent moment of intuitive comprehension, whereby St. Joan of Arc permanently entered my life story through the Jehannian hermeneutics of St. Thérèse’s plays and poetry. I refer to it, using Thérèsian terminology, as a “divine glance”2 and being with the combined hearts of St. Joan (The Dove) and St. Thérèse (The Rose). This sudden interruption in my world led to a tireless search for its meaning. The search transformed my life as I sold everything I had to obtain the pearl.
Mystical France investigates the primordial ground of the encounter as a relationship with being in the Kingdom of God. In its Catholicity, it is a holy devotion to St. Joan of Arc, who forms France in our hearts with Mary Magdalene on the shores of Provence as the gestalt of the Kingdom. Mystical France is a speciation of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In its happening, it is being in the world on the pathway to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ with St. Joan and St. Thérèse.
The alethic essence of the encounter is a transformation to being in holy friendship3 with St. Joan of Arc. The plays and poetry of St. Thérèse unconceal this friendship as being in the world. The effect of this union is a sharing in St. Thérèse’s mode of being with Joan,4 which I call their refulgent “combined hearts.” The purpose of sharing in their combined hearts is sanctification, conditioned on fidelity to grace. They lead the heirs to the Kingdom, and we will not arrive without them.
Mystical France is not a history of the lives St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux nor a reflection on their spirituality. The reader can find more on each saint at Heroic-Hearts.com, a podcast I co-host with Amy Chase. Mystical France is a pathway to the Kingdom of God through a relationship with Joan of Arc.
Despite the frequent philosophical language, the work remains primarily devotional. I make no attempt to interpret this “divine glance” as a purely philosophical affair. The astonishing5 moment imbuing my soul with a lifelong devotion to St. Joan of Arc was a supernatural grace from Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I have done my best to explain this encounter through my life story and reflections, which I hope will inspire a similarly powerful being with St. Joan and St. Thérèse in others.
The journey with St. Joan and St. Thérèse to Magdalene’s Mystical France.
The development of Mystical France in our hearts centers on being immersed in the refulgence of the combined hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Its essence is a royal French Catholic spirituality unconcealed in the world as a mystical relationship with St. Mary Magdalene on the shores of Provence, following the Western tradition of Mary Magdalene in France.6 Magdalene’s contemplative mode of being in her grotto in Provence is itself a refulgence of the light of the Holy Spirit emanating from the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Mystical France is the heart of Mary Magdalene imbued in the light of the Holy Spirit and beloved by Our Lady. Devotion to Mystical France as Magdalene’s refulgence is devotion to the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, through the combined hearts of St. Joan and St. Thérèse.
The contemplative endeavor to uncover Magdalene's holy refulgence, bringing the Kingdom of her heart on earth as it is in Heaven, is an expression of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Bringing to light the manifested "gestalt” of Magdalene's heart as a devotional lifepower,7 in obedience to the dogmas, doctrines, magisterial teachings, and metaphysics of the Church, constitutes the meaning of the encounter with St. Joan who guides us to this Kingdom with St. Thérèse. Magdalene’s presence in the grotto on the shores of Provence symbolically represents this devotional lifepower of the Holy Spirit.
The encounter with St. Joan as a transformation to being in holy friendship, like a lightning bolt, is the “point of inquiry” on a journey through Joan’s glorified heart to “Mystical France” in the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The “Jehannian hermeneutic” - our primary method of interpreting Joan’s life - is the heart of St. Thérèse as revealed through her poetry and plays. It is through St. Thérèse that we perceive Joan within the proper values, judge the experience of our encounter, and, at our deepest level, yield to St. Joan’s friendship convinced that we must follow her to the Kingdom at all costs.
A Catholic contemplative reflection centered on the life of St. Joan of Arc brought Mystical France to the open in the world. It interprets her mystical heart. A story emerges in this contemplation whereby Joan guides us to mystical Provence by the radiance of the light of Magdalene's glorified heart. St. Thérèse, through her plays and poetry, authentically interprets St. Joan’s heart for us and is the one through whom we learn the values we prioritize to judge our encounter with Joan. The project is both a testimony and an invitation to walk in alethic wonder with St. Joan and St. Thérèse into the mystical Kingdom of Catholic and Royal France. St. Mary Magdalene, in the glory of her repentance on the shores of Provence, embodies this kingdom. This spiritual pilgrimage with St. Joan and St. Thérèse is a surrender to Christ’s redemption and a pledge of obedience to the Church’s Scripture, Tradition, Magisterial teachings, and total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Experientially, the reader will find an anthological collection of reflections revealing the “appearance of the Kingdom appearing” as related through an eclectic array of devotional expressions. The expressions that emerge in the heart and mind of the reader remain to be written.
The project’s mission and vision are posited below based on the conclusion that the psychically transformative union in holy friendship with St. Joan of Arc, through the values learned from St. Thérèse, reflects a royal French Magdalenian spirituality. It must be constituted in the intellectual and devotional life of the soul, faithfully within the framework of the Church's teachings and the spirit of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
The Vision and Mission of Mystical France
Blessed by the grace of slavery to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the heir to Mystical France receives a call to the combined hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux through the Holy Spirit. We unite in being with our saintly sisters in alethic wonder to participate in their mission.
Our relationship to grace is as royal heirs to Magdalene’s mystical kingdom, the radiance of which shimmers throughout the French royal hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The unconcealment of the gift happens through the influence of the life of St. Joan of Arc, Thérèsian Carmelite spirituality, the holy tradition of Mary Magdalene in France, and the philosophical lens of St. Edith Stein. The horizon of efficacious grace is Faith, Hope, and Love "on earth as it is in Heaven" through the majesty of French Catholic spirituality and holy devotion to St. Mary Magdalene on the shores of Provence.
Vision
The Vision of Mystical France is the combined hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux refulgent as an alethic prism through which the Holy Spirit unconceals the glorified syntax of Magdalene's heart, the gestalt of Our Lady’s Catholic and Royal France, throughout the world.
Mission
The Mission of Mystical France is to project the heavenly light of Christ in St. Joan and St. Thérèse’s glimmering combined hearts into all hearts worldwide by giving testimony to that light as being in the world. The resulting alethic transformation in our hearts in the world becomes a transcending stairway to Magdalene's mystical mode of being, the gestalt of France in Heaven. The result is the fulfillment of our consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in whose Immaculate Heart this kingdom resides. It is the abandonment of our lives to the prayer Our Lord taught us, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6: 9-13). It is to “seek first the kingdom” (Matthew 6:33).
Method
The method of Mystical France is alethic discovery framed by Catholic doctrine. It is to “contemplate how we think” in our faith to better “see what we have already seen”8 through a single-minded devotion to the mission of the combined hearts within the context of the magisterial teachings of the Catholic Church. Devotion in this sense means to receive, record, interpret, assert, and articulate what these saints give us faithfully and prayerfully. This method of contemplative discourse is our "journey" with the saints.
Goal
Our goal is “descriptive fidelity” to what St. Joan and St. Thérèse give us "precisely as it is given, and within the limits of how it is given.”9
Outcome
The outcome we seek through the shimmering combined hearts is a mystical friendship with St. Joan, St. Thérèse, St. Mary Magdalene, and a sharing in their abiding union with Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Matthew 13:45-46. The Didache Bible - with Commentaries Based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Ignatius Bible Edition. San Francisco CA: Midwest Theological Forum - Ignatius Press, n.d.
Also note Edith Stein’s term, “unreflective certainty” which I often use for a more philosophical presentation in place of the “divine glance.” “The certainty of being is an unreflective certainty, and it precedes all our rational knowledge.” ~ Edith Stein. Potency and Act (The Collected Works of Edith Stein) Kindle Location 484.
“Friendship is born from one soul into another soul; and the soul has value only in itself. Once we meet there, everything else disappears. And yet, by an admiral privilege, time confirms friendship… like two rocks overhanging similar waves and showing them unwavering resistance, so do they notice the flow of years vainly attacking the unchanging harmony of their hearts.” Lacordaire, OP, Henri-Dominique. The Life of St. Mary Magdalene. Dominican Friars, Province of St. Joseph, 2015. pp. 11-12.
“In either case, one spirit, by joining with another, comes to share in the other’s mode of being.” Stein, Edith. Potency and Act - Studies Toward a Philosophy of Being. Washington DC: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2009. loc. 2064.
“Phenomenological Reduction - A Peer Reviewed Academic Source.” Accessed December 3, 2022. https://iep.utm.edu/phen-red/#H1. “There is an experience in which it is possible for us to come to the world with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand; it is the experience of astonishment. The ‘knowing’ we have in this experience stands in stark contrast to the ‘knowing’ we have in our everyday lives, where we come to the world with theory and ‘knowledge’ in hand, our minds already made up before we ever engage the world. However, in the experience of astonishment, our everyday ‘knowing,’ when compared to the ‘knowing’ that we experience in astonishment, is shown up as a pale epistemological imposter and is reduced to mere opinion by comparison.”
“Jesus Christ had left his mother to Jerusalem, St. Peter to Rome, St. John to Asia; to whom would he bequeath Mary Magdalene? We already know; it was France that received from the hand of God that part of the testament of His Son.” Lacordaire, OP, Henri-Dominique. The Life of St. Mary Magdalene. Dominican Friars, Province of St. Joseph, 2015.
“Lifepower” in this model is intended to be in the framework of Edith Stein’s development of the term in Stein, Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities. It is a life source within the psyche that can be influenced by outside forces.
Detmer, Phenomenology Explained - From Experience to Insight. p. 18. “Its (phenomenology) aim is to help us to see more clearly what we have already seen…”
Ibid. p. 18. “One of the principal goals of phenomenology, then, is simply descriptive fidelity. The aim is to describe accurately what is given in experience precisely as it is given, and within the limits of how it is given.”