Paths to access the mystery of God: a well disposed mind and heartThere are various valid forms of opening to reality from experience, corresponding to the very being that underlies various phenomena, and according to the human receptive capacity. Thus, knowledge can be acquired according to five modes of experienceThe human being's cultural and social development: sensitive, affective-sentimental, aesthetic, ethical and religious. All of them bring a great wealth of data to rational elaboration and contribute to personal maturity and to the cultural, scientific and technical flourishing of the human community. To reject any of these forms of knowledge because of reductionism or ideological prejudices is contrary to common sense and inevitably leads to impoverishment and personal and social degradation.
– Supernatural religious experience constitutes a sapiential treasure in all epochs and societies. It is not exclusive to the so-called mystics, although in them it occurs in a particularly intense or lucid way. In fact, every seeker of the transcendent God, every believer has an experience of the divine presence in his life, filling it with meaning: in his prayer, in his conscience, in his decisions, in the orientation of his existence, in his human relationships, in his tribulations, joys and hopes.
It is true that there are people in whom this natural openness to the divine mystery becomes decisive. This is what happens in the life of the saints recognized by the Church, and in so many others who already enjoy the presence of God, who lived in time intimately connected to the mystery of the personal God. The account of their intimate encounter with the Lord during their earthly existence contains a privileged source for the knowledge of God, which benefits everyone.
It can be said that their deep personal relationship with the Lord constitutes an authentic theological locus: that is to say, his life refers to God in whom they believe; they radiate God, they are a paradigm of the presence of the sacred and transcendent mystery in the immanence of history.
Moreover, in addition to certain common traits, this interior biography, which unfolds in multiple evangelizing actions, is distinct and unique in each of these stories. For all these reasons, the Church expresses its interest in making known the experience of God of these great soulsfor the benefit of the entire community of believers and of society as a whole.
Thus, for example, the Hebrew philosopher Edith Stein - known today as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross - narrates her conversion as the fruit of grace through an encounter with God through the interior biography of St. Teresa of Jesus. In fact, at the conclusion of the reading of the Book of my life of the mystic from Avila, she exclaimed, absorbed and convinced: "¡This is the truth!". It was the sincere realization, on the part of an intellectual woman, of the reality of the God who bursts into a woman -who lived several centuries before- to transform and fill her existence with an overwhelming potential of irradiation.
The way of knowing God in the saints is complementary to that of philosophical and theological reason. In the latter we are dealing with a science that is often excessively elaborated and academic. In the saints, on the other hand, God is known and experienced as a transcendent and at the same time close subject, someone who is inside, dynamizing existence itself.
This knowledge of personal communion with God, therefore, consists of a inner, vital, rich, transforming experienceThe humanly mature, mature and beautiful personalities, lucid and daring men and women, with defects and limitations, but capable of undertaking apostolic and charitable deeds, reaching the summits of humanity. Their luminous lives, often hidden, are what really decide the course of history and the progress of the civilization of love.
The cast of exemplary lives of this modality of experiential knowledge of God results in the following inexhaustible. From intellectual converts, to pastors who have renewed the life of the Church, to men and women of incredible charitable action in favor of the poorest, or in the human promotion and education of disadvantaged youth; or, finally, so many lay people who have built the civilization of the family and have inculturated the Gospel in different societies from their professional and social spheres. All of them have provoked a mobilization of disciples ready to adhere to the mission of Christ with evangelical radicalism.
In the end, the close testimony of the saints shows, with the irrefutable force of a successful life, the truthfulness of the God who brings to fullness The existence of those who are entirely oriented to him is unsuspected. The greatness of these figures - within a very rich variety - argues by itself in favor of the God capable of developing to the maximum in each person and in each people the best potential of humanity.
