Confessions of a Mega Church Pastor by Allen Hunt

Author:Allen Hunt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beacon

Mystics, Mysteries and Padre Pio too!

As Protestants, Anita and I did not have help with ways to understand the mysteries we encountered in her occasional dreams and visions. We knew they were from God, but we were careful not to discuss openly their content or meaning. Our experience in Protestant settings was that dreams and visions were usually received with puzzled looks and with skepticism, so we kept our experiences to ourselves.

However, as we were introduced to the Catholic Church, we met spiritual family members like Saints Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena and Padre Pio. Mystics were not pushed aside from the Church;they took up residence near the very heart of it.

We heard about places like Fatima and Lourdes, where the mystery of God abounds. Places we knew nothing about, but places that fascinated us because they seemed to jibe with our own divine encounters. This was new terrain for us. Even though Anita has not converted to Catholicism, the Church has been helpful to her in discerning the gift God has given her.

As we explored the Church, we discovered mystery residing at every turn. Of course, we begin each Mass by preparing to celebrate “these sacred mysteries.” With incense, color, and the the body and blood of Christ, the Mass is filled with awe and wonder. In fact, John Paul II went so far as to describe the Mass as “heaven on earth... a mysterious participation in the heavenly liturgy.”

The Catholic Church embraces mystery and even encourages it. How else do you explain the incorruption of the bodies of so many Catholic saints? Of course, all saints must have miracles attributed and documented to them in order to be canonized. That alone is mysterious enough. But, in addition to that, more than one hundred saints’ bodies have remained almost entirely intact even decades and centuries after their deaths.

These saints’ bodies were not treated or embalmed in most cases but rather were found incorruptible in form -lifelike, flexible, and even sweetly scented many years after death. Observers often found clear oils and fresh blood proceeding from these holy relics. This odd, mysterious and miraculous phenomenon of the incorruptibles has existed only since early Christian days, and Joan Carrol Cruz provides an excellent inspiring account of many of these claims in her work, The Incorruptibles.

St. Rita of Cascia’s body is still fragrant some 500 years after her death. St. Teresa of Avila was found in a coffin nine months after her death. Although Teresa’s clothing was made of dirty and rotten fabric fragments, her body was not only fresh and intact but it was mysteriously fragrant as well. Teresa’s strange incorruptibility continued over many years and multiple exhumations.

But the most amazing example of this incorruptibility is that of Saint Andrew Bobola from the 17th century. A native of Poland, St. Andrew was captured by the Cossacks, received a cruel beating, and was dragged by horse through the countryside. He eventually was burned, half-strangled, partly flayed alive, and finally murdered by saber.

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