 in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The greatest and most common mistake of those who assess themselves with respect to their spiritual maturity is that they do so on the basis of experience, a mystical experience, or experience that seems to be mystical. Saint John of the Cross in stanza one of the spiritual canticle in section three says that neither the sublime communication nor the sensible awareness of this nearness is a sure testimony of the gracious presence, nor are dryness and the lack of these a reflection of his absence. So, sublime communication and sensible awareness of his nearness is not a testimony of his presence. Dryness and the lack of these are not a reflection of his absence. So the one living the contemplative life has to be very detached from experience and recognize something like if I could summarize, John, your experiences mean absolutely nothing with respect to some measure of your spiritual growth or the depth of your union with God. It's worth saying again with that full clarity. Your experiences mean absolutely nothing with respect to the assessment of your depths of union or spiritual progress. And this is where so many people go astray. I am supportive of charismatic movement. I believe in all of the manifestation of the Spirit as indicated in scripture but where so many charismatic go astray is they become attached to the experience. The experience is God or becomes God in a sense for them. I'm feeling this, I'm feeling God. St. Paul or St. John of the Cross says that you can't think that way that you have to the effects of God are not God himself. He says that of course also in spiritual canticles. The experiences as they lead us to him are good. It's not bad experiences and bad. It's not something to be rejected. So it would be an error to take this teaching as meaning that every time you had an experience you would reject it as if not from God. That's that's not the way to see it. And some Charismatics who have read scholars even if read John conclude that he is opposed to charismatic experience or even the experience of God in general and he's not. You have to be careful as you read John. You have to read all of John over and over to get clarity on certain things. No, he's wide open which is why he was so holy. Wide open to God whatever God wanted. But he knew in the depths of his being that we experience it. We move on or we get into trouble. I think would be another good summary of his teaching. We experienced it. We're grateful. We move on or we get into trouble. The moment you pause and begin to evaluate and then assess where you are because of that or begin to interpret and he warns of this in the Ascent of Mount Carmel with great detail of how we can corrupt even clear revelations, locutions or spiritual experiences from God that we we the moment we begin to focus on them the the risk of deception goes up dramatically. So we just warned and I think it was Tourez who spoke of these experiences like flowers on the way. You don't stop on the way. When you see flowers, you're just grateful for their beauty on the path. You know, they help us encourage us. This beautiful growth, this beautiful bit of creation reflects the generosity of God with its color and its smell and its arrangement. And so as we're walking by, we say thanks be to God. And so it is and should be with our spiritual experience. We keep walking and say thanks be to God and if the clarity, you know, in sense of a locution steers you in a good way, you just go that way. There's no need to talk about it in depth and use on it. Now, it's a good thing to bring it to your spiritual director. In fact, in every case, probably you should and I think John admonishes that you should bring all of these things to your director. Just especially ones. The most dangerous kinds of locations, visions are those that direct you to some action and I shouldn't say the most dangerous. I don't know if there's a better word, maybe the most those kinds of mystical experiences that require the most care and caution. Though they shouldn't be rejected on their face. Unless there's some indicator that they're clearly from the enemy. Like something suggesting an action contrary to your state. I had women say that she was compelled to become a nun. She was married and had kids, you know, that sort of thing. It's definitely from the enemy. So you can reject those things outright, but those are a little less clear. You have to be, you always have to have counsel if they're leading you to do some action to act on them. An example of a more benign one that's easy to deal with is one that I received, which was slow to speak. The words slow to speak were spoken to me from God, you know, all of the tests of locutions that I wrote about in Devil and the Castle Applied, it's valid. But it, the difference, it modifies, it just slowed me down in the way that I talked, but it didn't require some big life decision or change of direction or action. It was just a clear, strong adjustment to the way that I communicate. So the one who's living the contemplative life must never assess their spiritual progress on the basis of mystical experience or you will be deceived. As I said, I think at the outset, 100% of the time that I've seen people be deceived as it related to mystical experience was because of that connection. I had this experience, therefore I'm mature in this way. So the contemplative must be detached. You can be appreciative, you can be, you can give you joy, you can give you consolation, but you keep walking toward the Lord because that's the purpose of it, not to get you to focus on it. The purpose of it is to get you to, is to give you what you need to keep walking toward him and serving and loving him and those that he's placed within your care. God be praised for the great guidance of this sublime doctor, Saint Jonathan Cross and the Holy Spirit speaking through him to us. May he be forever blessed and may Jesus Christ be praised now and forever. Amen.