Fr. Karl Rahner, widely recognized as one of the greatest of twentieth-century theologians, famously remarked that “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or . . . will not exist at all.”
Rahner’s point needs to be framed this way: in order for Christianity to survive, all Christians need to discover their own mystical heartbeat that is already alive in the center of their souls. Put another way, mysticism is not something we achieve; it is something we receive.