A Personal Tribute to Crystal
Sometime in July 2007 I was in Pecos Benedictine Monastery, preparing to go to Ghana, Africa for a mission assignment. I received a group of visitors one afternoon, Crystal, Elizabeth Hunt, Ann Carpenter and Fr. Joseph, a visiting priest from Ghana with them. They saw my name and my Ghana destination posted in a bulletin board of the local grocery store in town and they all decided to come and visit me. During that first meeting with Crystal, she said that while waiting for me to appear in the visiting room of the monastery she was browsing over the Retreat Schedule and took another notice of my name there. At that time I was scheduled to give a retreat on Ways of Contemplation according to classic and modern mystics. She said she was struck by that and expressed her interest to pursue further discussion with me on a personal level about my teaching on that topic. Then came the invitation to join them for dinner at the Mother's Sanctuary School in Glorieta, New Mexico. During that dinner we came to know more about each other and shared some more notes on the Higher Christ's Consciousness, focusing on the mystical traditions. After that, I received a call from her that she is going to visit me at the monastery to talk over something just between the two of us. I agreed and we found ourselves sharing deep and highly profound spiritual things as we took a walk by the Pecos River along walking pathway at the back of the monastery. That walk with Crystal by the river was a "Kyros" - a God moment for both of us. Only during this recent transition of Crystal to the much Higher Realms of the planetary dimension of the University that I am beginning to understand the significance of the holy conversation we had during that summer afternoon. Of all questions, she asked me about the mysticism of pain and suffering. I responded from my own spiritual background as Filipino missionary, Benedictine monk and a member of an ecumenical movement called Focolare Movement. The first thing I said to her was about the Dark Night of the Soul theology of St. John of the Cross, a Spanish Carmelite reformer & mystic. I told her that at one point in his poem on pain and suffering, St. John of the Cross exclaimed about the night which is not night at all but has been transformed into light, "Oh (night's) darkness which is not dark (but light!)" I also told her that each soul who seeks God has to pass through a "thicket of suffering" according to St. John of the Cross as part of the purification of the senses in order to be worthy of the "nothingness" required in meeting God face to face. Then I told her about the theology of Chiara Lubich, the Foundress of the Focolare Movement on Jesus Forsaken and the comment made by Blessed Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical for the New Millenium. I explained to her that one of the last seven words of Jesus just before he died on the cross was, "My God, my God, why have you forsakened me?"(Matthew 27:46) Chiara Lubich had a powerful experience of spiritually espousing Jesus Forsaken and dedicating her whole life towards living and loving only Jesus, who died and rose again. In view of that theology Blessed Pope John Paul II commented that the cry of Jesus, was both a human experience of total abandonment and a divine experience of total surrender. At that very moment when Jesus cried out, "My God, my God why have you forsakened me?", according to Blessed Pope John Paul II, he experienced the deepest human anguish and fear in the midst of a great suffering. At the same time, it was also a humble cry of total surrender of one's whole being to God. In other words, Jesus felt totally abandoned, yet also totally abandoning himself to God out of the last beat of total prayerful surrender to God of his heart. I told Crystal that this is always the case and experience of every pure human experience of pain and suffering. Each one has to go through the "fire" of suffering in order to be a genuine "gold" for God. I also told her that the way to experience suffering and let it become one's very way to see God is through a total surrender of oneself and everything to God. During the series of meditation teachings and classes which followed and I joined with the core group of the university from Glorieta, New Mexico and when it was relocated for a short time in Mt. Shasta, California, there were times when Crystal will point us back to that conversation I had with her by the Pecos river. Tonight, as I write this, my Inner Voice is telling me that all the way then, Crystal knew was she was about to plunge into during the final days of her life just before her transition, a real intense, quiet and totally surrendered pain and suffering. When Ann Carpenter, Crystal's nurse and companion at the university house in Kanab,Utah, told me over the phone that Crystal has been diagnosed with a cancer, I was not at all surprised. I know that a golden soul like Crystal is meant to go that way just before the "final curtain" is lowered down for her stint here with us to come to a swift close. The last time I saw Crystal was just moments before she and Ann Carpenter traveled to Kanab, Utah. I saw her sitting on a chair outside the house she rented for one year in Mt. Shasta, California. I saw her face so bright, but deep in her eyes I also saw her greatest anguish and pain. I know now, that during that last moments of Crystal, she has only one song, a song of total surrender to the next plan of God for her life. As I recalled these events and experience of Crystal as my personal tribute to her and the Universityof Melchizedek for the grace of being them all the way from Glorieta, New Mexico until their last day in Mt. Shasta, California, I cannot help but also sing my new song of praise and thanksgiving to God for earning the trust, love and care of Crystal for my soul during her last moments as Teacher and Guiding "star" for the University. Tonight, I know Crystal's star is eternally fixed and I can only glance and believe she is still very much present with us as we continue to spread the teachings of the University of Melchizedek, especially through her classic books, The God Self and Living the God Self manuscripts and making it more available and more understandable to those who seek the truth it brings and the transformation in one's life it can accomplish. My personal thanks to the Board of Directors and to Susan Hunt, Elizabeth Hun and David Chuse for taking this initiative to write a Tribute to Crystal. I hope to see and read more tribute on Crystal by those whose lives were touched and transformed by her. Then we can collate it to a book form for the continued teachings of the University. This Personal Tribute to Crystal is humbly and gratefully written and marked with the Seal of the University of Melchizedek.
- B. Sagra
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