The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 108 of 124

Sermon for the Feast of St. Augustine

Watch ye, therefore, b ecause you know not what hour your Lord will come.— Matt, xxlv, 42.

The evil spirit strives with all his might and all his cunning to lead us astray into eternal loss. He watches for an unguarded hour, yea, even a thoughtless moment, to destroy us. As a robber watches for a window left open through forgetfulness, so does the prowling demon take note of our omitting our daily devotions, or performing them sluggishly; then he slips into our souPs house and steals our treasure. Therefore, carefully close your windows; that is to say, be wide awake and on your guard against temptations. Hold all your souPs powers well together in recollection; watch incessantly. As soon as thou art conscious of a proud thought or stubborn self-will or self-conceit, be sure that the enemy of souls is at hand hoping to carry off a rich booty of thy spiritual goods.

Children, there are those in this world who practice fine devotions, hold high names and bear great fame as religious men, but who are full of self-approval; and this has so far cut down their merit that in the life to come they will be very thankful to have a place among rude Christians of no name and wholly ignorant, poor peasants, but humble servants of God. And there are poor, simple creatures whom nobody notices, without learning and without showy good works, but yet sunk down before God in real humility, who will be placed so high that many a pretentious and self-satisfied Christian will hardly be able to see them. Watch, therefore, with a wakeful spirit. Keep your soul’s eyes wide open. Look to divine truth only in all

Children, you little dream how perilous is your state of natural weakness, and how deep a stain your miserable sins leave on your soul. You little appreciate the inestimable favors God ever stands ready to grant you, and which you fail to get by reason of your supineness. Let me ask: Do you appreciate what it means to pass incessantly under the eye of God, searching your inmost soul? Do you realize that all your evil comes from your not living and acting in God’s truth? How we sinners should wither away with fear and shame as we read: “The just man shall scarcely be saved” (I Peter iv, 18). St. Augustine explains this as follows: “Woe, and again woe, to all our righteousness if God will not judge us according to His mercy.” Hence, if you but understood the deadly danger of all who, in practicing religion, think of anything but God alone, your human weakness could not stand it. Thus does the holy man Job speak: “I have sinned: what shall I do to Thee, O keeper of men? Why hast Thou set me opposite to Thee, and I am become burdensome to myself?” (Job vii, 20).

The Lord bids us watch for Him, our loins girded, burning lampB in our hands, awaiting His coming to the marriage feast. Of this watching I have just now discoursed to you. But you must observe three points. The girding of the loins may be like binding a man with a rope, so that he can be drawn about against his will, as you would lead a well-broken horse, keeping him on the safe road, pulling him back from the edge of a pit. The loins may mean the lusts of our sensual nature, which we break under the discipline of reason, hold together in bondage, never allowing them free play. The second point is to have lighted lamps in your hands. And this means the sweet zeal of burning charity, both felt within and active without. That lamp must never leave your hand; you must do works of affection on every possible occasion, and with all eagerness, but especially among your nearest brethren. The third point is waiting for your Lord’s coming to His marriage feast: “Blessed are those servants

This marriage feast is in the inmost soul of a man, the place in which God’s blessed image is set up. The nearness of the soul to God and God to the soul there, the wonders He works in that inner sanctuary, the sweetness of the joy He dispenses there — all this passes sense or reason to understand. Men usually know nothing of this celestial banquet, except those who have diverted their hearts’ desires from all created things, and have resolved with eternal steadfastness to be content with God alone. The rest of men, whose satisfaction is found in themselves and in what they own, who rest on creatures whether alive or dead, who do this wilfully and deliberately — with them has God nothing to do in this spiritual union.

Upon these tardy and slothful souls the enemy fixes his eye. Seeing their Lord is long in coming, he insinuates some treacherous joy into their hearts, hoping that they will be absorbed in it. Dear child, be not deceived by this. Be resigned to wait for thy Lord: “And if He shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so watching, blessed are those servants” (Luke xii, 38). Then will He sit them down to serve them; that is to say, He will give them a foretaste of the everlasting marriage feast. And while they patiently wait He will secretly visit their souls with comfort, lest the tedium of delay should overcome them — He imparts some drops of the sweetness of His own love to strengthen theirs.

St. Gregory comments on these words of the Psalmist: “Lo, I

This wilderness consists in giving up all the multiplicity of one’s outward powers; but more than that, it includes the renouncing as much as possible the multiplicity in the interior powers of the soul, namely, the images of the mind, the forms and figures of the imagination, the multiplicity of the thoughts. Thus removed from forms and figures, a man’s interior life is lived in solitude. Now this is painful to human nature. But when one has endured the pain patiently and lived through the strain and stress upon his mind, at last the Lord comes to him — that Master whom he has so lovingly waited for. In an hour he dreamed not of the Lord is with him. Sudden as the winking of an eye is His coming to reward his beloved’s faithful waiting.

But when this has happened, and has endured I know not how long, what follows? Then the Lord would elevate him yet higher in His love. And with that purpose He strikes him down again, and oppresses him with a tedium of waiting more dreary than before. He thus withdraws His conscious presence lest the soul should cleave with proud self-complacency td the interior sweetness (already granted.

It is for him that Jeremias speaks: “ I sat alone, because Thou hand casts over him a thick inner darkness in his sad, solitary journey; he knows nothing now; he has nothing; and he feels that all calamity has come upon him. Especially, sins and temptations seem to overwhelm him — pride and impurity and denial of the faith and all else that he dreamed he had got rid of forever. As this awful hand of God is raised in threat against him, these direful temptations are upon him. The other hand is the portent of eternal loss. God seems to be ready to arraign him for his sins, and to condemn him to the deepest hell. O how these two awful hands crush this poor man’s soul. And yet all this cruel trial is intended by God to purge that soul of the venom of pride. Children, in those who bow down humbly beneath these two threatening hands all evil love is quenched; in a single instant it is cured more perfectly than by many years of external religious exercises.

Now, when one has thus journeyed into the prophet’s solitude and patiently dwelt there, at least a partial relief comes at last. The storms of passion are stilled, the forms and figures of distracting thoughts are wiped away. Then God, accompanied by His holy angels, enters the wilderness and finds the soul, and in an instant of time endows him with a gift of active love. Some noble mission of love is committed to him, perhaps an affair of deep moment for all Christendom, for the living or the dead — in one quick flash is this given to him. Then it is as if our Lord said to him: Thou needst say no word to Me; I well know what thou dost desire — and then He grants that man what he wishes. This is the one who fulfils the words: “The true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth” (John iv, 23). But yet the demon is allowed to tempt him; and he now once more casts into his mind thoughts of woe and suffering. Let him pay no heed to these. If he is not regardful of them, then the evil one must go his way shamefaced and empty-handed; and that soul remains much benefited by Satan’s onslaught.

In some countries men are met with who have a false detachment of spirit. These quit doing all good works whatsoever. They even avoid good thoughts; and they boast that they have attained to freedom of spirit. They refuse to join in devout exercises, and they will not practice virtue; they have got beyond all that. But in reality there is an imp of Satan seated in such a soul, who hinders all interior or exterior means of disturbing these misguided spirits and getting them out of their delusion. He keeps them restful in thought and act, so that he may finally lead them into eternal unrest; this is the secret of their spurious quiet of soul. Just men have no such deceitful calm. They practice religious exercises as God, by interior inspirations or by His lawful representatives, leads them, both interior and exterior devotions. They suffer God to guide them in all their trials and darkness of spirit; nor do they for a moment presume to think that they have arrived at a state of spiritual quiet. And yet they are not really in unrest. They journey along a narrow path between rest and unrest, between hope and unreasonable fear, between the sense of security and that of distrust. When they are vouchsafed a momentary glimpse of true peace, of real confidence, of spiritual freedom, instantly do they cast this gift into the abyss of God’s being; nor do they cleave to it with affection.

Children, the men who are in this narrow road should, before all things, tread in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ. The stricter they observe this the more perfectly detached will they become. Then in due time God’s hands shall cease to threaten; these are now become open hands, beckoning with all love; and presently our Lord’s hands and arms and heart will embrace them most tenderly, and lift them upwards high above all created things. Now falls away every thought of natural existence, and it wearies them to so much as think of anything that is not purely and simply God.

Then the Lord turns their eyes back on the narrow, dark and toilsome road they have travelled, and instructs them fully in its meaning. After that no man can hurt them, and they are well repaid for all their misery.

To those who glory in a false freedom all this is not right. They presume upon a counterfeit detachment of spirit. They will sometimes continue in this delusion for forty years or more, doing great works meanwhile, and following in all things their self-chosen spiritual methods. They will not walk in the narrow path; for in a great multitude there will, perhaps, be scarcely one or two willing to do it. And all the others will look on these with disapproval, trying them sorely, and thereby unwittingly helping them in their hard task. If one of these favored souls does the least thing amiss, the others chide him very severely. Dear child, if that be thy misfortune, bear it patiently. If a bitter answer escapes thee, do not be disheartened. Enter into thyself, confess thy fault, and bear the reproach of conscience manfully. Keep still’ and thank Qod that thou hast the grace to own thy defect. And it is consoling to know that if thou hadst been very patient under reproof it might have been the occasion of a greater sin, namely, that of spiritual pride. Humble thyself and go on thy way. Everything, be it straight or crooked, will prepare thee for God’s coming. All things will work together for thy good, if thou wilt but be watchful over thyself. Whosoever thus waits for the Lord with watchful eyes, as did St. Augustine, him will the Lord sit down at His heavenly banquet, and He will serve him with all joy. May God grant this to happen to all of ub. Amen.

the law of sacrifice in our lives — Some reflections on Holy Communion— How the love of Christ leads us to crucify our flesh.