The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 63 of 124
Third Sermon for the Feast of Corpus Christi
He that eateth My flesh, and drlnketb My blood, hath everlasting life, and l will raise him up In the last day. For My flesh Is meat Indeed, and My blood Is drink Indeed. — John vl: 65,66.
The more a man receives from God the more is he a debtor; the greater is his debt of thanks and praise, honor and service to God. All devout practises lead to God and prepare the way for Him, so that a man may at last come to God and be in Him, and herein is the holy Sacrament both the end and the reward, for it gives us God without intermediary. It unites a man to God directly, in simple unity — the most adorable and superessentially divine of all gif tB, far surpassing all others. The celebration of Holy Thursday is, therefore, not enough for us, for Easter Sunday comes too soon afterwards. Hence has holy Church remedied this difficulty by calling us to celebrate this festival of Corpus Christ! with all possible thankfulness, praise and love.
“My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood 1b drink indeed.” If understood as an outward ceremony, this Sacrament is but drinking and eating wine and bread; and thus one knows nothing of the unspeakable sweetness, the heavenly fruit, hidden in the Sacrament The food of our bodies is dead matter, and gets its life from the man who eats it, who thereby gives it a noble destiny. But this sacramental food is living bread; it is the very essence of life, and all who are fed by it receive from it everlasting life— as our Lord teaches: “He that eateth
My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life.” And as He spoke these words, many of His friends went away from Him; they did not understand what He meant. “This saying is hard, and who can bear it,” they said. They understood Him only in the outward way of the senses, and that was why they left Him, whereas in truth this gift is far above the senses, for the food that is given and the giver of the food are one.
Three things may here be considered. One is the pre-eminent dignity of this food; the second, its inestimable worth to all who worthily receive it; the third has reference to the preparation one should make for this divine banquet. Now in speaking of all this, as God’s grace guides me, I am at a loss for words, or even thoughts; for this marvelous Sacrament surpasses all grasp of human reason, aye even angelic thoughts. Dear children, only a perfectly detached man, one given over wholly to the interior life, can rightly understand and inwardly taste the meaning of the holy Sacrament But even he could not frame right words for its description, for sense and reason are wholly at fault in its contemplation. And yet, alas, we find not a few seemingly spiritual persons, who, from childhood to old age, rest in themselves; they are engaged in multiform religious activity, aud yet know nothing of the real nature of this precious treasure, never enjoy the real taste of this holy food, however often they may partake of it. It can not be otherwise with them, because they receive the Sacrament absorbed in the life of the outward senses.
Whosoever would know the dignity of this marvelous banquet, must be a man detached and set free from created things, and given up to the interior life. But this must not be misunderstood. I do not mean that one must literally separate himself from his state of life i> order rightly to communicate, nor adopt any peculiar ways and customs. Some think that when they cannot do the like of that they must give over, and therefore they turn away from Communion. Do not thou act thus, dear child; do not imagine that this supreme good of our life cannot be fully thine, because thou livest in a secular state of life. Only be earnest, only be diligent and thou shalt possess God in this Sacrament without at all interfering with the duties and customs of thy state of life. Thou must, indeed, acquire a true knowledge of thyself; thou must keep a strong guard over multiplicity in all thy doings, methods, devotions, for these should be mainly engaged with the interior life. Seek God earnestly in thy soul’s depths; for
Children, for me rightly to speak of and you rightly to understand the dignity of this Sacrament is not possible. We could not understand the dignity of Adam as he stood in Paradise, even while as yet unendowed with grace, but only full of the sweetness and beauty of guileness nature. How then can our poor little minds comprehend what takes place in the inmost depths of the soul, as it becomes united to this living food, changing man into its divine self. The human soul becomes like a drop of water lost and mingled in a cask of wine; like a pane of glass with the sunshine pouring through it; like the body united to the soul and made into one man, one being with it.
By this union our spirit is elevated above all its natural weakness and is cleansed and illuminated. It is raised above its natural forces. It is penetrated with God. It is led away from itself in a divine manner, and experiences within itself the divine generation, losing meanwhile its native incompatibility with God; and it is brought to divine unity. Compare this union to that of fire and wood. First the dampness and greenness is consumed, and gradually the wood grows hotter and hotter till it is made like unto fire; as the tire approaches nearer and nearer bo does the resemblance increase, until in one short hour the fire has absorbed the substance of the wood. The difference between the fire and the wood is gone, for the wood has become fire — the two are not simply alike, they are the same thing. So does this spiritual food draw out of the soul and consume all difference, changing difference into resemblance, and changing resemblance into unity. That happens to an enlightened spirit, losing likeness and difference in unity with God. The fire of divine love has absorbed all the soul’s foulness, all its unresemblance to God. In partaking of this food the soul is absorbed and lost in the Godhead. It is as St. Augustine heard our blessed Lord say: “I am the food of the full-grown; purify thyself and eat Me; thou shalt not change Me into Thee, but thou shalt be changed into Me.”
O children, before this shall happen nature must die many a death. By many a wild and desert way does God lead the soul as He teaches it to die. But, O children, what a noble life is born of this death — noble and joyous and fruitful. O how precious a thing it is to be able thus to die. You know well enough how our bodily food must die to sharpest eye could not perceive any resemblance, nor could the subtlest mind detect it. We know it to be the same food in substance, but we cannot perceive it to be so with our senses. Much less can we understand how in this Sacrament our soul is unmade and then remade and absorbed into divine union, itself being lost so entirely as to escape our power of understanding it.
Foolish men understand this in a fleshly way, affirming that they are changed into divine nature; and that is a heresy, false and wicked. For after the very highest union of our soul with God, closest and most intimate, the divine nature and essence is removed to a height far beyond us, higher than all height. That is a divine eminence unto which no creature can ever attain. Let us not be too curious about the union of the soul with God in the holy Sacrament. Even the marvellous change of bodily food into our physical system is beyond the keenest search of our mind, so noble is human nature. And wilt thou intrude upon the hidden ways and deepest mysteries of the union of the Sacrament with a holy soul, superior as this is to its dull and cumbersome body? That union is a fathomless mystery. Give up thy disputations about it, for it is removed far from thy reach, being hidden in the depths of the illuminated soul and in God.
It happens to some, that if they experience the sweetness of devotion two or three times a day at their prayers, they are sure that all goes well with them. No, children, no — they are immeasurably far from what they fancy. We are all too ready to involve our souls in the excessive sweetness of the grosser kinds of spiritual joy, and that is evil in God’s sight. He is not pleased that we should be content with the trifles of the spiritual life. Nothing is so pleasing to God as to give us His own very self, and that in the best and highest way. Therefore we should go forward beyond every gift. We should strive right onward with all our senses, powers, longings — with all our heart— directly to God Himself. We should be content with nothing less than God, and not simply in sensible mental forms, but in a way that is supernatural. This leads us into the divine depths, for one
0 children, many men do themselves incalculable hurt by tarrying amid their senses’ life and in prayer using only the lowest faculties of their souls. Nothing, therefore, comes of their spirituality; any more than bodily food helps head and heart and bodily members when it lodges undigested in the stomach. The food must change its nature or no good comes of it. We shall never secure the real good of this blessed food, to eat which Qod has invited us, until our whole interior life, with its powers highest and lowest, shall be conformed to God and delivered over to Him, far beyond natural effort, with single-hearted faith living in good works, and full of the practice of virtue.
For our faith must not be a mere pretence, but must be shown forth in our life. And when God sees that a man can do no more, then He Himself comes and works in a hidden way that nature knows nothing of, leading the soul beyond and above its natural ways. These aids of God are his who aproaches the adorable Sacrament best prepared, and with the most devout sentiments. To such a one God truly gives Himself in a personal manner and essentially. All who long with loving hearts to attain the highest perfection, should keep themselves well disposed often to partake of this living bread. Whosoever feels within himself an increase of divine love, nor yields to any disregard or belittling of spiritual things, the oftener such a one communicates the more profitable it is. St. Augustine plainly shows this. “Whosoever feels the love of God growing within him, and at special times knows himself to be not unworthy to receive the Sacrament, why should he not be made worthy to receive it every day?” Worthiness does not ever come from human effort or deserving, but purely from the grace and merits of our Lord Jesus Christ flowing from God into our souls. And if this happens once a year, or monthly or weekly, why shall it not happen daily, as long as a man yearns for it, and does his part to obtain it?
1 knew of no shorter or surer way than this for an interior man to attain his best spiritual state. I make bold to counsel all my friends, that if God’s fear does not lessen within them, and if God’s love grows within them, then let them come often to Communion. Nothing prepares fuel for the fire so well as to bring it close up to the fire. Wetness and hardness gradually yield to the heat as the closeness of actually turned into fire — all in proportion as the fuel is apt and prepared. No man is so soaked with sin, so hard and perverse, so inclined to the wickedness of the world or of creatures, but that this fire will communicate its heat to him, melt his stony heart, and make him a godly man — supposing he receives Communion with true devotion, does all his part in preparation, and will keep his place close to the divine warmth.
And as to preparation, none is better than what Qod Himself gives. Suppose that to-morrow is to be some high festival; how better can I prepare to celebrate it than to receive to-day, with all devotion, the eternal and all-merciful Qod in holy Communion? How better can I honor God than by offering God His own very self? How better can I give a new life to my imperfect and unspiritual nature, how better baptize anew, as it were, my old corrupt nature, than to receive God’s true and only Son, His living divine flesh, His all cleansing blood, His Holy Spirit, His all-loving heart and His sweet human nature, even the Holy Trinity itself, and all that God is and has and may do? How can God refuse the least to one to whom He has promised to give the greatest? What gift is too great for Him to give who has given Himself wholly, and yet wills to give Himself again. God’s purpose is not gained by the mere outward granting of the Sacrament. But rather in that He shall be with this child of the human race according to His word: “My delights are to be with the children of men” (Prov. viii: 31). And by this is meant men of loving hearts and souls. All this have I spoken to you by the grace of God; but what follows is the best that I have found in the writings of the masters.
St. Thomas says: “All the graces which our Savior Jesus Christ in His humanity brought to the whole world, these brings He to each particular man with His holy body and blood. And He grants all the fruit of His death, resurrection and ascension, together with the glory and blessedness of His holy body and blood, soul and divinity.” St. Thomas thus embraces in his teaching about holy Communion the granting of every grace that one may imagine. Take a commonplace comparison, for worldly-minded men view things only after the manner of the senses. Suppose a mighty monarch to whom belonged all the riches, dominion, beauty and pleasures of all mankind taken together, his every heart’s desire gratified perfectly; suppose him to
But a thousand times greater, incomprehensibly greater, is the loving union that God gives us in the holy Sacrament. And now it remains for us to discourse of the fruit of this holy Sacrament. That we may well succeed in that task, let us beg our beloved Lord to remedy our deficiencies by His blessed grace. Amen.
they place in the way of the fruitfulness of communion — A disquisition on venial sins, deliberate and indeliberate, with special reference to communion — Interior spiritual self-indulgence is the fault of spiritual men — God’s painful way of curing this fault — Effect of communion in relieving souls in purgatory.