The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 69 of 124

First Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity

Dearly beloved: be ye all of one mind. — I Peter 111, 8.

In this Sunday’s epistle St. Peter bids us be all of one mind, and that is chiefly fulfilled in prayer, which is the most necessary, and delightful, and fruitful, and honorable work that we can perform in this life. Now I would have you clearly to know what prayer is, and what its essence is, what its method is, and in what place we ought to pray.

What is prayer and what is its essence? The essence of prayer is the going up of the soul into Qod, as spiritual writers define it. And what is the place in which one should pray? It is in the spirit itself, as our Lord taught us. As to how we should pray, I will briefly explain. When any good man starts to pray, he should gather back into himself the life of his senses, and he should inspect his soul to find whether or not it be really turned to Qod. This method of praying a man can practice in the highest degree of recollection, or the lowest, or midway between these two. Let a man carefully note what form of praying arouses his soul most effectually to a devout feeling — and that let him use. But whosoever would acquire a prayer that is genuine and that Qod will surely attend to, must turn away from transitory things, and from outward things, and from all that is not of the things of Qod. He must relentlessly cut off everything that does not mean Qod to him truly and in its very cause, whether friends or joys or the vanities and ornaments and apparel of this

Such is the preparation for the true practice of prayer. The soul must cleave to God alone; a man must turn his face towards God ever present in his inmost soul; he must meekly and affectionately cleave to God.

Children, everything we have little and great comes from God, and back again to God must it go, to be given with an undivided heart. So, too, we must collect together and offer to God all the powers of our soul and body. Such is the right method of prayer. Never imagine that noisy mouth-praying, hurried recitations of the Psalms, the heart meanwhile inattentive and straying off, is true prayer. So-called prayers and socalled good works may sometimes even hinder the soul from real praying; do not hesitate to give them up no matter how good they seem, or what people may say, if they distract thee from God — excepting, of course, the divine office and the devout exercises prescribed by holy Church.

It sometimes happens that a community is obligated to certain long vocal prayers, and that a member feels that hereby he is hindered ‘ from inward recollection: what should he do? He should both observe the outward obligation and take proper means to preserve interior recollection. While joining outwardly with his brethren, he should bridle all his faculties and senses, and he should turn his mind inward to God’s blessed presence, making interior acts of conformity to the divine will, into which he should sink himself and all created things ever deeper and deeper. Thus does he faithfully perform every task imposed on him, begging God to show forth His honor and praise in those persons who have been commended to his prayers: — this is n better prayer than if he had a thousand mouths to pray with. Prayer In the spirit immeasurably exceeds in value prayer that is outward. All other prayer pays tribute to this. Thus the Father would have men pray; and when any prayer serves not this kind, then delay not to let it go. It is like the building of a church with which a hundred men are occupied in many different sorts of work, some making mortar, others laying stone; but it is all for one single purpose — to build a bouse of prayer. So let everything be made to help you in acquiring a true interior method of prayer. When this true prayer of the spirit is established, then all that helped to this happy result is perfected.

It behooves a thoroughly converted and enlightened man that his life of act and his life of joy should be made one, as they are one in Cod in their uttermost development, interfering with each other not in the least degree. Cod’s act is in the divine persons and His joy we attribute to His most simple essence. The heavenly Father, as He is distinctly Father, is pure act, by which He begets in divine selfknowledge His beloved Son, and from the ineffable embrace of Father and Son the Holy Ohost proceeds, — He is their mutual joy and love. And this is the essential act of the divine persons. To the most simple essence of Cod is attributed the divine joy, and thus in act and in joy Cod is one, as in persons and in essence Cod is three in one. And all creatures, being made like unto Cod, are created to act; even the sun and stars and all other lifeless creatures. But far above these are angels and men, each active according to its laws of being. Not a little flower or leaf but is acted on by the heavenly bodies, and by Cod Himself. And shall not noble man, made in Cod’s likeness, resemble Him in activity? As man is formed after Cod’s image in his soul’s powers and in his soul’s essence, must he not have a much higher activity than reasonless creatures like stars and planets? There must be a close resemblance to Cod both in man’s activity and in his contemplation; and this resemblance must be seen both in his higher and lower powers. And man’s activity is characterized by its object, whether that be Cod or creatures. And whatsoever man makes all the objects of his activity heavenly and divine, turning his back resolutely on all transitory things, that man makes the life and activity of his soul wholly divine.

The glorious soul of our Lord Jesus Christ was ever turned towards the Codhead, as far as His higher faculties were concerned. This was always so from the first moment of His incarnation, just as much as it is now in the bliss of Heaven. But as to His lower powers, these were constantly moving in His life of work and suffering, at the same time that the higher ones were rapt into union with the divine nature. Even when He hung dying on the cross, His soul was with God in its more spiritual powers, essentially the same as it is with Him now. Bo must we be, if we will imitate Him: we must keep God deep and peaceful in our heart, while in our ordinary occupations we are who finds himself suddenly thrust into the presence of the King surrounded by his court. As to a self-conceited man whose life is all external, he will be unfit even to behold the happy place in which God’s friends will eternally dwell. And what of those sluggards who are far worse, who live without God both inwardly and outwardly? The evil spirits eagerly assail them with temptations and lay snares in their path.

Let us return to our former statement, that man’s likeness to God is in his power of combining interior restful joy with exterior activity; and that means the interior man’s unalterable adherence to God in his deepest consciousness, pure and perfect. This is a state quite different from the outward methods of serving God, as different as running and sitting down. The interior state is a perception of God’s presence, joined to the happiness of His possession! And it is from this that an interior man goes forth to his outward activity as necessity or as the good of himself or others may require — and again returns into the same divine centre and source. Thus does the interior life supervise the exterior life. A master workman, for example, has many servants under him, all of whom do the work that he lays out for them and in the way he points out, while he himself does no work, and does not often go into the workshop, though he gives his men the rule and form of their work; they call him the master workman, as if he alone did all that they do, on account of his showing them how to work and what to work. It is all his from his command over them and his planning, for it is in carrying out his plans that their work consists. So in the interior life the master workman set over the exterior life; it is from his interior that a man enlightened by God constantly guides his external faculties in their activity. In the depths of his soul he is immersed in God, in whom he is absorbed in joy; there he remains free and unhindered by his external activity. And every external work down to the least and smallest, is in the service of the interior. It is precisely so in the ordering of the spiritual body of Christ, namely, holy Church, of which our Lord Jesus Christ is the head. Or, again, in a man’s body and its many members — the

And the unity between the different members of holy Church should be so close, that one should no more harm the others than he harms himself. If I find any member of this body of Christ worthier than I am, I must hold him dearer to me than I hold myself, just as a man’s hand and arm protect the head and heart more carefully than they do themselves. So should be the instinctive love of God’s members one for another, esteeming them according as their devout life and their virtue make them more precious to our divine Head. And whatever my neighbor would wish to have, or not have, should concern me just as if it were my own desire. If I love the good that is in him more than he loves it himself, then that good is more mine than his. If he has any evil thing, that remains wholly his own, whereas the good that I love in him is rightly mine as well as his. That St. Paul was rapt in ecstacy was granted by God to him and not to me. But if in this rapture of St. Paul I adore the will of God, then I had rather that the rapture was his than mine — and yet in loving it in him it all becomes truly mine. That and every other holy thing that God did in him is made mine, just as if it happened to me, supposing that I truly love it in him. And this would be true of me in relation to any man, even if he were beyond the sea, nay, even if he were my enemy. Thus strict is this coworking of God’s spiritual body; and thus I am made rich with all the spiritual goods of God’s friends on earth and in Heaven in God who is the head of all, all flowing from Head and members, from God and angels and saints, into me. This is because I am joined to this divine Head and to all His members by love, being made and formed like unto Him and them, and yet in them separated from myself and made unlike unto myself. But, alas, we sometimes seem to love God and His holy will, whereas as a matter of fact it is our own selves that we love or some of our possessions: sometimes what looks like gold is not worth as much as copper. But when a man has sincerely gone out of self and is detached from all his own belongings, has become truly poor in spirit, then to him all earthly things whatsoever are equal — he stands indifferent to them. Oh, children, an equal love for joy or sorrow is a rare thing to And among the generality of people.

It remains to describe the three degrees of perfection accessible to men. The first degree of an interior life, leading to God’s high truth, is when a man turns inward in search of the marvellous evidences and the ineffable gifts of the hidden deity, and this results in a state of soul called jubilation. The second degree is destitution of spirit, in which the soul experiences a special drawing of God aimid a terrible process of stripping and deprivation. The third is a transcending movement of the creature into a God-like form, uniting the created spirit with the uncreated deity; thi may be named essential transformation. Of those who attain to this last degree, we can hardly believe that they will ever fall away from God.

To the first degree we attain by meditating on the evidences of divine love everywhere found in earth and Heaven. O how much has God favored us among all His creatures. The whole world blooms with the beauty of God, Who overwhelms all creation with His gifts for our sakes. How tenderly has He not sought us out, invited us and admonished ns and waited long and patiently for us. For us He became man, suffered and died, offering His blessed soul and body to His Father for onr sakes; and to how indescribably close a friendship has He not invited us. How long has the Holy Trinity waited for us, that we might share the divine joy eternally. Let a man but deeply ponder all this, and the interior rush of heavenly joy will overpower him, and his poor body will be too weak to endure the strain. It often happens that during the stress of this feeling, the blood will burst its veins and pour from the mouth; in other cases one is affected with serious illness.

Thus is this man granted a powerful influx of sweetness from om Lord, as he is embraced in entire and sensible union with Him. Thus does God forcibly draw a man out of himself and correct all dissimilarity. Let no man meddle with these gentle souls, nor impose on them their commonplace outward observances — be not guilty of such a thing. Nor need the Prior be disturbed if such a brother leaves the choir during recitation of office, for he cannot do otherwise, and he is not a vain creature who must be watched and corrected. Once our Lord offered a special friend of His to give him this kiss of jubilation. But he answered and said: - “Beloved Lord, I do not desire it; for it would make me beside myself with joy, so that I should be

The second degree is when God has drawn a man far away from created things. He iB no longer a child to be fed with the dainties of spiritual sweetness, but he must be content to eat the hard rye bread of tribulation, as becomes a man; for a man he is now grown to be. Hard and strong food it is that this man needs — not the baby’s bread and milk. Before him lies a desert road, dark and lonely, and as God leads him through it, He deprives him of all the solaces and joys that He ever gave him. The poor man is so confused that he knows nothing of God — he does not know whether there is a God above him or not. Woe is upon him deep and heavy, and the wide world is too narrow for him. And while he feels not and rightly knows not God, neither does he feel at home with created things. He seems to himself penned in between two Bteep walls, a sword before him, a spear behind him. What shall he do? He dare not go forward, he dare not go backward. He can but sit down disconsolate and exclaim: All hail to Thee, O pure and bitter pain, may God bless thee, for thou art full of all graces. If hell could be added to this purgatory of his, it would be — so it seems to him — a softening of his pain. To love so deeply and yet to be deprived of the supreme Good that one loves — such is his torment. Talk to him as thou pleasest of the comforting things of religion; it is as if thou offerest a hungry man a stone to eat: — and how mcuh less comfort shall he have in all creatures. The greater his spiritual Bweetness was before,- the greater is now the misery of his deprivation. O now behave thyself well, thou favored soul, for the Lord is surely nigh unto thee, holding thee fast by the link of living faith; be sure that all will yet be well with thee. But, alas, this poor soul is in anguish so deep, that he no more can believe that all will yet be well with him than he can believe that darkness Bhall be turned into light.

This trial prepares a man for God’s higher work in him more than all the devotions and pious practices that can be thought of. And when our Lord finds him well enough purified by hanging upon this

Children, to be truly placed in this state, is to begin by being rooted in the deepest depths of humility and self-abnegation, a depth beyond our power to comprehend, for it involves a most perfect knowledge of one’s own nothingness. It is the deepest immersion of the soul in humility; and the deeper the sinking the higher the rising, for deep and high are all in God. But if a man in this state should waver from the straight path, if he should resist God and strike about him, if he should return to self as a foundation, if he Bhould depart out of this high festival and return into self-complacency, that would be like the fall of Lucifer. Herein consists the good of the single-minded prayer of which we began by treating, and which brings us into union with God. May the blessed Trinity grant us entrance into that singleminded prayer. Amen.