The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 80 of 124

Second Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after

Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see. — Luke x, 23.

Here we have a teaching that is the purest truth, showing us where the highest blessedness of eternal life is to be found. And we read that a scribe came and tempted our Lord with his questioning, and yet our Lord received him and answered him very mildly, referring him to the witness of Holy Scripture. Now every man under the old law who would be right, must have had one of three witnesses to approve him. The first testimony might come from God by special revelation; the second out of the depths of his own living soul in the light of natural reason; and the third was that of Holy Scripture. Dut this man who questioned our Lord had but one witness; to this our Lord referred him when He said to him: “What is written in the law? How readest thou?” And he answered that the law commanded us to love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourself. He had indeed answered truly; he also believed that he had fulfilled that commandment, and upon this he prided himself.

Dear children, two meanings are to be found in the words, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see.” One is the blessedness of the interior contemplation of our soul’s dignity in its kinship with God, which brings to a loving heart a most blessed grace and joy. Of

Dietrich, and Master Eckhart. Some teachers speak of it as a spark of divine fire, others as the inmost depths of the soul, others again as the crown of the soul, or as its origin and source of life. Albertus, however, calls it an interior image, in which the blessed Trinity is manifested to the soul. This divine spark, say others, flies upward so high in the soul, that the understanding cannot follow it, for it is over passing again upward into the divine centre which is its uncreated source. But you must know, dear children, that these masters have experienced in their minds and in their lives the things they herein treat of; and, furthermore, they have drawn this doctrine from the greatest saints and doctors of holy Church. Even certain teachers before our Lord’s birth, as Plato, Aristotle and Proclus, have also diligently studied this subject. As to our devout Christian masters, this close kinship with God has much inflamed their fervor and that of their disciples, and contributed to their eternal salvation, causing in them a sudden conversion of their souls to God. Whereas the false doctrines on this subject have worked eternal harm to souls.

Dear children, let us now carefully examine this road to eternal bliss. It is the way of unfeigned humility, and entire renunciation of self. It makes nothing of self, nothing of all that one can have or can do. For if a man having this way perceives good in himself, at once he knows it as God’s and not man’s. To this basis of life must thou come, if thy eyes shall be blessed. This is the rule that Jesus Christ the Son of God gave to His elect, saying: “Learn of Me,

In this same Gospel our Lord says: “Many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them.” Dear children, by the term prophets, we may understand those men who glory in their natural reason, its arguments and its subtleties. The eyes of such as these are not blessed. By the term kings, we may understand men of strong character and seeming holiness, powerful speakers, full of self-chosen good works, abounding in fasts and

Consider that when the outward eye is blindfolded it cannot see at all. And the eye must be entirely unstained with any color whatsoever if it shall be able to distinguish all colors. So must our interior eye, the will, be entirely cleared of all desires to have and not to have, if it shall be the blessed eye destined to see the eternal things of God. Jn worldly men the colors that stain the soul’s eye are coarse and material. But spiritual men also are afflicted with their own peculiar self-deceptions.

Each man, though he be but one person, is, nevertheless, three men in one. First he is just the external being, animal, living in his senses; the second is the interior man, whose life is in his reasoning faculties; the third is the man, that is, the soul, in its highest part, that part which we call the spirit: and all these three are one and the same man. Now in this threefold man God should reign supreme. Children, the will must entirely abdicate its supremacy to God, according to our Lord’s word: “I came down from Heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (John vi: 38). How plain it is, that as long as thou standest upon thy own will thou art forfeit of the divine blessedness of thy eyes, for blessedness is found only in unfeigned renunciation of one’s own will. This is born of that lowliness of spirit in which self-will is lost and gone. Self-will is the pillar on which rests the whole structure of a deordinated life: knock down that support, and every roof and wall of imperfection falls to the ground. And the less value a man puts on himself, the less self-will lias he.

Let us consider the love that is theirs who have blessed eyes — love with the whole heart, the whole soul, all the powers and all the mind. There is much controversy among the masters as to whether one’s love or one’s understanding be the higher faculty — and that question we leave on one side, being full sure that of the two love is, at any rate, the more meritorious and useful: for love joyfully enters in where knowledge must needs remain without. Love requires no subtle knowledge of things, but a clear, living, Christian faith.

Let ub consider the form of love, its matter, and its end or purpose. As to the form of love, that is just lore’s own self; its matter is our soul and its powers, or, in other terms, our heart, whose work in lore is to love in all; and the end and purpose of lore is to lore God directly and without any intermediation. Finally, the essence of love is simply to love, for love loves for the sake of love. A further explanation is given by Richard of St. Victor: “Love in its lowest degree proceeds from the heart and from its thoughts; also from the soul, in its enjoyments and content; and from the soul’s powers, in their resistance to and suppression of all that is opposed to love.” But all this is not the love that we are to consider.

Albertus Magnus comments on this Gospel as follows: “To love God with all our heart means to love Him with a free and ready will in such wise that we are practically well exercised in love.” It often happens that a man will have a love for something, and against that love his reason in the exercise of its freedom will revolt. And many another time it happens that reason constrains a man to love something, to which he has no manner of attraction. But love, to be at its best, should go forth instinctively from a free and a holy heart, needing as little help from the warnings and the considerings and the ponderings of human reason, as is possible in this changeful life of ours.

The words, “With all thy soul,” mean a love full of satisfaction and contentment in loving God, with entire freedom of will, engaging every element of the soul’s life, embracing the inward man and the outward: this love comes from the soul’s knowledge of truth.

The words, “And with all thy strength,” mean that a man subdues to the service of this love of God all his animal powers and all his life of the senses. Such a man controls for God’s love all his bodily existence, just as an archer strings the bow to shoot his arrow. This is the fulness of love, and it is the highest degree.

To love God “with all thy mind” is a love which embraces all the others, as a measure contains what is to be measured out, fixing the shape and the weight and the distribution. St. Augustine says: “An act does not become an acquired virtue until it gains a certain form, so that a man is grown used to it, does it as easily and with as much pleasure as if it had become part of his very nature.” And that state of virtue arises from a foundation of humble love.

Mark well that one’s mind is in itself something much higher than the mental faculties, which draw all their force from the mind, belong to it, and flow out from it— the mind itself being beyond measure above in its own powers. For its being is simple, essential and uniform. The learned tell us that the mind or the spirit is alwayB in action, whether one be sleeping or waking, conscious of act or unconscious. Now, that spirit of ours has a constant longing for Ood, ever gazing towards Him, ever longing to love Him and enjoy Him. Exactly how that is, we need not now discuss. Furthermore, the spirit of man beholds God, if it but will it, in itself; for although it be a created being, it is yet made to resemble the uncreated God. Proclus, a heathen writer, calls this a sleep, a quiet and divine rest, saying: “It is a secret search of one for one, and is a state too high to be comprehended.” When the soul turns towards this supematurally, then it becomes God like, leading a divine life. As a man goes forth to outward things, he cannot know, he cannot even believe that this state of the spirit can be; yet it really is. The human spirit is planted in such soil and has such a life in it, that it is drawn powerfully to itself; it is a peculiar property of the spirit to be bent and inclined inwards to its own deepest depths, in search of its own origin. This tendency is never quenched, no, not in hell itself, whose worst pain is that the soul must forever endure the activity of this tendency. If a man will but hearken to reason, that will guide all his lower powers and will subject them to its mastery, rejecting whatever is against reason as something alien to its nature. Beason thus raises a man above the influence of his senses, and there he rests free from all disturbance. When the interference of the lower faculties is thus hindered in the Christian soul, it sees its own essence and its power in an intellectual image of Him to whom it owes its origin. Blessed are the eyes that come to this sight; blessed the soul that clings to this holy state essentially, and sinks into it. St. Dionysius teaches that the forms and images of the imagination can in this state have no influence over us.

Albertus Magnus tells of six excellences of this high state. It is most wonderful: the man to whom this spiritual insight is granted can never again be amazed by wonderful or miraculous happenings. It is the very highest: no spiritual state is superior to it. It is most purely spiritual: there is no manner of admixture of the material world. It is the most secure: its safety is its own and is very

509perfect, borrowing security from none other. It is inseparably joined to the spirit: it cannot be influenced by fleshly lusts or temptations. It is the least hindered state: for in it the spirit walks in the

This is called a state of eternal beatitude, and for three reasons. First* it is the image of God divinely imparted to the soul. Second, the soul is immersed in the deity. Third, the spirit enjoys God as if in His very substance. Hence it is called the action of God in the soul. All these wonderful things of the soul’s unchangeable bliss, spoken of by Albertus, are not as it were in any state that may be called human activity, but rather an essential indwelling of the spirit, living with God in its own depths, in a way superior to that of this life; for in this life all things change, and unhappiness is born of activity. To such a man a mishap may occur in his outward life, but it cannot affect the essence of his happiness in his union with God. Now when our Savior said: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you have seen,” he meant this blessedness.

Children, to attain to this sort of ecstacy or rapture, one must carefully choose his times and his circumstances, namely, qmet hours, solitude, and recollection. Therefore is the night a favorable time, for it is long and still. Whereas if one waits till morning, he must provide various things, and run about here and there, and thus interior detachment is broken in upon. The devil takes advantage of this, perhaps, to snatch from thee thy opportunity — it may never come again to thee, but be given to another who will make better use of it. Dear child, if God gave thee an earthly kingdom, he would give thee with it what was necessary for thee in order to possess and govern it. As to this kingdom of blessedness, He gives thee all that is needed for thy possessing it; but the misery of it is that thou wilt not procure solitude and recollection to that end.

No one, not even the Pope or holy Church, would wish to disturb such men as these, but rather be glad to leave them wholly to God, and this we could prove from the history of the greatest saints. David calls this state of soul a spiritual slumber; St. Paul, a peace that surpasses all understanding; St. John, a stillness lasting half an hour. St. Dionysius and St. Gregory, as well as many other great saints, hare written to the same effect. Let us give to such favored souls all careful attention, and leave them to follow God’s guidance. St. Augustine says: “When God would work, let us carefully attend to His work, and observe it.” Let us bear in mind that the Lord’s yoke is sweet and His burden light. Now, a yoke is something drawn over one’s head and fastened to his neck. So has God in all sweetness yoked and assumed control over these favored souls, placing a light burden upon them, and leading them by his sweet yoke whithersoever He will. If thou art thyself thus honored, and if thou feelest a sudden stroke fall upon thee, be still, God is fastening his burden of blessedness upon thee. If anyone says that thou hast lost thy senses, be still, answer not: it is thus that God is making thee ready for HiB blessedness. And, meanwhile, if thou hast to endure something, yet thou are not going to be beheaded, as were the holy marytrs. May the merciful God prepare us to follow His lead, until our eyes shall behold His blessedness. Amen.

to God’s opposition to worldliness — Study of Christ’s passion perfects this resemblance — God would also give us His unchangeableness— This is assimilated by the steadfastness of holy living — Besides these, God would endow us with universal holiness, springing from love.