The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 85 of 124

First Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

As a prisoner in the Lord, I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another In charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit In the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit, as you are called In one hope of your calling. — Eph. Iv, 1-5.

Children, four things are to be considered for walking “worthy of the vocation in which you are called:” First, who has called us; second, to what we are called; third, what is the voice that calls us and how is it uttered; and fourth, how shall we worthily obey it?

First, it is the heavenly Father who calls, and into that call He throws all that He is, has, and ever can do. His love, His goodness, His divine being — all leads and attracts us to Him. In very truth God is always striving after us, as if His happiness, nay His very existence, depended on us. All that the Father ever created in earth and heaven with all His wisdom and goodness, was but to call us back into Himself, the fountain head of our existence. A certain teacher says: “All that God ever did, all that He now does, is only to bring the soul of man to hear the divine call, and to love his maker.”

Second, to what has God called us? It is to union with His divine Son, to be His brother and His co-heir. He is the highest among His brethren; He is by nature the Heavenly Father’s heir; and God calls

We are invited to follow His example and to pattern on His character; for He is the way we must tread, the truth to guide us in our journey, the life that shall be our end. All this according to our ability, yet not in mere good will, but in a victim’s life and patient suffering.

Third, what is the voice that calls us, and how is it uttered? God’s voice is manifold. In our soul’s depths God calls us by His inspirations, warnings and admonitions day and night, and sometimes with severe inner visitations. Outwardly He calls us by every happening of life, now in joy, again in sadness. These are all strong voices of God calling us to Him. O, if a man will but be led by these sweet divine tones, he will not need God’s harsher measures.

The fourth is that a worthy following of God’s vocation is to go onward in all patience, and humility, and mildness.

God calls three sorts of men, beginners, proficients, and the perfect. Let none of us repine on account of the place he is given, for God is the Lord, and He allots to every one his right degree; and He wills that all of us shall be conformed to His only begotten Son. Some things are commanded, some forbidden. The highest commandment is to love God above all things. Many a one says he does this, and meanwhile will not give up certain things that stand in the way of his love of God, and in which he has more joy than in God; this shows how he loves God.

Another commandment is: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, namely, desiring him to enjoy the same good fortune that thou desirest for thyself. Thou shalt honor thy father and mother; and this precept includes all who are placed over thee. Thou shalt not take God’s name in vain. Thou shalt keep Sundays holy and all reast days. Such are the commandments we must observe if we would be saved.

What is forbidden is this: Thou shalt do thy neighbor no injury, in body, goods, or reputation, neither by words or works; nor shalt thou covet anything that is his; and thou shalt commit no impurity. There are still other commandments, but they are all included in these.

Now be well assured, children, that any man who goes straight along this way, and is obedient in the true faith to the holy Christian church, leading an orderly life, such a one is in the lowest class of

The second degree, that of the proficient, is the practise of the evangelical counsels, and is much higher than the first, being the way of chastity, poverty and obedience. That we may follow this vocation rightly and perfectly, holy Church, guided by the Spirit of God, has formed various orders and communities, well adapted to aid us to this end, and they are provided with appropriate rules. When men and women undertake the obligations of this state of life, and then violate them, holy Church sits in judgment on them. But if one feels called to this life of the counsels outside of an order and without its obligations, and then rejects the call (as when a woman has made a private vow of chastity and yet gets married), such a one holy Church does not call before her public tribunal, but leaves that case to God’s secret judgment in the tribunal of confession. But as to those living in community, it is a gross perversity if, having an appearance of high spirituality, they yet have only a worldly heart in their bosoms. It is of these that St. Augustine speaks: “Cursed is the man who goes astray in the way of the Lord.” This is God’s way; He has called these souls to walk in it according to His evangelical counsels. Let every one having this vocation take heed to himself how he walks in it; let him take heed lest he shall be found at the marriage feast without a wedding garment, and be thrust forth into the outer darkness.

Each one should consider interiorly and settle in his mind what is his vocation from God. Otherwise, thou shalt today try one way of life, and tomorrow want to change it and try another, according as thou seest and hearest things round about thee. Enow thy own place well, and pay no attention to any other, for it concerns thee not. What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Look to thyself carefully; let nothing cause thee to neglect thyself. I declare to you that there are many men living in the world with wife and children, sitting in the shop and making shoes, having only God in mind and heart and the decent support of their family; and there are many poor peasants who earn their daily bread with hard toil, thinking only of God: and it may well happen that these souls, following their humble calling in all simplicity of heart, shall fare better at the last

These simple laymen stand in fear of God, their souls are poor and humble, and they go steadfastly forward in their divine vocation. And thou, lifted up so much higher, see to it that thou be not selfblinded; diligently meditate on the vocation wherein God hath called thee, follow it straight on, go not astray in it The third and highest vocation is the imitation of the blessed example of our Lord Jesus Christ in all respects, actively, passively, and in contemplation, with purest motives, in entire detachment of spirit, thereby attaining the loftiest point of perfection. Search your hearts and discover how near to this divine pattern you have come. Only in our innermost souls is our essential life to be found, and here is where we are to be entirely conformed to Christ It is about entering this state that Jeremias speaks: “Thou Shalt call Me Father and shalt not cease to walk after Me” (Jer. iii, 19). And as Laban said to Abraham’s servant: “Come in, thou blessed of the Lord, why

His gospel, and now in walking after the example of our Lord in all humility and patience, as 8t. Paul teaches. Such a one must go deep into the interior, sometimes by means of forms and images, at other times in the stillness of his spirit without any forms or any works, “careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, one body and one spirit” in the new forming of the created spirit by the uncreated Spirit. Now the spirit of man is all the more newly formed, in proportion as he has walked the more exactly in the adorable footsteps of our Lord, in all patience, humility and mildness The carefulness with which one keeps the unity of the Spirit, that is to be measured by the diligence of one’s inward faculties, daily and hourly observing one’s thoughts and affections; and meanwhile outwardly practising zealously all the virtues of one’s state of life. Sometimes one should exercise himself in works of holy charity as opportunity offers; again he will be drawn backward into very interior prayer with the images of a devout imagination; and sometimes his soul will be engaged with God without any figures of his imagination. St. Anselm says: “Draw thy soul away from the multiplicity of external things, and fall asleep to the stormy thoughts of thy mind: sit down and rest and be lifted up above thyself.” When this silent peace is established

His presence, then, like Queen Esther in the presence of King Assuerus, his spirit faints away within him. And yet the soul’s mantle 1b still drawn over its face as it follows the divine presence in an ecstacy. It was thus that Esther sank down before the King, who then raised her up again. When the Spirit enters this man’s soul, all support is drawn away, all that was his own has gone from him, and he sinks into his own nothingness in all things and in all ways. And were he not upheld in the mighty arms of God, he would — so it seems to him — vanish out of existence. This man now deems himself less than all creatures, more miserable than any— corrupt as a corpse, beastly, void of reason or sense, yea, worse even than Satan himself. The King, perceiving that the soul is thus emptied of self, then takes it and raises it up and gives it His kiss of love. And this is due to the soul’s lowliness— the lower its self estimate the higher its elevation. Then God and the spirit exchange ineffable greetings, and both are made as one; for God’s sovereignty looks downward with especial favor into the deep valley of humility.

Presently this happens: when the soul has attained to so high a state of blessedness, the evil one comes and assails it with temptation to spiritual pride. Besides, it may be that God will allow the soul to fall into some venial fault, as for example wilful anger; and this is permitted to cause the soul to sink yet deeper into the consciousness of its own nothingness, whereupon God can elevate to a yet higher degree of union. Or perhaps it happens that bitter, reproachful words are spoken against that man in the presence of others, and God allows him to be overwhelmed with anguish and shame on that account. If this has happened to thee, be not shocked: thou hast learned a new and a better lesson of thy own nothingness — all goes well; thou shalt now walk more worthily in the way of “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Whatever man thus walks, following the example of our Lord Jesus Christ in all mildness and humility according to his lot in life, in him shall God’s peace be born, a peace that passes all understanding; and a light has dawned in that soul’s life that will shine within it for all eternity. May the eternal God help us all to this holy state. Amen.