The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 93 of 124

First Sermon for the Twenty Third Sunday after Trinity

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us Into the kingdom of the Son of His love. — Col. 1, 13.

Dear children, love of God is the beginning, middle, and end of all virtue. For its sake must all that we do be done, all that we leave undone be left undone, all that we suffer be suffered. What we do for the sake of love, be it ever so little, is great before God; what we do without love, however great it may appear to us, it appears quite otherwise to God. Therefore we should bend all our energies to grow more and more in the love of God and of our neighbor. There is our blessedness placed and nowhere else. We should beg the Holy Ghost, who is essential love, that He would light up His love within us, and make it penetrate our sinful nature with its power; for His “love is strong as death” (Cant, viii, 6). And now pay attention, children, to this: if divine love shall spring up and flourish in any man’s soul, he must mark certain steps or degrees upward, and those he must little by little learn to climb. This he must do if he would reach the height of divine love. In all the degrees of love — and the Holy Ghost has many, — “love is strong as death.” That means that if love shall rightly stand in a man’s soul, then he must suffer much ere he can gain possession of it. And this is true in turn of acquiring each particular grade of love.

The first degree of love that God gives His friends is divine fear. It is the first gift of the Holy Ghost, all whose gifts are love, for He is essential love. This gift brings a man to the point at which he

But when God sees that a man is willing to be converted to Him no matter how painful it may be, and that he goes on steadfastly, then He takes pity on him. After he has atoned for his sins with some bitterness of suffering, God puts honey in his mouth; he grants him a kindly and merciful disposition, a sweetness of charity towards others. This is a new grade of love, and is called piety, or kindly love. It makes a man’s penitential works so sweet, that they no longer are a burden to him. He is now able to observe God’s commandments and those of holy Church without any opposition of nature; he lives a life of happiness.

And when God sees this joyous courage, this willing devotion and love, and when He sees that this man is humble and by no means thinks that he has become perfect, He grants him the gift of knowledge in his love. This is the third love; by means of which a man is given to understand that he must turn inward to his intelligence, and that there he must overcome the tendencies and desires that incline him to sin. And now be encounters a hard task, for he is made aware of what is meant by anguish of soul. Be sure that love is sweet, but the ordeal of gaining it is a hard one: “love is strong as death.”

It happens that some men, when they discover this pain of heart, coming both from without in the battle with their sins and from within in the mortification of their evil tendencies, they act right. They renounce everything whatsoever that is wrong inward and outward; they die to all that they should give up, cutting it totally off. They can be induced by nobody to give up this fight. They regard not their own pleasure nor anything else, resting not till they have found God in all things. In this conflict they need stronger help from God than in any former one, and also good advice from men as well as God’s interior guidance. They fail not to receive this exterior assistance, for God never forsakes any one whose good will is given Him. His providence provides all the outward aids that are needful for their increase in virtue; for the work is His, and it behoves Him to perfect it. If we pray to Him and trust in Him — being now brought to a stand still in our progress as far as we can see, — then it is that in reality we are climbing higher in our movement towards Him.

When God’s light beams in the understanding, then does the soul turn to Him in yet greater knowledge, which God grants with divine savor. Nor does the soul attribute this to itself; it gives God the glory in all its service of Him and in all its virtues, and it offers itself to God without any choice. Occasionally, however, God withdraws all His light and all His sweetness: the soul finds itself devoid of understanding, and, as it seems to it, even of grace. There is no taste in anything. It can hardly realize that it ever felt God’s love. It now feels altogether forsaken, and can only throw itself in blind faith upon God’s mercy, waiting sadly and patiently, till God brings about a change.

anguish, unless a little to one’s superiors and that only to show confidence in them, and submissiveness to the authorities of holy Church. And a man must continue to follow all his spiritual exercises as if they were as sweet as ever to him. Holy Job says: “If we have

But all ways are good that are approved or permitted by holy Church, when followed with an upright intention. Hence let no man condemn the external works of religion saying that they are not the best; for a loving heart and a right intention make men holy in whatever good work they do. It is not the outward character of the work that measures it holiness, but the will of him that does it. Further: when one cannot do a good work, and yet has a loving desire to do it, God is content with this good will, however late we may be in making a practical beginning.

Be assured that whosoever has no such love as this, will go astray. Soon his conscience will be blinded, his sins will give him no remorse, and he will grow lukewarm and then cold in his devotional practises. He at last disregards lesser sins, is quite content with his perilous state; he is guided by the wisdom of the flesh and by his sensual appetites. If he holds a place over others, he neglects to chide them for minor offences, and tolerates their shortcomings out of false tenderness for their weakness. He yields to them that he may not displease them; he allows them unlawful relaxations and pleasures, in order to win and hold their favor. Thus does the fear of God recede from not give up his high name for holiness. Thus he falls into a treacherous calm of spirit, neglects thanking God for His favors, and fails to do penance for his sins.

Finally he lapses into a state of self-trust; he relies upon his penance in the past, he meditates on his good works and exaggerates their worth; and this is his comfort if any one finds fault with him for his occasional transgressions, or if his popularity begins to wane. Vanity grows stronger in him every day, outward relaxations are indulged in. Even in God’s service he is full of vanity; and he does penitential works to be seen of men. But these become wearisome after a while, pious exercises grow irksome; until at last he gives them all up, and falls back on doing some good works of religion or charity to safeguard his reputation.

And now arise against him those powerful temptations that used to overthrow him before he undertook a pious life, and conscience is gnawed with remorse. For relief, he can but practise some external penances, which avail him but little. He must enter into the depths of his soul; he must learn to know the evil tendencies there wholly uncorrected; he must completely reverse his ways of living, and devote himself to the transformation of his motives of conduct. If he does not follow that way, he falls back into his early sinfulness and soon is sunk in sensuality. He excuses himself: his temptations are irresistible— this is his language to his own conscience; he is sickly; he must spare himself and must have some relaxation. And all this time he manages to keep up his good name, he does pious things out of habit, he performs some works of penance.

You notice how clearly he gives reasons and makes excuses. But in

But what if Scripture passages assail him in turn and disquiet him, or God’s light, granted him in prayer with interior thereatenings, shows him his danger? What if his self-sufficiency is thus rudely broken in on, and conscience again begins to clamor that he is not what he ought to be? What if, in addition to these warnings, certain deadly temptations to impurity attack him, or to envy, or to sloth? All in vain. He soothes his soul by saying that these are all sent him by God that he may earn more crowns in heaven. With this poor thought he struggles with his inner foes. But his false wisdom deserts him and he is left helpless. He indulges in bodily relaxations, lives in luxury, sleeps and eats and drinks and recreates himself almost like an ordinary worldling, avoiding, however, any external mortal sin.

Then his temptations grow stronger than ever before, and he is finally vanquished, falling in many ways, even before he is himself fully aware of it. And now he is in anguish lest he shall lose his good name. Interiorly, his conscience is so bad that devout practises can no longer please him; rather they disgust him. To follow divine service is intolerable unless associated with some pecuniary profit or bodily comfort.

This man has now come to that pass, that he must lapse into a life of open sinfulness, or God must grant him a new grace of conversion. God must now teach him to understand the admonitions of conscience better than he did before. It is because he would not harken to God’s interior warnings, that his present awful state has come upon him. And he must have a new conversion, or fall into a state of undisguised wickedness. But that very fall is often God’s chosen means. Open shame brings such men to their senses and back to God’s friendship —

God reveals to them their sinfulness; He imparts the grace of confidence in His mercy; that of courage to begin their spiritual life over again; to correct all evil conduct and repress evil tendencies. It is not now the contempt of men that they dread — no, they are only full of shame on account of their misdeeds against God, which He now grants them to know in all their naked wickedness; and these holy inspirations they by no means resist.

Those who do resist them, return again to their evil ways; conscience indeed makes them miserable, and yet they yield to their weaknesses and they keep on doing so. These follow after the things of the flesh and after worldly goods, seemingly happy enough, for God gives them up to their own devices. But you know, for I have often taught it to you, that before God finally abandons them, He sends them very many warnings, both interior admonitions and external reminders. If they but willed it, they could easily enough be saved.

And how is it with the sincere soul that harkens to God’s warnings? He is first of all shamed and grieved for his wicked ingratitude towards God. He is absorbed in the consciousness of his sinful state He is amazed to discover how far he had gone astray in his interior soul, even in the motives of his good works, and how he actually displeased God while seeming to serve Him, so infected with vanity and human respect had been all his conduct. Full of thankfulness for hie present graces, he is yet at a loss to find a penance great enough to atone for his past bad conduct. But he humbly goes back to the beginning; he acts as if he were a child new born to holy Church. He learns how to fast and watch in all prudence; he is submissive in his choice of devotions, and very humble, guided by the Church’s rules and the duties of his state of life.

Meanwhile he studies the life and example of Jesus Christ most thoroughly, and with all his might he endeavors to imitate Him,, patiently reading of Him in holy Scripture, in all things obedient to conscience and the directions of his spiritual adviser. To the best of his ability he conforms his spirit to that of Christ. He learns to die to every evil inner tendency, and to totally abstain from all outward defects; his daily task is to learn this lesson better and better. One danger he dreads above all others: — tepidity in fulfilling the spiritual duties of his state of life; for he knows that that was the original

God that this grace was granted him in preference to so many others.

Nor does this change remain a secret. On the contrary, the penitent soul manifests its new life by many signs: — love cannot remain idle. So does this man’s love of God now come into notice; he does not spare himself; he gives himself up to all approved penitential practises, yet striving to hide them from the eyes of others. As time goes on, he is bound steadfast, for he vows to God that to the end of his days he will never again fall into lukewarmness. And his love is a prudent one, not striving to destroy nature but rather the sinfulness that rules nature and corrupts the soul: this he is determined totally to destroy.

And his love has a quality of freedom — freedom from creatures: he will tolerate no creature near God in the love of his soul but insists on having all things adjusted to God and His will. Again, his love is a speaking love; for his soul cannot be silent, but addresses all and exhorts all who are out of God’s friendship. Furthermore this love is full of longing or yearning, distressed because with all its zeal for God’s honor, it knows not how it can win souls to His allegiance.

Then comes to him a burning love, tending to drive the soul beyond all bounds of moderation in its zeal: — nay, even a foolish love, despising the praise of men, and doing things for God that seem to them silly. Yet again, it may happen that there is granted him a love that is all sweetness of joy in the depths of the heart.

Last of all’ is given that love which is unitive; it comes from intimate union with God here and hereafter; this may well be the love spoken of by the Bridegroom: “Love is strong as death” (Cant, viii, 6). To attain to this divine love, one must love very painfully, and hence the comparison with that greatest of pains, death. But can a man ever serve this fleeting world or sin without great suffering? Wherefore then shall he not willingly suffer to obtain divine love, which never passes, and never grows less in its sweetness? May God grant us to win this His love, and never to perish in everlasting death. Amen.