The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 99 of 124

Sermon for the Feast of Our Lady’s Nativity

Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits.— BocU. xxir, 26.

This is the blessed day in which our Lady, purified and sanctified in her mother’s womb, was born into this world. In her has been restored to us what was defaced and lost in the garden of Eden, namely the human soul in all its perfection, made by the heavenly Father after His own image and likeness. She was destined to cooperate with the eternal Father in the restoration of all the members of His family to their original justice. Out of His boundless mercy would God use her, to aid us to rise again from the everlasting death of sin, into which we, as far as it was possible for us to do it, had fallen.

“Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits;” that is to say, the graces that followed my birth; such are the Father’s words put by holy Church into Mary’s mouth, and she would herself in turn apply them to the birth of the eternal Son in the bosom of His Father, and then to that of the same Son, born of her womb into this world: she would invite us to come over to her and be filled with the fruits of that birth. All (as if to say) who desire me, let them desire the birth of my son with joyous love, and in due time they will be granted the privilege of enjoying it. Thus shall your soul be stimulated to a deeper longing. As St. Augustine says: “Lord, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are without peace till they rest finally in Thee.” This unrest of soul should every man have without ceasing; but our souls are quieted with alien births, namely joy in earthly things and in the senses. We grow content with the possession of created things, animate and inanimate, such as friendship

Now men will object and say that they have no love for God and no longing for Him. I answer, look within thee for the cause of this, for there alone shalt thou find it — nobody knows that so well as thyself. Do not ask me but ask thy own self wherefore thou hast neither love nor desire. Thou wouldst possess God and creatures together, and that is impossible. Joy in God and joy in creatures — if thou weepest blood thou canst not obtain these two at one and the same time. The trouble is want of perception of what creature comfort is really necessary in this life, or what use of creatures one can lawfully have in God and for God; — such things as the proper satisfaction of hunger and thirst, rest after toil, and the repose of sleep. When these are sought from inordinate appetite rather than from real necessity of nature, they are a hindrance to the birth of God within the soul. I do not say that all sense of pleasure is inordinate, for in satisfying the needs of nature, one cannot extinguish all feelings of enjoyment, for pleasure and necessary refreshment are inseparable.

But if a man wishes to place no hindrance to the divine birth, if he would cultivate an increase in his longing for God, let him keep a sharp watch on all pleasurable emotions of the senses. The less these are, the greater his progress; the more the coldness of heart goes out, the more the warmth of love comes in. Nor does this mean that a man should sink into slothful and slovenly habits, or have a stupid weakness of character. Some degenerate into this state, blindly following a routine of pious observance with little care and attention. Nor should one pester his father confessor about many of these weaknesses and self-indulgences, to which he wilfully adheres: the father confessor has no power to help him unless he fully co-operates himself. If thou goest to confession ten times a day, it will be all the same — back again shalt thou fall into defects of this kind. The fault lies in thy wilful adherance to these failings. As long as thou obstinately cleavest to creatures so long art thou shut out from beholding the face of God.

This is the teaching of holy scripture, and especially of the Gospel of Christ. Thou shalt love God above all things, says the first and greatest commandment; and our Lord tells us that unless we give up all that we possess for His sake, we are not worthy of Him. And again He warns us that not all who call out Lord! Lord! shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but only they who do His Father’s will. Do you think that God will give His kingdom to those miserable creatures who have rejected His Son’s most precious blood and shamed His holy life? Never believe it. If you but knew how hard God will judge such men your souls would wither up with terror. God has given His only begotten Son to be their way to Him: He is the end, He alone; and do you think He will allow Himself to be despised? Never dream of such a thing.

And never dream that thy holy order is going to take the place of the holiness thou shouldst thyself personally possess. My habit and cowl, my holy cloister and the holy company of my brethren — all that does not sanctify me: there must be in me a holy, a mortified and a recollected spirit before I can be called a holy man. That I often cry out Lord! Lord! — that I say many prayers, read many pious books, have much sacred knowledge and show outward holiness — no! no! There must be much more in me besides this. And now if thou errest in this matter, the blame is thine and not mine, for I have warned thee against the worldly heart and thy proud spirit, against thy vainglory and thy pretence of spirituality. Thou shalt be proved at last as a graft upon a tree — the fruit is according to the graft and not according to the tree. So it is not thy order but thyself that must stand the final test. Thus all thy good works are false before God if thy inner life be not true. For the divine birth is experienced in all thy powers, both inner and outer. In this sense the book of Job teaches: “In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men, fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted: and when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up” (Job iv, 13-15). The horror of the vision by night is the anguish that is sure to follow attachment to created things, shaking one’s bones with dread of the divine wrath; the passing of a spirit before the soul is the visitation and the judgment of God.

There are two movements of the spirit taught in the Gospel, one being that of God’s Spirit into us, the other that of our spirit into God. This two-fold movement must end in God’s dominating the soul.

If wood shall become fire, it must cease to be wood; if the seed becomes a tree, it ceases to be a seed. If God’s Spirit shall move into ours in the fulness of His generation, then the creature must languish in us. In this sense St. Gregory speaks: “The words of the book of Job, ‘the hair of my flesh stood up,’ may be illustrated by the cutting off of the hair of the Levites in the old law. As the hair grows on the head and face of a man, so grows his attachment to created things in the lower and higher faculties of his mind, being rooted in his former customs; and these must be shorn entirely off with the sharp shears of holy zeal for virtue.” Sharpen that shears on the hard grind stone of God’s judgment, before which not so much as an idle word shall escape condemnation. The littlest distraction that is wilfully entertained, must be burnt away with an unbearable purgatory, ere one can come before God’s face. But what happens when .these matted and filthy locks are sheared off? They instantly begin to grow out again, and we must be ever ready with the shears of mortification again to cut them back. How wise then are those, who are so earnest that the instant any unworthy thought arises they repress it with iron resolution. This seems hard at first, but as time goes on and one is faithful and true, habit makes it very easy: what once took a heavy stroke to remove can now be blown away with a light breath of recollection.

As to one’s love for his neighbor, that must be practical. And it must be universal, directed not to this or that particular person, but to all mankind, including no less the wicked than the virtuous, the poor as well as the rich. It is this that we learn of our blessed Lady’s father and mother, Saints Joachim and Anna. For it is related that they divided their goods into three parts, giving one to support God’s worship in the temple, another in alms to the poor, and the third they used for their own support. Be sure that the soul of a covetous man is a cesspool of all uncleanness. A true man must easily part with the mean things of this mortal life of ours. Says our Lord: “Give and it shall be given to you. * * * For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again” (Luke vi, 38).

The shears must also be used upon an inward growth. For there are men whose souls are covered with a growth of attachments to certain pious exercises, not alone for God’s sake but mainly out of the joy they have in them. The deeper parts of their souls they know nothing of; they do not dream but that they are detached and mortified men,

Spirit. But to guide such a one no short acquaintance with him is necessary. Such a guide may well be sought over twenty miles of town and country, in order to obtain one with sufficient piety, wisdom and experience. Of course any father confessor of ordinary sound judgment will serve a good purpose, for often does the Holy Ghost speak through our confessors’ mouths, even when they are but simple men and hardly realize the purport of the instruction; for their office is by divine appointment. To them we must be submissive, we must never live according to our own lights and guidance. For when our blessed Lady was a little child, did she not obey implicity her old father and mother? Was she not under the direction of the priests in the temple? And in after times, was she not subject to St. Joseph? And at the end she lived under the protection of St. John, to whose care our Lord had confided her. Let us now pray her to take us in turn under her guardianship, on this the day of her nativity; and let us beg her intercession that we may be born again with the birth of her divine Son. God help us to all these favors. Amen.