The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 111 of 124

Third Sermon for the Feast of the Exaltation of

I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and as a cypress tree on Mount Sion. — Eccles. xxiv, 17.

This is the feast of that glorious cross, whose praises no words can rightly express. Let us apply our text to the cross’s lessons.

On Mount Libanus grows the incense, whose fragrant vapor typifies a spiritual offering of great excellence made by man to God. They say that the smoke of burning cedar wood cures the poison of snake bite, as the cross of Christ cleanses our souls of the devil’s venom. Cypress wood, they tell us, is that medicine which stops vomiting, and helps a sick man to retain good food in his stomach. Even so, if a man will but take and keep within his soul the cross of Christ, the sweet and nourishing food of God’s word will abide in him. All the teachings of God’s holy servants and prophets will feed his soul, not a morsel of the Divine food being lost; and it will strengthen him unto eternal life: this is the effect of one’s loving Christ’s cross. And the cross has a sweet fragrance of its own besides, very attractive and very strengthening, a sweetness surpassing all other, a power to win above all other. As the Lord said of His exaltation: “And I, if I be lifted up from earth, will draw all things to Myself” (John xii, 32). As He was Himself attracted to the cross, so fondly drawn to it that He must be hung high upon its arms, so would He draw all men to it with the same power, namely the power of humility, and of patience, and of love. Just as He suffered, so must we in like manner suffer, each one imitating Him to the best of his ability; so that we shall in

Our Lord Jesus Christ was stripped naked when He was crucified. Not a stitch of clothing was left on His body, and right before His dying eyes his garments were gambled for. Now I know as sure as there is a God, that if thou shalt come to thy best spiritual state, thou must be stripped naked of every single thing that is not God — not a thing must remain to thee. And then all that thou hadst must be made a joke and a game of before thy eyes and counted as nothing worth, and thy fellow men must reckon thee to be a fool. The Lord said: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke ix, 23).

And again He said: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow Me” (Matt, xix, 21) ; that is to say, follow Him in the way of the cross. And this is the practical lesson of the feast of the exaltation of the holy cross. We read in the Apocalypse, of the dreadful plagues that God shall send before the day of judgment, but the exact time is not written, and we are still expecting them. But an ancient prophet tells us how men may be saved from these horrors. God said to His destroying angel: “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark Thou upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof” (Ezech. ix, 4). And these men were to be spared. Now this, mark Thou, was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and was made thus — T, like a cross: the men saved were thus marked with a cross, and the rest were destroyed. The word cross means to us pain. God spared the men who had suffered pain and sighed and mourned for His sake. He did not command the angel to spare the learned, nor contemplatives, nor actively zealous men; no, it was only patiently suffering men who were to be spared. Our Lord did not say to mankind: Whosoever will follow Me, let Him become a contemplative; by no means; but let him take up his cross of daily suffering and follow Me.

A word more about the cross. The man who takes up the cross of Christ perfectly is the best man on earth. No plague can ever strike him. He shall suffer no purgatory. Nor, all things considered, is there any great pain in the cross. But alas, we have come to this: nobody nowadays thinks that he can endure any pain at all. People

Yet the cross may not be what people think it is. It is not necessarily fasting, or watching, or going on pilgrimages, or great alms giving, or total poverty. All these serve a good purpose, indeed. Do thy share of them faithfully according as thy state of life and thy opportunities suggest. But remember that no man is too weak of body, or too old, or too stupid, but that he may yet take up Christa glorious cross and journey with Him to eternal life.

The cross is framed of four pieces, one upward, another downward, and two sidewise. The upward piece is true Divine love. The left arm is deep humility: to this a man is nailed by genuine self abasement and renunciation of all things belonging to him. This is a better virtue than pretentious belittling of self, which may easily be mixed with secret pride. The right arm of the cross, is true, interior purity of heart. By this one is nailed fast in entire voluntary absence of whatever can stain the soul with the least fleck of creature love inner or outer. The lower part is what holds the feet fast nailed in holy obedience, true and perfect: it means quick and entire abandonment of every sense of proprietorship in thy own will. These four beams are fastened together in the midst into one cross, and it is done by this strong bolt: Fiat voluntas tuar-1 -Thy will be done. This makes four pieces one cross. That bolt is a true and perfect surrender of one’s freedom to God.

Now notice first about the left hand — humility. With St. Augustine, we consider a man humble who gladly accepts suffering for God’s sake, and willingly continues in it. Again, a humble man must be reduced to nothing in his own eyes, likewise in those of his fellowmen. He must go forth naked out of all his belongings, out of all that he is. Let men throw dice, if they please, over his very clothing; and let them despise him and make sport of him — it is all welcome to him, because he is nailed to the cross with Christ crucified. Thy whole life must be despised; thou must be regarded as an imbecile; thy opinions must be turned on thee. And when thou sufferest all this and are direfully railed at, thou must not answer back a single word; thou must feel ashamed to say a syllable in thy own defence. Thou must never say:

The man who accuses me is a liar; or this: Thou dost me an injustice. But rather shalt thou love to keep silence, and to think within thee: Ah this is a favor; I am unworthy to suffer all this; my accusers are good and noble men: Ood does me unmerited honor in this visitation: And thou shalt bend thy back and patiently bear thy burden.

The right hand, (to apply our figures of speech in a variety of ways), is disengagement and purity of heart. By this a man is nailed to the cross by willing destitution of all things that are not God, all that may put a spot on the souPs brightness, all joys of the senses. The lower piece is holy obedience, to which we are nailed securely by entire submission to all our superiors in holy Church. This obedience is driven home by the nail of detachment from self-will in everything whatsoever. The cross’s centre, is our going forth out of selfhood; it is resignation under no matter what affliction God or man may lay upon us; suffering willingly for Christ’s sake; and cheerfully ready for the cross at all times.

Perhaps thou mayst protest: Alas, sir, I cannot do this, I am too weak. But I answer thee: In thy soul there are two wills, a higher and a lower, as Christ had His Divine and human wills. Now thy lower will wants always to be free from suffering; but the higher one says with Christ to His Father: “Not what I will but what Thou wilt” (Mark xiv, 36).

The head of the cross is the love of God. Thus the soul rises upward without any interruption from God or man, looking to God in a state of entire abandonment, and saying: “My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?” ( Matt, xxvii, 46). Mayst thou also utter those words with Christ crucified. Our Saviour’s head as He hung dying was without any support, and in His desolate abandonment, His love gave forth those words. Once a good man asked our Lord, why it was that He allowed His friends to suffer so dreadfully. Our Lord answered: “Man is always inclined to harmful satisfaction of the senses; and therefore I restrain him and hinder him in this, so that I alone may become his satisfaction.” The head of Christ, which here may mean love, hung down helplessly, having no support; and that is the universal lot of good men.

Children, turn which way you will, you must carry your cross and hang upon it. To be a good man desirous of coming to God, always means suffering. Some cross or other he must have. If he runs away from one, he will run into another. The man was never born who could preach well enough to disprove that proposition; you cannot escape suffering. Fly this way or that, try this thing or that, suffer its heavier end off of thine; thou wilt sigh with relief, and think thyself at last totally free. But presently God withdraws His aid, and then the weight again crushes bitterly down upon thee with intolerable oppression. Now Christ suffered all this before us in the severest possible pain; and He has drawn after Him in this trial all those whom He most dearly loves. His cross is Elias’s fiery chariot, bearing our prophet upwards to heaven, and from it He casts forth His prophet’s mantel on Eliseus, His disciple. Our Lord does this for us from His cross.

Take an example. A certain sister of our order had often longed to behold our Lord as a little child, and once during her devotions He appeared to her in that form. But the Divine Child was wrapped in a thorny robe. That she might embrace Him, she had to brave the sharp points of many thorns and to suffer bitter pain from them. Thus was she taught, that if any one would enjoy our Lord in close embrace, he must be willing to suffer sharp, piercing pain.

But someone might object: If I am only pure and innocent, all

I should merit any such favors on account of suffering. But I answer: A man who has repented of very grievous sins, may gain extraordinary merit from suffering, and that in several different ways: — nay, his merit may possibly be greater than that of one who had always been innocent. He may be compared to one who would make a great leap: the farther he would leap the farther backwards he goes to get space for a long run before springing into the air. So any man who goes far back from God’s face, that is to say retires into deep humiliation of spirit on account of his sins, will on that account spring forward into God with all the greater force. The more relentlessly one degrades himself in his own eyes — not simply with words, but most truthfully in his deepest soul and because he has been a vile sinner, — the more powerful will be his impulse of love; the more perfectly will he become absorbed in God.

That we may permit ourselves thus to be drawn to Jesus crucified, may He mercifully grant us. And may He enable us to give up willingly all created things for His sake. May He who suffered and died on the cross, exalted high in the air for our sakes so that He might draw all things to Himself — may Jesus crucified exalt us into His company by giving us the grace of holy suffering. Amen.

discouraged by occasional or involuntary faults against this difficult obligation — On the more hidden and painful detachments of perfect souls — Christ’s passion the school of all self-renunciation.