The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 123 of 124

First Sermon for the Anniversary of the Dedication of a Church

This day I must abide in thy house. — Luke xix, 5.

Dear children, we are celebrating the anniversary of the dedication of the mother church of the diocese, the great cathedral, and this solemnity was observed yesterday in many places in this city of Cologne. As I said yesterday, so say I today: all the devotions and outward observances of holy Church point inward to men’s souls. There it is that in the best reality a temple is dedicated to God, and there should constantly take place a Divine renewal of our life. All external rites call us away to perfect interior festivities with God, call us, admonish us, and prepare us. Church dedication means giving to God a new temple, and so must we do in our souls,. our nature denying itself, and curing itself of all attachments, as, for example, those we cherish for friends and relatives. All must be given up that comes from our outward natural life, and all that ministers natural joy to our senses and faculties in every way and work. To this -end bodily mortifications serve, such as the various fasts and vigils we are able to endure. But, children, you are not aware of how cunningly nature seeks her own good, and how often she causes one to enjoy pleasures where he had only thought of serving some necessity.

The reasonable man must earnestly set to work to master the animal man that is in him. But at the outset of this, one feels deep pain, he begins to discipline his disorderly appetites, as in eating and drinking, seeing and hearing, talking and acting. Children, if this hostile attitude of our nature were but fully set right by the death of animal pleasure, it would be a sweet odor of sacrifice before God. As the

Apostle says: “For we are the good odor of Christ unto God”

(II. Cor. ii, 16). When these hindrances of thy corrupt nature are removed, then may it be said of thee: “Who maketh the clouds thy chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the winds” (Ps. ciii, 3). The meaning is, that when one is set free from earthly ends and purposes by real mortification, then does God come into close company with him and give three wings, as it were, on which he may be said to fly — the wings of the dove, the wings of the eagle, and the wings of the wind.

The wings of the dove mean the holiness of those purified men who live in simplicity of heart, devoid of suspiciousness, free from rash judgment, kind, quiet natured, keeping the meekness of Christ ever before their eyes. Our Lord guides their dove-like flight ever upward, sanctifying their desires and filling them with His gentle spirit. The wings of the eagle carry souls so high that ordinary mortals can scarcely follow them with their eyes. They are interior spirits, soaring aloft in wisdom and in love, bearing with them all their outward and inward faculties, passing beyond the harmful reach of the life of the senses. And the souls that have Christ’s wings of the wind are yet more spiritual. The wind is very swift, and blows thou knowest not whence or whither. And so there are souls who are the most perfect in all spiritual things, transformed in God in the mysterious ways of the hidden life, exceeding sense and reason to understand. Such a soul wings its way back to the fountain head of its existence, God, its created life merged in the uncreated, its light joined to and, as it were, extinguished in the infinite light that is. God: for all

Look, if thou darest, straight at the sun at noonday, and presently its blazing disc is a dark spot in thy troubled eye. Thus it is with our soul’s eyes and the brightness of God’s spirit. A heathen king said: “God is darkness in the soul after all light has shone; a man knows Him in the unknowingness of his spirit.” It is a shame to us that a heathen, and a heathen king besides, should understand this. What are we Christians about?

We read in the Gospel of this feast of the dedication of a church, that Zachaeus, the publican, was anxious to behold our Lord, but could not on account of the crowd, for he was short of stature. What, then, did he do? He climbed up a sycamore tree. So must we do. We long to behold the Being who has created such a disturbance in our souls, but we are too short of stature; that is to say, too petty, mean, and cowardly. What then? We shall climb up above our pettiness, and rise high over our imperfections by mortification of the life of the senses, repression of our depraved natural inclinations. Let us become interior men, for among such does God walk in familiar companionship.

But thus to repress nature is utter folly to the wise ones of this world — a man is a mere idiot in their eyes if he leads a hard life in order to come closer to God and to see Him: and these are men who own and read a hundred marks’ worth of learned books. They think pious men are utter fools. But, children, I say to you in all truth, that is the foolishness that God honors, as our Savior taught: “I

Many grateful revelations were granted St. Hildegarde illustrating this high spiritual flight; they are shown in some pictures in her book, copies of two of which are in our Sisters’ refectory. One shows what the fear of God is — a blue-mantled figure all covered with eyes, and yet without head or face. But this is not fear in its common meaning, it being rather a careful self-searching in the light of God’s justice, our soul scrutinizing with a thousand eyes, as it were, all our words and works and thoughts. The figure has no face and head, to show self-forgetfulness, total indifference to human love or hate, praise or blame. Nor has it any hands; and this shows detachment from all selfishness whatsoever.

The other picture is a form clothed in a white garment, with blue fringes, standing barefoot, hands uplifted, but without any head. Above it God is represented in pure gold, His being streaming down upon the figure so as to take the place of its head. This picture represents entire poverty of spirit. God is that soul’s only head; the whiteness of the garment is single-heartedness towards God, together with total self-renunciation. The bareness of the feet means following Christ in strict imitation of His detachment. The blue fringes mean steadfastness in well doing unto the end. The uplifted hands mean perfect readiness to accept and to do God’s will in all things, whether in acting or in suffering.

One may compare this to the sycamore tree, or that elevation of spirit above worldly things so necessary if one would see God in time and eternity.

The Lord hurried Zachaeus down from the tree, saying: “This day I must abide in thy house.” That is, go down very low and learn thy own nothingnes in being and in doing; it is thus I must have thy soul prepared for My coming. And in truth, whilst one is still up in the tree, although he sees God’s everlasting truth, yet it is not with perfect clearness; his nature, with its inclinations, is still struggling against grace; he is not arrived at entire self-abasement. Be well assured that whatsoever nature does is always stained with some faults — it cannot be entirely perfect. Hence men whose spirituality is of mingled nature and grace, God calls down from their sycamore tree into a state of more thorough self-renunciation. And our Savior said: “This day I must abide in thy house.” This day means the day of eternity, and tells the promise of salvation — which may God grant to all of us. Amen.

than one’s outward profession possibly can be — A perfect Christian’s heart is a chronicle of Cod’s truth in words of love — The prayer of faith