The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 17 of 124

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

And on the last and great day of the festivity, Jesus stood qnd cried: If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. — John vii, 37.

What is the thirst of which our Lord Jesus Christ here speaks? Nothing else but this: W'hen the Holy Ghost enters a soul, that soul feels a fire of love; indeed, a very conflagration of love burns in that soul, causing a fiery thirst after God; that is to say, an interior longing to possess Him. And it often happens that such a soul is mystified and cannot account for its condition, knowing only that it suffers interior emptiness and anguish, and that it loathes all created things.

Three kinds of men experience this thirst, and each kind differently, one kind being beginners, the second those who are making some progress, and the third are perfect, as far as may be in this life. King David says: “As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God!” (Ps. xli, 1). When the hart is driven by the hounds through forests and over mountains, he is burnt with a consuming thirst and longs for water more than any other kind of animal. Now, beginners in the spiritual life, much more than any other class, are pursued by heavy trials and temptations, and they are like the hart hunted by hounds. When a man first turns away from the world and repents of his gross sinfulness, then the seven deadly sins assail him like so many horrible dogs, tormenting him more now, perhaps, than while he was yet a worldling; he was then tempted, indeed, but now he is fairly hunted by his vicious tendencies. Therefore, Solomon teaches: “Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation” (Ecclus. ii, 1). But remember that, according to the violence of thy temptations, so should be the fire of thy thirst for God.

Now, it often happens that the hounds overtake the hart, spring on his flanks and fasten their teeth in him, and he cannot shake them off; and then he runs under the outspreading branches of a tree, which strikes them and breaks their heads, and thus he is released from them. This shows what a devout man may do against his temptations. When they fasten on him, let him run with all his might under the tree of the cross, meditating piously on the passion and death of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. This it is that breaks the heads of his enemies; that is to say, enables him to overcome all temptations. And, again, it may happen that when the big hounds are shaken off, then the hart is attacked by little ones, which snap off little pieces of flesh; and if their attacks are neglected they may cause serious hurt; that is to say, a spiritual beginner, having overcome heavy and grievous temptations, must be watchful against trifling faults, for venial sins can mislead him to this side or that, distract his heart from God, hinder his devotedness to the interior life. These hindrances are such things as idle recreations, vain companionship, vanity in dress, human solace and comfort. Unless he carefully abstain from them, soon his devout way of living grows less earnest, and he loses grace and the spirit of recollection. It often happens that this petty warfare injures a soul, as far as perfection goes, more than did the heavier conflict; in the latter he was energetic in his resistance, for he knew that his enemies directly sought his life; whereas now he fancies he may disregard his lesser foes, because they allure him only to venial faults. Under cover of this delusion they assail him unawares, and we know that a disguised enemy is more dangerous than an open one, though the former be much weaker than the latter. So, therefore, let a man resist all kinds of temptations with equal courage and vigilence. And as the hart, the more he is hunted, the hotter grows his thirst, so the fiercer a man’s temptations are, the more do all and each of them consume his heart with a burning thirst after the love of our Lord, in 'Whom he shall at last find all truth, all joy, all comfort and all righteousness.

When the hunters perceive that the hart is worn out, then the hunt grows tiresome to them, and they call off the hounds and feed and rest them, letting the hart roam at will till his strength is restored and he

Divine things. All that is not God now seems very bitter to the soul, which imagines that the victory is finally and forever won. But it is not so; this is nothing else than an interval of refreshment, granted in preparation for further temptations, all unexpectedly assailing a man, like hounds springing suddenly upon the neck of a hunted beast.

But if the trials are now more severe than ever before, so is the soul stronger to resist them than in previous conflicts. Now, dear children, it is only because of God’s faithful and unbounded love for us, that He allows this terrible ordeal; for it is plain that by so fearful a conflict a man is made glad to run to God, as the hunted beast runs to a fountain of water. A man’s heart, by constantly struggling against his enemies, becomes tormented with yearnings to possess God’s joy and grace in perfect truth and entire security. And all the thirstier he is, all the sweeter shall the waters of life be to him, even here below; and then also hereafter, as he drinks his fill at the fountain head of all joy in the heart of his heavenly Father. Hence all his sufferings seem trifling, in comparison with the comfort he feels in bearing them for God’s sake.

And now that the hart has shaken off and distanced all the hounds, he comes to a clear stream of water; he joyfully plunges down into it and drinks all he wants and is fully refreshed. So it is with the soul at the waters of Divine consolation. When, without Lord’s help, he has driven off his temptations and at last comes to God with all confidence, what shall he do but drink deep of God’s love and joy? And then he is so filled with God, that in his happiness and peace he forgets himself and thinks that he can work great miracles; he is ready joyously to go through fire and water for God, and to face a thousand drawn swords; he fears neither life nor death, neither pleasure nor pain. And so it would seem that he is intoxicated with God’s love.

This is the joy of jubilee. Sometimes such a one weeps for joy; sometimes he laughs, and again he sings. Men about him, whose only guide is natural reason, cannot understand all this, knowing nothing of the wonderful ways of the Holy Spirit with elect souls. Look at this strange conduct, they exclaim; and they at once sit in judgment upon these chosen spirits and harshly condemn them. But meantime these enjoy unspeakable happiness; happiness comes to them from everything it is all one. They rest wholly unconcerned, free and contented. Whatever happens without, the joy of God glows bright within them, a delicious thirst for God rules their souls without intermission, and is as constantly gratified. Some of them die of jubilation, their hearts quite overcome with love for our Lord. For, dear children, it is a mark of God’s greatest work in their souls, that they can no longer endure its bliss and live in the body. Many a one of these favored men has yielded up with such entire abandonment to this wonderful visitation of God, that poor, weak human nature has given way and death has followed.

Dear children, when our Lord sees men thus intoxicated with His spiritual gifts, He acts like a prudent father of a family, whose children, taking advantage of their father’s being in bed asleep, go down into his cellar and drink to excess the good wine he has stored there. When the father wakes up and sees what has happened, he goes out and cut a good, strong switch, and he comes and gives his children a severe whipping, and afterwards he gives them nothing but water to drink till they are perfectly sobered again. So does God deal with His chosen ones. While they drink to excess the delights of His love, He is, as it were, asleep. But presently he punishes them by withdrawing the strong, sweet wine of His joy, for their want of moderation has hindered its benefiting them. And now comfort and peace, and the sweetest sense of God’s presence are gone, and they are as sad as if they never had been joyous; they are now as sadly sober as before they were wildly intoxicated. And when this state begins to darken upon them, they yearn mightily after our Lord; but by this deprivation He leads them once more out of themselves, and frees them more than ever before from all captivity to created things. They are restored to their sober senses and reason; they are moderated and brought down to their own proper level; they learn just what they are and what they can do when left to themselves. A while ago and they were ready to suffer such things for God as anyone might name and away beyond that; and now they cannot undertake the least little thing for God without the greatest difficulty, and if you say a cross word to them they can scarcely bear it, even for God’s sake. In this state of spiritual collapse, they see with perfect clearness just what little good they are capable of, while acting with their own forces and following their own lights. Another effect is this: The abstraction of God’s sensible graces makes them so humble, and so takes away their self-conceit, that they grow amazingly kind and well-disposed toward all men,

And yet you must know that all that God has thus far accomplished in such souls, causing these stormy times there, has happened among the lowest spiritual powers. My dear children, God’s chosen dwelling is not there, nor will He there tarry long, for it is all too narrow a place for Him if He would do a perfect work. His proper place is only in the superior part of the soul, both to dwell and to work. There alone does He find His image and likeness. See Him there and nowhere else, if thou wouldst surely find Him.

And there it is that in all truth, and very quickly, too, an earnest soul finds what it has been seeking with so much unrest. There, in a sort of rapturous ecstasy, the soul’s very self is lifted above all its powers into a spiritual wilderness quite impossible to describe, in whose hidden obscurity it discovers the unspeakable Good, and is absorbed in the Divine unity, so completely as to lose all sense of diversity; multiplicity is lost in unity. Children, when these men return to themselves, they find that God has granted them a most joyous knowledge of diversity,a wisdom otherwise unknown in this life, and born only in soulswho have been thus absorbed in the Divine unity. All of the articles of holy faith now shine clear and distinct one from another. Bright light beams into the soul about the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one true and eternal God. No one knows the Divine Trinity better than these souls, taught by God’s Divine unity. Such is this indescribable darkness, which is yet God’s essential light; such is this desert waste wherein no man finds road or path, for it is traversed in a Divinely supernatural manner.

This obscurity is, therefore, in reality a light; but because it is essentially superior to the nature of the human intelligence it is darkness to it. It is a desert because it is naturally inaccessible to us, and its paths are ways unknown to our nature. Into the midst of this state is the spirit of a man led by God, in a manner wholly incapable of his comprehension. There he drinks deep of the waters of life flowing from the well-spring of the very Deity. Heretofore the waters were bitter and tepid, for they were in the common, open stream; now, like the waters of any bubbling spring, they are sweet and cold. O how sweet are the waters drunk from the fountainhead of God! Into those waters the soul longs to cast itself, to be wholly filled with them and to be immersed in them. But it finds that this is a boon not to be granted in this life.

Meanwhile the soul is absorbed in God, as a summer shower sinks into the bosom of the earth.

Now, dear children, suppose a man arrived at this state; in case he allows his lower spiritual faculties to be idle and useless, then the higher life will profit him nothing. He must use his ordinary faculties according to their nature; otherwise the Spirit of God will depart from him, resulting in the return of the reign of pride, ill-regulated liberty, and intellectual self-conceit. Let such a man continually humble himself in subjection to the will of God, practice entire detachment from created things, hush all sounds of earth from within and without, and, in fact, abound in all the virtues of the ordinary Christian. Then will God continue His intimate union with him and transform him more and more into a Godlike man.

Children, behold in what marvelous ways God leads souls, and how strange a play he makes with them! First, He introduces Himself into their inner powers, so that He gradually absorbs them and they Him, and then they cannot restrain themselves and fall into singular and foolish ways. After that He draws them deeper into Himself and imparts His very Deity, quite differently from His former way, and this sets them rightly ordered in all things. And now the soul may truly say, in the words of the Canticle: “He brought me into the cellar of wine, He set in order charity in me” (Cant, ii, 4). He hath ordered all things well in the soul’s life, leading it across a wonderful desert deep into its own self, showing it there what surpasses all sense and all reason, and what is quite above human experience, because it is a veritable foretaste of life eternal. Behold, dear children, how the gentle, kindly goodness of God is able so to hide His dealings with His chosen ones that, as He makes them perfect, He performs a most marvelous work. His aim is always to draw us to union with Himself in a holy and happy life. He would have us all athirst after His everlasting peace and love, calling to us with a loud, resounding voice: “If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink” living water. He Himself, as it were, thirsts to find a true thirst in our souls, which He quenches by filling us with such sweet and heavenly fullness, that out of us “shall flow rivers of living water” (John vii, 37) unto life eternal. It is as when we are nourished with bodily food; it passes from the stomach into every member of the body, giving strength to all. So does the soul drink a Divine nourishment in this interior communication with God, which spreads Divine love everywhere throughout our faculties, making our

Ood hack to the giver, being opposed to spiritual gluttony — The waters of the pool of healing are the most Precious Blood of Christ.