The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 43 of 124

Second Sermon for Low Sunday

And now glorify Thou Me, O Father. — John xvii, 5.

As our beloved Saviour uttered these words, the evangelist tells us that He lifted up His eyes to Heaven, thus showing us how we should raise our eyes and hands and hearts and all our powers upward to Heaven, and with Him and in Him and through Him offer our prayers to God. The homage that the Son of God paid His heavenly Father was the greatest of His works on earth — an incomprehensible mystery, far surpassing all human understanding, known only to the Holy Ghost. St. Anselm and St. Augustine say that prayer is an ascension of the soul in God.

Children, rich men come to you and give you — as you may be poor and needy and sick — five or six pennies, and agree with you for many genuflections and perhaps a hundred Pater Nosters in return. What the eternal God thinks of this kind of barter I know not; only this I say: When you pray, turn away from yourself in all sincerity, lift up your soul above all created things, and turn your thoughts to God alone; do this in the inmost depths of your being. Sink thy soul into God’s infinite spirit, abandoning thyself to Him in all thy faculties, high and low, all thy senses and understanding, in order that thou mayst be entirely united to Him; and do this very interiorly. By this kind of prayer thou shalt attain to something beyond all methods and practices of devotion. And when thou art placed thus with God, then offer all the prayers to which thou art obligated, or that others have asked of thee and that God wills thee to offer. And be well assured, that as one penny is to a hundred thousand golden marks, so are all external forms of prayer compared to this prayer of thy inner soul.

For it is real union with God; it is the absorption and melting away of the created spirit of man into the uncreated Spirit of God.

Children, if this kind of prayer may be made in company with prayer of the lips and tongue, then join them together without hesitation; and, besides, thou mayst have promised to offer vocal prayers, or thy vows may require thee to do so. But as thou prayest with thy lips, be sure to do with thy thoughts what Moses did with his flocks — lead them all into the wilderness. But if any of thy particular methods of prayer hinder, or any outward occupations interfere with this interior prayer of the spirit, set them all on one side, and I will take the responsibility; unless, indeed, these happen to be appointed thee by lawful authority. Vocal prayer of all kinds is good, just as the straw is good to ripen the wheat. Thus Christ taught “The true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth.” (John iv, 23.) It is in the spirit of a man that all his outer devotions are perfected; and if that perfecting of the external prayer by the interior spirit has not yet taken place in thee, then begin diligently to bring it about; for one moment of sincere and inward prayer is worth all external devotions whatever that are devoid of it — all that ever were offered from the time of Adam till now.

Behold this church and the many parts that go to make it compelte — foundation and walls and stones — and you know that it is all built for the interior life of prayer, to aid men in offering real and fruitful prayer to God; and if it served not that purpose it might as well instantly be swept out of existence. Our Lord once said to His Father: “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” (John xvii, 4.) And He did not refer to His work in time, but rather in eternity, for He had yet much to accomplish in time: He was to suffer and die and rise again from the dead. He meant His work for all time and for all eternity. It is so with men whose spiritual life is rightly guided; for their outward work in time is extended in spirit into eternity, namely, in God’s Spirit, in whom they pray and live and labor, and in whom they have died to themselves. No man can be transformed until he ceases to be what he has been. If he would pray and work in the Spirit, he must be born again where the Son is born of the Father, namely, in the inmost depths of the Deity; there he is absorbed, without form and image, his soul, as it were, stripped of forms and images and all methods. Such a state of prayer obtains all things, and such men pray the Father for the Son — that is to say, for the extension of His kingdom; just as before the Son had prayed His Father for them.

You ask: How can they pray the Father for the Son? I answer that our Lord taught us to pray that God’s name might be hallowed. These man, therefore, pray that it may be made known and reverenced everywhere and dearly loved on earth, just as He wills it to be honored in Heaven and in all eternity, and that His precious passion and death and merits may be made fruitful. And they pray, besides, for all the Christian people, and their prayer is always heard. They accept, furthermore, all happenings of life as sent from God, and receive them with all peace of mind; they feel neither prosperity nor adversity. Joy or pain is all the same to them, one as gladly accepted as the other. And in this there is great merit.

Our Saviour also prayed: “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee.” (John xvii, 21.) Now, this union is brought about in two ways, for it is external and internal, by intermediate influences or without them, in spirit and in nature. But this is sometimes erroneously understood, for the Divinity has no accidents; nor can We understand how we are united to It. But this is no wonder; for can we understand how the human body and soul are united? How can the soul act in the hands and feet? If this is incomprehensible, no wonder we cannot understand how the human soul is joined into unity with God.

But we know that those who come to the state we are considering act in time and outwardly, and yet their act extends into eternity. Their created life is projected into the uncreated life, their multiplicity into simplicity of being. Amid unrest they enjoy peace, and with deep longing they pass into the depths of God, drawing with them all things that concern them, being thereby made eternally in Him as He would know them and love them to be. This is to come nearer to God than ordinary prayer can bring the soul — very much nearer. But to this state those cannot attain, whose spiritual life has been developed in exercises framed by natural reason alone; nor those who have been foolishly self-guided; least of all those who have lived in the enjoyments of the senses. A venerable spiritual teacher formerly discoursed to you on this subject, and you have misunderstood him, for you took his meaning in a temporal sense, and he was instructing you from the eternal point of view. Perhaps I have gone beyond bounds; though as God sees it, it is not so. At any rate, you will forgive me, dear children, and I will endeavor to do better in future. God grant that all this be so. Amen. > £ c ' ^

is but an illusion: the soul is being tried by withdrawal of sensible fervor — This is restored by patient waiting upon God — Remarks on the friends and foes of Jesus among the Jews, and in our own day.