The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 96 of 124

Sermon for the Feast of St. Barbara, or for That

Behold my beloved speaketh to me: Arise, make haste, My love, My dove, My beautiful one, and come. — Cant ii, 10.

If any one would know whether or not he is a chosen friend, a beloved spouse of our Lord, let him mark well the signs I will give: if he has them, then without doubt he is the elect of God.

The first is, that he is at peace with our Lord in such a way that no created thing can give him interior contentment. The psalmist says: “His place is in peace” (Ps. lxxv, 3). The chosen bride of Christ must have renounced all things. Things may come and go round that soul: divine peace reigns within it. It feels itself able by Him and through Him to renounce all.

Thou mayst ask: with whom must I have peace? I answer, with the world, with the evil one, and with thy own flesh. And how? With the world, because thou carest not what the world may do to thee, give thee, or take from thee: herewith comes perfect patience. Peace with or rather from the evil one. To that a man can scarcely ever come, for the demon strives against him always; he meddles with all our doing and our not doing, for he would hinder us. Now a man can in no way resist the fiery darts of the evil one so efficaciously, as with interior, fervent prayer. This fights fire with fire, and drives the devil out headlong, with all his deceits. Therefore, as soon as one is aware of the demon’s attempts to disturb his peace of soul, let him give himself up instantly to earnest prayer, and pay no heed to the temptations that assail him: nothing worse can happen to Satan. Hereby is the soul freed from his hindrance. It is related that the devil once cried out to St. Bartholomew: “Ah, thou burnest me with thy prayer,

But if a man shall obtain this mastery over his body, three things are needed. The first is to mortify thy body in eating, drinking, sleeping and lodging. Watch it carefully, and when thou seest it evilly inclined put a bridle on it, and scourge it with a sharp discipline. The second is this: thou must wean thyself from all thirst for worldly affairs and cares of whatever kind. Let the dead bury their dead, and do thou follow after God. Have thy friends died? Or are they come to thee— or gone from thee? Hast thou gained honors? Hast thou been given riches? If thou rejoicest or if thou mournest over such things, then thou hast not gained the mastery. A certain saint says: “What thou rejoicest over, what thou mournest over, about the same shalt thou be judged.” St. Paul says: “If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ” (Bom. vi, 8). A dead man cares not whether thou praisest or revilest him, whether thou givest him or takest away from him. A dead or a dying man will not give thee a penny for all gold and jewels, or all possible glory, joy, or friends. Once there came to an old father of the desert an own brother of his, and said to him: “Dear brother, I am in great straits, for my wagon, containing valuable goods, has fallen into the water; help me to draw it out;” and he wept pitifully and begged earnestly. The old hermit said: “Ask thy brother that still lives in the world to help thee.” But he answered: “That brother is dead for a year past.” And the hermit replied: “So am I dead this twenty years back.” And he let him go, and concerned himself no further about his losses.

The third necessary thing is to cultivate an upright spirit in God, that is to say a continual sense of God’s presence, and realization of His sovereign majesty. In very truth, if thou wilt have the creator thou must surrender the creature — it cannot be otherwise. The less of creatures, the more of the creator. Is not that an advantageous exchange? Thus says St. Augustine: “The man who is not content with possessing God, is indeed all too avaricious; what canst thou desire that thou mayst not find in Him? Think of anything that heart can desire, thou shalt find it a thousand fold in Him — love, confidence, truth, consolation, unbroken recollectedness, all this is supremely in Him, surpassing all measure and manner. Desirest thou beauty? He is the all beautiful. Riches? He is a divine treasury. Power? He is almighty. All thou mayst think of having is to be had in Him in simple perfection. The infinite, and Eternal God.” Therefore expel every thought of creatures with all the comfort they may give thee. Say this: Away from me! Thou are not what I seek, or love, or think about. Say this to all honors, riches, pleasures, friendships. Away with all of you out of my soul; fly away and be gone, for I care not at all for you.

How does it happen that God is so strange to thee? Why does His blessed presence pass so quickly out of thy thoughts? There can be no other reason than that thy spirit is not free and empty; thou art encumbered with created things, and thy soul is full of their images. Says St. Bernard: “Contemplation is nothing else than the soul’s cleaving to God in forgetfulness of transitory things.” And St. Augustine: “Whosoever is free from earthly thoughts, cleaves to the things of God.” And he says again: “O good Jesus, my soul longs unspeakably for Thy love. I beg that I may be rapt away into contemplation of Thee; that I may be absorbed in Thy cross, and in the holy sweetness of Thy humanity, so that I may withstand the vanity of this world and its allurements. I long to be lifted up into heaven, to comprehend the holy mystery of the God-head; I beg to increase in spiritual gifts, so that I may contemplate Thy divine Trinity; that I may see Thy divine will in all my works; and that I may be bound to Thee in Thy own bands of love. And if it happens that I am now and then dropped down to the first or second degree, grant that I may not have too much labor to rise upward again; and that when I see and hear earthly things, I may not dwell in them but instantly die to them, and live to Thee alone.”

Be sure that if thou wert emptied of thoughts and images of creatures, thou couldst have God present to thy mind without intermission: He could not keep Himself away from thee; neither earth nor heaven could hold Him back, if He found thee emptied to receive Him. He has sworn it, He must keep His word, He must fill thy soul thou wilt, thou must make up thy mind to lack God. That thou deprivest Him of thyself and thy love, is a little thing; but O how great a thing does He hold back from thee, namely His own infinite, divine self. It once happened that a beautiful white woman gave birth to a child that was as black as a Moor, and this great misfortune was told to Master Albertus Magnus. Master Albertus searched about her house, and he found a picture of a Moor that this woman had gazed intently upon while pregnant with her child. “Woman,” said he, “I have found, the father of thy child.” He proved he was right; for he took a hen, and he placed it and kept it before the picture of a hawk; and when the hen had hatched out her chickens, they all were formed like the hawk. Thus from divine pictures in the mind, all our actions are born divine; and from the pictures of creatures, all are formed after this pattern.

The fourth is this: thou shalt keep thy senses strictly under yoke, and hold a stiff restraint upon them. Thou shalt see things as if thou sawest them not. Thou shalt never open eye or ear to any vain sight or sound; thou shalt never open thy mouth except to benefit thy neighbor. Thou shalt keep hand and foot and every member in strict control, and securely guarded, so that nothing whatever may happen except what is according to God. Says St. Augustine: “May I die and may I not die.” This means that we shall crush to death the depravity of nature and of the senses, so that we may enjoy the true life of the soul in God. Thus it is that God gains the mastery over us; and, without doubt, that gives us the mastery over ourselves. May God grant us this favor. Amen.

roots of vice — Recollection is a test of true spirituality — Alternating thoughts between Christ’s passion and His father’s attributes.