Thursday, 10 October 2013

John Tauler, "Surely this is a great mystery; but I will explain it to you."


Monastic Office of Vigils, John Tauler


27th Week in Ordinary Time
Thursday

First Reading Isaiah 37:21-35
Responsory          Ps 20:7-8; 121:2
Some put their trust in chariots or horses, but our trust is in the name of the Lord. +They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand firm.
V. My help shall come from the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. + They will collapse ..

Second Reading
From a conference by John Tauler
Second Reading From a conference by John Tauler
Spiritual Conferences, Colledge and Jane, 241-242


Our Lord goes on to say: “Would a father give his children a stone when they had asked him for fish?”
Then he says: “If you, sinful as you are, know how to give the right thing to your children, how much better will your heavenly Father do, and best of all for those who ask him?”
He who is the Word of truth said that things will be given to those who ask. Then how can it be that so many people do ask, and keep on asking all their lives, and yet are never given this living bread? How can this be, when God is so unutterably merciful, so unstinting, when he gives and forgives as no human being knows how, when he is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive? These people say the same holy prayers, the Our Father, our Lord’s own prayer, many psalms and the holy collects inspired by the Holy Ghost, and still they are not given what they ask for. Surely this is a great mystery; but I will explain it to you.

The hearts of these people, the depths of their souls, their love and their desires, are possessed by the love of something alien from God. It does not matter what it is: the dead or the living, themselves or other people. Whatever it is, it possesses and fills the place which the true love of God, the true living bread, should occupy, so that it cannot come to them however much they ask and pray for it.
Master Hugh said: “People can no more live without loving that they can live without souls.” It is up to all of us to see for ourselves what we love, because if one sort of love is to enter our hearts, the other must go out. Saint Augustine said: “Empty yourselves so that you may be filled.”
In another place our Lord said that he is the door through which we must pass. 

When we pray we must knock on three places on this door if we are to be truly let in. We must knock with all devotion upon the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, the heart that was opened to us in love, the side that was pierced. We must go in there with all devotion, acknowledging that we are the poorest of the poor, that we are nothing; and like the poor man Lazarus before the rich man’s gate, we must beg for the crumbs of grace. He will give us his grace divinely and supernaturally. 
Next we must knock upon the holy open wounds of his sacred hands, and pray to him to give us knowl­edge of himself, to enlighten us and lift us up to him. 
Lastly we must knock upon the door of his sacred feet, and ask him for a love that is divine and true, a love that will unite us with him completely, so that we are submerged and wrapped up in him.
May our loving God help us all so to ask, seek and knock that we may be let in.

Responsory          Mt 7:7.11
Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; + knock and the door will be opened to you.
V. If you who are evil know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. + Knock ...

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