SERMON XXIX
On the Feast of the Twelve Apostles
On the life of men who serve God, and desire to please Him in
Perfect Love. How it comes to pass that so few men are really
spiritual.
Si dilegitis me, mandata mea servate.
"If ye love Me, keep My
commandments."
St John tells us in his Gospel, and also proves
to us, that as our dear Lord had loved His own that were in the world, so He
loved them unto the very end, giving them many proofs of His consoling love,
which He showed to them, especially in word and deed, at the Last Supper, of
which He so earnestly desired to partake with them. He exhorted them also to
that love which they justly owed to Him; and because they could only truly show
it by keeping His commandments, He would pray to His Heavenly Father to send
and give them another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, Who would abide with
them for ever, and Whom the world could not receive because it hath neither
seen Him (Jesus) nor known Him.
Therefore, dear children, I will once more speak
of love, because it is always most sweet and pleasant to speak of it; but much
sweeter is it to taste and experience it. Now God commands all those who are
dear to Him, to show their love to Him by keeping His commandments: therefore
he who openly breaks them, or does not keep them, cannot love Him. It is plain
to all that God hates those who live in sin; therefore I will not say any more
about them; but I will speak, as well as I can, of the life of those who serve
God in the highest love.
Those who wish to love God must keep His
commandments; that is, they must be ready to do the Will of God, and to have no
will of their own; but must be able to say in truth, "Not my will but Thine be
done." God's Will is true love; and true love has no love for self, but loves
self only for the sake of those who are loved. Three things are needed for
this. First, we must diligently keep guard over our outer senses, so that we
may learn to close and to keep careful watch over the gates of our five senses,
resisting all irregular desires, overcoming them at once, always watching them
closely, and never giving way to them.
The second thing we have to do is to learn to die
to all inner delights, our own ways and modes of living, not consenting to them
in any way, and especially guarding ourselves against these five spiritual
gates of hell: our own free will or love, satisfaction or presumption, our own
spiritual delights, our own judgment, and our own wisdom.
Thirdly, a loving soul must have its daily work
and discipline towards God and towards self, that it may offer itself, out of
pure love, as a living sacrifice unto God, in perfect fear, before all men.
This takes place in such marvellous love, that it cannot well be expressed in
words; but we ought rather to try it and to taste it, for it surpasses all the
powers of nature and sense. For the soul overflows with the freedom of the
spirit with which it is endowed, and goes to the Heavenly Father, and unites
itself with Him, as far as it can, by the absolute annihilation of self, to His
high and blessed praise. It yields itself wholly to Him, in a fathomless
Nothingness, in the Abyss of His Godhead, and beseeches Him to make it fruitful
in His service; and, as He has loved and chosen it from all eternity, that He
will bring to pass in it, and in all creatures, that for which He has created
them, according to His most precious and sweet Will, whatever it may be,
without any self-choosing. Thus the soul desires to be an example and pattern
of righteousness and mercy, if so it pleases Him, and not that it should earn
condemnation by its works. It therefore lifts itself up in prayer to God for
strength to carry out His Blessed Will.
From the Father it goes to the Eternal Wisdom,
and yields itself up in true simplicity, ready to be nothing, to know nothing,
to see nothing, to taste nothing, of self, but that all it does, or leaves
undone, may be to His praise and in accordance with His dear Will. It beeches
Him to perfect in it and in all creatures, according to His Divine Wisdom, all
that He sees right and is most praiseworthy in His sight and is the most
fruitful for all men. It does not regard self, but is content with all things
in true simplicity, and waits for the working of God. It believes and expects,
nothing doubting, that He will do it, hoping that all comes from God. Then,
whatever happens to the soul to the praise of God, it accepts as from the Hand
of God. It neither strives to prove or experience anything, but simply does all
that it believes to be His Will; not sure of it but believing it. If the soul
were to follow its own ideas, things might often seem opposed to its integrity;
but it must not do thus, but must rest in faith and in perfect confidence on
God. Thus God is exalted in it according to His Wisdom, and its understanding
is abased. This discipline is also cherished and used by the loving soul in
small and insignificant things. Thus it is purified by the Wisdom of God in
true simplicity, and comes thus to the unscrutable Divinity in the Darkness of
His Obscurity, wherein He is exalted and incomprehensible to all creatures. For
He is a pure Being, to Whom the created powers of man cannot attain, though
they may be united with Him by faith, hope and love.
Now, when all this has been completed, the loving
soul goes to the Holy Ghost, Which proceeds both from the Father and the Son,
and submits itself to Him, uniting itself so completely with Him, that it is
exalted above all created things, and rises above faith, hope and love in God.
It is united with this love, far above all gifts in the Abyss of His
Uncreatedness, so deeply and so closely, that but few created beings can attain
to it by the understanding. For the union and the freedom which exist are
incomprehensible to all creatures; and thus man attains a little of the
Humanity of Christ, if we may so speak, and is not ashamed, but has fellowship
and union with Christ; so that, when he desires to ask anything of the Father,
he takes Christ with him to pray the Father. This takes place especially in the
Blessed Sacrament; and thus they offer themselves together to the Eternal
Father, in the same power and fruitfulness of the Holy Church, in which Christ
offered Himself upon the Cross saying: "Into Thy Hands I commend My Spirit."
Then the man says again in different love: "O Lord, be merciful unto me, as Thy
Father was merciful unto Thee, and help me to pray that the Will of the Holy
Trinity may be done in me, according to the measure of my miserable
imperfections, as perfectly as it was done in Thee; and let me be one with Thee
in the fear of the Holy Church. O Lord, Thou hast suffered once, and hast
redeemed the world; Thou canst not therefore suffer any more; but I desire to
suffer in Thy place. Therefore spare me not, as Thy Father spared Thee not; for
my heart is ready for all that may seem good to Thee in time and in eternity. O
Lord, Thou knowest how I can most praiseworthily thank Thee and be helpful to
all men. Therefore, O Lord, command Thou me." Thus we trust all to God, that
all shall be to the glory of God; but, before his soul is able to offer itself
up, it must travel by many an unknown, painful and desert way.
God comes to those who have passed along these
two ways, and leads in the loving soul Himself and instructs it in the third
way of love; and thus it becomes truly united with God; of which something has
already been said. Alas! alas! that so few men are truly spiritual. This arises
from the fact that men will not walk in this way and others like it, and
therefore they are not fruitful before all men. a man who wished thus to devote
himself to the commands of love ought to be more fruitful and more useful than
ten other men who also wished to serve God, but in unguarded outbursts of
impatience; not in simplicity, but in outward active service; not in
contemplative love, as has been said.
It is thus that men come from the sleep of
darkness into the True Light. For now fresh grace is offered to us; and, if we
do not lay hold of it, it will flee from us and vanish away, how we shall not
know. Therefore let us all unite in calling upon God for real simplicity and
humility, that from the bottom of our hearts we may humble and despise
ourselves, and that we may look upon ourselves as the most despised, the most
rejected and the most unworthy of men to be found in this world; so that all
who see us will shake their heads at us and mock us, and we are so unworthy
that all creatures will lift themselves up against us. Thus we may truly learn
to die to our own wills, and also learn to keep ourselves free from self, both
outwardly and inwardly, and learn further to offer up ourselves to the glory of
God, doing the Will of God, not drawing back again, or choosing for ourselves,
either in time or eternity. That we may do thus, not to please ourselves, but
from the desire to be well-pleasing unto God, as I have attempted to show, may
God grant. Amen.