Johannes Tauler: Divine

“This food of love draws the soul above distinction or difference, beyond resemblance to divine unity. This is what happens to the transfigured spirit.”

Johannes Tauler

When the divine heat of love has drawn out all the moisture, heaviness, unfitness, then this holy food plunges such a one into the life of God. As Our Lord himself said to St Augustine, "I am the food of the strong: believe and feast on me. You will not change me into yourself; rather you will be changed into me".
Sermons, From Our Daily Bread

Love , Food , Soul , Drawing

“God is pure Being, a waste of calm seclusion…much nearer than anything is to itself in the depth of the heart, but He is hidden from all our senses. He is far above every outward thing and every thought, and is found only where thou hidest thyself in the secret place of thy heart, in the quiet solitude where no word is spoken, where is neither creature nor image nor fancy. This is the quiet Desert of the Godhead, the Divine Darkness—dark from His own surpassing brightness, as the shining of the sun is darkness to weak eyes, for in the presence of its brightness our eyes are like the eyes of the swallow in the bright This is the quiet Desert of the Godhead, the Divine Darkness—dark from His own surpassing brightness, as the shining of the sun is darkness to weak eyes, for in the presence of its brightness our eyes are like the eyes of the swallow in the bright sunlight sunlight.”

Johannes Tauler

Sermons, From "Christian Mystics"

God , Secret , Sense , Solitude

“The soul has a hidden abyss,
untouched by time and space,
which is far superior to anything
that gives life and movement to the body.
Into this noble and wondrous ground,
this secret realm,
there descends that bliss of which we have spoken.
Here the soul has its eternal abode.
Here a man becomes so still and essential,
so single-minded and withdrawn,
so raised up in purity,
and more and more removed from all things. . . .
This state of the soul cannot be compared to what it has been before,
for now it is granted to share in the divine life The soul has a hidden abyss, untouched by time and space…Here the soul has its eternal abode itself.”

Johannes Tauler

Sermons

Life , Secret , Soul , Time

“Become a fertile ground for the divine birth. Cherish this deep silence within, nourish it”

Johannes Tauler

Quoted in "Johannes Tauler: Sermons" translated by Maria Shardy
Context: Become a fertile ground for the divine birth. Cherish this deep silence within, nourish it Cherish this deep silence within, nourish it frequently frequently.

Birth , Silence

“The third stage is the transformation to a divine-like existence, into a unity of the created spirit with the very being of the spirit of God”

Johannes Tauler

Sermons, Sermon 3
Context: Now we intend to talk about The transformation to a divine-like existence, into a unity of the created spirit with the very being of the spirit of God - this one can call a conversion to an essentially higher plane the three stages that a person can be at - the lowest, the middle, or the highest. The first stage of an interior virtuous life that leads one directly to close proximity to God happens when a person turns to the marvelous works and signs of inexpressible gifts and effusions of the hidden goodness of God.
Out of this is born a state of soul called jubilatio. The second stage is poverty of spirit and a strange abandonment by God that leaves the spirit tortured and naked.
The third stage is the transformation to a divine-like existence, into a unity of the created spirit with the very being of the spirit of God.
This one can call a conversion to an essentially higher plane.
And one cannot imagine that those who right reach this stage could ever fall away from God.

God

“How can reason possibly grasp that immensity beyond all being where the precious food of the Eucharist is, in some marvellous way, made one with us, drawing us wholly to itself and changing us into itself? It is a union more intimate than any that the human mind can conceive, totally unlike any other change, a union more compatible than a tiny drop of water losing itself in the wine-vat and becoming one with the wine, or that of the rays of the sun made one with the sun's splendour; or the soul with the body, the two together making one person, one being. In this union the soul is lifted above the infirmity of its natural state, its own insufficiency, and there it is purified, transfigured and raised above its own powers, its human operations, its very self. Both being and activities are penetrated through and through by God, formed and transformed in a divine manner, the soul's new birth is accomplished in truth, and the spirit, losing all its native incompatibility, flows into divine union.”

Johannes Tauler

Sermons, From Our Daily Bread

God , Truth , Food , Way