Johannes Tauler: Quotes about the soul

“It is certain that if God is to be
born in the soul
it must turn back to eternity”

Johannes Tauler

Sermons
Context: It is certain that if God is to be
born in the soul
it must turn back to eternity….
It must turn in toward itself with all
is might, must recall itself,
and concentrate all its faculties within itself,
the lowest as well as the highest.
All its dissipated powers must be gathered up into one, because unity is It is certain that if God is to be born in the soul it must turn back to eternity strength.

God , Soul

“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

“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so single-minded and withdrawn,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

“Even then take heart! The Lord is certainly nearby. Hold fast to the support of the true living faith. Things will be fine. But it is unbelievable to the poor soul in its tortured state that this unbearable darkness could ever turn into light.”

Johannes Tauler

Sermons, Sermon 3

Faith , Soul , Support , Light

“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