Greco-Christian stream·Rhineland Mystics·Heinrich Suso·Chapter XXXIV.

Chapter XXXIV.

Of the joys with which God recompenses in this present life those who suffer for Him.

On a joyful Easter-day the Servitor was once in very blithesome mood, and as he sat for a short time, according to his custom, in the re- pose of contemplation, he desired earnestly to hear from God what meed of delights they shall receive from Him in this life who have borne manifold sufferings for His sake. Whereupon, being rapt in ecstasy, a light shone into his soul from God to this effect: — Let all who suffer

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with detachment rejoice, for their patience shall be gloriously rewarded ; and as they have been here below an object of pity to many, even so shall many rejoice eternally at the deserved praise and everlasting honour which shall be theirs. They have died with Me, and they shall also rise again with Me in gladness. Three special gifts I will give them, so precious that no one can reckon up their value. First, I will give absolute power to their wishes in heaven and on earth, so that whatever they wish shall come to pass. Secondly, I will give them My divine peace, which neither angel, nor devil, nor man, nor any other creature can take away from them. Thirdly, I will so in- wardly kiss them through and through, and so lovingly embrace them, that I in them and they in Me, and we together, shall abide eternally, one undivided unity for ever. And since long waiting and praying are painful to restless hearts, this love shall not be withheld from them during this short present hour of life, which lasts but for a moment, but it shall begin even now, and be enjoyed eternally, so far as man's mortal nature can in each case more or less support it. These glad tidings filled the Servitor with THE REWARDS OF SUFFERING. 153 joy; and when he came to himself again, he sprang up, and began to laugh so heartily that the chapel in which he was reechoed to the sound, and he said within himself joyously : — Let him who has suffered come forward and complain. God knows, I can declare that as to myself, methinks I have never had any thing at all to suffer. I know not what suffering is ; but I know well what joy and bliss are. Power to wish and to obtain is given me; a thing which many erring hearts must be without. What want I more? Then he turned his thoughts to the eternal Truth, and said : — Ah ! eternal Truth, show me now this hidden mys- tery, so far as words can tell it, for it is a truth of which many blinded men are altogether ig- norant. This mystery was inwardly manifested to him thus : — Mark those who have paid due .attention to the breaking away from creatures, — in other words, to that death to self and all things with which a man must begin. Alas ! there are not many such. The mind and thoughts of these men have so passed away into God, that they know nothing, as it were, of them- selves, save only that they view themselves and all things in their primal fountain-head;

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and therefore they have the same pleasure and complacency in each several thing which God does, as if God stood by unconcerned with it and inactive, and it were granted to them to carry out each thing according to their own mind; and thus it is that their will is absolute in might, for heaven and earth serve them, and every creature is subject to them, in what each does or leaves undone. Such persons feel no sorrow of heart about any thing ; for I only call that pain and sorrow of heart which the will with full deliberation wishes to be freed from. Externally, indeed, they have a sense of plea- sure and pain like other people, and it is more intense perhaps in them than others, because of their great tenderness ; but in their inmost souls it finds no abiding- place, and exteriorly they remain firm against impatience. They are filled to the full even in this life, so far as this is possible, owing to their detachment from self,, and hence their joy is complete and stable in all things. For in the divine essence, into which their hearts have passed away and become merged, — that is, supposing they have not gone astray from the right path, — neither pain nor sorrow finds place, but only peace and joy. If, however, thy own frailty entices thee to commit THE REWARDS OF SUFFERING. 155 sin, from which pain and sorrow justly spring np for the sinner, and if thou committest sin, then, and then only, thou wilt find a flaw in thy happiness. But if thou avoidest sin, and goest out of thyself in this respect, and passest away into that in which thou canst have neither suf- fering nor sorrow — since pain is not pain to thee there, nor suffering suffering, but all things are unmingled peace — then it is well with thee in very truth. And all this comes to pass because their self-will is lost and gone. For these persons are of themselves driven onward with a longing thirst towards God's will and His justice; and they find such a sweet savour in God's will, and they so delight in it, and take such pleasure in all that He ordains concerning them, that they have no wish nor desire for any thing else. This, however, must not be understood as if they were forbidden to ask things of God and to pray to Him; for it is God's will that we pray to Him. But it is to be understood of the due and rightful going forth out of our own judgment into the will of the supreme God- head, as has been said. Now there lies in this a hidden difficulty, against which many stumble, and it is this. Who knows, they say, whether it is God's will? See now. God is a super-

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essential good, and He is more interiorly pre- sent to every individual thing than that thing can be to itself; and against His will nothing can happen, nor can any thing exist for an in- stant. Therefore they must be miserable who are always struggling against God's will and desiring to do their own will, if they could. They have the kind of peace which is in hell, for they are always in sadness and heaviness. On the contrary, a soul stripped of self has God and peace at all times present to it, in adversity as well as in prosperity ; for if He is truly there who does all and is all, how can the sight of their own sufferings be grievous to them, since in them they see God, find God, make use of God's will, and know nothing of their own will? not to speak of the consoling illuminations and heavenly delights with which God often secretly sustains His suffering friends. These persons are, as it were, in heaven. What happens to them or does not happen to them, what God does in all creatures or does not do, all turns to their advantage. And thus he who can bear suffer- ing well receives in this world a portion of the reward of his sufferings ; for he finds peace and joy in all things, and after death everlasting life awaits him. HIS SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER. 157 Chapter XXXY. Of the Servitor's spiritual daughter. a Filia confide," — Be of good heart, daugh- ter (Matt. ix. 22). The Servitor had at this time a spiritual daughter, of the Order of Friars Preachers, in an enclosed convent at Tosse.* Her name was Elizabeth Staglin, and she lived a very holy life exteriorly, and was of an an- gelic disposition within. The noble and ener- getic way in which she turned herself with her whole heart and soul to God set her free en- tirely from all those vain things which cause so many persons to neglect their eternal salvation. All her diligence was directed towards obtain- ing spiritual instruction, that she might thus be guided to a blessed and perfect life, the one end and object of all her wishes. She wrote down whatever she met with that pleased her, and seemed calculated to aid herself and others in the acquisition of divine virtues ; and she acted in this like the industrious bees, which bring back sweet honey collected from many different flowers. In the convent where she lived among the sisters as a mirror of every virtue, she composed, * Thoss, near Winterthur, in Switzerland,

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notwithstanding her bodily infirmities, a large book, containing, among other things, an ac- count of the blessed lives which the deceased holy sisters had led, and the great marvels God had wrought in them. It is a book well suited to excite good-hearted persons to devotion.* This blessed daughter came to hear of the Servitor of the Eternal Wisdom, and God in- spired her with great devotion to his manner of life and teaching. She drew from him secretly the way in which he broke through created things to arrive at God, and she wrote it down, as has been already related. At the first beginning of her conversion to God she came across a great many deep intel- lectual views regarding the pure Godhead, the nothingness of all things, detachment from self, abstraction of the mind from all sensible forms, and such -like high things; and they were clothed in beautiful language, and were very- pleasant to reflect upon. But there lay con- cealed beneath them something hurtful to simple-minded beginners like her ; for she was quite ignorant of the necessary distinctions * Henry Murcr lias extracted many of these lives from the Chronicles of the convent at Thoss, and inserted them in his Jlelcctla San eta. HIS SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER. 159 which ought to be made, inasmuch as the words were capable of being taken in a spiritual or a natural sense, according to the disposition of those who used them. These doctrines were good in themselves ; but they were insufficient for her instruction. She therefore wrote to the Servitor, asking him to help her, and guide her along the right path. Nevertheless, as she had already tasted of the pleasure which is to be found in these doctrines, she prayed him to pass over the common ordinary kind of instruction, and to write to her something about the above- mentioned high subjects. The Servitor answered her thus: — Good daughter, if thou askest me concerning high things through curiosity, in order to become acquainted with them, and to be able to talk well about spiritual matters, what I have to say to thee will need but a few words. Take not too much pleasure in them, for they may easily lead thee into dangerous errors. True bliss lies not in beautiful words, but in good works. If, however, thou askest about these things in order to put them in practice, my answer is, Let alone for the present these deep questions, and attend to those only which are suitable for thee. Thou seemest to me to be as yet a young unexercised

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sister, and therefore it will be more profitable to thee, and the like of thee, to hear about the first beginnings of the spiritual life, both how it ought to be begun and what exercises are ap- propriate to it ; and also about good and holy- examples, as, for instance, how this and that friend of God, who began in the same way, first of all exercised themselves in imitating Christ's life and sufferings ; what kind of things they had to suffer continually ; how they bore themselves in their sufferings interiorly and exteriorly ; whe- ther God drew them onwards by sweetness or by severity; and when and how they were set free from sensible forms and images. This is the way in which a beginner is spurred on and guided to perfection ; for, though it is true that God can give all this to a person in an instant, it is not His way to do so, but it is to be ob- tained ordinarily only by hard labour and many conflicts. On receiving this letter, the daughter re- plied to him as follows : — What I long for is not wise words, but a holy life ; and this I have the courage truly and honestly to strive after until I attain it, whatever pain it may entail upon me, and no matter what I may have to give up or suffer, or die to, or whatever else HIS SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER. 161 may be needful to bring me to perfection ; for all this I must and will undergo. And fear not on account of the weakness of my nature ; for whatever you have the courage to command me, which is painful to nature, I have the courage to accomplish, with the help of God's might. Begin first with the lowest things, and guide me in them, just as a little school-child is first taught what is adapted to its childish years, and then afterwards receives more and more instruc- tion, until it becomes at last a master in the art. One only prayer I make to you, and this you must grant me, for God's sake, in order that I may not only be instructed by you, but may be also strengthened against all the trials which I may have to encounter. He asked what this request might be. She answered : — Sir, I have heard say that the pelican is of such a nature that it bites itself, and, from natural love, feeds with its own. blood its young offspring in the nest. Ah, sir, what I ask is, that you will act thus towards your needy child, and feed her with the spiritual food of your good teaching ; and that you will not seek for this from afar, but take it from yourself; for the nearer it has been to you in the way of experience, the more deeply it will come home to my longing soul. M

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The Servitor wrote thus to her in answer: — Thou showedst me a little while ago some high thoughts which thou hadst thyself culled from the sweet teaching of the holy Master Eckart, and which, as is just, thou valuedst highly; and I marvel much, that, after thou hast drunk of the noble drink of this high Master, thou de- clarest thyself so thirsty for the coarse drink of the lowly Servitor. Nevertheless, when I con- sider it well, I note with joy thy great wisdom in this matter ; namely, that thou art so busy in thy questionings about what is the first begin- ning of a high and secure life, and what are the exercises which must be first practised in order to attain it.

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