Vigils Reading

A MAN WHO IS HUNTED

From a sermon by John Tauler5

◊◊◊

The hypocrites, or Pharisees, are those who rank themselves good spiritual men, and yet are full of self-esteem. Their own plans and customs are the only rule they follow, and their one aim in life is to be praised by men… These men take the discipline, they pray and fast and watch, and yet God is not purely and simply the motive of any of these practices, but only poor, deluded human nature… This vineyard was never planted by the heavenly Father, but will be disowned and destroyed, as our Lord Himself declared: “He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth.” When the time of the harvest has come, then God will gather in His corn, that is to say, His elect; and those who do not gather with Him shall be rejected; in whatsoever souls He finds a harvest that He has not planted, those also shall be rejected…

Alas, dear children, how few men there are who appreciate the value of interior suffering and of interior persecution, or being hunted! Yet nothing in the world is so honorable or so precious as that both these trials should meet together in our souls. When one has safely gone through such an experience, then alone can he understand what nobility of soul and what fruit of virtue result from these bitter struggles. But what do I mean by a man who is hunted? I mean that an interior man must insist on being always close to God as the only true state of his soul, and this forces him incessantly to hunt and drive himself inward to God’s presence in his interior consciousness. Now, this provokes the violent resistance of the outward man that is in us all; we would ever and again seek to return forcibly to the outward things that minister to our natural weakness. Here, then,

is the conflict. The inner man’s proper place is with God; of this he ever thinks and for it he ever yearns, and toward that union with God our Lord is ever driving and hunting him. Now, to our outward man this is always offensive and against nature, and he always fights against it. St. Paul tells of this struggle: “I am delighted with the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind.”…

You can easily understand… that from this constant hunting of a man’s soul bitter anguish results. But when at last he is content to abide, for God’s sake, without any consolation, then will Jesus surely come to him and possess him… For there are many trials of body and of soul whose end and purpose is little observed by us, and which, if humbly and thankfully received from God and patiently endured, will end happily with the inpouring of Divine grace…

What can this poor, belated and desolate man do that he may hold his own, and not be driven to extremities in this dreadful hunted condition? No otherwise than the <Canaanite Woman> did in her deep sorrow—run to Jesus Christ and call out to Him with all her strength: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Ah, children, in this hunted state of soul, there is granted a voice to utter a holy call to God; the answer will be the measureless joys of the interior life. Our prayer is a sigh of the spirit yearning for God, so deep and so sad that it flies through measureless space far over all the range of nature — straight to the Divine heart. Indeed, it is the Holy Spirit Himself that now assumes charge of and perfects this work in us; and as St. Paul says, it is His voice that pleads for us: “The Spirit Himself <asks> for us with unspeakable groanings.” And, dear children, when the Holy Ghost thus prepares us, no other preparation can compare with it..