CHAPTER II
THE TEACHING OF CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE IN PRAYING, MEDITATING,
FASTING, AND WAKING: AND OF THE PROUD CONTEMPLATIVE: AND OF TRUE AND VERY
GHOSTLY SONG
Therefore one chosen and alway desiring
love turns himself into his love; for he has neither worldly substance nor
desires to have, but following Christ by wilful poverty lives content and paid
by the alms of other men, whiles his conscience is clear and made sweet with
heavenly savour. All his heart shall he shed forth in love of his Maker, and he
shall labour to be enlightened by daily increase in high desires. Every man
forsaking this world, if he desire to be enflamed with the fire of the Holy
Ghost, must busily take tent not to wax slow in prayer and meditation. Soothly
by these, with tears following and Christ favouring, the mind shall be
gladdened; and being glad, shall be lift into contemplative life.
The soul goes up into this height whiles soaring
by excess it is taken up above itself, and heaven being open to the eye of the
mind, it offers privy things to be beheld. But first truly it behoves to be
exercised busily, and for not a few years, in praying and meditating, scarcely
taking the needs of the body, so that it may be burning in fulfilling these;
and, all feigning being cast out, it should not slacken day and night to seek
and know God's love.
And thus the Almighty Lover, strengthening His
lover to love, shall raise him high above all earthly things and vicious
strifes and vain thoughts, so that the wicked and dying flies of sin lose not
the sweetness of the ointment of grace since dead, they become as nought. And
henceforward God's love shall be so sweet to him, and shall be also moistened
with sweetness most liking, and he shall feel nought but the solace of heavenly
savour shed into him, and token of high holiness. Truly fed with this sweetness
he desires ever to wake, inasmuch as he feels verily the heat of endless love
burning his heart, nor goes it away, enlightening the mind with sweet mystery.
And yet some others that men trowed had been holy had this heat in imagination
only. Wherefore being not in truth but in shadow, when they are called to the
wedding or the feast of Christ's espousals, they are not ashamed unworthily to
challenge the first place. No marvel that in the righteous examination they
shall go down with shame, and shall have the lower place. Of these truly it is
said: Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem milia a dextris tuis, that is
to say: `From thy side a thousand shall fall, and ten thousand from thy right
hand.'
But would God they knew themselves and that they
would ransack their conscience; then should they not be presumptuous, nor
making comparison with the deeds of their betters would they empride
themselves. Truly the lover of the Godhead, whose inward parts are verily
thirled with love of the unseen beauty and who joys with all the pith of his
soul, is gladdened with most merry heat. Because he has continually given
himself to constant devotion for God, when Christ wills, he shall receive--not
of his own meed but of Christ's goodness--a holy sound sent from heaven, and
thought and meditation shall be changed into song, and the mind shall bide in
marvellous melody. Soothly it is the sweetness of angels that he has received
into his soul; and the same praises, though it be not in the same words, he
shall sing to God.
Such as is the song of the angels so is the voice
of this true lover; though it be not so great or perfect, for frailty of the
flesh that yet cumbers the lover. He that knows this, knows also angels song,
for both are of one kind here and in heaven. Tune pertains to song, not to the
ditty that is sung. This praising and song is angels meat; by which also living
men most hot in love are gladdened, singing in Jesu, now when they have
received the doom of endless praise that is sung by the angels of God. It is
written in the psalm: Panem angelorum manducavit homo, that is to say:
`Man has eaten angels bread.' And so nature is renewed and shall pass now into
a godly joy and happy likeness, so that he shall be happy, sweet, godly, and
songful, and shall feel in himself lust for everlasting love, and with great
sweetness shall continually sing.
Soothly it happens to such a lover what I have
not found expressed in the writings of the doctors: that is, this song shall
swell up in his mouth, and he shall sing his prayers with a ghostly symphony;
and he shall be slow with his tongue, because of the great plenty of inward
joy, tarrying in song and a singular music, so that that he was wont to say in
an hour scarcely he may fulfill in half a day. Whilst he receives it soothly he
shall sit alone, not singing with others nor reading psalms. I say not ilk man
should do this, but he to whom it is given; and let him fulfill what he likes
him, for he is led by the Holy Ghost, nor for men's words shall he turn from
his life.
In a clear heat certain shall he dwell, and in
full sweet melody, shall he be lift up. The person of man shall he not accept;
and therefore of some shall he be called a fool or churl because he praises God
in joyful song. For the praise of God shall burst up from his whole heart, and
his sweet voice shall reach on high; the which God's Majesty likes to hear.
A fair visage has he whose fairness God desires,
and keeps in himself the unmade wisdom. Wisdom truly is drawn from privy
things, and the delight thereof is with the lovers of the everlasting; for she
is not found in their souls that live sweetly in earth. She dwells in him of
whom I spake, because he melts wholly in Christ's love and all his inward
members cry to God. This cry is love and song, that a great voice raises to
God's ears. It is also the desire of good, and the affection for virtue. His
crying is outside of this world because his mind desires nothing but Christ.
His soul within is all burnt with the fire of love, so that his heart is alight
and burning, and nothing outward he does but that good may be expounded. God he
praises in song, but yet in silence: not to men's ears but in God's sight he
yields praises with a marvellous sweetness.