On the Third Sunday of Advent
How we are to prepare an airy dwelling place for God in our hearts and are to drive out all melancholy.
Tu es, qui venturus est (Latin from Matthew 11:3).
Are you he, who is to come?
translator’s note: because this sermon is so long, I have decided to split it into two posts
All goodhearted Christians rejoice over the lovely future of our Lord, and well we may rejoice and give thanks to God with all the strength of our souls. God has now become humble and lowly for the sake of us, poor and lost humans. Through his incarnation, he especially gave us himself and all that he could achieve. Additionally, he also desires to give our souls every moment. There is nothing on earth that is as common and as easy to win as God, because we can conquer God alone with goodwill and desire. If we do not want to admit him, even so, he remains standing before the door of our souls and knocking. Our mother, the holy church, frequently admonishes us that we should make ourselves ready to receive the Lord.
The Lord will be received by a clean conscience decorated with the many flowers of virtue. This is arguably cheap, for a blissful bed strewn prettily with roses, lilies, and other flowers, so that one could sweetly rest therein and sleep, is unlike an untilled field that is full of thistles and thorns. Likewise, a clean conscience is equally unlike the conscience of a disordered person. It is a breath of fresh air for God’s heart to rest in this beflowered place. The lovely soul ponders this in its time, as it spoke longingly about the lovely embrace of its spouse to its lover: our small bed has blossomed. Truly, as if it spoke, the small shop or the small room decides our secrecy. The small bed of our love has bloomed. Now, my dearest love comes. I hear nothing else, for you allow me to sweetly fall asleep in the arms of your unending love. Quite a few people have consciences not embroidered with flowers, but rather dirty their hearts with manure. Quite a few people whose infirmities are exposed outward to the vain and perishable air and the glory of this world. These, we release.
There are also quite a few people whose infirmities are all directed inward, and those inward infirmities are many. Three of these inward infirmities are so peculiar and so heavy that one can hardly compare them to any other infirmity. The first one is an immodest sorrow, the second one is disorderly and heavy fatigue, and the third one is turbulent doubt. About the first one, you should know that a person becomes so sorrowful many times, such that he cannot do anything good and does not know what is breaking him. Even if he asks himself about it, he cannot figure out what it is. Such sorrow befell the lovely King David as he asked: “My soul, why are you so sorrowful? Why do you sadden me?” It was almost as if he said, “Something is broken, but you do not know what. Trust God. Things will be better, and you will again frequently find joy in his praise.” Such sorrow is natural and has again drawn thousands of people away from their good beginnings. Among all people of all time, no one needs a good disposition as much as the person who, like a knight, shall break through the hard struggle of his own infirmity. It may be difficult for a person to deal with several bodily illnesses while still having a trusting disposition toward God. How much more difficult must it be for the person who, at all times, is burdened by a bad and heavy disposition? Therefore, fight against such an infirmity with all your might.
How shall we remain free of this infirmity? Take note: an individual had this infirmity for an unbearably long time and frequently prayed to God regarding it. Then, he heard a voice speaking to him as he sat in his cell in great sorrow, “Stand up and walk in my suffering. Thus, you will lose all your own suffering.” This happened, and his suffering disappeared.
The other internal infirmity is disordered melancholy. Whoever has this infirmity has enough humility to know what he is experiencing and why, since he is not rightly ordered according to God’s will. This infirmity comes because an individual dares what is not to be dared. Therefore, God internally sends that individual this suffering. Now, one finds four of the most serious sufferings that the human heart can carry. No one can hardly believe the miserable heart unless he has borne such himself or he has been given such from God. For if your suffering should be lighter, turn to God, that you might endure the most meticulous suffering and evil incursion against God. The weight of this suffering shall be understood by the bitter pains and not the individual damage that is brought to the soul. These four temptations are doubt in belief, doubt in God’s mercy, intrusive thoughts against God and his saints, and the temptation to kill oneself. I also add another suffering to these four: that someone begins to doubt God’s compassion. This doubt comes particularly from three things: one cannot ponder who God is, what sin is, and what repentance is. Behold, God is a never-exhausted fountain of bottomless mercy and natural goodness that exceeds even that of the most loyal mother towards her child (that she bore in her heart) as she reaches out her hand to rescue her child from fire. God reaches out to the repentant individual even if he had committed daily all the sins of all mankind a thousand times over (if that were even possible). O, beloved Lord, why are you so dear to many hearts? Why do many souls rejoice over you? Why do so many minds rejoice over you? Is it because of their innocent lives? No, of course not. It is because they think of who they are, how sinful, how frail, how completely unworthy they are of you, and that you, o mild and joyful Lord, offer yourself joyfully to them.
O Lord, this makes you great and sweet in their hearts, for you are abundant in human goodness.
A thousand Marks have been waived for you just as if they were a penny, and a thousand mortal sins have been forgiven just as if they were only one. Lord, this is a worthiness above all worthinesses! Mankind can never fully thank you. Their hearts flow forth with your praise, for according to the Scriptures, they are more commendable to you than if they had never fallen into sin and lived in lukewarmness and did not have such love for you. According to St. Bernhard’s teachings, you do not see what an individual has been, but you see how he shall be according to the desire of your heart. Therefore, he who would dissuade you from forgiving sins as often as there are moments would rob you of greater honor.
For sin has, of course, brought you from heaven to earth. You, who are such a lovely and gentle Savior, who lovingly desires to receive us at all hours. He who can ponder who God is (as David says), cannot distrust God.
The other one is that they cannot ponder what sin is. True sin is simply that someone sets his mind away from God and upon sinful afflictions with a premeditated and informed will, knowingly and eagerly in contradiction to conscience (and reason).
Should an individual have as many attacks of sin as there are moments, even if those sins were uncreated and as evil as the human heart could imagine or could speak in an individual language, whether of God or the created ones, no mortal sin has been committed. Even if this individual remained in this state a whole year or even two, or however long it lasted, and his conscience alone was disgusted and unwilling to commit such sins, and was displeased (for the nature of such things is that they are not wholly thought of and agreed upon with premeditated courage and the entire will), still no mortal sin has been committed. This is also certainly true, according to the holy Scriptures and the teaching of the holy church, from which the Holy Spirit teaches us as God is in heaven.
Now, there is a hidden urgency determined in this, and that is that the smallest and sharpest tie that may invade here. When the uncreated, evil attack happens, and an individual falls upon it with desire and forgets himself so that he does not turn quickly from it, he concludes that he has fallen upon it by his will and conscience, so that he falls short and commits a mortal sin. But this is not the case. For, according to the holy teaching, the conscience is often overwhelmed with temptations not yet fulfilled and with desire for quite a while and for a long time, before the conscience rights itself with good care. Then he can receive it or leave it, sin or not sin. Therefore, people should not be afraid of mortal sins when they desire to believe the Christian teaching.
Augustine says that sin must be committed willingly, for if it is not committed willingly, it is not a sin. The teachers say that if Eve alone had eaten the fruit and Adam not, then it would not have harmed us. In the same manner, whatever has the beginnings of sin but is countered by the right favor of the conscience is not a mortal sin.
The third thing that harms is that they cannot ponder what repentance is. Repentance is a virtue that removes sin from an individual, as long as it is done in humility. St. Bernhard says that proud repentance causes God unease. Evil Cain also repented, but in a particular manner, for he said that Cain’s evil was greater than God’s mercy. Judas also had regrets, but his sorrow was disorderly. These individuals, therefore, come to a disordered sorrow and say to themselves, “It is a bad thing that I am living, O Lord. Why was I born? O Lord, may I die,” and so such things. With these sayings, they anger God often even more than if they were sinning. He who desires to have right repentance must have humility in himself, a displeasure with sin, and a complete trust in God. The eternal and lovely wisdom says, “My child, in your sorrow, do not disdain yourself. Come again to God, who will help you to overcome.” He is a complete fool who, because he cannot see out of one eye, desires to tear out the other one.
- translated from German to English by Laura Glassel
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