Adapted from an original work of the same title by Meister Eckhardt
This is not the complete original work, which contains many more passages of a sermon-like nature. Those passages included here were chosen by me to suit my taste at the time I made the original transcription. I entertained the possibility of changing the following text into a screenplay or a stage play, and consequently specifically transcribed it as a series of dialogues with an occasional comment from a narrator. I still consider this as a possibility. All text in this present font has been added by me at the time of entering this text into the computer. Also included are one or two comments which I hope make the context of the dialogues clearer, particularly in relation to the timing of the sermons and the conversations. The piece is set in the Middle Ages in Germany, and starts in a Dominican Convent.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Blessed and praised be the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who has provided for us an image of the Truth, namely Himself, wherein there is no possibility of error.
We read in the Gospel that our Lord fed the multitude with five loaves and two fishes. The first loaf we interpret to mean the knowledge of what we have always been in God and what we are in God now. The second loaf is the scrutiny of our life in time: seeing how our time has been spent. And for this we need help in the shape of a trusted confessor.
Him, seek wheresoever thou shalt find him. It is well worth any trouble. Go to him, and solemnly kneeling before him as Mary Magdalene knelt at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, earnestly entreat him for God's sake to hear thee. Then open thy heart to him as thou shalt appear in the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ at the day of judgement when all things are revealed in truth. Discard shame in the knowledge that God has seen and heard all thy sins, and so too have those who are reflected into God from the face of the mirror of truth; they know thy shortcomings better than thou dost thyself.
Be not ashamed before thy confessor, be ashamed before God and the friends of God, acquiring godly fear in the realisation that God's divine glance has seen thy every will, word and act; and opening thy heart pour out thy sins till, the whole tale being told, thou dost fervently pray him "Sir, ghostly father, I entreat thee by the love that bound Christ on the cross, show me the nearest way to my eternal happiness"
Upon this it is open to thy confessor to indicate three ways with which it behoves thee to be quite familiar. Setting thee thy penance, he instructs thee to repair wrongs done; he bids thee restore goods not thine own; he enjoins thee to make amends for ought thou has done to another that thou wouldst not he should do unto thee.
Word, will and act: what was willed without effect must be willed to more purpose, thy will being such that thou would sooner die a thousand deaths than plan a mischief to thine fellow man. Thy wicked will which is towards evil deeds, endeavour to correct. Where thou wast haughty now walk humbly for all the world to see thou repentest thee of thy pride. Pride I single out, knowing it for a temporal fault most fatal to our eternal happiness. False pride robs spiritual, no less than worldly folks, of their eternal bliss. Dost know what pride is? Flattery of yourself or other people is false pride which cheats you of eternal happiness.
Next, examine yourself for sloth in God's service. Not doing thy best is sloth in God's service. To meet this, set to and do good, showing by diligence thy sorrow for thine egregious dereliction; yet remain detached withal and regardless of aught but God and the friends of God.
Thereafter it behoves thee to check thy third sin. Where thou wast greedy now be liberal and let thy bounty attest thy wholehearted abhorrence of greed. Dost know what greed is? Desire of anything not God is evil greed.
Thy fourth sin is envy and hate: bearing malice and hatred towards any with intent to do unto him what thou wouldst not he should do unto thee. Hast injured any man by act of thine, repair the injury at any cost. Hast tarnished his fair name by word of thine, thy words must brighten it again; abasing thyself before him, entreat him humbly for God's sake to forgive thee, and reiterate thy rueful supplication till he grant thee his free pardon. Call people's attention to this, withal speaking so well of the man that thou dost win him back honour no less than thou did filch from him. Know forsooth, ere thou canst find favour with God thou must needs pay in full for wrongs done to thine fellow men. Disparagement is mischievious. Worldly goods we can replace but stolen honour cannot be restored save by the payment of our own. So weigh thy words well friend.
The fifth sin is anger. Reckon up words and deeds done in anger and cancel them with kindness. In the past thou hast spoken in anger words which, if adhered to, shall doom thee to eternal death. A word said here may reach to Rome, and from Rome to everseas; how then recall it? Thus man pays his debts through God. Saying, Shall I not tell the truth? folks canvass the failings of their fellow men and forget their own. I say, though thou seest and hearest the faults of thine fellow men, betray them not. If so be that thou canst not forbear the mention of them, then go and see the person privately, just you and he together, point out his faults to him in a friendly manner and invite him by thine own excellent precept and example to eschew his vicious habits. If he will not forswear them then, acquaint the right authorities and leave it at that, allowing nothing of it to escape thy lips however much he vex thee. For know, to rebuke him for sin in thine anger is to commit mortal sin, raising him out of sin thou dost fall in thyself. The sinner of today is the saint of tomorrow. Wherefore, unmindful of the sins and shortcomings of our fellow men, let us look to our own imperfections, surely forgetting what God has forgotten: sins truly repented, which God has forgotten, 'tis no business of ours to remember.
The sixth sin is eating and drinking to excess; eating, perhaps, two regular meals or three while thine fellow man goes hungry and thirsty, who is nigher to God than thou art, and liker to boot; for he is poor while thou art rich in temporal things. Christ said "Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". These frailties it behoves thee to amend so thoroughly that God must needs forgive them thee.
The seventh sin is unchastity. Concerning this a heathen master says "All superfluity, anything unnecessary in word or deed, is unchastity". The travener sets his hoop to a mark when he goes to sell wine. When the wine is sold, he takes off the hoop. So let them do who are minded to cure the sin of unchastity: let them avoid excess in word and deed and walk right humbly and soberly before the world, so all shall say that anything to be called excess offends them.
The next case, daughter, is whether thou hast kept the ten commandments all thy days. To take one that Christ mentions, 'Thou shall love thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength', thou canst be shown to have broken this frequently. And breaking this commandment thou dost break them all. It behoves thee to tell thy confessor how often thou hast broken it from childhood up. It would take too long to go through all the Ten Commandments and say what thou must tell thy confessor. Thou wilt see that for thyself better than we can tell thee.
Then, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost: how often thou hast resisted them and hast failed to practice the seven works of mercy, wherefor God shall arrently upbraid thee at the day of judgement. Make a fresh start, my daughter, so mending thy ways that God is obliged to forget thy shortcomings.
NARRATOR:
Such is the first council of the worthy confessor and the first way.
To the question
SISTER KATREI:
Sir, is it the best way?
NARRATOR:
He will answer
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
No, but what I am telling thee is indispensible.
SISTER KATREI:
Then, Sir, tell me the best way.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Bide till thou hast made thine own this council I have given thee; bide till thou hast cast thy sins; and meanwhile come often to see me.
NARRATOR:
Obedient to her reverend confessor, the daughter does this. She often comes back to him and says
SISTER KATREI:
Sir, I will obey you to the death if you will help me so to live that I am bold to die.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Hast cast thy sins?
SISTER KATREI:
Aye, so far as I shall ever do it here in time, and will do till I die.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Then I will redirect thee, and give thee fresh instructions.
Keep a truthful tongue, a pure body and a loving soul. A code that may be constructed thus: A truthful tongue means that the lips utter only the intentions of the heart. Thus thou shalt speak the truth, daughter. God is truth, so thy whole conversation shall be of God; not praying nor thinking of God thou thus speakest of God, and art ever receiving from God.
A pure body means that, pierced with Godly fear, thou sufferest naught save God to dwell in thee.
A loving soul is one that loves her likes, God namely. Unite thyself with Him until thee thinks thy heart is fit to burst with too much love.
SISTER KATREI:
And I an utter stranger to it! Sir, shall I ever come aquanted with it?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Yes. Do as I bid you; discard the things that are darkening thy soul, and let the light of truth in. Then thy soul can retrace the road she came.
MEISTER ECKHART
By the third loaf we understand God's mercy. Consider, daughter, the plentious compassion that God has shown thee. When, having endowed thee with free will, thou didst of thy free will incur eternal death, he ransomed thee with His own self, and washing thee in his own blood did he cleanse thee from original sin. Observe further God's mercy in being ready to forgive thy sins as often as thou seekest grace in time. To enumerate God's mercies time would fail us though we lived till doomsday. Folks talk of Gods providence. Know what God has provided for us is His eternal felicity, in token whereof he has given us free will to do good and eschew evil.
At this point it behoves us to determine whether we truly repent us of our sins. Wouldst know the quality of true repentance? It has to be so strong in thee that thou wouldst sooner die a thousand deaths than sin one sin. There be many that say 'I truly repent me of my sins' who yet remain in sin. Speaking falsely they augment their sin.
Thou virtuous soul who wouldst enjoy Gods mercy and be baptised in the Holy Ghost, repent thee thrice: first, for the sins thou hast committed against the Lord thy God by word and deed. Repent thee next of sins against thine fellow men. If thou wouldst taste Gods clemency and have him to forgive thy sins and dowse thee with His Holy Ghost in grace, then show the mercy due to all mankind made in Christ's image as they are, whether or not they shall have sinned against thee: needs must if thou art ever to find grace. The third repentance is heartfelt pity for thyself, bred from a survey of the happy days that God has granted thee for finding thy eternal happiness, he having made all creatures for signposts to thy highest good. As St. Augustine says: "All creatures point me to my good; Lord, I deeply rue that if I ever get to thee 'tis by thy mercy. The time goes by that thou hast given me and thou art still unknown to me and unbeloved: hence my regret. And yet I fear me, Lord, I never felt the true rue that I ought".
By the fourth loaf we understand Gods justice. Innately, He is as just as He is merciful. Yet know, were I to tell you of Gods justice 'twould be too hard for you: precious few would look for grace. Hence we emphasize Gods mercy, who throws souls into purgatory to find grace at the judgement day if not before. Know that in itself Gods justice is of a sternness that must make the world tremble. Well knowing this, Christ said to his disciples "Having done all that is possible to you, say 'We are unprofitable servants'". We learn this from St. John also, who, though he did no sin to seperate him from God yet likened himself to the beasts of the forest. Surely he knew Gods truthI say, moreover, Gods justice is so harsh that though a man should do all the good works wrought by the company of saints now in eternal life, yet, being found in any mortal sin (the first is pride; the second slothfullness in Gods service; the third, hate; the fourth, anger; the fifth, greed; the sixth, overeating and drinking; the seventh, unchastity: these are the seven deadly sins), being found, I say, in one of these, he would be lost eternally. I hold it would avail him nothing for all the saints in heaven to intercede for him. I affirm, moreover, were Christ to supplicate his Father, and Mary his Mother, 'twould not avail to save his soul. Further, concerning this I say that I would sooner have the man who sins a thousand mortal sins and knows it, than him who sins but one in ignorance: that man is lost. I hold he may have practiced every virtue of Holy Christendom and it would not avail him, he is damned with the lost, while he of a thousand conscious sins is saved provided that, renouncing them heartily in true repentance, never to do them more, he mends his ways, steadfast in love till death. That man ranks with the saints.
Ah, daughter, mark those souls who, all their days exempt from mortal sin, can say with the young man 'I have kept thy commandments all my life'. Would to God I knew one person who could even say 'All my days I have kept the first of Christs commandments, Thou shalt love thy God with all thy soul-powers', and who has been preserved the while from spiritual pride.
The fifth loaf signifies true faith. It means absolute trust in God. He who believes in God trusts God and knows God and therefore loves God. Observe, woman, having true faith means believing in God's omnipotence. The masters say 'Whosoever has true faith as much as a grain of mustard seed, can remove mountains'. Wherefore it behoves us assiduously to free ourselves from things corruptable, which dim the light wherein we see the true faith, which is God.
To be able to say 'I am a true Christian', a man must subsist in Christ in the sense that Christ is his exemplar whereto he is confirmed in word and deed. Know that whatever Christ did he did to edify us in eternal truth, for he is truth itself; he can initiate thee into the true faith. What I say is, that to get to the Father we must go to him in Christ; to know the Father we must know him in Christ. And so Christ taught. When Philip asked him 'Show us the Father', Christ answered 'He who seeth me seeth the Father, and where the Father is there I am'. Plainly then, we must follow the lead of the Beloved if we would be saved. People say 'How can I do as Christ did?'. Christ tells us how. He said 'Take up your cross and follow me', which do not understand to mean he bids you die the death he died upon the cross. His words were 'Follow me', meaning we are to imitate his pefect life. Our temporal failure to imitate his life in word and deed is our eternal failure. Concerning this he said 'In my Fathers house are many mansions'. For you must know that many a man who goes to heaven no more enjoys the light of Gods countenance than sunshine in forest gloom. Nay friend, mark what Christ said to the kinswoman who besought him for her son. He said 'He who drinks of the cup I wot of shall be joint heir with me in my Fathers kingdom', which being interpreted means: by our measure here it shall be meted to us again by our Heavenly Father in His eternal kingdom. As St. Augustine says, 'So far as we know and love here we profit eternally'.
Theologians speak of hell. I will tell you what hell is. It is merely a state. Your state here is your eternal state. This is hell. Take an illustration. A thief who has incurred the penalty of death on being caught: picture his state of mind seeing others happy! So do we feel and worse. And so with those in hell who see God and His friends; the height of torment, so the masters say.
NARRATOR
This learnt, the aforementioned daughter goes to her reverend confessor.
SISTER KATREI
Sir, tell me the best way to my eternal happiness.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Daughter, let be.
SISTER KATREI
I shall never let be, so long as my eternal happiness is not assured.
MEISTER ECKHARDT
Thou art sure of eternal life, daughter.
SISTER KATREI
But sir, have you told me the nearest way to it?
MEISTER ECKHARDT
Any creature will tell you that. With one accord they all acclaim: Pass on, we are not God. Tis direction enough, daughter.
SISTER KATREI
Not for me, sir.
MEISTER ECKHARDT
An thou wilt believe me, at least thou wilt credit the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said "Take up thy cross and follow me". He did not say 'Take up my cross and follow me'. What he meant was: be content to do thy best, knowing that therewith God too is satisfied.
SISTER KATREI
Would I had done my best!
MEISTER ECKHARDT
What wouldst thou do?
SISTER KATREI
I would leave honour and possessions and friends and kinderd and the outward solace I get from creatures.
MEISTER ECKHARDT
Wouldst leave me too?
SISTER KATREI
Aye, sir: leaving all things, I must leave you also.
MEISTER ECKHARDT
Essay it not, tis not for a woman.
SISTER KATREI:
Full well I wot no woman can enter heaven till she be man. That means she must do mans work and have the strength of mind to withstand him and all imperfections.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou deemest thyself mighty strong! I wonder now, how thou wouldst like to bear more than thou hast already.
SISTER KATREI:
I can bear all, sir, that Christ has borne for me.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
These are words!
SISTER KATREI:
It is true.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Canst prove it?
SISTER KATREI:
With ease. I have heard tell that in none of Christs sufferings did his Godhead come to the help of his manhood.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
That is true. The Godhead is impassible; it has never suffered and never can suffer, seeing that nothing effects it.
SISTER KATREI:
What Christ bore, I can bear.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Tell me how.
SISTER KATREI:
I will. Right well I ween Christ was the noblest man that ever was born: from threescore Kings and twelve he has descended: and I say, moreover, he was the best heart's blood of Mary. See now my proof that I am fit to bear all he bore for me. Taking the best of breeding, the best bred are the tenderest. It follows that I can bear more than Christ can.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Were I to tell you all I know of the perfection of his life in time in right willing poverty, 'twere like to break my heart. Bethink thee well!
SISTER KATREI:
I have bethought me. This very day I mean to follow the dictates of the Holy Ghost.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
What does the Holy Ghost dictate?
SISTER KATREI:
He councils me to leave myself in the mighty hands of God and to sever my ties with creatures.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou art wrong!
SISTER KATREI:
How so?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
In not taking advice. Obedience is a virtue, as thou knowest.
SISTER KATREI:
I am obedient unto death.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
To whome?
SISTER KATREI:
To Christ and his heavenly Father to whome John was obedient in the wilderness, and Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt and Mary Salome.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
It seems thou wilt no longer mind me.
SISTER KATREI:
You are right! I am heartily sorry I listened so long to the councils of men and was deaf to the council of the Holy Ghost.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Now listen to me, my daughter. What thinkst thou I have done to thee?
SISTER KATREI:
You have kept me from eternal bliss.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
How so?
SISTER KATREI:
By not telling me outright the quickest way to it.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
It is obedience to the Holy Ghost. I should never council thee otherwise than I have counselled thee.
SISTER KATREI:
If you had not discouraged me, and other spiritual folks to boot, I should have spent my time more virtuously. I weened, forsooth, it were the gospel that priests propogated.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
The gospel is begotten in the Holy Ghost of the perfect life of our Lord Jesus Christ and according to his noble teachings. We read and preach the gospel openly: he who would follow it let him follow it to the utmost.
SISTER KATREI:
God forgive me for not doing so all my days.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I grieve thou shouldst accuse me of preventing thee.
SISTER KATREI:
Aye, I accuse you and all creatures.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou art mistook. No one can hinder thee but thine own self. Know whome God impels none can resist: not all the saints in heaven nor all the preaching friars and barefoot monks on Earth can stand against one man moved by truth. He is impelled by that same word which Christ spoke, answering the youth who sought the perfect life. Christ said "Keep the ten commandments". The young man replied "All these I have kept from my youth up.". Then said Christ "If thou wilt be perfect, sell all thou hast and give to the poor and follow me". Christ made known this same truth to us by Peter and others of his disciples whome he called to live with him in willing poverty. Thou knowest, daughter, that what Christ said and did is true, for he is truth itself; and know moreover, that to reach the Father we must walk in Christs footsteps all the way.
SISTER KATREI:
Well then, good father, why be so discouraging?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
'Tis such a flawlwss life, anyone leading it God must needs come and help.
SISTER KATREI:
God does not come and go, that I do know: I wot right well when we resign ourselves to Him he does not fail to succour us at need.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
What if all creatures despise thee?
SISTER KATREI:
I want to be the least of creatures in our Lord Jesus Christ, the lowest of his creatures; then I can say with Paul, "Rejoice, all creatures are my cross, and I the cross of all creatures".
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Daughter, thou art too young.
SISTER KATREI:
Mary was younger than I when she set forth into the desert and exile, driven by robbery and murder.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
God was with her.
SISTER KATREI:
And I well wot God is with me.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
He was there present in her.
SISTER KATREI:
He is ever present in my soul.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
But Mary had a solomn pledge of His presence, which thou hast not, my daughter.
SISTER KATREI:
Since I dispense with outward consolations, I am without His outward presence. I would that He were ever being born within my soul.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Think twice before adventuring that....
SISTER KATREI:
Peace, let me speak! 'Tis by your too much admonition that you have hindered me.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Know, did the truth move thee, thou hadst not done nor yet foreborn because of me. I am but creature, as thou knowest. As long as any creature has power to give and take thou livest not unto truth. Truth has virtue sufficient to raise man to the summit without help from creatures. Thou durst not cast the blame on me, for know, whome the truth moves has the Holy Ghost to his master, who educates his pupils in the highest school of all. There we learn more in the twinkling of an eye than all the doctors can express.
SISTER KATREI:
You speak the truth.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
The second article of faith is trust in God. He can say he trusts God who keeps not overnight so much as a pen'orth of possessions. I say more: he keeps nothing at all: but he who witholds but a pennyworth of worldly goods from his fellow man, knowing him to be in need of it, is a robber in the sight of God. I warn you, by Christ who suffered so for love of men, allow no want in any man, he being made in the likeness of Christ for whose sake God created all things: and impair not his condition by witholding from him his Fathers goods, which it behoves him to restore to God.
Further I declare, who spares a penny for himself to put it by against a rainy day, thinking 'I may need that for tomorrow' is a murderer before God. And I will prove it. For if he trusts God he will leave himself in Gods hands; if God give him the morrow, He will also give him the wherewithall for it.
Hence I affirm that there be few who have faith enough to trust in God blindly. Know that the man who sets more store by worldly goods than by his powers of knowing and loving God, is justly termed a murderer. This I call Christ to witness, who said "When I am ascended I will draw all things after me". In the same way the virtuous man takes all things up to God, to their first source. The masters teach that creatures were made for man. They prove it from the fact that creatures all need each other: cattle need grass. fish water. birds the air, and beasts the forest. By the same token all creatures come in useful to the good and are carried, one creature in the other, by the good soul to God. Lived there a man who trusted God, God would do unto him better than ever he could do unto himself.
Take the third article of faith, that is, knowledge of God. I say no man knows God who knows not himself first. Mark how to know yourselves. To know himself a man must be for ever on the watch over himself, holding his outer faculties, breaking them in by vigorous training to obey the higher powers of his soul. This discipline must be continued till he reach a state of consciousness so pure that nothing short of God can form in it. Then thou dost come acquainted with thyself and God.
The forth property of faith is love. To be able to say 'I love thee Lord' a man must suffer without why what without why Christ suffered, and suffer it gladly without suffering. Though God shall tell him mouth to mouth "Thou shalt be lost forever with the damned", he only loved God all the more, and says "Lord, an thou wilt that I be damned, damned I will be eternally". Thus he identifies his will with what God wills, willing that same in earth and heaven. Of this he deems himself unworthy. That man can say "I love thee".
We have explained now what faith means. To carry out in practice these articles of faith as enumerated from the start entitles us to say "I believe in God".
By the two roast fishes (one fish is will, the other its fulfilment) we understand through subjection, the downright death of thy whole nature - the marrow of thy bones, blood in thy veins, and whole concomitants of natural vigour - so that albeit having the will to sin, thou hast no power to. Doctors debate whether a man can reach the stage at which he is incapable of sinning in his body. The best authorities say 'Yes'; alluding to souls so perfectly disciplined outwardly and inwardly that they have no propensity to sin.
The second fish we take to signify achievement of the virtues; virtue consummated to the pitch where it becomes instinctive; where virtue is our very being; where our knowledge and love transcend virtue. A man at this stage gives pure light. Doctors describe four kinds of light. The first is natural, the light of natural man apt in affairs, which is less a help than a hindrance. The second is the light of grace. Whome this enlightens has his natural light put out. It lights him on the road to his salvation, preserving him in grace so he follows it closely. The third light lightens the angels and man in his primitive innocence. For know, the man who with the angels receives all things from God is void of mundane things and creaturehood and naked as he was when he came out of God. Man can what angels cannot: in this light he can transcend the angels and receive all things from the source of divine truth. Then he is given divine light, the fourth light, and about this I am dumb. I keep that to myself.
NARRATOR
Here the daughter comes to her revered confessor and says
SISTER KATREI:
Sir, I fear I shall never do it.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Why not?
SISTER KATREI:
I still have all the virtues to cultivate. I ween I never brought one single virtue to the pitch required.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Be satisfied to do thy best.
SISTER KATREI:
I have never done my best, albeit I am well aware that I am thrice behoven unto God. My first behoof is to repair my faults.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
None can repair a fault if God forgive it not in love.
SISTER KATREI:
I wot of that, but I must do my share and live in hopes of grace until I die.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
What is thy second accusation?
SISTER KATREI:
That, while fain to be in the joy of our Lord, I have not lived accordingly, albeit well aware that to enter there one has to live the perfect life in our Lord Jesus Christ.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
That is so. Tell me, what is thy third behoof?
SISTER KATREI:
Though there were neither hell nor heaven, to follow Him for true love all the same, as he prevented me: to follow Him to the end without a why. I know my duty but mend not my ways as in duty bound.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
What more wouldst thou do? Thou hast given up honour and possessions, and kith and kin and every comfort thou didst get from creatures.
SISTER KATREI:
True, sir, in letter, but giving up all God ever created to leave it for Gods sake is giving up nothing; it is not mine to give. It is Gods. Anything in the shape of possessions is Gods. Wherefore I ween there is still something more for me to leave.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
What must thou leave?
SISTER KATREI:
Myself. If I leave myself wherever I find myself I can say I have left myself.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou art right, but I marvel, being so sensitive, thou canst brook the insults heaped upon thee.
SISTER KATREI:
God knows I feel none.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Does it not touch thee that thy friends, spiritual as well as worldly, are so distressed on thy account, thinking thee most mistook in thy behaviour?
SISTER KATREI:
What is that to me? For well I ween Christ knew, when he was sitting in the temple, that Joseph and his mother sought him sorrowing. The doctors told Christ "Thy father and mother are seeking thee". Christ answered "He who is kind to me, the same is my father and mother and sister and brother".
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
True. I prithee, though, accept life's necessaries when they are offered thee in the name of God.
SISTER KATREI:
Tell me, what are necessaries?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Wouldst have me specify the bare necessities of life?
SISTER KATREI:
Aye.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Bread, water and a cloak. These are bare bodily necessities.
SISTER KATREI:
Now tell me what is necessary?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
To dwell in utter ignominy in Christ who alone lives.
SISTER KATREI:
Now God reward you! Pray God on my behalf to give all creatures licence to cry me down and persecute me to their topmost bent.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou'lt get a plenty in thy vocation. A holy man has said "Did God know anyone willing to suffer the sum of human suffering, he would give it him to bear that his worth might be so much the greater in eternity". God will do this out of pure love to anyone he calls to him.
SISTER KATREI:
A master says 'He alone deserves suffering who clearly desires it'.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
True daughter. Prithee, an thou wilt, remain in these parts and busy thyself among us.
SISTER KATREI:
That I will not. I must be about my own business. I mean to live in exile, anywhere where I am persecuted. For you must know I have found more of God in the least dispisery than ever I did in the sweetness of creatures.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I'll not quarrel with that for it is true. Christ proves it by those words to his disciples "Go thee into all places where they shall persecute you".
SISTER KATREI:
God bless you for it, who have my homage betwixt me and God.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Come to me wheresoever thou shalt find me.
SISTER KATREI:
That will I do gladly.
At this point Sister Katrei leaves the convent to venture out into the world in search of her destiny. This part commences in the Convent with Meister Eckhart giving a sermon to the brethren.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
St. Paul affirms of the holy martyrs and friends of our Lord, 'They are dead'. From this we argue that we have to be dead too. I hold that anyone who is not really dead has not the faintest notion of the sacred things revealed by God to his beloved. As long as thou still knowest who thy father and thy mother have been in time, thou art not dead with the real death. Further, I hold: as long as it affects thee that no one will shrive thee nor give thee God's body nor shelter thee from the world's scorn, as long as it is in thee to be moved by this, know that thou art a stranger to the true death.
When thou art aware of nothing within thee; when, having escaped from earthly species and forgot thy honourable estate and all temporal happenings, thou hast entered oblivion so deep that nothing formulates itself in thee and thou art sensible of naught save the sheer ascension of thy soul, then thou canst say that thou art really dead. He who is dead thus is always the same; nothing affects him.
Anent this St. John says "Blessed are the dead that die in God". See then, my friends, how good it is to die in God. We can die gladly if God will live and work in us while we are idle. We die, 'tis true, but 'tis a gentle death. Folks tell us of the holy life, how they have suffered. To tell the tale of what our Lord's friends suffered time would be too short. I say: they did not suffer. The least suspicion of God-consciousness and sufferings would all be forgot. This may well happen while the soul is in the body. I say more: while yet in the body a soul may reach oblivion of it's travail not to remember it again. Further I hold: to him who suffers not for love, to suffer is suffering and is heard to bear. But he who suffers for love, does not suffer, and this suffering is fruitful in God's sight.
It follows, friends, that by contriving to die in God gladly, we go scot-free from suffering. To practice this is to be really dead.
So to die in God, help us Oh Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen
NARRATOR
Here the aformentioned daughter comes to her confessor, beseeching him
SISTER KATREI:
Sir, hear me for God's sake.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Whence come you?
SISTER KATREI:
From foreign parts.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Of what country art thou?
SISTER KATREI:
Sir, do you not know me?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Not I, God wot.
SISTER KATREI:
By the same token you have never known yourself.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
True, for well I ween that if I knew myself as intimately as I ought, I should have perfect knowledge of all creatures.
SISTER KATREI:
You are right, but a truce to this talk, sir. Hear me in God's name.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Willingly. Say on.
NARRATOR
The daughter made confession to her revered confessor, as it was now in her to do, in a manner to rejoice his heart.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Return ere long, daughter.
SISTER KATREI:
Gladly, God willing.
NARRATOR
Going off to his brethren, he announces
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I have just shriven someone, whether woman or angel I misdoubt, nay, I wot not. If woman, her soul powers dwell with the angels in heaven and her soul has received angelic nature. She knows and loves beyond anyone I ever met.
BRETHREN
Glory be to God.
NARRATOR
Seeking his daughter where he knows her to be, in the chapel, namely, her confessor earnestly entreats her to converse with him.
SISTER KATREI:
Do you not know me yet?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
No, God knows.
SISTER KATREI:
Then I will tell you for love. I am the poor soul you led to God.
NARRATOR
And she discovers to him her identity.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Alas, wretch that I am! Shame on me in the sight of God that having spiritual light so long I am so unfamiliar with divinity. Prithee, my daughter, for the love of God, recount to me thy life and doings since I last saw thee.
SISTER KATREI:
That were a deal to tell.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Not more than I am fain to hear. Know, I have been amazed by what you told me.
SISTER KATREI:
You must never betray me while I live.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I give you my word not to divulge thy confession during thy lifetime.
NARRATOR
Whereapon she embarks on such a wonderous story he marvels any human being could go through so much.
SISTER KATREI:
Sir, still I fall short. I find that I have conquered all my hearts desires save only that my faith be not assailed.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
God be praised for making thee! Now rest content.
SISTER KATREI:
Never, while my soul has no abiding place in eternity.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I should be well content to have my soul ascend as thine does.
SISTER KATREI:
My soul ascends freely, but it makes no stay. To will does not content me; if only I might know the thing to do to establish me permanently in eternity!
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Is the desire so strong?
SISTER KATREI:
Aye.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Be rid of it if thou wouldst be confirmed.
SISTER KATREI:
'Tis gladly done.
NARRATOR
And God, drawing her in His divine light she weens that she is one with God. While this continues she keeps beating back into herself with an overwhelming sense of deity, and keeps ejaculating
SISTER KATREI:
I am sure there is no escape for me!
NARRATOR
The confessor visits his daughter frequently, inquiring
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Tell me, how goes it now with thee?
SISTER KATREI:
Ill. Heaven and earth are too confined for me.
NARRATOR
He entreats her to tell him something. She says
SISTER KATREI:
I have nothing whatever to tell.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Just a word, for God's sake.
NARRATOR
He pleads, and wins it for the asking. She proceeds to reveal to him such profound and marvellous things concerning the pure perception of divine truth that he exclaims
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou knowest this is not common knowledge, and were I not among those priests who have read it in theology, I had not known it either.
SISTER KATREI:
Much good it is to you. I would you had a lively sense of it.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I am this much alive to it, I feel as certain of it as of my having said the mass today. Nonetheless, this lack of actual experience does trouble me.
NARRATOR
With the words
SISTER KATREI:
Pray God for me.
NARRATOR
the daughter returns into her solitude to enjoy God's society. Ere long she appears at the door again, demanding her confessor, to whome she says
SISTER KATREI:
Sir, rejoice with me. I am God.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Glory be to God! Retire again into thy solitude; all joy be thine an thou remainest God.
NARRATOR
Obedient to her confessor, she goes into the chapel, into a secluded corner. There oblivion descended upon her, and she forgot everything named and was so far withdrawn from self and everything created that she had to be carried from the church and lay till the third day, surely accounted for dead.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I misdoubt she is dead
NARRATOR
quoth her confessor. Know, had there been no confessor they would have buried her. They essayed by all manner of means, but whether her soul was in her body they could not discover. they said
BRETHREN
For sure she is dead.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
For sure she is not.
NARRATOR
On the third day the daughter returned.
SISTER KATREI:
Alas, me miserable, am I back!
NARRATOR
Her confessor, who was already there, addressed her, saying
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Permit me to taste divine truth in the revelation of thy experience.
SISTER KATREI:
God knows, I cannot. My experience is ineffable.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Hast got now all thou wilt?
SISTER KATREI:
Aye. I am confirmed.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Blest and praised be the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who showed us the way to conquer by grace what he is by nature. It needs a God-receptive man who treads beneath his feet self and all creatures. He has five deaths to die. The first is death to natural things. Being dead to nature spirit reigns. Nevertheless he still may lapse into eternal death, as shown by Lucifer. Himself pure spirit, from himself he fell, falling eternally. We must die in spirit, our spirit being inspired into the spirit of truth.
Now we begin to live in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, strictly obeying his precepts and example. Thus we die in our Lord Jesus Christ in the truth which is himself, even as he died in his humanity. And we rise in our Lord Jesus Christ to live again in the quick of life. We enter the Father in the Son. Humanity receives its coup de grace, pierced to the heart by light divine. Therein man learns to know himself. Forgot are all God's gifts beknownst to him. Thought, word, will, act, lie strewn before him in the reflection of divine light received from the Father. In this divine light the soul sees herself less than creature. She finds no place to dwell in. She deems herself the vilest thing God ever made. Lucifer, to her, is so meritorious that she ranks under him.
Accordingly the masters say "Christ's soul and Lucifer's were made in the same light". Hence the soul's grievance and self-condemnation. Christ's soul was the wisest that ever was: she faced round in the creature and looked towards the creator. Wherefore the Father clad her in the divine garment and property of His own nature. But Lucifer looked away to the deficiency and thereby fell, falling eternally. So fall all that they turn from God to things corruptable. In this plight the soul now finds herself, and is consumed within herself, there thinking to remain eternally, for it is she who is to blame.The best authorities aver that from the very lowest angel of all those in heaven, there fell one drop upon the highest heaven. This started the celestial revolutions, each heaven following the course nature laid down for carrying round the drop. From it all creatures get their life, those that have life in time; in it all creatures hie them back to their first source; in it the soul becomes aware that, so little has God become in time, our works must be wrought above time, in eternity. Christ taught us this. His works are all wrought in eternity. Did God perform one act outside himself, he were not God. God's works are wrought so that they remain in Him. And our works which are wrought thus endure in eternity. Understand, we call 'mine' that which is in me, which none can take from me. Here the soul is moned to exclaim "Alas, that I have wrought so many works outside me!".
Concerning nature, the masters speak as follows: Nature and naturalness are not identical. The natural state is taken on in time; nature is, in itself, eternal. This touches the soul. Philosophers will tell you that thunder is merely the results of opposites. Clouds cannot bear being charged with opposites, which crash together, hence lightening and thunder. So with the wind; it blows till foreign matter is expelled, namely, the rain. Creatures in general will purify themselves from incompatibles. She says 'Creatures all pointed me to my eternal happiness. They did not Lucifer: he fell from God forever because of the unlikes he assumed. God kept me in himself. I had no mind to see it, so I can never look for grace'. And there she stops, failing to rise beyond herself.
Now, the theologians say, God is by nature bound to draw his likes out of their selfhood into himself just as the sun will draw up moisture. Then the soul, merged in the naked Godhead, is no more to be found than a wine-drop in mid-ocean. That soul can no more sin than God can. The man is said to be conformed to God. God is his active principle. He has real perception. Things are in him without image, for he is one with God in whom are all things. In this case it is time to say, all things are in man formless. The masters say: 'To gauge the soul we must gauge her with God, for the ground of God and the ground of the soul are one nature. The part that gives life to the body is the least part of the soul. The man who realizes this has fresh and inexhaustible delight. What though he walks in time, he dwells in his eternal nature. He inhabits the truth. This man is known by five signs. First, he never complains. Next, he never makes excuses; when accused, he leaves the facts to vindicate him. Thirdly, there is nothing he wants in earth or heaven but what God wills himself. Fourthly, he is not moved in time. Fifthly, he is never rejoiced: he is joy itself.
NARRATOR
Here the trusty confessor comes seeking his daughter in an unknown land, earnestly entreating her to hold converse with him. She says
SISTER KATREI:
I can talk with you of outward things.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
'Twill serve. Tell me, what thinkest thou made thee most ripe for the eternal truth?
SISTER KATREI:
Leaving myself wherever I found myself. Next, never excusing myself from accusations which concerned myself alone. Thirdly, whatever my pain, wanting still more and compelling myself to bear it equably. Fourth, being supple to insignificance, poverty and lack of creature comforts. Fifth, never seeing souls sin without rebuke, and never hearing things against the gospel and the life of Christ without I fought them to the death. But know that has been my habit rather to rebuke those persons whose sins I saw were doing them a mortal mischief. I never did it save purely out of love to God, being moved for them. Many an insult they have hurled upon me. Sixth, never avoiding occasion of insult: I fled from honour but stayed for shame. Seventh, never looking back when once I knew the way to my eternal happiness; and taking no man's council, but plodding straight on. Eighth, being never content with present light nor present sight, which were as nothing to my certainty. Ninth, never resisting any use God chose to put me to. Tenth,, rigid discipline, inward and outward.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
God be praised! Thou hast told me thy outward rule; now tell me thy inner.
SISTER KATREI:
Got wot, I fear it is beyond you.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
But just a hint; deny me not.
SISTER KATREI:
At the moment of confirmation there existed in me all the works God ever wrought as a little thing inferior to heaven. My abode was heaven. I dwelt there with the inmates of the Trinity which to me was as familiar as to the householder the house he dwells in, and saw the partition between all creatures and God's whole creation: it was as plain as the five fingers on my hand.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Explain more fully.
SISTER KATREI:
I Will. I had assembled all my soul-powers. When I saw into myself I saw God in me and everything God ever made in earth and heaven. Let me explain it better. As you know right well, anyone who faces God in the mirror of truth sees everything depicted in that mirror: all things, that is to say. Such was my inner habit before confirmation. Do you quite take me?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
It must be so, of course. Is that not thy rule now?
SISTER KATREI:
No. I have nothing to do with saints nor angels nor creatures nor anything created: it is all unborn: not merely nothing created but nothing uttered concerns me.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Explain.
SISTER KATREI:
I will. I am confirmed in the naked Godhead, wherein is neither form nor image.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Art there for good?
SISTER KATREI:
Yes.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Daughter, say on, this talk delights me.
SISTER KATREI:
As I am, no creature can be, as creature.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Explain.
SISTER KATREI:
I am as I was before I was created: just God and God. No saint nor angel nor choir nor heaven. Eight heavens are often spoken of and nine choirs of angels: there is nothing of that where I am. You must know that expressions of that sort, which conjure up pictures in the mind, merely serve as allurements to God. In God there is nothing but God: no soul gets to God until she is God as she was before she was made.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
You speak the truth, daughter. Now do for God's sake, council me as best thou canst how I may gain possession of this good.
SISTER KATREI:
I will give you sure guidance. As you are well aware, creatures were made from nothing and must return to nothing ere they reach their source.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
True.
SISTER KATREI:
Enough said. Tell me now, what is nothing?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I know what is nothing and I know what is less that nothing. Imperfections, I take it, are nothing to God. So that anyone subject to imperfections is less than nothing.
SISTER KATREI:
How so?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
He is the servant of imperfection. Nothing is nothing. The servant of imperfections is less than nothing.
SISTER KATREI:
Precisely. The way then to obtain your good is to subordinate yourself to yourself and creatures till you can find no more to do towards God's working in you.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
You are right! One master says "He who loves God as his God, and prays to God as his God and is therewith content, is to me as an unbeliever".
SISTER KATREI:
Blessed be the master who said that. He knew the truth. For you must understand that anyone content with what can be expressed in words - God is a word, heaven is a word - whose soul-powers, love and knowledge, insist on nothing further than what can be expressed, is aptly styled an unbeliever. It is the lower senses or powers of the soul which grasp things uttered. The higher powers are not content with that. These keep on pressing foreward till they strike the source from whence the soul flowed forth. the powers of the soul cannot enter her source. All nine powers of the soul serve the man of the soul; they draw him out of nether things and speed him to his source. When the soul stands before her cause, superior to things in her main power, her powers remain without. Look you, it is the naked soul, naked of things nameable, one and the same, that progresses in the naked Godhead, like oil that creeps in cloth; so ordains her to give life to the body in time. Know, while the good man lives on earth his soul is progressing in eternity. Hence the good like living.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
True daughter. One master says "Suppose there lay at point to die two men equally pleasant in the eyes of God, and that both died, the one before the other but just long enough to give that other time to breath one sigh for God, to cast one thought to the least martyr that God ever led, the lightest word that God ever spoke, this would entitle him to precedence over the other who died first, while God remains eternal".
SISTER KATREI:
That is so. Know also, as the good shall rise, so fall the wicked who are in sin.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Now prithee, daughter tell me. We speak of heaven and hell and purgatory and read a vast amount about them. We also read that God is in everything and everything in God.
SISTER KATREI:
And so it is.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Then, for God's sake, aquaint me with the rightful view of it.
SISTER KATREI:
Gladly, so far as I can put it into words. Hell is nothing but a state or being. Our being here is our eternal being; we are, as it were, grounded in it. Many people fondly imagine here to have creaturely being and divine being yonder. That is not so. It is a popular delusion. Purgatory is a thing assumed, like penance, and comes to an end.
Look at it like this. Some souls so reverence God and the friends of God that God is constrained to have mercy on them, be it only at their end that true repentance comes to them in love and knowledge and they rise out of themselves and everything created. Then true love is their being and did they go on living they would sin no more but suffer for true love's sake all our Lord Jesus Christ suffered, and his beloved. These rise in grace. But people who go hence in their state of creaturehood are in that state eternally which is called hell. Likewise, there remains their state to those who suffer naught but God to be in them: God is their being and remains their being eternally.
Again, touching the last day, people say 'God shall judge'. So he shall, but not as they think. Each man is his own judge in this sense: the state he then appears in he is in eternally. People frequently assert: 'The body shall rise with the soul'. So it shall, but not as they think. The being of the body and the being of the soul go to form one being. Those souls who all their days have spent their time in God till God has come to be their being, to them God stays their being, body and soul eternally. Not so the wicked who have squandered their time on creatures; what their state is it continues to be, and this eternal lapsing from God and from His friends is called hell. Yet bear in mind that these same persons get their being from God or they would not be at all. So they are in God and God is in them. You see, they have the being of God.
Take it like this. They are in God as 'twere a man with his life forfeit to some rightious lord whose honour he has stolen, and whose friends, and plotted frequently against his life; and now his lord, who showed him only kindness in hopes of his reform, is vexed to find that he declines to mend. Holding him in the grip of justice, his lord forbears to kill. He punishes the outrage on himself. First, bound hand and foot, the man is cast into the lowest donjon among toads and reptiles and the foul water which is wont to lie in deepest donjon-keeps. Fetched up from thence, he is disgraced before the world, that they may see his open shame and he their joy. So much the more his torment. Insult after insult do they heap upon him, shame unthinkable; he is ever cast back into his donjon, ever in dread of execution. Even so it is permissable to say that man is at court, for the donjon is the royal court as much as the hall is where the king stays with his friends, but conditions, you see, are different.Though not with that celestial race we spoke of, know that grief endures eternally.
I marvel that anyone who hears these words should dare to sin. Purgatory is so grievious in itself that anyone who knows the rights of it would stay no time in sin. Purgatory you must know is temporal and notional. A soul which leaves the body, as I said, in faith and love and will to do all for God's sake and eschew sin for God, that soul is in dire distress, unable to do anything but wait till God shall deign to take compassion on her. And though this happens not till doomsday, the hope is her life. Doomsday past, this is over. But souls in the divine condition are not affected in this sense: on quitting the body such a soul remains in a condition of divinity determined by her knowledge and love of God, and after the day of judgement the being of the body and the being of the soul are one being in divine actuality.
Accorfing to the most reliable authorities, statements of theirs regarding creatures are not to be construed to mean that John went body and soul to heaven; no more did others of our Lord's friends either, of whom report says they are body and soul in God, transcending time in eternity. It is not possible. In God can be nothing but God, not mouth nor nose nor hand nor foot nor any creature pertaining to the body. So they cannot be held to have got there in the body. We may reasonably suppose that when the time came for John to go, God caused to befall him what was due to happen on the day of judgement. He did this for true love's sake, because he was so pure. The being of his soul, taking with it God helping, the being of his body, was drawn up. We may take it that his body, which was destined to perish here on earth, was disintegrated in the air, so that there entered into God only the being of the body, which would have accompanied the soul at the last day. Thus it befell Mary and all of whom it is related that they attained to God in the body.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
'Tis well argued. But you must know the question is in hot dispute among the theologians.
SISTER KATREI:
I will give you the key to it's solution. Pass to our Lord Jesus Christ and see what happened at His ascension. He was at meat when He ascended. As you well know, the food was lost in transit, with everything adventitious that Christ had taken on, which all remained in time. He could only take with Him into the Father that which came out of the Father. The being of Christ's soul took with it the being of the noble manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ in it's divine actuality. The persons subsist in the Father as one with the Father. Even so are all those in the Father who conquer by grace what Christ has by nature: not that they take with them the life of the body when they go hence; that waits till doomsday. The being of the body reverts to the being of the soul only when all things have perished, according to the vulgar teaching. You doubtless know that when God deigns to favour he treats as he treated St. John.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I wot that well. If I did as St. Dominic I should be as St. Dominic. St. Dominic sold his book and all he possessed and gave to the poor for God's sake. We do not this, daughter, nor do we practice numerous other virtues of St. Dominic. We are as we are through pretending a priesthood we do not possess. St. Francis was a simple soul wherefor God greatly favoured him. He approached God in perfect simplicity of life and so grew familiar with God. Now in those parts there was a priest who sorely hated a profane to be so intimate with God. Going to visit him, he said "What shall we make of this, brother? The scriptures say we must rebuke men for their sins". "Assuredly" said St. Francis. "But", said the priest, "did I rebuke a man, he might repay me twofold". "How should he?" said St. Francis. "I can rede you the scriptures better than that: we are to cultivate the true and perfect life, within and without, till we become a living rebuke to all mankind". "True, brother" said the priest, ashamed. Know that to do as St. Francis is to become as St. Francis.
Further, I hold: when we depart this life, grace departs from us. And again, to be less that St. John is to be more than St. John.
SISTER KATREI:
Thank God you know it.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
I have known it for long, and I ween it is true, though I do not live it.
SISTER KATREI:
That I rue. You have told me of nine heavens. Now tell me what I ask. Advise me what sort of life to lead, for you know my life better than anyone.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Indeed I will, and gladly. Eat when thou art hungry, drink when thou art thirsty, wear fine linen, sleep and take thine ease; gratify thy tastes in meats and drinks and, for a season, study thyself, live for thyself alone. An thou shouldst see God's whole creation swallowed up before thine eyes, avert it not with so much as an 'Ave Maria' but summon all creatures at will to do thy bidding to the glory of God. Wear delicate beautiful rainment, and, abiding in one place, carry all things up to God. Dost thou choose to enjoy creatures, it is seemly to do so, seeing that any creature thou enjoyest thou dost render to it's cause. Thou wilt know full well that everything thou enjoyest is in God to God's glory.
SISTER KATREI:
I know right well that all you say is true, but you must understand I never shall want anything except to be a beggar till I die.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou art mistook.
SISTER KATREI:
Then mistaken I will remain. I choose poverty and exile; that none can take from me.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
On my soul, thou art false to God!
SISTER KATREI:
How so?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Just pleasing thyself.
SISTER KATREI:
God knows I am but keeping on the lines that led me to eternal happiness. The natural error of those lines in time and in eternity shall be mine too in eternity and time. I will not deviate from the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Thou shouldst know that. God prosper thee.
SISTER KATREI:
Believe me, I do take more ease; my discipline is not so strict as heretofore. If only I might foreward on their way good souls approaching their eternal happiness but lacking certainty, that I fain would do: I would fain succour the whole world from sin for God's sake. Since our Lord Jesus Christ made use of all his faculties up to his death, 'tis meet I should do likewise.
My outer faculties shall occupy themselves with the exalted life and noble manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ and with his lofty teachings, during my life in time. The highest powers of my soul will, as you know, be working in Christ's soul in his heavenly Father, subsistent in one nature they never stop from. The Holy Ghost flows from the Father through these powers into my soul and back from my soul into God, each several power doing its own work, here in the Holy Ghost and, in the Father, with His Son our Lord Jesus Christ. Regard it as an intercourse. He knows all my days from the time I discerned good and evil.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Tell me, daughter, doctors declare that in heaven a thousand angels can stand on the point of a needle. Now rede me the meaning of this?
SISTER KATREI:
The doctors are right. You can see it in this way. The soul that enters into God owns neither time nor space nor anything nameable to be expressed in words. But it stands to reason, if you consider it, that the space occupied by any soul is vastly greater than heaven and earth and God's entire creation. I say more: God might make heavens and earths galore yet these, together with the multiplicity of creatures He has already made, would be of less extent than a single needle-tip compared with the standpoint of a soul atoned in God.
NARRATOR
So the daughter went on, till her talk turning upon God, she waxed most eloquent, the father urging her at intervals
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Say on daughter.
NARRATOR
She imparted to him so much concerning the immensity of God, the might of God and the providence of God, that he took leave of his outer senses and they had to carry him into a neighbouring cell where he lay for long ere coming to himself again. Returning to himself, he desired his daughter to come to him. Admitted to his presence, his daughter inquired
SISTER KATREI:
How is it now with you?
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Excellently well. God be praised for sending thee to a man. Thou didst show me the way to my eternal happiness, and I have been deep in divine contemplation where there was given me the realisation of all I have heard from thy lips. Daughter I adjure thee, by the love of God, help me by word and deed to win a permanent abode where now I am.
SISTER KATREI:
Impossible. You are not tempered to it. When soul and faculties, you are as used to going up and down as a courtier is to going to and fro at court; when you recognise the various members of the heavenly company and everything God ever made and fail in nothing but know them as the good man knows the members of his household, then you will distinguish between God and Godhead, then too you see the difference between spirit and spirituality. Till then you are not qualified for confirmation. Do not run away; wrestle awhile with creatures till you are independant of them and they, as such, of you. So shall you cultivate your faculties without going demented. This do until your soul-powers are stimulated to the consciousness we have been speaking of.
MEISTER ECKHARDT:
Blessed and praised be the sweet name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.