In the most intimate, hidden and innermost ground of the soul, God is always essentially, actively, and substantially present. Here the soul possesses everything by grace which God possesses by nature.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the profound and constant presence of God within the soul, suggesting that divine grace connects us to divine nature.
Johannes Tauler's quote reflects the belief that within each individual's soul lies a deep, untouched space where God's presence is felt intimately and actively. It suggests that this inner sanctum of the soul is a source of grace and connection to the divine, enabling us to possess, through grace, what God holds by virtue of His nature. The profound implication is that we have access to the divine essence within ourselves, linking our existence to something far greater than ourselves.
In practice
During a spiritual retreat, this quote could be used to inspire participants to reflect on their inner connection with God.
Often when He comes, He finds the soul occupied. Other guests are there, and He has to turn away. He cannot gain entry, for we love and desire other things; therefore, His gifts, which He is offering to everyone unceasingly, must remain outside.
Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.
Every one should find some suitable time, day or night, to sink into his depths, each according to his own fashion. Not every one is able to engage in contemplative prayer.
As a good wine must be kept in a good cask, so a wholesome body is the proper foundation for a well-appointed inner ground.
If you fall seventy times a day, rise seventy times and return to God so that you will not fall too often.
If we really want to achieve true prayer, we must turn our backs upon everything temporal, everything external, everything that is not divine.
The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God's will and his grace.
The spiritual rest, which God particularly intends in this Commandment, is this: that we not only cease from our labor and trade, but much more, that we let God alone work in us and that we do nothing of our own with all our powers.
The greatness of prayer is nothing but an extension of the greatness and glory of God in our lives To fail to pray, then, is not to merely break some religious rule - it is a failure to treat God as God. It is a sin against his glory
And with the grace of Baptism and of Eucharistic Communion I can become an instrument of God's mercy, of that beautiful mercy of God.
A servant of the Lord stands bodily before men, but mentally he is knocking at the gates of heaven with prayer.
Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation the source of strength is one's self. When one prays he goes to a source of strength greater than his own.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.