CQOD: 02/03/06 -- Tauler: a purely negative state

Christian Quotation of the Day

February 3, 2006

Feast of Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, 865

Meditation:
    Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
    -- Matthew 23:10-12 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Let a man but separate himself from all contingencies and from all works, and there will come over him in this state of emptiness a peace which is very great, lovely, and agreeable, and which is in itself no sin since it is part of our human nature. But when it is taken for a veritable possessing of God, or unity with God, then it is sin, for it is in reality nothing else than a state of thorough passivity and apathy untouched by the power from on high—a purely negative state from which (if one in arrogance calls it divine) nothing follows but blindness, failure of understanding, and a disinclination to be governed by the rules of ordinary righteousness.
    ... Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit places me under Your rule.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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