Tauler: if you could do it yourself...

Monday, May 11, 2020
Meditation:
    And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
    —Hebrews 13:12-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Generous love makes [a good man] hold others innocent in his heart; even when he sees infirmity or fault in his neighbour, he reflects that very likely all is not as it seems on the outside, but the act may have been done with a good intention; or else he thinks that God may have permitted it to take place for an admonition and lesson to himself; or again, as an opportunity for him to exercise self-control, and to learn to die unto himself by the patient endurance of and forbearance towards the faults of his neighbours, even as God has often borne many wrongs from him and had patience with his sins. And this would often tend more to his neighbour’s improvement than all the efforts he could make for it in the way of reproofs or chastisements, even if they were done in love, (though indeed we often imagine that our reproofs are given in love, when it is in truth far otherwise). For I tell thee, if thou couldst conquer thyself by long-suffering and gentleness and the pureness of thy heart, thou wouldst have vanquished all thine enemies.
    ... Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361), The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg, Charles Kingsley, pref. & Susanna Winkworth, tr., New York: Wiley & Halsted, 1858, “Sermon for St. Peter’s Day”, p. 463 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 13:12-14; 2 Tim. 4:2; Tit. 3:1-2; Jas. 3:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Teach me, Lord, to be holy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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