"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"
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Johannes Tauler urges a deliberate descent into the inner life, not as a rigid program but as a personal path. Everyone should carve out a time to be still, to listen, to examine the heart, yet not everyone is graced or disposed for formal contemplative prayer. The counsel is both generous and demanding: generous because it honors differences of temperament, vocation, and circumstance; demanding because it removes excuses. Whether day or night, some moment can be found to sink beneath noise and habit to what he elsewhere calls the ground of the soul.
A 14th-century Dominican preacher shaped by Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland mystics, Tauler ministered amid plague, displacement, and anxiety. His sermons prize interiority without abandoning the world. He rejects any spiritual elitism that ranks cloister above workshop. Contemplation is a gift and a calling for some, but the way to God remains open for all through humility, detachment, charity, and a steady recollection in the midst of daily tasks. Each according to his own fashion signals pastoral realism: a mother with children, a craftsman at his bench, a cleric at study will not pray in the same mode, yet each can cultivate an inward turning toward God.
The phrase sink into his depths is not an invitation to self-absorption but to self-knowledge before God. Quiet can reveal motives, attachments, and the subtle evasions that keep love superficial. It can also awaken gratitude and a readiness to serve. Tauler’s balance protects against two errors: spiritual perfectionism that condemns ordinary people as second-class, and complacency that excuses shallowness because life is busy. Make space, however small, and let grace do its work; do not force experiences that are not yours to command. What matters is fidelity to the inner call, a simple, truthful presence that threads through work and rest, day and night.
A 14th-century Dominican preacher shaped by Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland mystics, Tauler ministered amid plague, displacement, and anxiety. His sermons prize interiority without abandoning the world. He rejects any spiritual elitism that ranks cloister above workshop. Contemplation is a gift and a calling for some, but the way to God remains open for all through humility, detachment, charity, and a steady recollection in the midst of daily tasks. Each according to his own fashion signals pastoral realism: a mother with children, a craftsman at his bench, a cleric at study will not pray in the same mode, yet each can cultivate an inward turning toward God.
The phrase sink into his depths is not an invitation to self-absorption but to self-knowledge before God. Quiet can reveal motives, attachments, and the subtle evasions that keep love superficial. It can also awaken gratitude and a readiness to serve. Tauler’s balance protects against two errors: spiritual perfectionism that condemns ordinary people as second-class, and complacency that excuses shallowness because life is busy. Make space, however small, and let grace do its work; do not force experiences that are not yours to command. What matters is fidelity to the inner call, a simple, truthful presence that threads through work and rest, day and night.
Quote Details
| Topic | Prayer |
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