21 April 2011

The Excellent Good

Jesus said, I give unto you a new Commandment, the compendium of all My teachings; that you love one another as I have loved you.

As I lay down My life for you, so also you should love one another unto death. As I love him who betrayed Me, and have prayed for them who brought Me to the Cross, so also you should love your enemies, and do good to them, by lending loving help to all who persecute you, and bring evil upon you.

This new Commandment of love our Lord Jesus taught not only by word, but also by deed. He desired to make known to us that we were His true sons, and that out of His eternal love He bore us in His Bosom, and that from everlasting we had been in Him.

No earthly father had ever embraced us as with such exceeding love as that which He had embraced us. It was that, as a most faithful Father, He left us His most incomparable testament, and bequeathed to us that excellent good, which is nobler and better than heaven and earth, His most sacred Body for food, and for our drink His most precious Blood.

Behold, I am near unto death, for I have turned away from You, the Medicine of my soul, the Bread of Life. My heart has withered within me, so that I am forced to beg my bread upon the earth, that is to say, to go after earthly and temporal consolation, for I have gone away from You, the food and nourishment of heaven.

I now come to You, Father of mercy, the well of loving kindness. With lowly prayer I knock at the door of Your divine grace and mercy, and at Your Fatherly Heart. Hear my prayer! Grant unto me the desire of my heart, fill the hungry one with good things, refresh the thirsty one, quicken my languor, heal my sickness, for You alone can heal me.

~ Johannes Tauler ~