SERMONESQUE : INSPEAKING

Spiritual brother in God, I speak now particularly to you, about your disposition toward contemplation as I think it to be, and not to all those others who shall hear what I write.  For if I were to address myself to everyone, then what I write should be applicable to everyone; but since I now write particularly to you, I therefore write nothing but what seems to me most profitable and suitable to your disposition.  If some other man share your disposition, so that he may gain as much from what I write as you, so much the better, for I shall be well satisfied.  None the less, as I now write, it is your own inward disposition, as far as I am able to understand it, which is my only object of attention; and therefore I say to you, as representing all others who may resemble you, as follows:

When you shall have time for solitude, do not think in advance what presently you must do, but abandon good thoughts just as evil thoughts; and do not pray with your lips unless you have a special desire for this.  And then if you do use any words, pay no attention to how many or how few, have no care for what they are or what they mean, whether you have used collect or psalm, hymn or anthem, or any other prayer, mental and inward and coming from the thoughts or vocal and outward by speaking words aloud.  

Let this humble darkness be all your mirror and your recollection.

From:  Anonymous, The Book of Privy Counsel, England, late 14th Century.

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THE ANCHORESS 2

  And then she was commanded by our Lord to go to an anchoress in the same city [Norwich], who was called Dame Julian. And she did so, and revealed to her the grace of compunction which God had put into her soul, of contrition, of sweetness and devotion, of compassion accompanied by holy meditation and exalted contemplation, and very many holy speeches and marks of His love which our Lord spoke to her soul, and many wonderful revelations, which she communicated, to the anchoress to know if there were any fraud in them, for the anchoress was experienced in such things, and knew how to give good advice.

  The anchoress, hearing the marvelous goodness of our Lord, devotedly thanked God with all her heart for his visitation, advising this creature to be obedient to the will of our Lord God, and to fulfill with all her power whatever He might put into her soul, if it were not contrary to the honour of God and the betterment of her fellow Christians; for if it were so contrary, then it could not be the prompting of a good spirit but rather of an evil spirit.  “The Holy Spirit never inspires anything contrary to the love of God, and if he were to do so He would be contrary to His own self, for He is all love.  Also, He inspires a soul to perfect chastity, for those who live chastely are called the temple of the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit makes a soul firm and steadfast in the true Faith and the right belief.  And a man who is divided in his soul is always unfirm and unsteadfast in all his ways.  A man always in doubt is like to the sea, which is moved and carried about by the wind."

 

From:  The Book of Margery Kempe (Margery visits Julian of Norwich), 1438.

Excerpted from The Medieval Mystics of England, edited with an introduction by Eric Colledge.  New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961.

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The Anchoress (Link)