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Meister Eckhart: SERMON THIRTY-TWO
(a) (Pf 32, Q 20a ) 1
St. Luke writes for us i n his Gospel, “A man had made a great supper or evening feast. ” Who made it? A man.
What does he mean by calling it a supper?
One master says that it means great love, for God admits none to it but him who is intimate with God.
Secondly, he means to say how pure they must be who enjoy this supper.
Now it never becomes evening but a full day has gone before.
If there were no sun, there would never be any day.
When the sun rises that is morning light, then it shines more and more until midday arrives.
In the same way the divine light breaks forth in the soul to illuminate the soul’s powers more and more, until it becomes midday.
It never becomes spiritually day in the soul, unless she has received a divine light.
Thirdly, he means that whoever would worthily receive this meal must come in the evening.
When the light of this world fades away, it is evening.
Now David says, “He climbs up in the evening, and His name is the Lord” (Ps. 67: 5)
Just as Jacob, when it was evening, lay down and slept (Gen. 28 : 1 1 ) .
This denotes the repose of the soul.
Fourthly, he means it as St. Gregory says, that after the evening meal there is no more food.
He to whom God gives this food finds it so sweet and delicious that thereafter he hankers after no other food.
St. Augustine3 says God is of such nature that he who understands it can never repose on anything else.
St. Augustine says, ‘Lord, if thou takest thyself from us, give us another thee, or
we shall never rest: we want nothing but thee.’
Now one saint4 says that a God-loving soul forces God to do whatever she wants, making Him completely infatuated so that He can deny her nothing that He
is.
He withdrew Himself in one way and gave Himself in another say:
He took Himself away as God and man and gave Himself as od and man, as another self in a secret vessel.
A very precious relic is not willingly allowed to be touched or seen.
Therefore He clothed Himself in the cloak of the likeness of bread, j ust as my bodily food is transformed by my soul, so that no corner of my nature is not united
with it.
For there is a power in nature that separates the basest part and throws it out, and it carries up the noblest part, so that there is not so much as a needle’s point that is not united with it.
What I ate a fortnight ago is as much one with my soul as what I received in my mother’s womb.
So it is that whoever receives this food purely becomes as truly one with it as my flesh and blood are one with my soul.
There was a man. That man had no name, for that man is God.
Now a master5 says of the first cause, that it is beyond words.
The deficiency lies in language. This comes of the surpassing purity of its essence.
We can only speak of things in three ways: first, of what is above things; second, of the likeness of things; and third, of the operation of things. I will give you a simile.
When the power of the sun draws the noblest sap from the root up into the branches and turns it into blossom, the power of the sun yet remains above it.
This, I say, is how the divine light works in the soul.
When the soul pronounces God, this utterance does not comprise the real truth a bout His essence: no one can truly say of God what He is.
Sometimes we say one thing is like another.
Now since all creatures contain next to nothing of God, they cannot declare Him.
We can j udge the skill of a painter who has made a perfect picture.
And yet we cannot fully j udge it from that.
All creatures cannot fully express God, for they are not receptive to what He really is
This God now man has prepared the supper – the inexpressible man for whom there are no words.
St. Augustine says whatever we say of God is not true, and what we do not say of Him is true.
Whatever we say God is, He is not; what we do not say of Him He
is more truly than what we say He is.
Who prepared this feast?
A man: the man who is God.
Now King David says, “0 Lord, how great and how manifold is thy feast, and the taste of the sweetness that thou hast prepared for those that love thee, not those that fear thee” (Ps. 3 0 : 20).
St. Augustine thought of this food and felt revulsion and he had no taste for it.
Then he heard a voice near him, from above: ‘I am the food of great people.
Grow and become great and eat me.
But you should not suppose that I shall be turned into you.
You will be turned into me.
‘When God works in the soul, whatever is unlike in the soul is purified and cast out by the burning heat. By the pure truth, the soul enters more into God than any food into us – in fact it turns the soul into God. And there is one power in the soul that splits off the coarser part and becomes united with God: that is the spark in the soul. The soul becomes more one with God than the food with my body.
