Geert Grote, A Sermon Addressed to the Laity

The holy teacher St. Paul says that God's heavenly kingdom consists of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (see Gal 5:32).  Whoever desires to reign eternally with God, or to come to God, or to have God come and dwell in him, must sense these three in himself or else reach out and study to acquire them with all his strength.  In seeking these three, a man should let every external religious exercise go.  For all external exercises, whether fasting, scourging, keeping vigil, much psalm-singing, many Our Father's, manual labor, hard beds, or hair shirts, have only so much good and profit as they bring righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Men should do such works only in order to acquire those three and measure accordingly whether to do more or less.  Any exercise that gets in the way of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, or any one of the three, is harmful, burdensome, and improper for a man.  It comes rather from man's enemy, the devil, and from man's own perverse conceit and self-absorption.  The devil sets men to doing many such exercises that look good on the outside...and could also be good if they were done righteously and for the right reasons.  But the devil leads men into such an ascetic life that--as he knows well it will--it makes them sick in the head, quick to anger, ill-natured, and arrogant, or he brings a man to think he is doing something good so that his own works become pleasing to him.  The devil knows very well that exterior works, without the interior, are not of God, and that without interior righteousness such works are in fact more harmful than helpful.  The devil drives some persons to such an austere life that they lose the kingdom of heaven by neglecting their interior life and the things that are more needful.

And so it is little wonder that there are many people who are much in prayer and who lead very austere lives, and yet are unrighteous within and covetous still of temporal good.  Goods earned unjustly they have not returned, and indeed cannot, though they may at times want to, because such goods have grown so near their hearts that wickedness, miserly practices, and the devil's pleasures are now closer to their hearts than God himself, his love, and his commandments.  Through their religious exercises these people make a good appearance on the outside among simple people, but that is of as little profit to them, in Christ's own words, as the external gleam of sepulchers which on the inside are full of worms and stench--and so it is with these people.  We should know, as St. Paul said, that though these people could speak with angelic tongues and do all things and understand all mysteries and practice all the arts and do such miracles as to move mountains and live so ascetically as to give their bodies to be burned, yet it would be worth nothing if they had not a godly love which outweighed all temporal things (see 1 Cor 13:13).

No godly love or power resides in the man who knowingly clings to or desires unjust goods.  Justice and judgment must prepare the way in a man before God or love, which is God, will enter into him, as David says in the Psalter ... justice and judgment are a preparation for the throne of God in us (Ps 89:15), presupposing that we prepare ourselves to become fit places for God to come in and take his seat.  This, I repeat, is the first thing:  God will have judgment from us according to the justice that is within.  We should so judge ourselves that, so far as we can, we render full restitution to our fellow Christians for all misdeeds done to them and for all that we have taken from them unjustly--even if we ourselves must suffer in order to make sure that we do not see them forced to beg for their bread.  So much at least the command of God and holy love ought to move us to give.

Love encompasses justice and wants to praise her beyond all speaking.  A righteous Christian should not bring his sacrifice to the altar until he has done justice;  until then, in fact, his sacrifice, whether interior or exterior, is not pleasing to God.  It should be recognized that St. Thomas spoke truly in the Secunda Secundae:  A man can, may, and should restore what he has taken unjustly; but if he withholds and increases it, doing nothing else, the withholding and increasing is a mortal sin bringing death to the soul.  The love of God cannot dwell in a man during the time that some temporal good so stirs him that he desires unjustly and against God to have or get it, and takes it at any hour that he can, with might or with cunning, in secret or in public.  And all confessors and others who keep him in this business are nothing but advocates and helpers of the devil.  For so long as a man possesses goods of other people that are pleasing to him, or goods that he has to produce, prepare, or preserve in an underhanded way, or takes of them as it suits him without the people's concurrence, or exchanges them to suit himself, or advises people in a way harmful to them but profitable to himself--for all that time the love of temporal goods possesses a man's heart more than the love of god.  This is contrary to God's command and makes a man blind, inclining him toward himself and, still more, toward the devil and the advice of false confessors.  And so he is ever finding things he wants, always managing to excuse his covetousness, and thus deceives himself horribly, indeed all the way to hell and death, because all such false pretensions allow a man to remain in his foolishness.

If such men would reflect on their lives and not abandon them at once to gathering and a blindly ascetic life-style, they would discover that their lives actually stand outside of love.  For they would discover the degree to which little temporal things, no matter how small they might be, move them against God and against justice.  A small word, for instance, may easily unsettle their hearts and loosen their mouths.  They quickly become wretched over some one little thing that has escaped their grasp.  This is entirely contrary to joy in the Holy Spirit which renders men so much the less grieved over worldly things as they come to love ever more things that are truly godly.  And for that reason such people eventually become quick to anger, quarrelsome, murmurers, gossips, obstinate, and out to please themselves.  Nor have they any peace within, as shown by their words and works.  But wherever there is no outer peace, not God but the devil is present.  For the Prophet says that God's city enjoys peace, and the Lord says that his spirit comes to rest only in restful men.

Peace was the first gift the angels announced to all men of goodwill  at Christ's birth.  A good will is to be measured by peace:  You have much goodwill if you have genuine peace, and you will also have genuine peace if you have good will.  What then is good will except that a man conform his will to God's so that he wills nothing other than what God wills?  Now since all things that happen come from the will of God, working and disposing things according to his holy peace, the good man should be at peace with all things that God arranges in pain or difficulty and sends against sin.  The just man of goodwill can always make peace within and without, keeping himself from slanderous talk, rebellious action, or anything that might unsettle others.  The apostles spoke peace to all the houses they entered, and David said in the Psalter, God spoke peace to his people, and turns around the hearts that are dead within.  Christ, in coming and going, spoke peace to his people inwardly and outwardly.  Inwardly he spoke of a peace that passes all understanding for those who are perfect, and so the more impure a man in heart, the less he has of genuine peace.  For purity of heart cannot exist without interiority of heart and interiority and kindness are practically the same.  A distraught heart cannot withhold itself from complaint and lashing out, and thence come externally unrest and lack of peace.

External suffering and dissatisfaction come especially when a man wants things to be other than the way they have turned out, and cannot and will not accept what has happened, whether pleasure or loss, good or evil, as coming from the hand of God.  The just man makes an effort to bear these things equitably, along with all that God sends, and those who cannot do this perfectly should strive for it more and more.  It is much better for a man to suffer through the pain and difficulties that God sends or arranges in his external wisdom and goodness than to attempt to deal with these things with his own strength and never know whether they are pleasing to God or not.  But a man should know that God wills all that he disposes for a man to suffer, and should know that more surely than if the holy angels themselves had said it with their own mouths.  Indeed God speaks it to him with his own mouth, for God's speech is nothing other than his works, and therefore his works are the most authentic testimony on earth to God's will that all things should fit together.  And for that reason the just and kindly man represses all evil-speaking and all injustice because for him all is at peace.

All too distant from these men are those who cry out dreadfully within and without over one little unworthy thing, and thus destroy the peace of everyone around them.  In truth they ought to know that their tongues and hearts are enflamed with the fires of hell, like those tongues whereof St. James spoke.  These men desecrate not only their hearts but also their bodies and set them afire with the flames of hell (see Jas 3:6).  Oh, poor souls!  How many a husband is enflamed with hell-fire, in heart, tongue, and body, horribly festering and boiling within over one little word spoken by his wife.  And oh, poor souls!  How many a wife, who ought to be subject to her husband, is enflamed with hell-fire over one little word, heard from her maid or husband, which so unsettled her that she set up a great clamor, scolding without ceasing and destroying the peace of all about her.  What more can one say than that these are hellish beasts, and yet they do not repent.  Yea, in my own mind, they are spiritually burdened in this state with the hellish beast himself. 

And so this ends up concerning much more than one little thing.  It is much worse than if they simply mistreated someone to whom by God's command they ought to be subject, as a child his father or a wife her husband or a servant his lord, and worse too than if a lord thus mistreated his servant or a father his child or a husband his wife.  For God willed and foresaw that they should be subject and also arranged it so, but, contrary to God, they have set themselves above, against his wisdom and law to their own great loss of peace.  It frequently happens that elderly folk become ruined in body, goods, or wisdom, or that a husband cannot earn enough or becomes old and lame, and then along comes the evil child or nasty wife to set themselves above their father or husband, wishing them subject instead to child or wife and thus breaking God's law simply to gain a little earthly advantage.

Speak, wife, is that why you have disturbed and broken the ordinances that God has set and no man can trim?  Just because your husband or father can no longer earn enough?  Because, dear wife, it is God's holy law that you neither can nor should be without a head:  Your husband should be your head and Christ should be the head of your husband.  You should come to Christ in this way, and in no other than with your husband as your head.  That is, he should be above you in all governance and in all things concerning your household and body.  You have no power over your own body; indeed if you were to earn anything by your own work, it would come under the power of your husband.  On the other hand, if you earn nothing, your husband should still provide for you with tenderness and as best he can.  Whatever you earn is your husband's, as if he had earned it with his own hands, and in this way your hands are more your husband's than your own.

A man likewise should look upon his wife, as St. Paul said (Eph 5:22-33), even as Christ looks upon his holy Church, that is, as a communion of marital love.  He should love her and protect her with all his strength, while a wife should be subject so that all she brings is held in common. Each should love the other spiritually, and so all that he earns and possesses he should pour out and set afire and offer up in the same love as does God himself.  Oh, if husband and wife would only reflect on the love and ordinances that prevail between Christ and his communion of souls!  For married love is an image and sign of that love.  Both man and wife should see in the heavenly wedding feast their own mutual belonging in to each other and should take their ordinances from it.  Meditate on it, all you wives who serve God!  Let the heavenly marriage take root within you.  Learn from it many wonders and special things which you should do for your husbands.  And you husbands, likewise, learn from it what you owe your wives.  Out of it should grow unity, peace, and tranquility so that you love to be together,  preferably more in spirit than in the flesh.  And you wives too:  Out of it you should grow to prefer your husband's rule and instruction to doing your own will.  And so you will become very careful not to wreck this peace or to spread abroad your mutual secrets and burdens, but rather quietly to bear together both good and evil and happily to remain together in your home.  You, wife, will think you see Christ in your husband, and you, husband, will think you see the loving soul in your wife.

Yea, those who taste of this will care little about going into taverns and clubs, as do so many now who spend much time abroad and little at home.  One should not say this of wives, for no good wife goes, nor may go, abroad to eat or out into society without her husband's permission according to the command of God and the saints, just as Christ says to the soul:  Without me you may not do anything that depends on our mutual unity.  I would rather, says Christ, have a wife who was extraordinarily subject to her husband in peace and tranquility, but who did not lead a very ascetic life, than a wife who in penance led the most austere life ever known among women but who was not subject to her husband or lacked kindness or chattered useless things ceaselessly.  An ascetic life is an extraordinary good and one necessary for us and for all men--if, that is, it is done in righteousness and obedience.  For an ascetic life finds all of its goodness in justice and obedience and peace, in quietness and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Without them an austere life is dead; it is as chaff and dust, and will be without the fruit of eternal life.

SOURCE: Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings, ed. John van Engen (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), pp. 92-97.  THIS SOURCE APPEARS HERE FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF STUDENTS IN HIS-221.  ANY OTHER USE MAY VIOLATE COPYRIGHT LAWS