Henry Suso: The role of good works

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

In his Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, Suso personifies God as “Eternal Wisdom” and the follower of God as “The Servant” and this small excerpt reflects a conversation between the two parties.

“The Servant: How ardently didst Thou love me, how generously didst Thou redeem me…Thou fair Wisdom, how shall I ever be in a condition to acknowledge Thy love and Thy sufferings? If I had Samson’s strength, Absalom’s beauty, Solomon’s wisdom, and the riches and greatness of all kings, my only wish would be to devote them to Thy praise and service. But, Lord, I am nothing, and therefore can do nothing. O Lord, how am I to thank Thee?

Eternal Wisdom: If thou hadst the tongues of all the angels, the good works of all mankind, and the powers of all created beings, thou yet couldst not thank Me, nor requite Me, for the least pang which I suffered for the love of thee.

The Servant: Tender Lord, inform and teach me, then, how I may become pleasing to Thee by means of Thy grace, since no one is able to make Thee a return for the tokens of Thy love.

Eternal Wisdom: Thou shouldst often set My sorrowful cross before thy eyes, and let My bitter torments penetrate to thy heart, and shape thy own sufferings after them…Let thy cry of misery rise to thy heavenly Father with a renunciation of thyself and all thy desires, according to His Fatherly will…What though thy desires may have a thirsty craving to seek satisfaction and delight in something that might be pleasant to them, yet shouldst thou forego it for My sake…thou shouldst thirst after the salvation of men. Thy good works thou shouldst direct to a perfect life, and persevere to the end…”

Henry Suso (1295-1366) in Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, translated by Richard Raby (London: Thomas Richardson and Son, 1866) 118-119.

Basically in considering the generosity of God in redemption, the Servant asks: How can I repay you? This is akin to these questions: What is the role of good works? Why should Christians do them?

Since all the good works of mankind cannot repay God for all He has done for us, Suso wisely states that devoting riches to good works has nothing to do with repaying God and everything to do with living the life God intends for us with perfection (think: with consistency) and perseverance. In other words, He redeemed us for this purpose.

Father in heaven, thanks for the salvation I have in Christ, accomplished through sorrow and suffering. Forgive me for putting my desires ahead of others, and for the times I fail to do good works because I am wrapped in my own agenda. Help me die to self, do good works that show my faith with consistency, and persevere until you return or call me home. Do this by your Holy Spirit I pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm. Proverbs 13:20

“When a thing standeth long in salt, it is salt, and if any thing stand in a stinking place, it is made stinking. And if any thing standeth with a bold man, it is made bold; and if it stand with a fearful man, it is made fearful. And if a beast companieth with men it is made tractable and familiar. And generally it is verified of them by reasons and diverse experience, that every nature moveth to its kind.”

Albertus Magnus (1206-1280) in “The Book of Marvels of the World” by Alburtus Magnus 1.2 in The Book of Secrets of Alberts Magnus, eds. Michael Best and Frank Brightman (Boston: Weiser Books, 1999).

Meet Albertus. He was both a bishop and a professor, so he would become known as one of the 36 doctors of the church. His work, The Book of Secrets, could be described as a cross between a set of proverbs and a science textbook, so consider him a guy who grasped the spiritual and physical world.

Having just driven by the Great Salt Lake in Utah en route to locate, catch and release Humboldt Cutthroat Trout while fly fishing in Nevada, Sammy and I saw everything near the salty water was covered with salt. So when I read this excerpt I had to post it.

Albertus is basically saying that our surroundings influence us. They can cause us to stink. They can draw us toward boldness or fear. He also highly adds that animals (such as pets) can take a liking to people when they spend time with them, and then concludes by saying that every nature moveth to its kind.

So what about you? Do you stink or do you smell like the fragrant aroma of Christ? That begs this next question: With whom are you standing? Bold people who know that Christ has overcome the world, or fearful people who have not taken hold of the reality that God has not given us the spirit of fear.

Related to generosity, are you generous or stingy? Do you give your first and best or do you give your leftovers and scraps? For Albertus to conclude that “every nature moveth to its kind” we discover that we become like the people with whom we spend time. I am thankful to have spent four days with Sammy.

Like Albertus, he’s a brilliant biologist and Bible lover, who is bold and careful to spend time with roommates and friends who love Jesus and demonstrate that through their actions. He’s also an amazing fly fisherman, dog lover, and he’s generous! I also think that he and Albertus would have been good friends!

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:18-19

“Make me worthy, O uncreated God, to know the depth of Your love and Your most ardent charity. Make me worthy of understanding the ineffable charity You communicated to us when you showed us Your Son Jesus Christ in the incarnation, and when He, Your Son, manifested You, the Father, to us. O admirable and joyous love! In truth, in You, is to be found all that is pleasant, agreeable, and delightful. This is the contemplation which elevates the soul from the world, lifts it above itself, and brings it peace and tranquility.”

Angela of Foligno (c.1248-1309) in “The Instructions” in Angela of Foligno: Complete Works translated by Paul Lachance (Classics of Western Spirituality; Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993) 310.

If you are weary in studying what contemplative followers of Christ had to say about living a life of generosity, please hang with me another week or so. There is much wisdom in their words.

For example, consider how today’s meditation (a personal prayer to God) echoes the Apostle Paul’s prayer for us. Once we realize how faithfully and God loves us, it transforms our relationship to the world and everything in it.

I am doing some contemplation that elevates the soul this week.

I’m fly fishing for few days with my son, Sammy, in Western Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. That means we tend to eat breakfast, enjoy the outdoors all day, and then eat dinner in the evening. During the day is when I experience delight.

It might be in the majesty of God’s creation (pictured above from our hike today), the beauty of a trout, or in the wonder of a wildflower. God’s behind all of it. He’s holding everything together. He loves me, and holds me together, which is why I can trust him in all things. Even with the aching back I seem to have this week.

Take time to contemplate on the depths of God’s love today!

If you don’t take time to contemplate, then you will not comprehend the depth of God’s charity, and you will be far more hesitant to be generous because you will not be lifted from the world and its way of thinking. Try it, it’s delightful!

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Galatians 6:3

“As thou hast forsaken the world, as it were a dead man, and turned to our Lord bodily in the sight of men, so thou be in thy heart as it were dead to all earthly loves and fears, and turned wholly to our Lord Jesus Christ: For be thou well assured, that a bodily turning to God, without the heart following, is but a figure and likeness of virtues, and not the truth in itself.

Wherefore, wretched men and women are they, who neglecting the care of their interior, show only exteriorly a form and likeness of holiness, in habit or clothing, in speech and outward carriage and works, casting their eyes upon other men’s deeds, and judging their defects, esteeming themselves to be something, when indeed they are just nothing, and so deceive themselves.

Do not thou so; but together with thy body, turn principally thy heart to God, and frame thy interior to His likeness, by humility and charity, and other spiritual virtues, and then art thou truly turned to Him.

I say not that thou mayest early on the first day be turned to Him in thy soul in perfection of virtues as thou mayest with thy body be enclosed in a house; but my meaning is, that thou shouldst know that the end of thy bodily enclosure is that thou mightest thereby the better come to a spiritual enclosure; and even as thy body is enclosed from bodily converse with men, even so thine heart might be enclosed from the inordinate loves and fears of all earthly things.

And that thou mayest the better come thereto, I shall in this little treatise yield thee the best instructions and helps that I know, or can.”

Walter Hilton (c. 1340-1395) in “That the Inward State of the Soul should be like the Outward” (Chapter One) of The Scale of Perfection (London: John Philip, 1870) 1-2.

Hilton had me with ideas such as dying to “earthly” and “inordinate loves and fears” and framing my “interior to His likeness by humility and charity.”

Why cite this in a meditation on generosity?

Until our interior is framed according to the likeness of Christ, our exterior will never look like Christ. In other words, don’t both pursuing a life of generosity without first dying to “earthly” and “inordinate loves and fears.”

What does that mean?

Until you are willing to let go of the things of this earth, and the fears that people have of losing those things, you won’t ever exhibit the virtue of generosity. You might give token gifts but you will never be generous.

Want to start that interior framing process?

In your heart, ask the Holy Spirit to help you let go of earthly things which cannot give you the security or satisfaction you seek. Turn “principally” your heart to God instead. Now that you have found the security and satisfaction you seek in Him, use whatever you possess for God’s glory as a tool for extending charity with humility.

Christ be with you.

You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

“Some follow their own ideas and choose their own techniques in prayer and meditation, or perhaps imitate what other people are doing…They still make uncharitable judgements and at the slightest provocation they lash out in hatred against their neighbor. Their peace is a fraudulent one, for by keeping their own counsel they have not arisen and God cannot therefore work in them. They have to abandon their presuppositions and arrogant ways and begin the strenuous work of self-denial, following the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ in humility and love. By dying to self they have to learn what it means to arise.

On the other hand, we encounter noble souls so steeped in truth that it shines forth in them. They permit God to prepare the ground, leaving themselves entirely to Him. By this act of self-surrender they refuse to cling to anything of their own, be it their works, their special devotions, what they undertake and what they leave aside. They accept all things from God in humble awe and refer them back to him in total detachment…How different are these people who allow God to prepare the ground. They do not take matters in to their own hands.

Yet, for all that, they, too, are prone to temptation, for no one is exempt from that. However, when tempted, through pride or carnal desire, through worldly attachments, anger, or whatever else, they immediately surrender it all to God and they allow themselves to fall into His loving arms. Such people do indeed rise up, for they go beyond themselves…Whatever God may ordain, they accept it with joy and the whole world cannot deprive them of such serenity…”

Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) in “Sermon 5: Feast of Epiphany II” in Johannes Tauler Sermons, translated by Maria Shrady (Classics of Western Spirituality; Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1985) 47-48.

Today marks 24 years of marriage for Jenni and me. It’s our anniversary. While reading Johannes Tauler yesterday, I came upon this section on two kinds of people and it seemed fitting to recount it today as the latter of the two persons reminds me of my wife. Her soul is so steeped in truth it shines forth from her.

What does this reflection on two kinds of people have to do with generosity?

There are many people today who think generosity is about doing good deeds on the outside without a heart that is characterized by detachment, humility, and love. They are imitators and, at their core, merely “old self” people as the Apostle Paul would describe them.

Alternatively, there are others who are detached from the things of this world because they are attached to God who is love. They shine because they resist the temptation to take matters into their own hands. Their trust is in God so they radiate God’s kindness and serenity wherever they go.

What kind of person are you?

If your honest answer is that you feel like more of an old self person than a new self person, Tauler would likely say die to self by identifying whatever it is you attach to other than God, and chose today instead to trust in God. The Apostle Paul called this putting on the new self, and what results is that we end up spreading true righteousness and holiness wherever we go.

May this be true of each of our lives, and that includes Jenni and me as we embark on another year of life together.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3

“Where is love?” and I respond: Love is in a person’s heart and will, not in his hand or in his mouth; which means: not in his actions but in his soul. Now many people speak well and behave well and yet do not love God, such as hypocrites, who endure great self-disciplinary suffering, and appear devout in people’s opinion, but because they court adulation and the respect and popularity of mere mortals, they have lost their reward, and in God’s view they are the sons of the devil and ravening wolves.

However, if a person behaves with generosity and consideration to others, adopts simply poverty, and performs acts of self-discipline, this is a sign that he or she does love God; yet it is not through those acts that they are loving God, but by abandoning the world solely for the love of God and by directing all their attention to God, and loving all people as themselves, and doing all the good deeds which they are able to with the intention of pleasing Jesus Christ and arriving at the tranquil repose of heaven. Then they are loving God, and that love is in their soul, and consequently their actions reveal this externally.”

Richard Rolle (1300-1349) in “The Form of Living” from The English Writings by Richard Rolle, translated by Rosamund Allen (Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1988) 175-176.

Rolle wrote in a time when people celebrated those who spoke and behaved well but failed to love God. Sound familiar? They would inflict suffering on themselves in public to attempt to demonstrate their allegiance to God before others. Really, they did! While the exhibitions may look different today, many still live out their faith for show but their focus is glory before people rather than obedience to God. Rolle adds that “in God’s view they are the sons of the devil and ravening wolves.” I concur.

So where is love in this broken and hurting world?

Rolle says it is found in generous people who adopt simplicity, self-discipline, and exhibit the abandonment of the world because they are solely focused on the love of God and directing all our attention to God. Let’s parse his statement so we don’t miss the brilliance.

First, “Simplicity” is the modern word for the Mediaeval expression “simple poverty”. In other words, material things don’t captivate the generous person. Second, the presence of “self-discipline” reveals consistency rather than hypocrisy. So we might ask this question: What genuinely captivates this person’s attention? The answer is: the God who is love.

If you want to bring love to this broken and hurting world, focus on one thing: the God who is love. Do that, and you will not only exhibit generosity, you will give the world the one thing it desperately needs and is looking for, whether they know it or not.

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God! Psalm 50:23

“The first point is, to bring to memory the benefits received, of creation, redemption and particular gifts, pondering with much feeling how much God our Lord has done for me, and how much He has given me of what He has, and then the same Lord desires to give me Himself as much as He can, according to His divine ordination.

And with this to reflect on myself, considering with much reason and justice, what I ought on my side to offer and give to His Divine Majesty, that is to say, everything that is mine, and myself with it, as one who makes an offering with much feeling:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my intellect, and all my will—all that I have and possess. Thou gavest it to me: to Thee, Lord, I return it! All is Thine, dispose of it according to all Thy will. Give me Thy love and grace, for this is enough for me.”

Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) in Spiritual Exercises (translated by Elder Mullen; Grand Rapids: CCEL) 69.

Ignatius is a favorite saint of mine, my wife, and our mobile monk friend, Randy Kipp. We love how the Spiritual Exercises call us to stop, think, reflect with gratitude, and respond. Often when we do, life becomes more clear.

What’s this got to do with generosity? If we don’t slow down enough to realize all that God has done for us, our response will be limited at best and lame at worst. Don’t be offended by my candor, I am trying to get your attention.

Take time on this Saturday to pause and ponder with gratitude all that God has done for you. Do it for five minutes. For some people, that’s torture. Now determine your response to God’s generosity.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15

“With God, the more one seems to lose the more one gains. The more He strikes off of what is natural, the more He gives of what is supernatural. He is loved at first for His gifts, but when these are no longer perceptible He is at last loved for Himself. It is by the apparent withdrawal of these sensible gifts that He prepares the way for that great gift which is the most precious and the most extensive of all, since it embraces all others. Souls which have once for all submitted themselves to the divine action, ought to interpret everything favourably. Yes, everything!”

Jean-Pierre De Caussade (1675-1751) in Adandonment to Divine Providence, excerpt from Book 2, Chapter 4, Section 3: “The Generosity of God” (Grand Rapids: CCEL) 96.

This was interesting reading.

While God’s gifts are wonderful, nothing compares to the most precious, indescribable gift of God Himself. The only way to discover this is to this is to let go of everything. The world thinks you will end up empty and the irony is that you end up enriched.

Let go of what is natural to take hold of that which is supernatural. Frankly, I have learned this from my wife, whose deepest love relationship is not with me but with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let all that you do be done in love. 1 Corinthians 16:14

“Without charity external work is of no value, but anything done in charity, be it ever so small and trivial, is entirely fruitful inasmuch as God weighs the love with which a man acts rather than the deed itself. He does much who loves much. He does much who does a thing well. He does well who serves the common good rather than his own interests.

Now, that which seems to be charity is oftentimes really sensuality, for man’s own in- clination, his own will, his hope of reward, and his self-interest, are motives seldom absent. On the contrary, he who has true and perfect charity seeks self in nothing, but searches all things for the glory of God.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) in The Imitation of Christ, excerpt from chapter 15, “Works Done in Charity” (Grand Rapids: CCEL) 21.

While this is not me, I pray God makes it true of me: that all I do be done with “true and perfect charity” for the glory of God alone. I also pray that my time studying the Scriptures today with my neighbors will be fruitful for Christ. We are really growing to love our neighbors where God has planted us and seeing some “new growth” in their lives.

“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” Acts 9:6

“Jesus will show you in many ways how to please Him. It is a propitious moment, for He seems to be listening to us and the soul is nearly always disposed by this delicate touch to respond with a generous determination.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), Interior Castle (Benedictines of Stanbrook: CCEL, 1921) excerpt from the Seventh mansion, chapter 3, section 8.

Don’t let the word “propitious” throw you off. As we journey with Jesus, like His hand was upon the Apostle Paul, think of it as a “favorable” moment. Jesus not only shows us how to please Him, but touches our souls to respond with generous determination.

Are you available to our Lord? I am sensing in my own life, that He wants me to allocate more of my time for writing. This means less of my time for other things. This is a propitious moment. Guide me, Jesus, and guide my friends in how to please you.

Don’t stop there, Lord. Cause us all to respond, thanks to your hand upon us, with generous determination. Grow my family and my neighbors. Make our hearts disposed what you would have each of us do for you, for your glory. Amen.