Mechthild Of Magdeburg Quotes

A fish cannot drown in water, A bird does not fall in air. In the fire of creation, God doesn't vanish: The fire brightens. Each creature God made must live in its own true nature; How could I resist my nature, That lives for oneness with God?

Prayer, said Mechthild of Magdeburg, brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a narrow room where they speak much of love: and here the rules which govern that meeting are laid down by a master’s hand.

You shine into my soul Like the sun against gold.

Prayer, said Mechthild of Magdeburg, brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a narrow room where they speak much of love:

With their ever-available loving hearts, they bow before God and bend down under all this pain and are lower than all the other creatures on earth. Pride is rare among them.3 Mechthild of Magdeburg, “The Flowing Light of the Godhead

O du unermesslicher Schatz in deiner Fülle! […] Wie weh mir dann nach dir ist, wenn du mich schonen willst, das könnten dir alle Kreaturen nicht wirklich sagen, wenn sie meine Klage vorbringen würden, denn ich leide unmenschliche Not; Der leibliche Tod wäre mir weit willkommener […] Deswegen muss ich eine schwere Krankheit erdulden, denn du hältst mich gebunden, dies Band ist stärker, als ich es bin, Daher kann ich nicht von der Liebe frei werden. Ich rufe nach dir mit gewaltiger Sehnsucht Und kläglicher Stimme, ich warte auf dich, schweren Herzens, ich kann nicht ruhen, ich brenne Unauslöschlich in deiner heißen Liebe […] Ach, Herr, da du mir alles entzogen hast, was ich von dir habe, so laß mir doch aus Gnade jene Gabe, die du jedem Hund von Natur aus verliehen hast, nämlich, daß ich dir getreu bleibe in meiner Not Ohne jedes Aufbegehren.

What has just been said of the followers of different faiths is even more patent in their mystics. Despite the abrogation of their religions, we do not doubt the possibility of mystics of other faiths reaching a higher spiritual plane, for when the lower soul is negated and sublimated by spiritual disciplines, the powers of the higher soul seldom fail to appear, and it is not impossible that in such a condition it might behold Ultimate Reality, which is, after all, as real and objective as Detroit or anything else in the physical world. But what a difference between the few hundred Jewish, Christian, or even American Indian mystics of the Western tradition who left any record of their experiences-men and women such as Catherine of Siena, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Francis of Assisi, Moses Cordovero, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John Tauler, Henry Suso, Jakob Böhme, Handsome Lake, Isaac Luria, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross-and the literally thousands of Sufi masters of the Islamic tradition who founded the great mystical orders, had immense influence for centuries at all levels of society, produced an unparalleled and monumental body of mystic literature in poetry and prose, and left countless adepts in the beatitude of the Divine Presence, a living tradition that continues to this day. What other religion has ever seen a Mathnawi like Rumi’s? There is a tremendous difference between a few outstanding spiritual personalities that appeared at times and places in the West, like occasional watering places scattered across a hinterland, and the throngs of mystics of the Islamic milieu, on a sea of the Divine whose tides flooded regularly. Not only in the numbers of contemplatives, but in the abidingness of their personal experiences, there is a great difference between the mystics of Islam, who proceeded from the light of true monotheism to a state of perpetual illumination, men such as Sahl al-Tustari, al-Ghawth Abu Madyan, Shams al-Tabrizi, Ibn ‘Arabi, Abul Hasan al-Shadhili, and others whose testimony is unambiguous, and those of other faiths, who through self-mortification caught momentary glimpses of the Godhead in “experiences” they then translated to others in spiritual depositions.

I would gladly die of love if it could happen to me

Matt could draw forth an endless stream of treasures from the intellectual and spiritual giants of the West’s Middle Ages—doctors of the church such as Thomas Aquinas and Theresa of Avila; forgotten or underappreciated women theologians, including Mechthild of Magdeburg and Julian of