The Liberated Soul No Longer Seeks God - Porete

[Guest guest]

"To you little ones who in desire and will take prey for your

nourishment, desire that you be such as (the liberated soul) is. For

whoever desires the lesser part and desires not the greater part ...

allows himself to fall, and so it appears that he is always hungry."

 

 

"Those who live in perpetual desire ... think and believe that there

is no better state than the state of desire where they dwell and wish

to dwell. Thus they perish on the way because they are satisfied by

what desire and will give to them."

 

 

"As long as I will nothing, ... I am alone in Him without myself,

completely unencumbered. And if I should will something, .. I am with

myself, and ... I have lost freeness."

 

 

"Whoever would ask such free Souls, sure and peaceful, if they would

want to be in purgatory, they would say no; or if they would want to

be certain of salvation in this life, they would say no; or if they

want to be in paradise, they would say no. But then with what would

they will it? They no longer possess any will, and if they would

desire anything, they would separate themselves from Love."

 

 

"Such a Soul neither desires nor despises poverty nor tribulation,

neither mass nor sermon, neither fast nor prayer, and gives to Nature

all that is necessary, without remorse of conscience. But such Nature

is so well ordered through the transformation by unity of Love, to

whom the will is conjoined, that Nature demands nothing which is

prohibited."

 

 

"This life is the handmaid and servant who prepares the place for the

arrival and lodging of the great being of the Freeness of Willing

Nothing, by which the Soul is in all points satisfied. That is, [the

Soul is satisfied] by this nothingness which gives all things. For

the one who gives all, possesses all, and not otherwise."

 

 

"... The One in whom she is does His work through her, for the sake

of which she is entirely freed by the witness of God Himself ... who

is the worker of this work to the profit of this Soul who no longer

has within her any work."

 

 

"Such an Annihilated Soul possesses so great understanding within her

by the virtue of faith ... that a created thing, which passes

briefly, cannot dwell in her memory ..."

 

 

"Meditation on Pure Love has only one intent alone, which is that the

Soul love always loyally without wishing to have anything in

return... Loyal Love would not deign to have any consolations which

might come from her own seeking... For the one who wills that God

cause him to experience God's will in comforts does not trust

perfectly in God's goodness alone, but in the gifts of His riches

which He has to give."

 

 

"This greater part (of absolute divine Love) shows her her

nothingness, naked without covering; such nakedness shows her the All

Powerful through the goodness of divine righteousness. These showings

make her deep, large, supreme, and sure. For they make her always

naked, All and Nothing, as long as they hold her in their embrace."

 

 

"(The liberated soul believes that) there never was, nor is there,

nor will there ever be anything worse than she, nor (anything) better

loved by the One who loves her ..."

 

 

"... She sees by means of the depth of the understanding of her own

wretchedness, which is so deep and so great that she finds there

neither beginning nor middle nor end, only a bottomless abyss. There

she finds herself, without finding herself and without bottom... And

who makes her see herself? The depth of humility which seats her on

the throne, who reigns without pride. There pride can no longer force

entry since the Soul sees herself and so does not see herself. And

this not-seeing makes her see herself perfectly."

 

 

"Even if they drive themselves each day with themselves to enlarge

upon the perfection of the apostles by the effort of the will, they

will not be unencumbered from themselves .. that is niether from the

body nor from the soul. Truly no ... since no matter (what one

attempts to do through one's own efforts), it will still only be self-

encumbrance."

 

 

"I think to find Him by my works, but I will not accomplish it, nor

do I accomplish it..."

 

 

"... God gives Himself through the ardor of light into the heart of a

creature."

 

 

"... when such a Sun is in the Soul, and such rays and such dazzling

brightness, the body is then no longer feeble and the Soul is no

longer fearful."

 

 

"... The Divine Goodness pours out from [His] bosom one rapturous

overflow of the movement of Divine Light. Such movement of Divine

Light, which is poured into the Soul by light, shows to the will of

the Soul the rightness of what is and the understanding of what is

not in order to move the will of the soul from the place where it now

is, where it ought not to be, in order to dissolve it where it is

not, whence it comes, and where it ought to remain."

 

 

"Love and such Souls are one thing, no longer two things."

 

 

"(The liberated soul) has no emptiness in her which would not be

completely filled by Me, which is why she cannot host either care or

memory, and so she possesses no semblance of them. And yet ... piety

and courtesy are not departed from such a Soul, as long as there is

time and place."

 

 

"(The soul says) For if I owe You as much as You are worth, You owe

me as much as You have, for such is the largesse of Your divine

nature... these two debts continue ... and are made completely one

from now on. And I completely consent to it ..."

 

 

"(The liberated soul) loses her name, for she rises in sovereignty.

And therefore she loses her name in the One in whom she is melted and

dissolved through Himself and in Himself. Thus she would be like a

body of water which flows from the sea, which has some name, as one

would be able to say Aisne or Seine or another river. And when this

water or river returns into the sea, it loses its course and its name

with which it flowed in many countries in accomplishing its task. Now

it is in the sea where it rests, and thus has lost all labor."

 

 

"This Soul ... is imprisoned and held in the country of complete

peace, for she is always in full sufficiency, in which she swims and

bobs and floats, and she is surrounded by divine peace, without any

movement in her interior, and without any exterior work on her part.

These two things would remove this peace from her if they could

penetrate to her, but they cannot, for she is in the sovereign state

where they cannot pierce or disturb her about anything."

 

 

"This is right, says Love, for her will is ours. She has crossed the

Red Sea, her enemies have been drowned in it. Her pleasure is our

will, through the purity of the unity of the will of the Deity where

we have enclosed her. Her will is ours, for she has fallen from grace

into the perfection of the work of the Virtues, and from the Virtues

into Love, and from Love into Nothingness, and from Nothingness into

clarification by God, who sees Himself with the eyes of His Majesty,

who in this point has clarified her with Himself. And she is so

dissolved in Him that she sees neither herself nor Him, and thus He

sees completely Himself alone, by His divine goodness. He will be of

Himself in such goodness which He knew of Himself before she ever

was, when He gave her ... Free Will, which He cannot take from her

without the pleasure of the Soul. Now He possesses [the will] without

a why in the same way that He possessed it before she was made a lady

by it. There is no one except Him; no one loves except Him, for no

one is except Him, and thus He alone loves completely, and sees

Himself completely alone, and praises completely alone by His being

Himself."

 

 

"This Soul ... is at rest without obstructing the outpouring of

divine Love."

 

 

"(The liberated soul) no longer seeks God through penitence, nor

through any sacrament of Holy Church; not through thoughts, nor

through words, nor through works; not through creature here below,

nor through creature above; not through justice, nor through mercy,

nor through glory of glory; not through divine understanding, nor

through divine love, nor through divine praise."

 

 

"(The liberated soul) has nothing to sin with, for without a will no

one can sin. Now she is kept from sin if she leaves her will there

where it is planted, that is, in the One who has given it to her

freely from His goodness."

 

 

"She is dissolved by annihilation into that prior existence where

Love has received her."

 

 

"Such Souls ... possess as equally dear, shame as honor, and honor as

shame; poverty as wealth, and wealth as poverty; torment from God and

his creatures, as comfort from God and His creatures; to be loved as

hated, and hated as loved; to be in hell as in paradise, and in

paradise as in hell; and in small estate as in great, and great

estate as small ... They neither will nor not-will anything of these

prosperities nor of these adversities."

 

~ Marguerite Porete, burned at the stake for heresy

in the 14th century

 

 

 

Love & Peace,

 

Mazie

[Guest guest]

Mazie,

This is awesome. Thank you.

John L.