From Mending the Life-Richard Rolle

8/22/2019 From Mending the Life-Richard Rolle

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Conversion

To be turned from the world is naught else but to put aback all lust, and to suffer thebitterness of this world gladly for God; and to forget all idle occupations and worldly errands,

in so mickle that our soul, wholly turned to God, dies pithily to all things loved or soughtin the world.

What is turning to God but turning from the world and from sin; from the fiend andfrom the flesh? What is turning from God but turning from unchangeable good to changeablegood; to the liking beauty of creatures; to the works of the fiend; to lust of the flesh and theworld? Not with going of feet are we turned to God, but with the change of our desires andmanners.

Turning to God is also done whiles we direct the sharpness of our minds to Him, andevermore think of His counsel and His commandments, that they may be fulfilled by us;and wherever we be, sitting or standing, the dread of God pass not from our hearts. Soothly,

thus disposed, to God we are truly turned because we are turned from the world.

And there are many lettings so that the eyes of our heart may not be fixed on God; of which weput some: abundance of riches; flatteringof women; the fairness and beauty of youth. This is the threefold rope that scarcely may bebroken; and yet it behoves to be broken and despised that Christ may be loved.

Truly he that desires to love Christ truly, not only without heaviness but with a joy unmeasuredhe casts away all things that may let him. And in this case he spares neither fathernor mother, nor himself; he receives no mans cheer; he does violence to all his letters; and he breaks through all obstacles. Whatever he can do seems little to him so that he may loveGod.

But there are many that say they will turn to God, but they can not yet, they say, forthey are holden back by this occupation or other; whose cold mind sorrowingly we reprove.For withouten doubt and they were touched with the least spark of Christs love, anon withall busyness they would seek which way they might come to Gods service, and in seekingthey would not cease until they had found.

Therefore the newly turned ought for to flee the occasion of sinning; and with their willavoid words, deeds, and sights stirring to ill. The more unlawful a thing is, the more it is tobe forsaken

The fiend also strongly upbraids against them which he sees turned from him and turned

to God, and ceases not to kindle fleshly and worldly desires. He brings to mind lusts donebefore, and the desolation of the contrite; and unprofitable desires that were slaked beforestir themselves. Among these it behooves the penitent manfully to use himself, and to takeghostly armour to gainstand the devil and all his suggestions; and to slake fleshly desiresand ever to desire Gods love; and to go not from Him, despising the world: of the whichnow we will speak.


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OF THE DESPISING OF THE WORLD

To despise this world is to pass through this life without the love of all temporal andpassing things; to seek nothing in this world but God; for all vainglory and solace not tocare; scarcely to take thy necessaries, and if they sometimes want, to bear it goodly. This isthe despising of this world.

All soothly that we love, we worship; it is also foul to worship dirt, that is to love earthlyThings. Put awaytherefore thy wicked will, and thou shalt be free from the fiend and from sin and made theservant of righteousness that teaches thee not to love earthly things.

Covetousness of the world and the love of God truly are contrary, and rest not togetherin one soul. The place is so strait, that one falls out. The more soothly thou castest outcovetousnessthe more thou tastest Gods love. The more covetousness, the less charity.

O wretched soul, what seekest thou in this world where thou seest that all things are

deceitful and passing? They soonest beguile thee that most flatter thee. Why busiest thouthyself for mortal things? Why yearnest thou with great desire for the things that shall perish?Seest thou not that they perish sooner than they are gotten? And so thou settest thyself on afalse ground, and whenthou weenest to stand thou fallest into the fire.

The dwellers in temporal plenty are beguiled by five things that they love: by riches; bydignity; by will; by power; and by honours. These bind them in sin, and constrain them indefaults; with these lusts they are overcome, and never are loosed but by death; but theirloosing is too late when there is no more save endless pain. This lets them from despisingthe world; from Gods love; from knowledge of themselves; from the desire for the heavenly kingdom. No man may be saved unless he cease to love the world with all that is therein.

Cease therefore whiles heat is in the body and the fair age of youth yet abides.

What things shall delight him that disposes himself to love Christ? He will despise youthand will keep his strength for God; riches he counts for nought; he will take heed that thisfairness is vain, and grace deceitful. Whereto shall I run on one by one? He shall perfectlydespise all things that in this world pass as a shadow.

Therefore be it enoughfor thee, all other things being despised, to love God; to praise God; with God to be; in Godto joy; and from Him not to part; but to cleave to Him with unslakened desire.

The world itself compels us to despise the world that is so full of wretchedness; in whichis abiding malice, destroying persecution, swelling wrath, fretting lust, false blaming for sin,and bitterness of slander; where all things are confused and withouten order; where neitherrighteousness is loved nor truth approved; where faithfulness is unfaithful, and friendshipcruel, that stands in prosperity and falls in adversity.

There are yet other things that should move us to the despising of the world: thechangeableness of time; shortness of this life; death sicker; the chance of death unsicker; thestableness of everlastingness and the vanity of things present; the truth of the joys to come.


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Choose what thou wilt. If thou love the world, with it thou shalt perish; if thou love Christ, withHim thou shalt reign.

OF POVERTY

If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor and come andfollow Christ. In the forsaking of worldly things and in the following of Christly things, itis shown there is perfection. Forsooth all that have forsaken their goods follow not Christ,for many are worse after the forsaking of their good than they were before. Then certainthey serve backbiting, and they dread not to withdraw the good fame of their neighbours.Then they swell with envy; they gnash with malice; they set themselves before all others;they praise their state, all others they either dispraise or condemn. Trowest thou how thatthe fiend has beguiled such, that neither have the world nor God, whom by divers wiles heleads to endless tormentry.

Thou that understandest that I have said, take thy poverty another way. When He saysgo and sell He marks the changing of thy desire and of thy thought, as thus: he that was

proud now be lowly; that was wrathful now be meek; he that was envious now be charitable;before covetous, now generous and discreet. And if he were unclean, now let him abstainnot only from all ill but from all likeness of ill. And if before he exceeded in meat or drink,now by fasting let him amend. He soothly that loved the world too mickle, now let himgather himself altogether in Christs love; and fasten all the waverings of his heart in one desire for things everlasting. And so no marvel that willful poverty shall be fruitful to him,and the noy that he suffers for God be a glorious crown. Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniamipsorum est regnum coelorum. That is to say: Bless be they that are poor in spirit, for theirsis the kingdom of heaven.

What is poverty of spirit but meekness of mind, by the which a man knows his owninfirmity? Seeing that he may not come to perfect stableness but by the grace of God, all

things that might let him from that grace he forsakes, and he sets his desire only in the joyof his Maker. And as of one root spring many branches, so of wilful poverty, taken in thiswise, proceed virtues and marvellousness untrowed. Not as some that change their clothesand not their souls; soothly it seems they forsake riches, yet they cease not to gatherinnumerablevices.

Take heed busily how thou followest Christ in manners. Learn of me, He says, for I am meekand lowly of heart. He says not learnof me for I am poor. Truly by itself poverty is no virtue but rather wretchedness; nor for itselfpraised, but because it is the instrument of virtue and helps to get blessedness, and makesmany eschew many occasions of sinning. And therefore it is to be praised and desired.

Therefore Christ to our example led a poor life in this way, for He knew that for themthat abound in riches and liking it is hard to enter into heaven. Therefore so that men shoulddesire poverty more greedily He has promised highhonour and the power of justice to them that forsake all things for Him.

Some men soothly say: we can not leave all, we are sick; it behoves us to keep our necessariesthat we may live, and that is lawful. But they are the less worthy, for they dare not


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suffer anguish, poverty and neediness for God. Yet by the grace of God they may come tothe height of virtue, and lift themselves to the contemplation of heavenly things, if theyforsake secular occupations and errands, and unwearily rise to meditate and pray; and holdnot the goods they have with full love, but having them, forsake them.

Take heed also: to seek more than enough is foul covetousness; to keep back necessaries

is frailty; but to forsake all things is perfectness. Therefore whiles they see high things thatthey can not reach, they empride not nor presume because of the small things that theyhave, so that they may mannerly ascend to the ordering of mans life: of which now follows.

OF THE SETTING OF MANS LIFE

So that a man may be righteously directed to the worship of God and to his own profitand the profit of his neighbour, four things are to be said.First: what is it that defiles a man. There are three sins, or three kinds of sin; that is tosay of thought, of mouth and of work. A man sins in thought when he thinks aught against

God. If he occupies his heart not with the praise and loving of God, but suffers it to beabstractedor stirred with divers thoughts, and to go void in the world. In mouth he sins whenhe lies; when he forswears; when he curses; when he backbites; when he defends a wrong;when he uses fond speech, or foul speech; or brings forth vain things or idle. In deed he sinsmany wise: by lechery; touching sinfully, or kissing; defiling himself wilfully; or, withoutgreat cause, procuring or sustaining occasions by which he trows he might be defiled; inrobbing; stealing; beguiling; smiting; and other such.Secondly: which are they that cleanse a man? And they are three, against the threeaforesaid, that is to say: Contrition of thoughtand pulling out of desires that belong not tothe praise or worship of God and love of Him. Confession of mouth, that ought to be timely,bare, and whole. Satisfaction of deed, that has three parts, that is to say: Fasting because he

has sinned against himself; prayer because he has sinned against God; alms because he hassinned against his neighbour. Yet I say not he should do alms of other mens goods, but he should restore; for sin is not forgiven unless that that is withdrawn, be restored.Third: which things keep cleanness of heart? And they are three: lively thought of God,that there be no time in which thou thinkest not of God except in sleep that is common toall; busy keeping of thine outwards wits, that tasting, savouring, hearing, and seeing theymay wisely be restrained under the bridle of governance. The third is honest occupation,as reading of holy writ, speaking of God, writing, or some other good deed doing.There are three things also that save cleanness of mouth: avisedness of speech; to eschewmickle speech; and to hate lying.

Also three things keep cleanness of working: moderation in meat; fleeing ill company;and oft to mind of death.

The fourth: which things are they that allure us to conform us to Gods will? And thereare three. First, the example of creatures, that is had by consideration; the goodliness ofGod, that is gotten by meditation and prayer: and mirth, of the heavenly kingdom, that isfelt in a manner by contemplation.The man of God set to live in this wise shall be as a tree that is set by running waters thatis the flowing of graceso that he shall always be green in virtue and never be dry by sin;and shall give fruit in time; that is, he shall give good works as an example, and good wordsto the worship of God, and these he shall not sell for vainglory. He says in time against


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From Mending the Life-Richard Rolle