Dealing with Unclean Spirits. Fr. John Tauler, OP

Question 1

What worse harm can hell and devils do to me than

Answer 1

hinder my loving God for whom all creatures continually yearn?

Question 2

Let a man press onward with all his might to God through every one of his life’s happenings;

Answer 2

let him make no great matter of what occurs to him, whether sweet or bitter.

Question 3

Let it all flow away behind you;

Answer 3

meddle with it no more, for it has ceased to concern you;

Question 4

Follow God with all your best reason.

Answer 4

Thus may one attend to every external duty without eternizing himself;

Question 5

thus does God remain present to his mind amid a multiplicity of affairs,

Answer 5

while he remains safe from the effects of that multiplicity.

Question 6

That happy state comes only from refusing to fasten one’s spirit upon anything whatsoever except God alone.

Answer 6

Go not forward or backward or sideways; take no account of pleasure or profit, men’s favor or their disfavor, but simply and solely consider God.

Question 7

If you should unwittingly fail in this, and some motive that is not God should for a moment control you,

Answer 7

rise up again very quickly with an act of your reason; turn the good ship into the right course by the rudder of holy discretion.

Question 8

if God’s servant begins his work with an upright intention, and so continues in it,

Answer 8

then no matter what feeling of multiplicity he may experience, it will not essentially hurt him; it will not be enough to mislead him.