Gain Access To Henry Suso: The Exemplar, With Two German Sermons Presented By Henry Suso Disseminated As Pamphlet

boundless love reveals itself in the deep bitterness of my suffering just as the sun reveals itself in its splendor, as the rose does in its fragrance, and as fire does in its searing heat.


Heinrich Seuse or Seuss, AKA Henry Suso, was a fourteenthcentury Dominican and one of the heirs of the mystical theologian Meister Eckhart, Blessed Friar Seusss popular spiritual writings may have been composed in vulgar German, but they owe much to the cream of scholastic theology, Moreover, they are suffused with the courtly lilt of the minnesingers and the erotic charge of beguine ecstasy, All these influences are blended mellifluously in devotion to Christ,



The largest part of Susos Exemplar is comprised of what has been called an autohagiography, the Life of the Servant, It seems to have been based on Susos own notes, edited and expanded by a devoted spiritual daughter, Elsbeth Stagel, The basic pattern of Susos spiritual development follows that of many other monastic saints: decades of bodily and psychological austerity, followed by relief and profound joy in union with God.
Both sides of this paradigm are developed to extremes in Susos biography, in which the lurid and the beautiful mingle inseparably, Although only four of the fiftythree chapters are devoted to Susos voluntary mortifications, they are described in gutwrenching detail, He does eventually, and forcefully, reject the idea that extreme asceticism is wise or healthy, at least for most Christians, but Susos willingness to go to such extraordinary lengths is clearly presented as admirable.
All but the most traditionalist Catholics will also find uncomfortable the grotesque passages on Hell and Purgatory, Even if you manage to escape mortal sin, Suso observes, you will find yourself roasted in Purgatorys torturous oven for what will feel like millennia, It should not be surprising that he assumes the cosmology of his time and place whether this introduces distortions into his religious vision is a perhaps matter for further consideration.


If Susos work encompasses some of the most repugnant elements of late medieval spirituality, it also brilliantly expresses its emotive fervor, tempered and strengthened by Eckhartian apophaticism, Passionate divinehuman love runs like a river through Susos pen, In the fourteenth century, so turbulent and disheartening for all of Christendom, this requires Suso to contemplate the pains endured by Gods servants, Indeed, much of the Exemplar can be read as an extended meditation on suffering, It appears in all varietiesselfinflicted and involuntary, punitive and undeserved, fruitful and pointless, Suso believed that above all, suffering is a means of communion with our suffering savior, The more of it we receive, the better for our souls, if only we unite it with Christs own redeeming agonies, Suffering, emblematized in the motif of the rose, engenders purity and detachment from worldly things, Only to the degree that we are released from affection for the bitter pleasures of mortality can we taste the sweetness of eternity,

This is the teaching of Eternal Wisdom, the Son, who appears in Susos work in both masculine and feminine visages, The friars spiritual journey begins when he takes Wisdom for his master, his true love, swearing to shun all else, Wisdom points Suso continually to his passion viscerally involved contemplation of this highest expression of divine charity is the high road to union, Memorably, in the “Little Book of Divine Wisdom” also published in Latin as the Horologium Sapientiae, Suso again “the servant” dialogues with Eternal Wisdom at the foot of the cross about love and suffering.
Suso thus chronicles his insights allegorically, in the form of poignant visions that reveal the depths of Gods love and how it may be found by Gods lovers, He also provides direct counsel and, at the end of the Horologium, a hundred “meditations and petitions” on the sufferings of Christ for daily use and edification,

Suso most

often appears in his own writing in the third person, but the reader gets the impression of a vivid and caring personality, Despite the unpleasant feelings his unconventional piety sometimes justifiably provokes, the Exemplar deserves a place in the canon of great Western Christian spiritual writings, For those who enjoy both Medieval spirituality, the teachings of Meister Eckhart, or the potentially Buddhism, there is much to be found in the writings of Henry Suso that will suit your taste.
Suso was a fourteenth century Dominican friar, mystic, and disciple of Eckhart, The writings contained in this volume represent those writings he intended to leave to posterity, and are much in the same vain as the Zen masters, In them, he chooses to relate spirituality, namely his and how he has experienced it, In this way, the student can emulate him, These writings were immensely popular in the late Medieval world, and seem difficult and foreign today, Suso believed in selfmutilation, and the utter annihilation of the self as a way to become one with God, I find the writings interesting, as they represent a crucial string in the theological development of Christianity, but find it personally difficult to take many of the teachings further than that.
The Dominican friar, Henry Suso, was one of the most fascinating mystics of the fourteenth century, an era of singular richness in the history of Christian mysticism, His Exemplar, here translated in its entirety, contains a rich diversity of religious experience autobiographical, devotional, speculative and pastoral, Suso's Life compares with Augustine's Confessions in the realm of spiritual autobiography, while his major mystical works, the Little Book of Eternal Wisdom and the Little Book of Truth, witness to the intermingling of speculative mysticism dependent on Meister Eckhart and a devotional piety typical of the late Middle Ages.
Henry Suso was one of the most popular of all late medieval writers, His Exemplar is a true classic of Western Spirituality, Henry Suso Also called Amandus, a name adopted in his writings, and Heinrich Seuse in German was a German mystic, declared Blessed inby Gregory XVI, who assigned his feast in the Dominican Order to March.
The Dominicans now celebrate his feast on January, the open day nearest the day of his death, Henry Suso Also called Amandus, a name adopted in his writings, and Heinrich Seuse in German was a German mystic, declared Blessed inby Gregory XVI, who assigned his feast in the Dominican Order to March.
The Dominicans now celebrate his feast on January, the "open" day nearest the day of his death, sitelink.