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04 - Raymond Lull- First Missionary to the Moslems by Samuel Zwemer · Raymond Lull- First Missionary to the Moslems

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three of Raymond Lowell, First Missionary to the Moslems,
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  Speaker 1: by Samuel's Wemer. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter three, The Vision and Call to Service eighty twelve
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  Speaker 1: sixty six to twelve sixty seven. I will pour out
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  Speaker 1: my spirit upon all flesh and your young men, Chelsea
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  Speaker 1: Visions Joel two twenty eight. When Saint Paul told King
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  Speaker 1: Agrippa the story of his life, the key of it
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  Speaker 1: lay in the words, I was not disobedient to the
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  Speaker 1: heavenly vision. The Angel had come to him and called
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  Speaker 1: him straight away from his career as arch persecutor. All
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  Speaker 1: that he had done or meant to do, was now
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  Speaker 1: of the past. He arose from the ground and took
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  Speaker 1: up his life again as one who could not be
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  Speaker 1: disobedient to his vision. It was a vision of Christ
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  Speaker 1: that made Paul a missionary, and his was not the
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  Speaker 1: last instance of the fulfillment of Joel's great prophecy. The
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  Speaker 1: twentieth century, even dares not mock at the supernatural and
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  Speaker 1: materialistic philosophy, cannot explain the phenomena of the spirit world.
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  Speaker 1: The Christians of the thirteenth century believed in visions and
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  Speaker 1: saw visions. Although in Age of Visions is apt to
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  Speaker 1: be a visionary age, this was not altogether true of
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  Speaker 1: the thirteenth century. The visions of Francis, of ASSISI, of Catherine,
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  Speaker 1: the Saint of Peter in Alaska, and of others in
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  Speaker 1: this age had a tremendous effect on their lives and influence.
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  Speaker 1: We may doubt the vision, but we cannot doubt its
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  Speaker 1: result in the lives of those who profess to have
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  Speaker 1: seen it. Call it religious hallucination or pious imagination, if
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  Speaker 1: you will, but even then it has power. Ruskin says
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  Speaker 1: that such imagination is given us that we may be
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  Speaker 1: able to vision forth the ministry of angels beside us,
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  Speaker 1: and see the chariots of fire on the mountain the
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  Speaker 1: girdis round. In that age of mariolatry and angel worship
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  Speaker 1: and imitation of saints, it was not such a vision
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  Speaker 1: that arrested Loul, but a vision of Jesus himself. The story,
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  Speaker 1: as told in a life written with his consent during
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  Speaker 1: his lifetime, is as follows. One evening, the Seneschal was
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  Speaker 1: sitting on a couch with his cythron on his knees,
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  Speaker 1: composing a song in praise of a noble married lady
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  Speaker 1: who had fascinated him, but who was insensible to his passion. Suddenly,
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  Speaker 1: in the midst of the erotic song, he saw on
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  Speaker 1: his right hand the Savior hanging on his cross, the
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  Speaker 1: blood trickling from his hands and feet, and brow look
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  Speaker 1: reproachfully at him. Raymond, conscience struck, started up. He could
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  Speaker 1: sing no more. He laid aside his cythron and deeply
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  Speaker 1: moved retired to bed. Eight days after, he again attempted
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  Speaker 1: to finish the song, and again took up the plea
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  Speaker 1: of an unrequitted lover. But now again, as before the
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  Speaker 1: image of divine love incarnate, appeared the agonized form of
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  Speaker 1: the Man of Sorrows. The dying eyes of the Savior
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  Speaker 1: were fixed on him, mournfully, pleading see from his head,
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  Speaker 1: his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down.
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  Speaker 1: Did e'er such love and sorrow meet? Or thorn horns
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  Speaker 1: composed so rich a crown? Loull cast his lute aside
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  Speaker 1: and threw himself on his bed, a prey to remorse.
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  Speaker 1: He had seen the highest and deepest unrequitted love. But
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  Speaker 1: the thought that love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul,
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  Speaker 1: my life, my all had not yet reached him. The
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  Speaker 1: effect of the vision was so transitory that he was
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  Speaker 1: not ready to yield until it again repeated itself. Footnote
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  Speaker 1: tertio at quarto successive vaudiebus interpositis aliquibus salvatore informa sempter
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  Speaker 1: kuaprimachus a parete octa sanctorum, page six hundred sixty nine
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  Speaker 1: and footnote. Then Loull could not resist the thought that
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  Speaker 1: this was a special message for himself to conquer his
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  Speaker 1: lower passions and to devote himself entirely to Christ's service.
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  Speaker 1: He felt engraved on his heart, as it were the
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  Speaker 1: great spectacle of divine self sacrifice. Henceforth, he had only
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  Speaker 1: one passion, to love and serve Christ. But there arose
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  Speaker 1: a doubt, how can I defile with impurity, rise and
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  Speaker 1: enter on a holier life. Night after night we are
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  Speaker 1: told he lay awake, a prey to despondency and doubt.
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  Speaker 1: He wept like Mary Magdalen, remembering how much and how
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  Speaker 1: deeply he had sinned. At length, the thought occurred, Christ
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  Speaker 1: is meek and full of compassion. He invites all to
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  Speaker 1: come to him. He will not cast me out with
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  Speaker 1: that thought came consolation. Because he was forgiven so much,
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  Speaker 1: he loved the more, and concluded that he would forsake
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  Speaker 1: the world and give up all for his savior. How
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  Speaker 1: he was confirmed in this resolve, we shall see shortly.
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  Speaker 1: By way of parenthesis. It is necessary to give another
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  Speaker 1: account of Loul's conversion, which the author of Octa Sanctorium
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  Speaker 1: relates and says he deems improbable but not impossible. According
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  Speaker 1: to this story, Loull was one day passing the window
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  Speaker 1: of the house of Signora Ambrosia, the married lady whose
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  Speaker 1: love he vainly sought to gain. He caught a glimpse
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  Speaker 1: of her ivory throat and bosom. On the spot, he
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  Speaker 1: composed and sang a song to her beauty. The lady
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  Speaker 1: sent for him and showed him the bosom he so
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  Speaker 1: much admired, even with hideous cancers. She then besought him
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  Speaker 1: to lead a better life. On his return home, Christ
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  Speaker 1: appeared to him and said, Raymond, follow me. He gave
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  Speaker 1: up his court position, sold all his property, and withdrew
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  Speaker 1: to the retirement of his cell on Mount Rhoda. This
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  Speaker 1: was about the year twelve sixty six, when he had
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  Speaker 1: spent nine years in retirement, he came to the conclusion
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  Speaker 1: that he was called of God to preach the Gospel
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  Speaker 1: to the Mohammedans. Some biographers know nothing of this nine
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  Speaker 1: years retirement in a cell at Mount Roda near Barcelona,
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  Speaker 1: although all of them agreed that his conversion took place
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  Speaker 1: in July twelve sixty six. The visions and spiritual conflicts
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  Speaker 1: and experiences at Mount Rhoda gained for Lull the title
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  Speaker 1: of Doctor Illuminatus, the scholar enlightened from Heaven. And if
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  Speaker 1: we look at the life that was the result of
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  Speaker 1: these visions, we cannot deny that in this dark age
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  Speaker 1: Heaven did indeed enlighten Loll to know the love of
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  Speaker 1: God and to do the will of God as no
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  Speaker 1: other in his day and generation. Let us go back
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  Speaker 1: to the story of his conversion, as told by lol
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  Speaker 1: himself in that work on Divine Contemplation, which may be
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  Speaker 1: put side by side with Bunyan's Grace Abounding and Augustine's
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  Speaker 1: Confessions as the biography of a penitent soul. After the vision,
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  Speaker 1: he came to the conclusion that he could devote his
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  Speaker 1: energies to no higher work than that of proclaiming the
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  Speaker 1: message of the cross of the Saracens. His thoughts would
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  Speaker 1: naturally take this direction. The irons of Majorca and Minorca
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  Speaker 1: had only recently been in the hands of the Saracens.
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  Speaker 1: His father had wielded the sword of the King of
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  Speaker 1: Arragon against these enemies of the Gospel. Why should not
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  Speaker 1: the sun now take up the sword of the spirit
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  Speaker 1: against them. If the carnal weapons of the crusading knights
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  Speaker 1: had failed to conquer Jerusalem, was it not time to
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  Speaker 1: sound a bugle for a spiritual crusade for the conversion
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  Speaker 1: of the Saracen. Such were the thoughts that filled his mind.
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  Speaker 1: But then, he says, a difficulty arose. How could he,
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  Speaker 1: a layman in an age when the Church and the
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  Speaker 1: clergy were supreme, enter on such a work. Thereupon, it
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  Speaker 1: occurred to him that at least a beginning might be
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  Speaker 1: made by composing of volume which would demonstrate the truth
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  Speaker 1: of Christianity and convinced the warriors of the Crescent of
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  Speaker 1: their errors. This book, however, would not be understood by
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  Speaker 1: them unless it were in Arabic, and of this language
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  Speaker 1: he was ignorant. Other difficulties presented themselves and almost drove
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  Speaker 1: him to despair. Full of such thoughts, he one day
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  Speaker 1: repaired to a neighboring church and poured forth his whole
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  Speaker 1: soul to God, beseeching him if he did inspire these
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  Speaker 1: thoughts to enable him to carry them out. Footnote Vita Prima,
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  Speaker 1: page six hundred sixty two. Domeniumieresumchristum de vote plau's largeitaire
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  Speaker 1: exavit quatanus tike predicta to walk away ipse miseri corditeri
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  Speaker 1: in spirovat cordis suo adiffectum sibi plaquitum perducere dignaetur. Several
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  Speaker 1: authorities put a period of short backsliding between his conversion
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  Speaker 1: and the account of the sermon by the Friar that
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  Speaker 1: follows in our text and footnote. This was in the
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  Speaker 1: months of July, but although old desires and the old
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  Speaker 1: life were passing away, all things had not yet become new.
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  Speaker 1: For three months his great design was laid aside, and
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  Speaker 1: he struggled with old passions for the mastery. On the
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  Speaker 1: fourth of October, the festival of Saint Francis of Assisi,
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  Speaker 1: Lowell went to the Franciscan church at Palma and heard
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  Speaker 1: from the lips of the fair preacher, the tale of
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  Speaker 1: the spouse of poverty. He learned how the son of
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  Speaker 1: Pietro Bernardone di Marconi, once foremost in deeds of war
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  Speaker 1: and a gay worldling, was taken prisoner at Perugia and
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  Speaker 1: brought by disease to the very gates of death. How
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  Speaker 1: he saw visions of the Christ and of the world
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  Speaker 1: to come. How when he emerged from his dungeon, he
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  Speaker 1: exchanged his gay apparel for the garb of the medicant,
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  Speaker 1: visiting the sick, tending the lepers, and preaching the Gospel.
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  Speaker 1: How in twelve nineteen, before the walls of Demiez, this
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  Speaker 1: missionary monk crossed over to the infidels and witnessed for
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  Speaker 1: Christ before the Sultan, declaring, I am not sent of man,
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  Speaker 1: but of God to show thee the way of salvation.
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  Speaker 1: The words of the preacher rekindled the fires of love
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  Speaker 1: half smothered in the heart of loull. He now made
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  Speaker 1: up his mind once and forever. He sold all his property,
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  Speaker 1: which was considerable, gave the money to the poor, and
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  Speaker 1: reserved only a scanty allowance for his wife and children.
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  Speaker 1: This was the vow of his confession. In his own
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  Speaker 1: words to THEE, O Lord, do I now offer myself
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  Speaker 1: and my wife and my children and all that I possess.
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  Speaker 1: And since I approached THEE humbly with this gift and sacrifice,
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  Speaker 1: may it please THEE to condescend to accept all what
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  Speaker 1: I give and offer up now for THEE, that I
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  Speaker 1: and my wife and my children may be thy humble slaves.
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  Speaker 1: It was a covenant of complete surrender, and the repeated
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  Speaker 1: reference to his wife and children shows that Raymond Loul's
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  Speaker 1: wandering passions had found rest at last. It was a
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  Speaker 1: family covenant, and by this token we know that Lul
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  Speaker 1: had forever said farewell to his former companions in his
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  Speaker 1: life of sin. He assumed the coarse garb of a Mendicant,
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  Speaker 1: made pilgrimages to various churches in the island, and prayed
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  Speaker 1: for grace and assistance in the work he had resolved
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  Speaker 1: to undertake. The mantle of Apostolic succession fell from Francis
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  Speaker 1: of ASSISI, forty years dead upon the layman of Palma,
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  Speaker 1: now in his thirtieth year, from the Mendicant orders of
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  Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, their precepts and their example, loll imparture
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  Speaker 1: his passionate, ascetic and unselfish devotion. Most of his biographers
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  Speaker 1: assert that he became a Franciscan, but that is doubtful,
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  Speaker 1: especially since some of the earliest biographers were themselves of
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  Speaker 1: that order and would naturally seek glory in his memory.
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  Speaker 1: A Merick, a Catalonian Dominican in thirteen thirty four and
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  Speaker 1: the Inquisitor of Aragon after thirteen fifty six, expressly states
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  Speaker 1: that Louell was a lay merchant and a heretic. In
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  Speaker 1: thirteen seventy one, the same Amaric pointed out five hundred
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  Speaker 1: heresies in Lull's works, and in consequence, Gregory's The Elevens
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  Speaker 1: forbade some of the books. The Franciscans, Antonio Wadding and
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  Speaker 1: others afterward warmly defended Loll and his writings, but the
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  Speaker 1: Jesuits have always been hostile to his memory. Therefore, the
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  Speaker 1: Roman Catholic Church long hesitated whether to condemn Lull as
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  Speaker 1: a heretic or to recognize him as a martyr and
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  Speaker 1: a saint. He was never canonized by any pope, but
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  Speaker 1: in Spain and Majorca all good Catholics regard him as
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  Speaker 1: a Saintly Franciscan in a letter I have received from
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  Speaker 1: the present Bishop of Majorca. He speaks of Raymond Loll
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  Speaker 1: as an extraordinary man, with apostolic virtues and worthy of
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  Speaker 1: all admiration. Frederic Perry Noble, in speaking of Lull's conversion,
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  Speaker 1: says his new birth viet noted sprang from a passion
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  Speaker 1: for Jesus. Loll's faith was not sacramental, but personal and vital,
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  Speaker 1: more Catholic than Roman. Even as the Catalonians first arose
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  Speaker 1: in protest and revolution against the tyranny of the state
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  Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages, so their countrymen is distinguished for
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  Speaker 1: daring to act apart from the tyranny of the Church
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  Speaker 1: and to inaugurate the rights of layman. The inner life
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  Speaker 1: of Louell finds its key in the story of his conversion.
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  Speaker 1: Incarnate love overcame carnal love, and all of the passion
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  Speaker 1: and the poetry of Lull's genius bowed in submission to
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  Speaker 1: the cross. The vision of his youth explains the motto
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  Speaker 1: of his old age. He who loves not lives not.
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  Speaker 1: He who lives by the life cannot die. The image
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  Speaker 1: of the suffering Savior remained for fifty years. The mainspring
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  Speaker 1: of his being love for the personal Christ filled his heart,
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  Speaker 1: molded his mind, inspired his pen, and made his soul
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  Speaker 1: long for the crown of martyrdom. Long years afterward, when
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  Speaker 1: he sought for a reasonable proof of that greatest mystery
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  Speaker 1: of revelation and the greatest stumbling block for Moslems, the
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  Speaker 1: doctrine of the Trinity, he once more recalled the vision.
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  Speaker 1: His proof for the Trinity was the love of God
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  Speaker 1: in Christ, as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter three read by Alathia Cheris