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 RUYSBROECK

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RUYSBROECK

Brussels in 1343, for the hermitage of Groenendael, in the neighbouring forest of Soignes, which was made over to them by John III, Duke of Brabant. But here so many discii)le.s joined the little company that it was found expcnlient to organize into a duly- authorized religious body. The hermitage was erected into a community of canons regular, 13 March, 1319, and eventually it became the mother- house of a congregation, which bore its name of Groe- nendael. Francis van Coudenberg was appointed first provost, and Blessed John Ruy.sbroeck prior. John Hin(!kaert refrained from making the canonical profession lest the discipline of the house should suffer from the exemptions required by the infirmities of his old age; he dwelt, therefore, in a cell outside the cloister, and there a few years later happily passed away. This period, from his religious profession (1349) to his death (1381), was the mo.st active and fruitful of Ruysbroeck's career. To his own com- nuinity his lif(> and words were a constant source of insi)ir;ition and encouragement. His fame as a man of God, as a sublime contemplative and a skilled di- rector of souls, spread bej-ond the bounds of Flanders and Brabant to Holland, German}-, and P'ranee. All sorts and conditions of men sought his aid and coun- sel. His WTitings were eagerly caught up and rapidly multiplied, especially in the cloisters of the Nether- lands and Germany; early in the fifteenth century they are to be found also in England. Among the more famous visitors to Groenendiiel mention is made of Tauler, but though the German preacher certainly knew and appreciated his writings, it is not estab- lished that he ever actually saw Ruysbroeck. Ge- rard Groote in particular venerated him as a father and loved him as a friend. And through Groote, Ruysbroeck's influence hcljjed to mould the spirit of the W'indesheiin School, which in the next generation found its most faiiious exjjonent in Thoma.s a Kempis. Just now strenuous cfTorts are being made to discover authentic Flemish MSS. of Blessed John Ruysbroeck's works; but uj) to the jH-esent the standard edition is the Latin version of Surius, all imperfect and probablj' incomplete as this is. Of the various treatises here preserved, the best-known and the most characteristic is that entitled "The Spiritual Espousals". It is di- vided into three books, treating respectively of the active, the interior, and the contemplative life; and each book is subdivided into four parts working out the text; Ecce Sponsus ve?iit, exile obviam ei, as fol- lows: (1) Ecce, the work of the vision, man must turn his eyes to God; (2) Sponsus vcrtil, the divers com- ings of the Bridegroom; (3) exite, the soul going forth along the paths of virtue; and finally (4) the embrace of the soul and the heavenly S])OUse.

Literally, Ruysbrocn^k wrote as the spirit moved him. III! loved to wantler and meditate in the soli- tude of the forest adjoining the cloister; he was ac- customed to (larry a tablet with him, and on this to jot down his thoughts as he felt inspired so to do. Late in life he was able to declare that he had never com- mitteil aught to writing save by the motion of the Holy Ghost. In no one of his treatises do we find anything like a complete or detailed account of his system; perhaps, it would be correct to say that he himself was not conscious of elaborating any system. In his dogmatic writings he is emphatically a faithful son of the Catholic Church, ex])laining, illustrating, and enforcing her traditional teachings with remark- able force and lucidity; this fact alone is quite sufii- cient to dispose of the contention, still cherished in certain quarters, that Ruy.sbroeck was a forerunner of the Reformation, etc. In his ascetic works, his fa- vourite virtues are detachment, humility, and char- ity; he loves to dwell on such themes as flight from the world, meditation upon the Life, especially the Passion of Christ, abandonment to the Divine Will, and an intense personal love of God. But naturally

it is in his mystical writings that the peculiar genius of Ruysbroeck shines forth. Yet here again it is the manner rather than the matter that is new, and it is especially in the freshness, originality, boldness, vari- ety, detail, and truth of his imag(>ry'and comparisons that the individuality of Ruysbroeck stands out. Students of mysticism from the pages of the Are- opagite onwards will scarcely discover anything for which they cannot recall a parallel elsewhere. But there are many who maintain that Blessed John stands alone, unrivalled, in his grasp of what we may term the metaphysics of mysticism, in the delicate- ness and surencss of his touch when describing the phenomena and progress of the mystic union, and in the combined beauty, simplicity, and loftiness of his language and style.

In common with most of the German mystics Ruys- broeck starts from God and comes down to man, and thence rises again to God, showing how the two are so clo.sely united as to become one. But here he is care- ful to protest: "There where I assert that we are one in God, I must be understood in this .sense that we are one in love, not in essenc-e and nature. " Despite this declaration, however, and other similar saving clauses scattered over his pages, some of Ruysbroeck's ex- pressions are certainly rather unusual and startling. The sublimity of his subject-matter was such that it could scarcely be otherwise. His devoted friend, Gerard Groote, a trained theologian, confessed to a feeling of uneasiness over certain of his phrases and passages, and begged him to change or modify them for the sake at least of the weak. Later on, Jean Ger- son and then Bo.ssuet both professed to find traces of unconscious pantheism in his works. But as an off- set to these we may mention the enthusiastic com- mendations of his contemporaries, Groot(% Tauler, h. Kempis, Scoenhoven, and in subsequ(>nt times of the Franciscan van Herp, the Carthusians Denys and Surius, the Carmelite Thomas of Jesus, the Benedic- tine Louis de Blois, and the Jesuit Lessius. In our own days Ernest Hello and especially Maeterlinck have done much to make his writings known and even popular. .\nd at present, particularly since his beati- fication, there is a strong revival of interest in all that concerns Ruysbroeck in his native Belgium.

A word of warning is needed against the assump- tion of some writers who would exalt the genius of Ruysbroeck by dwelling on what they term his illit- eracy and ignorance. As a matter of fact the works of Blessed John manifest a mastery of the sacred sciences, and a considerable acquaintance even with the natural science of his day. His adaptation of the slender resources of his native tongue to the exact expression of his own unusual experiences and ideas is admirable beyond praise; and though his verse is not of the best, his prose writings are vigorous and chaste, and eviden(!e not only the intellect of a meta- physician, but the soul also of a true and tender poet.

Bles.sed John's relics were carefully preserved and his memory honoured as that of a saint. When Groe- nendael Priory was suppressed by Jo.seph II in 1783, the relics were transferred to St. Gudule's, Brussels, where, however, they were lost during the French Revolution. A long and oft-interrupted series of at- tempts to secure official acknowledgiru^nt of his heroic virtues from Rome was crowned at length by a De- cree, 1 Dec, 1908, confirming to him under the title of "Blessed" his cultus ah immemorahili tempore. And the Office of the Beatus has been granted to the clergy of Mechlin and to the Canons Regular of the Lateran. No authentic portrait of Ruysbroeck is known to ex- ist; but the traditional picture represents him in the canonical habit, seated in the forest with his writing tablet on his knee, as he was in fact found one day by the brethren — rapt in ecstasy and enveloped in flames, which encircle without consuming the tree under which he is resting.