Mystical Theologians & Mystics

Together with many great medieval authors Meister Eckhart (1260 - 1327/28) - a dominican friar - expressed a high-minded vision of God and human beings, a vision which, however, since the late Middle Ages, was banished to the margins of the intellectual (Rob Faesen, S.J.)

The following text, based on Meister Eckhart's reflections on the Gospel of John, illustrates this:

When God returns our soul to himself, it is born in a new, creative way.

Thus we undergo a second birth thanks to the appropriation of God to our deepest self.

God, the true and pure light, illuminates everyone or illuminates no one; not no one, therefore everyone.

The consequence is clear. God looks at everyone in an equal, uniform, immediate way and is near to them, and rather than the others God is near.

When a human being for God's sake utterly goes out of himself, God - for the sake of him - goes out of Himself.

Then, in the deepest ground of our being, God gives birth to His Son, and each of us is reborn as the child of God.

The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, translated in English, with a Foreword by Bernard McGinn, are online and accessible here.

After having been a secular parish priest for about 30 years in the center of Brussels, Blessed Jan van Ruusbroec (1293 - 1381) withdrew in 1343 with a couple of companions to the Zoniënwoud - a forest southeast of the actual Belgian capital city. The hermitage was located in the place called Groenendaal. 

The community increased in number. In 1350 it was structured as a priory of the Canons Regular of Windesheim, following the Rule of Saint Augustine. Ruusbroec served as prior.

From the rich history of the ancient manuscripts of the Crosier Order, it is clear that in the 15th century - marked by the observance movement - some of the mystical theological writings of John Ruusbroec were copied and available in libraries of Crosier monasteries, as sources for spiritual guidance.

Still at the service of the church of Saint Gudula as chaplain, John Ruusbroec began to teach through his mystical writings. Of the eleven (11) works this mystical author produced in his lifetime - apart from his letters - the best-known work is Die Geestelike Brulocht (title in Middle Dutch), i.e. The Spiritual Espousals ... without underestimating Ruusbroec's other works.

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