Ruysbroeck and the Mystics: with selections from Ruysbroeck

On the Kingdom of the Soul

He who desires to obtain and to preserve virtue will adorn, occupy, and arrange his soul like to a kingdom. Free will is the king of the soul. He is free by nature, and yet more free through divine mercy. He will be crowned with a crown named charity. This crown and this kingdom we shall receive from the Emperor, who is the Lord, the Ruler and the King of kings, and we shall possess, rule, and maintain this kingdom in His name. The sovereign, free will, shall dwell in the highest town of the kingdom—that is to say, in the strong desires of the soul. And he will be adorned with a robe of two parts. The right side of the robe shall be a virtue which is called strength, so that he may be strong and powerful to conquer every obstacle, and to dwell at last in heaven in the palace of the great Emperor, bending his crowned head with love and passionate self-surrender before the supreme and sovereign King. This is the fitting work of charity. Through it we receive the crown. Through it we adorn the crown, and through it we maintain and possess the kingdom through all eternity. The left side of the robe shall be a cardinal virtue, which is called moral strength. Through its aid shall free will, the king, put down all immorality and fulfil all virtue, and shall have the power to maintain his kingdom unto death.

This king shall choose councillors in his country, the wisest to be found in the land. These will be two divine virtues, knowledge and discretion, enlightened by the grace of God. They will dwell near the king, in a palace which is called the soul’s strength of reason; but they will be clothed and adorned with a moral virtue which is called temperance, so that the king may always act or refrain from acting according to their counsels. By knowledge we shall purge the conscience from all its faults and adorn it with every virtue; and by discretion we shall give and take, do and leave undone, speak and be silent, fast and eat, listen and reply; and in all things we shall act according to knowledge and discretion, clothed with their moral virtue, which is called temperance or moderation.

This king, free will, shall also set up in his kingdom a judge, who shall be called justice, a divine virtue when it springs from love; and it is one of the highest moral virtues. This judge shall dwell in the conscience, in the centre of the kingdom, in the strongest passions. And he will be adorned with moral virtue, which is called prudence. For justice cannot be perfect. This judge, justice, shall travel through the kingdom with the power and the force of the king, accompanied by wisdom of counsel and by his own prudence. He will promote and dismiss, judge and condemn, kill and keep alive, mutilate, blind and restore sight, lift up and put down, organise, punish, and chastise every sin with perfect justice, and at last destroy all vices.

The people of this kingdom—that is all the pure of soul—shall be established on and in the fear of God; they shall be subject unto God in all virtues, each according to his own capacity. He who has thus occupied, adorned, and regulated the kingdom of his soul, has gone forth in love and virtue towards God, himself, and his neighbour.

Christ the Sun of the Soul

The sun shines in the east, in the centre of the world, on the mountains; it hastens summer in that region, and creates good fruits and potent wines, filling the earth with joy. The same sun shines in the west, at the ends of the earth; there the country is colder, and the power of its heat is less, yet nevertheless it produces a great many excellent fruits; but few wines are found there.

Those men who dwell in the west of their own being, remain in the outward senses, and by their good intentions, their virtues, and their outward practices, through God’s grace, they produce abundant harvests and virtues in various ways, but they seldom taste the wine of inward joy and of spiritual consolation.

The man who will feel the shining of the Eternal Sun, which is Christ Himself, will have clear vision, and will dwell on the mountains of the east, concentrating all his energies and raising his heart towards God, free and careless as regards joy, sorrow, and all creatures. There Christ the Sun of Righteousness shines on the free and uplifted heart; and these are the mountains which I have in mind. Christ, the glorious sun and the divine brightness, shines and illumines and enkindles by His inward coming, and the power of His Spirit, the free heart and all the powers of the soul.

When summer draws near, and the sun rises higher in the heavens, it draws the moisture of the soil through the roots and the trunk of the trees, until it reaches the branches, and hence come foliage, flowers, and fruits. So likewise, when Christ, the Eternal Sun, rises in our hearts, so that the summer reigns over their adornment of virtues, He sends His light and His fire into our will, and draws the heart from the multitude of earthly things, and creates unity and close fellowship, and makes the heart to grow and become green through inward love, and to bear the flowers of loving devotion and the fruits of gratitude and affection, and preserves these fruits in the sorrow and humility we feel because of our impotence.

The Lesson from the Bee

Observe the wise bee and make it your model. It dwells in a community in the midst of its companions, and it goes forth, not during the storm, but when the weather is calm and still and the sun is shining; and it flies towards all the flowers on which it can find sweetness. It does not rest on any flower, neither in its beauty nor in its sweetness, but it draws from each calix honey and wax—that is to say, the sweetness and the substance of its brightness—and it bears them back to the community in which all the bees are assembled, so that the honey and wax may profitably bear fruit.

The opened heart on which Christ, the Eternal Sun, is shining, grows and flourishes under His rays, and flows with all its inner powers into joy and sweetnesses.

Now the wise man will act like the bee, and he will fly out in order to settle with care, intelligence, and prudence on all the gifts and on all the sweetness which he has experienced, and on all the good which God has done to him; and through the rays of the sun and his own inward observation he will experience a multitude of consolations and blessings. And he will not rest on any flower of all these gifts, but, laden with gratitude and praise, he will fly back again toward the home in which he longs to dwell and rest for evermore with God.

The Dew of Mid-day

Sometimes in these burning days there falls the honey-dew of some false sweetness, which soils the fruits or completely spoils them. It falls for the most part at noon, in bright sunshine, and its great drops can hardly be distinguished from rain. Even so there are some men who can be caught away from their outward senses by some brightness which is the gift of the enemy. And this brightness enwraps and envelops them, and at that moment they behold images, falsehoods, and many kinds of truths, and voices speak to them in different ways, and all this is seen and received with great joy. And here there fall at times the honey-drops of a false sweetness in which the man delights himself. He who values it highly receives a great quantity, and so the man is often injured, for if he holds for true such things as have no resemblance to truth, because they have been shown or taught him, he falls into error and the fruit of virtue is lost. But those who have climbed by the paths which I have pointed out above, although they may indeed be tempted by that spirit and by that brightness, will recognise them and receive no injury.

The Lesson from the Ant

I will give a brief parable to those who live in continual ebullitions of love, in order that they may endure this disposition nobly and becomingly, and may attain to a higher virtue.

There is a little insect which is called the ant; it is strong and wise, and very tenacious of life, and it lives with its fellows in warm and dry soils. The ant works during summer and collects food and grain for the winter, and it splits the grain so that it may not become rotten or spoiled, and may be eaten when there is nothing more to be found. And it does not make strange paths, but all follow the same path, and after waiting till the proper time they become able to fly.

So should these men do; they will be strong by waiting for the coming of Christ, wise against the appearance and the inspiration of the enemy. They will not choose death, but they will prefer God’s glory alone and the winning of fresh virtues. They will dwell in the community of their heart and of their powers, and will follow the invitation and the constraint of divine unity. They will live in rich and warm soils, or, in other words, in the passionate heat of love, and in great impatience. And they will work during the summer of this life, and will gather in for eternity the fruits of virtue. These they will divide in two—one part means that they will always desire the supreme joy of eternity; the other, that by their reason they will always restrain themselves as much as possible, and wait the time that God has appointed for them, and so the fruit of virtue shall be preserved into eternity. They will not follow strange paths or curious methods, but through all storms they will follow the path of love, towards the place whither love shall guide them. And when the set time has come, and they have persevered in all the virtues, they shall be fit to behold God, and their wings shall bear them towards His mystery.

What shall the Forsaken do?

He shall humbly consider that he hath nothing of his own save his misery, and shall say with resignation and self-abandonment the same words which were spoken by holy Job: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” And in all things he shall yield up his own will, saying and thinking in his heart, “Lord, I am as willing to be poor and without all those things of which Thou hast deprived me, as I should be ready to be rich, Lord, if Thy will were so, and if in that state I might further Thy glory. It is not my natural will which must be done, but Thy will and the will of my spirit. Lord, I am Thine, and I should be Thine as gladly in hell as in heaven, if in that way I could advance Thy glory. So then, O Lord, fulfil in me the good pleasure of Thy will.” Out of all sufferings and all renunciations the man will draw for himself an inward joy; he will resign himself into the hands of God, and will rejoice to suffer in promoting God’s glory. And if he perseveres in this course, he will enjoy secret pleasures never tasted before; for nothing so rejoices the lover of God as to feel that he belongs to his Beloved. And if he has truly risen to this height in the path of virtues, it is not necessary that he shall have passed through the different states which we have pointed out in previous chapters, for he feels in himself, in work, in humble obedience, and in patience and resignation, the source of every virtue. This method has therefore an everlasting certainty.

At this season the sun enters into the sign of Libra, for the day and night are equal, and light and darkness evenly balanced. Even so for the resigned soul Jesus Christ is in the sign of Libra; and whether He grants sweetness or bitterness, darkness or light, of whatever nature His gift may be, the man retains his balance, and all things are one to him, with the exception of sin, which has been driven out once for all. When all consolation has been withdrawn from these resigned ones, so that they believe they have lost all their virtues, and are forsaken of God and of every creature; then, if they know how to reap the various fruits, the corn and wine are ripe and ready.

The Setting of the Eternal Sun

When the time came for Christ to gather in and bear away to the eternal kingdom the fruits of all the virtues that ever were and ever shall be practised upon earth, then the Eternal Sun began to set; for He humbled Himself and gave up the life of His body into the hands of His enemies. And in His distress he was misunderstood and forsaken by His friends, and all consolation, from without and from within, was taken away from His human nature, and it was overwhelmed with misery and pain, with scorn and heaviness, and in it He paid all the debt that justice claimed for sin. He suffered these things with humble patience, and in this resignation He fulfilled the highest tasks of love, and so He received and redeemed our eternal heritage. Thus was adorned the lower part of His noble humanity, for in it He suffered this sorrow for our sins. And this is why He calls Himself the Saviour of the world; this is why He is now famous and glorified, exalted and seated at the right hand of His Father, where He reigns with power. And every creature on earth, in heaven, and in hell, bends continually the knee before His glorious name.

The Nature of God

We must consider and examine the sublime nature of God: how it is simplicity and purity; height that cannot be scaled and depth that cannot be sounded; breadth without understanding and length without end; awful silence and the savage wilderness; rest of all saints in the union and in the common joy which He shares with His saints throughout eternity.

The Divine Generosity

The incomprehensible wealth and sublimity and the universality of the gifts which flow forth from the divine nature awake wonder in the heart of man, and above all he marvels at the universal presence of God and of His works, a presence which is above everything, for he beholds the inconceivable essence, which is the common joy of God and of all the saints. And he sees that the Divine Persons send forth one common effluence in works, in grace, and in glory, in nature and above nature, in all states and in all times, in men and in the glorified saints, in heaven and on earth, in all reasonable creatures, and in those which are without reason or material, according to the merits, the needs, and the receptivity of each. And he sees the creation of the heaven and the earth, the sun and the moon, the four elements with all the creatures, and the course of the heavens, which is common to all. God, with all His gifts, is common to all, men and angels are a common gift, and the soul with all its faculties....

When man thus considers the wealth and the marvellous sublimity of the divine nature, and all the manifold gifts which He grants and offers to His creatures, amazement is stirred up in his spirit at the sight of so manifold a wealth and majesty; at the sight of the immense faithfulness of God to all His creatures. This causes a strange joy of spirit, and a boundless trust in God, and this inward joy surrounds and penetrates all the forces of the souls in the secret places of the spirit.

Christ the Lover of all Men

Consider how Christ gave Himself to all in perfect faithfulness. His secret and sublime prayer flowed forth towards His Father, and was for the common good of all who desire salvation. Jesus Christ was all things to all men in His love, in His teaching, in His reproaches, in His consolations and sweetness, in His generous gifts, in His gracious forgiveness. His soul and His body, His life, His death, and His service were and are for the common good of all. His sacrament and His gifts are for all. Christ received neither food, nor drink, nor anything that was needful for His body, without thinking of the common good of all those who shall be saved even until the last day.

Christ had nothing of His own, but all was held in common, body and soul, mother and disciples, tunic and cloak. He ate and drank for us, He lived and toiled for us. His toil and grief and misery were indeed His own, but the blessings and the good which flowed from them were the common possession of all. And the glory of His merits shall be the possession of all throughout eternity.

How Christ gave Himself to us in the Sacrament

There is a special benefit which Christ, in the Holy Church, has left to all the good: namely, that supper of the great feast of Passover, which He instituted when the time had come for Him to leave His sorrow and go to the Father, after He had eaten of the paschal lamb with His disciples and the ancient law had been fulfilled. At the end of the meal and of the feast, He wished to give them a special food, which He had long desired to give. In this way He would make an end of the ancient law and bring in the new, and so He took bread in His sacred hands and consecrated His sacred body and afterwards His blood, and gave them to all His disciples, and left them as a common gift to all just men, for their eternal benefit.

This gift and this special food rejoice and adorn all great festivals and all banquets in heaven and on earth. In this gift Christ gives Himself to us in three ways: He gives us His flesh and His blood and His bodily life, glorified and full of joys and sorrows; and He gives us His Spirit, with its supreme faculties, full of glory and of gifts, of truth and justifying power; and He gives us His personality, with the divine light which raises His Spirit and the spirits of all enlightened beings into the sublime unity and joy of God.

Christ desires that we shall remember Him whenever we consecrate, offer, and receive His body. Consider now in what way we shall remember Him. We shall observe and examine how Christ inclines Himself towards us, by loving affection, by great desires, by a tender joy and warm influence passing into our bodily nature. For He gives us that which He received from our humanity, His flesh, His blood, and His bodily nature. We shall likewise observe and examine that precious body, tortured, furrowed, and wounded with love, because of His faithfulness towards us. So shall we be adorned and nourished in the lower part of our human nature. In this sublime gift of the Sacrament He also gives us His Spirit full of glory, and the richer gifts of virtues and unspeakable mercies of charity and goodness.

By these we are nourished and adorned and enlightened in the unity of our spirit and in our higher powers, because Christ with all His riches dwells within us.

In the sacrament of the altar He further bestows upon us His sublime personality and His incomprehensible light. Through this we are united and given up to the Father, and the Father receives His elect children at the same time as His only begotten Son, and so we reach our divine inheritance and our eternal felicity.

If a man has diligently considered these things, he will meet Christ in the same way in which Christ comes to him. He will rise to receive Christ with eager joy in his heart, his desires, his love, and all his powers. And it is thus that Christ Himself receives. This joy cannot possibly be too great, for our nature receives His nature, the glorified humanity of Christ, full of gladness and merit. Therefore I desire that in thus receiving man shall, as it were, dissolve and flow forth through his desires, his joys, and his pleasures, for he receives the most lovely, the most gracious, and the kindest of the children of men, and is made one with Him. In this union and this joy great delights often come to men, and many mysterious and secret marvels of divine treasures are manifested and revealed. When in so receiving a man meditates on the torment and the sufferings of this precious body of Christ of which he is partaking, there sometimes enters into him a devotion so loving and a compassion so keen that he desires to be nailed with Christ to the wood of the Cross, and to shed his heart’s blood in honour of Christ. And he presses into the wounds and into the open heart of Christ his Saviour. In such exercises revelations and great benefits have often come to men.

The Soul’s Hunger for God

Here there begins an eternal hunger, which shall nevermore be satisfied. It is the yearning and the inward aspiration of our faculty of love, and of our created spirit towards an uncreated good. And as the spirit desires joy, and is invited and constrained by God to partake of it, it is always longing to realise joy. Behold then the beginning of an eternal aspiration and of eternal efforts, while our impotence is likewise eternal. These are the poorest of all men, for they are eager and greedy, and they can never be satisfied. Whatever they eat or drink, they can never have enough, for this hunger lasts continually. For a created vessel cannot contain an uncreated good, and hence that continual struggle of the hungry soul, and its feebleness which is swallowed up in God. There are here great banquets of food and drink, which none knoweth saving he who partakes of them; but full satisfaction of joy is the food which is ever lacking, and so the hunger is perpetually renewed. Yet streams of honey flow within reach, full of all delights, for the spirit tastes these pleasures in every imaginable way, but always according to its creaturely nature and below God, and that is why the hunger and the impatience are without end. If God were to grant to this man all the gifts which are possessed by all the saints, and everything that He has to offer, but were to deny Himself, the open-mouthed eagerness of his spirit would be still hungry and unsatisfied. Emotion and the inward contact with God are the explanation of our hunger and our striving; for the Spirit of God gives chase to our spirit, and the closer the contact the greater the hunger and the striving. This is the life of love in its highest development, above reason and higher than all understanding; for in such love reason can neither give nor take away, for our love is in touch with the divine love. And I think that once this point is reached there will be no more separation from God. The contact of God with us, so long as we feel it, and our own loving efforts, are both created and of the nature of the creature, and so they may grow and increase all the days of our life.

The Labour and Rest of Love

In one single moment and at the same time, love labours and rests in its beloved. And the one is strengthened by the other; for the loftier the love, the greater is the rest, and the greater the rest, the closer is the love; for the one lives in the other, and he who loves not rests not, neither does he who rests not know aught of love. There are, nevertheless, some righteous men who believe that they neither love nor rest in God. But this thought itself springs from love, and because their desire to love is greater than their ability, therefore it seems to them that they are powerless to love. And in this labour they taste of love and rest, for none except the resigned, passive, and enlightened man can understand how one may rest and also enjoy.

The Christian Life

He (the believer) is hungry and thirsty, for he sees the food of angels and the drink of heaven. He labours diligently in love, for he beholds his rest. He is a pilgrim, and he sees his fatherland. He strives in love for the victory, for he sees his crown. Consolation, peace, joy, beauty, and riches, and all that the heart can desire, are shown to the reason which is enlightened to see God in spiritual similitudes and without measure or limit.... Those who do not possess, at the same time, the power of rest and action, and are not exercised in both, have not received this righteousness of the just.

The Coming of the Bridegroom

What is this eternal coming of our Bridegroom? It is a new birth and a new illumination which are without interruption; for the source from which the brightness streams, and which is itself the brightness, is living and fertile; and so the manifestation of the eternal light is renewed without interruption, in the secret depths of the spirit.... And the coming of the Bridegroom is so swift that He is always coming, and that He dwells within us with His unfathomable riches, and that He returns ever anew in person, with such new brightness that it seems as if He had never come before. For His coming is comprised beyond all limit of time, in an eternal Now; and He is ever received with new desires and a new delight. Behold, the joys and the pleasures which this Bridegroom brings with Him at His coming are boundless and without limit, for they are Himself. And this is why the eyes of the spirit, by which the loving soul beholds its Bridegroom, are opened so wide that they will never shut again. For the contemplation and the fixed gaze of the spirit are eternal in the secret manifestation of God. And the comprehension of the spirit is so widely opened, as it waits for the appearance of the Bridegroom, that the spirit itself becomes vast as that which it comprehends. And so is God beheld and understood by God, in whom all our blessedness is found.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.