Mysticism

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  1. John Ruusbroec
    1. Good Person 6
    2. Spiritual Person 25
      1. Unencumbered with images
      2. Inward freedom
      3. Spiritual Union with God
    3. Contemplative 58
      1. Foundation Unfathomable
      2. Above Reason / Manner
      3. Divine Enjoyment
    4. Sparkling Stone and New Name 82
    5. Works of God and Kinds of Sinners 162
      1. Kinds of Sinners
      2. Three Works 201
    6. Hireling, Servants, Friends, Heirs 223
      1. Hirelings
      2. Beginning of Wisdom 224
      3. Servants and Friends 264
      4. Friends and Sons 322
    7. How To Attain 401
    8. One but Eternally Other
    9. Earthly and Heavenly Life
    10. Tabor
    11. Enjoyment of God
    12. Common Life
  2. Hadewijch
    1. Background
    2. Vision 7 Oneness in the Eucharist
    3. Poem 26
    4. Letter 12
    5. Godfried of Villers
    6. Poem 9
  3. Beatrice
    1. Seven Manners of Holy Love: Prologue
    2. Serve only from love
    3. Desire to do too much
    4. God Gives Love
    5. Effect Immediate Contact with God
    6. Love Conquers All
    7. Love beyond human
    8. Allowin
  4. Problems
    1. Gerard's Prologue
    2. Gerson
    3. Explanation
  5. Arnhem Mystical Sermons

Aims To come into direct contact with some major medieval mystical authors from the Low Countries: Hadewijch, Beatrice 1200-1268, John Ruusbroec 1293-1381 - he is clearer, so we start here then pick up the ladies; to understand these authors in their historical context; to reflect on the theological relevance of their writings.
Content Origins and backgrounds of the Medieval mystical tradition in the Low Countries; close reading of texts of Hadewijch, Beatrice of Nazareth, Geert Appelmans, Jan van Ruusbroec, Gerlach Peters and The Temple of our Soul. The students are expected to write a paper in which they reflect on the theological relevance of a spiritual or mystical theme (or author) discussed in the course. Course activities: Intelligent participation and thinking along with the authors discussed. Last two meetings examine anonymous text from last mystical period in Holland - Unpublished, interesting, but not studied before. [WWW]texts
Evaluation oral exam - comment on text from class, understand and make connections. Short paper of 5 pages - personal reflection of theological relevance/irrelevance of something from class. - due last class. part of exam - few pages reflection on theological relevance of a theme from the course - what we think about the relevance. Primary sources most important. French: dictionaraire spiritualite - pays bas (anciens) - names and themes Volume 12, part 1. Short summary article by Albert Deblaere 1994 —Mommaer essays on mystical literature, 2004 - he knew the tradition inside and out. —Christian Mystic Testimony - Ons Geestelijk Erf 1998 129-153.

John Ruusbroec

Background Born 1293, in Ruusbroec in Brussels; from the central station it is in the opposite direction from the cathedral. (from biography by Pomerius) Lived as a young man with his uncle Jan Hinkaert / canon of collegial church that is today's brussels cathedral / Brussels at the time was partof a french diocese / Leuven was part of liege diocese. They were building the current church when JR was there. Not sure where his education came from, his writings show he had thorough theological and philosophical education; university of paris is improbable. 25 years diocesan priest in Brussels / he started mystical writings at this time while living in the city. It is important in his reflections - the mystic isn't a recluse from human reality, blends contemplation and action.
Why he wrote 1) Pomerius says he wrote because there was a need for solid spiritual writings to combat heretical movements which he doesn't name. Today we identify this with the Free Spirit movement, a pseudo-mystical movement, which says that those who are united to the spirit are free and shouldn't worry about social concerns, sacraments. JR makes a sophisticated response, restates their position and responds, mysticism is not merging with God and leaving behind the world, but it is essentially Love, both uniting with God and concern for neighbor. 2) Also the clergy of brussels needed help in responding to Free Spirit people. JR can be very critical of his colleagues and describes their shallowness and ambition. 3) He wants to give spiritual direction to individuals. Sparkling Stone is explaining spiritual experience to one person. In 1343, JR leaves and goes to live in as a woods southeast of brussels at Sonian / Groenendaal. At his time, it wasn't to be in peace and comfort. But it is leaving the security of the city, somewhat more like going to the desert. Pomerius is enigmatic about JR's reasons for leaving, some sort of conflict with the clergy of Brussels. In one place JR describes the place as a desert, in the sense of wasteland. 1350, they realized they should not have just a hermit's life, but they should take a rule: took rule of Canons Regular of St. Augustine with JR as prior. This place existed almost to the French revolution / now only the ruins remain / some fish ponds, since they were vegetarian. Died 1381 @ 88. A Kempis died @ 92. Complete works 10 treatises of varying lengths, and some letters. Sparkling Stone is short, very nice. Carthusians at Herne invited JR to clarify his writings there and explain some shocking passages. Carthusian procurator summarizes JR's ideas and mentions Sparkling Stone was written for one hermit. Human person is valuable enough to write a book just for that person. He summarizes there some of his ideas about the most profound aspects of spiritual life. These ideas are in Hadewijch and Beatrice, but JR's text is a help to understand it. In his time Spiritual Tabernacle was considered masterpiece - for us it is too difficult, though it has great information on his thought.
Text From critical edition with middle dutch, english, latin from Surius 16th C. Written in dutch, it's debated why, they all know latin (roosbroec and hadewijch as well); some say emancipation of vernacular - but RF says it was because he didn't intend to publish - latin was for publication (like english now). But the translation did allow a wider audience. Many manuscripts - not so with Beatrice and Hadewijch.
4 parts the lion's share is the 3rd part, which seems to be most needed by the hermit. 1. Ethical, 2. Spiritual, 3. Contemplative / Mystic, 4. Outflowing common man. "ghemeyne mensche" common person. All people in his time were all christian, so he says fellow christian for neighbor. Best is all four combined, then growth starts to unfold "in wisdom age and grace". Maturity is to grow to Christ - he questions is this Christ, or is the person in realtion to Christ. Meister Ekhardt had been condemned sentence that "the good person IS Christ" It could be understood correctly, but it is problematic. JR is trying to explain it better. The Papal Bull was published in Koln and it is probable that JR knew Ekhardt, and perhaps reaction.

THE SPARKLING STONE - PROLOGUE THE person who would live in the most perfect state of Holy Church must be a good and zealous person; an inward and spiritual person; an uplifted and Contemplative person; and an outflowing person to all in common. Whenever these four things are together in a person, then his state is perfect; and through the increase of grace he shall continually grow and progress in all virtues, and in the knowledge of truth, before God and before all.

Good Person 6

Three things which constitute a good person. The first, which a good person must have, is a clean conscience without reproach of mortal sin. And therefore whosoever wishes to become a good person must examine and prove himself with due discernment, from that time onward when he could first have committed sin. And from all these sins he must purge himself, according to the precept and the custom of Holy Church. The second thing which pertains to a good person is that he must in all things be obedient to God, and to Holy Church, and to his own proper convictions. And to each of these three he must be equally obedient: so shall he live without care and doubt, and shall ever abide without inward reproach in all his deeds. The third thing which behoves every good person is that in all his deeds he should have in mind, above all else, the glory of God. And if it happens that by reason of his business or the multiplicity of his works, he has not always God before his eyes, yet at least there should be established in him the intention and desire to live according to the dearest will of God. Behold, these three things, when they are possessed in this way, make a person good. And whosoever lacks any one of these three is neither good nor in the grace of God; but whenever a person resolves in his heart to fulfil these three points, how wicked soever he may have been before, in that very instant he becomes good, and is susceptible of God, and filled with the grace of God.

Spiritual Person 25

IF, further, this good person would become an inward and spiritual person, he will have three further things. 1. a heart unencumbered with images; 2. spiritual freedom in his desires; 3. feeling of inward union with God. Now let every one who thinks himself to be spiritual examine himself.

Unencumbered with images

One will not possess anything with affection, nor may he cling to any one, or have intercourse with him with attachment of the will; for all intercourse and all affection which do not aim purely at the honour of God bring images into a persons heart, since they are born, not of God, but of the flesh. And so if a person is becoming spiritual, he forsakes all fleshly lusts and loves and cleaves with longing and love to God alone, and thus possesses Him. And through this, all imaginations and all inordinate love towards creatures are cast out. And this loving possession of God makes a person inwardly free from ungodly images; for God is a Spirit, of Whom no one can make to himself a true image. Certainly in this exercise a person should lay hold of good images to help him; such as the Passion of our Lord and all those things that may stir him to greater devotion. But in the possession of God, the person sinks down to that bare imagelessness which is God; and this is the first point, and the foundation, of a spiritual life.

Inward freedom

The person raises oneself to God in all inward exercises, free from images and encumbrances; that is, in thanksgiving and praise, in worship, in devout prayer and fervent love, and in all those things that may be done by longing and love with the help of the grace of God and through inward zeal in all spiritual exercises.

Spiritual Union with God

Whosoever then has, in inward exercise, 1. imageless and 2. free access to his God, and means nought else but the glory of God, tastes of the goodness of God; and he feels from within a true union with God. And in this union, the inward and spiritual life is made perfect; for in this union, the desirous power is perpetually enticed anew and stirred to new inward activity. And by each act, the spirit rises upwards to a new union. And so activity and union perpetually renew themselves; and this perpetual renewal in activity and in union is a spiritual life. And so you are now able to see how a person becomes good through the moral virtues and an upright intention; and how he may become spiritual through the inward virtues and union with God. But without these said points, he can neither be good nor spiritual.

Contemplative 58

You must know that if this spiritual person would now become a person contemplating God, has three other things. The first is the feeling that the foundation of his being is unfathomable, and he possesses it as such; the second is that his inward exercise is wayless; the third is that his indwelling is a divine enjoyment.

Foundation Unfathomable

Speaking only to 'you who would live in the spirit'. The union with God which a spiritual person feels, when the union is revealed to the spirit as being unfathomable that is, measureless depth, measureless height, measureless length and measureless breadth in this manifestation the spirit perceives that through love it has sunk away from itself into the depth and has ascended into the height and escaped into the length; and it feels itself to be strayed in the breadth, and to dwell in a knowing which is unknows. And through this intimate feeling of union, it feels itself to be melting into the clinging sensation of union into Unity; and, through all dying into the living being of God. And there it feels itself to be one life with God. And this is the foundation, and the first point, of the Contemplative life.
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Above Reason / Manner

An exercise above reason and without manner: for God's Unity, of which every Contemplative spirit posseses in love eternally, draws and invites the Divine Persons and all loving spirits into its self. And this inward drawing is felt by each lover, more or less, according to the measure of his love and the manner of his exercise. And whosoever yields to this indrawing, and keeps therein, cannot fall into mortal sin. But the contemplative person who has forsaken self and all things, and does not feel himself drawn away no longer possesses anything as one's own, but stands empty of all, and can always enter, naked and unencumbered with images, into the inmost part of the spirit. There one finds revealed an Eternal Light, and in this light, and feels the eternal demand of the Divine Unity; and feels the self to be an eternal fire of love, which craves above all else to be one with God. The more one yields to this indrawing or demand, the more one feels it. And the more he feels it, the more he craves to be one with God; for it urges him to pay the debt which is demanded of him by God. This eternal demand of the Divine Unity kindles within the spirit an eternal fire of love; and though the spirit incessantly pays the debt, an eternal burning continues within it. For, in the transformation within the Unity, all spirits fail in their own activity, and feel nothing else but a burning up of themselves in the single Unity of God. This single Unity of God none can feel or possess save he who maintains himself in the immeasurable radiance, and in the love which is above reason and without manner. In this transcendent state the spirit feels in itself the eternal fire of love; and in this fire of love it finds neither beginning nor end, and it feels itself one with this fire of love. The spirit for ever continues to burn in itself, for its love is eternal; and it feels itself ever more and more to be burnt up in love, for it is drawn and transformed into the Unity of God, where the spirit burns in love. If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and an otherness between itself and God; but where it is burnt up it is undifferentiated and without distinction, and therefore it feels nothing but unity; for the flame of the Love of God consumes and devours all that it can enfold in its Self.

Divine Enjoyment

And thus you may see that the indrawing Unity of God is nought else than the fathomless Love, which lovingly draws inward, in eternal enjoyment, the Father and the Son and all that lives in Them.

  1. In this Love we shall burn and be burnt up without end, throughout eternity; for herein lies the blessedness of all spirits.

  2. We will all found our lives upon a fathomless abyss; that we may eternally plunge into Love, and sink down in the fathomless Depth.

  3. With that same Love, we shall ascend, and transcend ourselves, in the in comprehensible Height.

  4. In that Love which is wayless, we shall wander and stray, and it shall lead us and lose us in the immeasurable Breadth of the Love of God.

  5. Herein we shall flow and overflow ourselves, into the unknown raptures of the Goodness and Riches of God.

  6. Therein we shall melt and be melted away, and

  7. shall eternally whirl and be whirled within the Glory of God.

Behold ! by each of these images, I show forth to Contemplatives their being and their exercise, but none else can understand them. For the contemplative life cannot be taught. But where the Eternal Truth reveals Itself within the spirit all that is needful is taught and learnt.

Sparkling Stone and New Name 82

In Revelation: "to those that overcome (overcome and conquer self and all else), God will give hidden Manna (an inward and hidden savour and celestial joy); and will give a sparkling stone and in the stone a new name known to none but the one that receives it." This Stone is called a pebble, for it is so small that it does not hurt when one treads on it. This stone is shining bright and red like a flame of fire; and it is small and round, and smooth all over, and very light.

  1. By this sparkling stone we mean our Lord Christ Jesus, (a shining forth of the Eternal Light, and an irradiation of the glory of God, and a flawless mirror in which all things live). Now to him who overcomes and transcends all things, this sparkling stone is given; and with it he receives light and truth and life.

  2. This stone is also like to a fiery flame, for the fiery love of the Eternal Word has filled the whole world with love and wills that all loving spirits be burned up to nothingness in love.

  3. This stone is also so small that a person hardly feels it, even though he treads it underfoot. And that is why it is called calculus, that is, " treadling." And this is made clear to us by St Paul, where he says that the Son of God emptied himself and took the form of a servant being obedient even to death, death on a cross. And He Himself spoke through the mouth of the Prophet, saying: I am a worm and no man, the reproach and despised of the people. The Jews trod Him under their feet and felt Him not; for, had they recognized the Son of God, they had not dared to crucify Him. He is still little and despised in all those hearts that do not love Him well.

  4. That the stone is round teaches us that the Divine Truth has neither beginning nor end;

  5. That it is smooth and even all over teaches us that the Divine Truth shall weigh all things evenly, and shall give to each according to his merits; and that which he gives shall be with each throughout eternity.

  6. The stone is particularly light; for the Eternal Word of the Father is weightless, nevertheless It bears heaven and earth by Its strength. And It is equally near to all things; yet none can attain It, for It is set on high and goes before all creatures, and reveals Itself where It wills and when It wills; and, in Its lightness, our heavy human nature has climbed above all the heavens, and sits crowned at the right hand of the Father.

Behold, this is the sparkling stone which is given to the Contemplative person, and in this stone a new name is written which none knows save the one who received it. You should know that all spirits in their return towards God receive names; each one in particular, according to the nobleness of its service and the loftiness of its love. For only the first name of innocence, which we receive at baptism, is adorned with the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when we have lost this name of innocence through sin, if we are willing still to follow God especially in three works which He wishes to work in us we are baptized once more in the Holy Spirit. And thereby we receive a new name which shall remain with us throughout eternity.

Works of God and Kinds of Sinners 162

Our Lord works three works in all who will submit themselves thereto. 1. His calling and inviting them all, without exception, to union with Himself. And as long as a sinner does not follow this call, he must lack all the other gifts which would follow thereafter. All sinners may be divided into five kinds:

Kinds of Sinners

  1. All those who are careless of good works, who through bodily ease and the lust of the senses prefer to live in worldly employments and in multiplicity of heart.

  2. Those who have willingly and wittingly fallen into mortal sin, yet also do good works, and dwell in the fear and awe of the Lord, and love the just, and desire their prayers, and put their trust therein.

  3. All unbelievers, and those who err in faith. What good works soever they do, or what lives soever they lead, without the true faith they cannot please God; for true faith is the foundation of all holiness and all virtues.

  4. Those who abide in mortal sin without fear and without shame, who care not for God and His gifts, and neglect all virtues. They hold all spiritual life to be hypocrisy and deceit; and they hardly listen to all that one may say to them of God or of the virtues, for they have established them selves as though there were no God, nor heaven, nor hell, and therefore they desire to know of nothing but that which they now perceive and have before them.

  5. Those hypocrites who do outward good works, not for the glory of God and their own salvation, but to acquire a name for holiness, or for the sake of some fleeting thing.

See, I have shown to you five kinds of sinners, who have all been inwardly called to union with God. But so long as a sinner remains in the service of sin, so long he remains deaf and blind and unable to taste, or to feel, all the good that God wishes to work in him. But whenever a sinner enters into himself, and considers himself, if he be displeased by his sinful life, then he draws near to God. But if he would be obedient to the call and the words of God, he must of his own free will resolve to leave sin and to do penance. And so he becomes one aim and one will with God, and receives the grace of God.

Three Works 201

And therefore we should all conceive of God's goodness in this way: 1. God calls and invites all, without distinction, to union with Himself; both the good and the wicked, without exception. 2. God through grace flows forth towards all who are obedient to the call of God. 3. We can become one life and one spirit with God, when we renounce ourselves in every way, and follow the grace of God to the height whereto it would guide us. For the grace of God works in an orderly way in every person, after the measure and the way in which he is able to receive it. And thereby, through the universal working of the grace of God, every sinner, if he desires it, receives the discernment and strength which are needful, that he may leave sin and turn towards virtue. And, through that hidden cooperation of the grace of God, every good person can overcome all sins, and can resist all temptations, and can fulfil all virtues, and can persevere in the highest perfection, if he be in all things submissive to the grace of God. For all we are and have are the free gifts of God; for which we must thank and praise Him, and with which we must serve Him, if we are to please Him. Gifts are to virtue, or to vice: such are health, beauty, wisdom, riches, and worldly dignity (the lowest and least precious gifts of God, given to all). And with these the good serve God and His friends; but the wicked, their own flesh, and the devil, and the world.

Hireling, Servants, Friends, Heirs 223

Some receive the gifts of God as hirelings, but others as faithful servants of God; and these differ one from another in all inward works (love, intention, feeling).

Hirelings

All who love themselves so inordinately that they serve God only for profit and because of their own reward, these separate themselves from God, and dwell in bondage and in their own selfhood; for they seek, and aim at, their own, in all that they do. And therefore, with all their prayers and with all their good works, they seek after temporal things, or may be strive after eternal things for their own benefit and for their own profit. These are bent upon themselves in an inordinate way; and that is why they ever abide alone with themselves, for they lack the true love which would unite them with God and with all His beloved. Seem upright, but they do not keep within the law of love; for all that they do, they do, not out of love, but from sheer necessity, lest they shall be damned. And, because they are inwardly unfaithful, they dare not trust in God; but their whole inward life is doubt and fear, travail and misery. For they see on the right hand eternal life, and this they are afraid of losing; and they see on the left hand the eternal pains of hell, and these they are afraid of gaining. But all their prayers, all their labour and all the good works, whatsoever they do, to cast out this fear, help them not; for the more inordinately they love themselves, the more they fear hell. And from this you may learn that their fear of hell springs from self-love, which seeks its own.

Beginning of Wisdom 224

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (exercised upon the right hand, considering loss of eternal blessedness) all have a natural tendency to be blessed, to see God. Even the faithless one, through self reflection finds within a leaning towards that blessedness which is God. A blessedness they fears to lose; for love of self better than God, thus a selfish love of blessedness which dares not trust God. And yet this is that Fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, and is a law to the unfaithful servants of God: for it compels a person to leave sin, and to strive after virtue, and to do good deeds, and these things prepare a person from without to receive the grace of God and become a faithful servant.
From that very hour in which, with God's help, one overcomes selfhood (so detached from self that as to leave all needs in the God's keeping), that one is so well pleasing to God that God bestows grace. And, through grace, one feels true love: and love casts out doubt and fear, and fills the person with hope and trust, and thus they becomes faithful servants, who seek and love God in all. This is the difference between the faithful servant and the hireling.

Servants and Friends 264

WE must now observe the great difference between the faithful servants and the inward friends of God. For through grace and the help of God, the faithful servants have chosen to keep the commandments of God, (obedient to God and Holy Church in all virtues and goodly behavior): and this is called the outward or active life. But the inward friends of God choose to follow, besides the commandments, the quickening counsels of God (loving and inward cleaving to God for the sake of His eternal glory, with a willing abandonment of all that one may possess outside God with lust and love). All such friends God calls and invites inwards, and teaches them the distinctions of inward exercises and many a hidden way of spiritual life. But He sends His servants outwards, that they may be faithful to Him and to His House in every service and in every kind of outward good works. God gives grace and help to each person according to one's fitness; the way in which one is in tune with God, whether in outward good works or in the inward practice of love. But none can do and feel the inward exercises unless he be wholly turned inward to God. For as long as a person is divided of heart, so long he looks outwards, and is unstable of mind, and is easily swayed by joy and grief in temporal things, for these are still alive within him. And though he may live according to the commandments of God, inwardly he abides in darkness, and knows not what inward exercises may be, nor how these should be practised. But, since one knows and feels that God is in the mind, and in all works desires to fulfil His dearest will, with this one may be content; for then one knows oneself to be free from hypocrisy in intention, and faithful in service. And by these two things one is content; outward good works done with a pure intention are more holy and more profitable than any inward exercise what ever, for by the help of God, one has chosen an outward active way of virtue. One had rather the diversity of outward works than inward love for the One for Whom one works; filled more with the works of God than the God of the works. In the tendency to images in works, one remains an outward person, and is not able to follow the counsels of God; (exercise is more outward than inward, more sense than spirit).
300Though a faithful servant of God in outward works, the experience of the secret friends of God remains hidden, and unknown. And this is why some coarse and outward people always condemn and blame the inward and contemplatives, because they have in mind that these are idle. So Martha complained of Mary, who didn't help in serving; for she believed that she was doing much service and much usefulness, and her sister was sitting idle and doing nothing. But our Lord gave His judgment and decided between them: He did not blame Martha for her diligence, for her service was good and useful; but He blamed her for her care, and because she was troubled and cast down by a multitude of outward things. And He praised Mary for her inward exercise, and said that One Thing was needful, and that she had chosen the better part, which should not be taken away from her.
That One Thing which is needful for all is Divine love. The better part is an inward life, with loving adherence to God. This Mary Magdalen had chosen, and this is chosen by the secret friends of God. But Martha chose an outward, unenclosed, and active life; and that is the other part, in which one may serve God, but which is neither so perfect nor so good. And this part is chosen out of love by the faithful servants of God.
But there are found some foolish who are so inward they neither act nor serve, even in those in need. Behold, these are neither secret friends nor faithful servants of God; but they are altogether false and deceived. Counsels are built on commandments. All secret friends of God are also at the same time faithful servants, wherever this is needful; but all the faithful servants are not secret friends, for the exercise which belongs thereto is unknown to them.
This is the difference between the faithful servants and the secret friends of God.

Friends and Sons 322

A more subtle and inward difference, between secret friends and secured sons of God; and yet both are in the Presence of God. But the friends possess their inwardness in a self-conscious manner; they cannot penetrate to the imageless Nudity. They have, as images and intermediaries between God and themselves (their own being and activity). And though in their loving adherence they feel united with God, yet, in this union, they always feel a difference and an otherness between God and themselves. For the simple passing into the bareness and modelessness, they do not know and love: and therefore their highest inward life ever remains in reason and manner. And though they have clear understanding and discernment of all virtues that may be conceived, the simple staring with open heart into the Divine Brightness remains unknown of them. And though they feel themselves uplifted to God in a mighty fire of love, yet they keep something of their own selfhood, and are not consumed and burnt to nothingness in the unity of love. And though they may desire to live for ever more in the service of God and to please Him eternally, they will not die in God to all the selfhood of their spirit, and receive from Him a God-formed life. And even though they esteem little and count as nothing all consolation and all rest which may come from without, yet they greatly value the gifts of God, and also their own inward works, and the solace and sweetness which they feel within; and thus they rest upon the way, and do not so wholly die to themselves, as to be able to attain the highest beatitude in bare and wayless love. And even if they could practise and apprehend with clear discernment the perfection of loving adherence to God, and all the inward and upward going ways by which one may pass over into the Presence of God; yet the wayless passing, and the glorious wandering, in the Superessential Love, wherein neither end, nor beginning, nor way, nor manner, can ever be found, would remain hidden from, and unknown of them.
And so there is a great difference between the secret friends and the hidden sons of God. For the friends feel nought else but a loving and living ascent to God in some wise; but, above this, the sons experience a simple and death-like passing which is in no wise.
The inward life of the friends is an upward-striving exercise of love, wherein they desire to remain for ever with their own selfhood; but how one possesses God through bare love above every exercise, in freedom from ones self, this they do not feel. Hence they are always striving upwards towards God in true faith, and await God and eternal blessedness with sincere hope, and are fastened and anchored to God through perfect charity. And therefore good things have befallen them, for they do please God, and God is complaisant unto them: yet for all this, they are not assured of eternal life, for they have not entirely died to themselves and to all selfhood. {c} But all those who abide and endure in their exercise and in that turning to God who is chosen, these God has chosen in eternity, and they and their works are in the book of life. But those who choose other things, and turn from God towardontrast sin, and endure therein (even though their names were written and known of God), their names shall be blotted out and erased from the Book of Life because they did not persevere unto death, and they shall never more be able to taste of God, nor of any fruit which springs from virtue. And therefore we must examine ourselves with diligence, and adorn our turning towards God, from within with inward love, and from without with good works: thus we can await in hope and joy the judgment of God and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But could we renounce ourselves, and all selfhood in our works, we should, with our bare and imageless spirit, transcend all things: and, without intermediary, should be led of the Spirit of God into the Nudity. And then we should feel the certainty that we are indeed the heirs of God: for as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are children of God, says the Apostle St Paul.
Nevertheless, you should know that all good and faithful are the children of God; born of the free Spirit of God, who lives in them, moves and stirs them according to capacity. In works, some are faithful servants of God, others secret friends, others again hidden sons: nevertheless, they are all servants, friends, and sons. And God permits that friends do and leave undone all not contrary to the commandments; and those bound by the counsels of God, then this bond also is a commandment. All must keep the commands of Scripture, or by Holy Church, or in our conscience. But we have venial sins, failings do not make us disobedient, nevertheless, we should always lament such lapses, how small, and guard against them. Again: every person must obey God and to Holy Church and to his own conscience; for I do not wish that any should be unjustly offended by my words. And herewith I leave it even as I have said it.

How To Attain 401

How to 1) always live and be watchful in all virtues, 2) forsake this life and die in God; for we must die to sin and be born of God into a life of virtue, (we must renounce ourselves and die in God into an eternal life). And as to this ensues the following instruction: If we are born of the Spirit of God, we are the sons of grace; and so our whole life is adorned with virtues. Overcome all that is contrary to God; for St John says, Whosoever is born of God overcomes the world. All are children of God. And the Spirit of God kindles and stirs each to virtues and to good works according to capacity. They please God all in common, and each in particular, according to the measure of his love and the nobleness of his exercise; but they may still sin. So servants and friends, rather than sons. But when we be brought beyond ourselves, and become, in our ascent towards God, so simple that bare love in the height can lay hold of us, where love engages love, above every exercise of virtue i.e., in our Origin, of Which we are spiritually born, then we cease {emptied}, and we and all our selfhood die in God. And in this death we become hidden sons of God, and find a new life within us: and that is eternal life. And of these sons, St Paul says: You are dead, your life is hidden with Christ in God.

424 In our approach to God, we carry our selves and works, as a perpetual sacrifice to God; and in the Presence of God, we must forsake ourselves and all our works, and, dying in love, go forth from all creatureliness into the superessential richness of God: there we shall possess God in an eternal death to ourselves. Revelation: Blest are the dead that die in the Lord. They remain eternally dead and lost to themselves in the blissful Unity of God. And they die in love ever anew, through the indrawing transformation of that same Unity. "They may rest from their labor and their works follow them." (1) In the ordinary state of grace (with manner), when we are born of God into a spiritual and virtuous life, we carry our works before us, as an offering to God; (2) but in the wayless state, where we die back into God in an eternal and blessed life, there our good works follow us, for they are one life with us. (1) When we go towards God by means of the virtues, God dwells in us; but (2) when we go out from ourselves and from all else, then we dwell in God. So soon as we have faith, hope and charity, we have received God, and He dwells in us with His grace, and He sends us out as His faithful servants, to keep His commandments. And He calls us in again as His secret friends, so soon as we are willing to follow His counsels; and He names us openly as His sons so soon as we live in opposition to the world. But if- above all things we would taste God, and feel eternal life in ourselves, we go forth into God with our faith, above reason; and there we must abide, onefold, empty of ourselves, and free from images, lifted up by love into the simple bareness of our mind/soul. For when we go out in love beyond and above all things, and die to all observation in ignorance and in darkness, then we are wrought and transformed through the Eternal Word, Who is the Image of the Father. In raw being of our spirit, we receive the Incomprehensible Light, which enwraps us and penetrates us, as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. And this Light is nothing else than a fathomless staring and seeing. What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we are: for our thought, our life, and our being are uplifted in simplicity, and made one with the Truth which is God. And therefore in this simple staring we are one life and one spirit with God: and this I call a contemplative life. As soon as we cling to God through love, we practise the better part; but when we gaze thus into our superessence, we possess God utterly.

457: With this contemplation, there is bound up an exercise which is wayless, that is to say, a noughting of life; for, where we go forth out of ourselves into darkness and the abysmal Waylessness, there shines perpetually the simple ray of the Splendour of God, in which we are grounded, and which draws us out of ourselves into the superessence, and into the immersion of love. And with this sinking into love there is always bound up a practice of love which is wayless; for love cannot be lazy, but would search through and through and taste through and through the fathomless richness which lives in the ground of her being, and this is a hunger which cannot be appeased. But a perpetual striving after the unattainable this is swimming against the stream. One can neither leave it nor grasp it, neither do with out it nor attain it, neither be silent on it nor speak of it, for it is above reason and understanding, and it transcends all creatures; and therefore we can never reach nor overtake it. But we should abide within ourselves: there we feel that the Spirit of God is driving us and enkindling us in this restlessness of love. And we should abide above ourselves. And then we feel that the Spirit of God is drawing us out of ourselves and burning us to nothingness in His Selfhood; that is, in the Superessential Love with which we are one, and which we possess more deeply and more widely than all else. {possess more than things or even self.}

475 - This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved. That this is true we can only know by our own feeling, and in no other way. For how this is, or where, or what, neither reason nor practice can come to know: and therefore our ensuing exercise always remains wayless, that is, without manner. For that abysmal Good which we taste and possess, we can neither grasp nor understand; neither can we enter into it by ourselves or by means of our exercises. And so we are poor in ourselves, but rich in God; hungry and thirsty in ourselves, drunken and fulfilled in God; busy in ourselves, idle in God. And thus we shall remain throughout eternity. But without the exercise of love, we can never possess God; and whosoever thinks or feels otherwise is deceived. And thus we live wholly in God, where we possess our blessedness; and we live wholly in ourselves, where we exercise ourselves in love towards God. = one life; can experience from above or below.. Yet with this our highest honour is bound up, now and in eternity: for 1) we cannot wholly become God and lose our created being, this is impossible. However, 2) if we remain wholly in ourselves, sundered from God, we should be miserable and desparate. So feel wholly in God and wholly in ourselves; and between these two feelings we should find nothing else but the grace of God and the exercise of our love. For out of our highest feeling, the brightness of God shines into us, which teaches us truth, and moves us towards every virtue and in eternal love towards God. If we follow this brightness without pause, back into that Source from whence it comes forth, there we feel nothing but a quenching of our spirit and an irretrievable down- sinking into simple and fathomless love. Could we continue to dwell there with our simple gaze, we should always so feel it; for our immersion and transformation in God continues without ceasing in eternity, if we have gone forth from ourselves, and {ani le dodi v dodi li} God is ours in the immersion of love. For if we possess God in the immersion of love that is, if we are lost to ourselves God is our own and we are His own: and we sink ourselves eternally and irretrievably in our own possession, which is God. This immersion is essential, and is closely bound up with the state of love: and so it continues whether we sleep or whether we wake, whether we know it or whether we know it not. And so it does not earn for us any new degree of reward; but it maintains us in the possession of God and of all that good which we have received. And this down-sinking is like a river ever pours into the sea; since this is its proper resting-place. So we flow naturally to God. Were we always focussed we would always feel this eternal going out from ourselves, to an otherness or difference towards which, outside ourselves, we tend as towards our blessedness. For we feel an eternal yearning toward something other than what we are ourselves. And this is the most inward and hidden distinction which we can feel between God and ourselves, and beyond it there is no difference any more. But our reason abides here with open eyes in the darkness, that is, in an abysmal ignorance; and in this darkness, the abysmal splendour remains covered and hidden from us, for its over whelming unfathomableness blinds our reason. But it enwraps us in simplicity, and transforms us through its selfhood: and thus we are brought forth by God, out of our selfhood, into the immersion of love, in which we possess blessedness, and are one with God.

527 One with God = quickening knowledge and an active love; without knowledge, we can't possess God; and without love, no union with God, nor remain one with Him. For if we could be blessed without our knowledge, then a stone, which has no knowledge, could also be blessed. Were I lord over all the world and knew it not, how xmld it profit me? And therefore we shall ever know and feel that we taste and possess; and this is testified by Christ Himself, where He speaks thus of us to His Father: THIS, He says, is LIFE ETERNAL, THAT THEY SHOULD KNOW THEE, THE ONLY TRUE GOD, AND JESUS CHRIST, WHOM THOU HAST SENT. And by this you may understand that our eternal life consists in knowledge with discernment.

One but Eternally Other

We are one with God, & we must eternally remain other than God. And we must understand and feel both within us, if all is to be right with us.

From the Face of God, or from our highest feeling, a brightness shines upon the face of our inward being, which teaches us the truth of love and of all virtues: and especially are we taught in this brightness to feel God and ourselves in four ways.

  1. We feel God in His grace; and when we apprehend this, we cannot remain idle. For like as the sun, by its splendour and its heat, enlightens and gladdens and makes fruitful the whole world, so God does to us through His grace: He enlightens and gladdens and makes fruitful all who desire to obey Him. If, however, we would feel God within us, and have the fire of His love ever more burning within us, we must, of our own free will, help to kindle it in four ways: We must abide within our selves, united with the fire through inwardness. And we must go forth from ourselves towards all the good with loyalty and brotherly love. And we must go beneath ourselves in penance, betaking ourselves to all good works, and resisting our inordinate lusts. And we must ascend above ourselves with the flame of this fire, through devotion, and thanksgiving, and praise, and fervent prayer, and must ever cleave to God with an upright intention and with sensible love. And thereby God continues to dwell in us with His grace; for in these four ways is comprehended every exercise which we can do with the reason, and in some wise, but without this exercise no one can please God. And he who is most perfect in this exercise, is nearest to God. And therefore it is needful for all; and above it none can rise save the contemplative. And thus, in this first way, we feel God within us through His grace, if we wish to belong to Him.

  2. We feel ourselves to be living in God; and from out of that life in which we feel God in ourselves, there shines forth upon the face of our inward being a brightness which enlightens our reason, and is an intermediary between ourselves and God. And if we with our enlightened reason abide within ourselves in this brightness, we feel that our created life incessantly immerses itself in its eternal life. But when we follow the brightness above reason with a simple sight, and with a willing leaning out of ourselves, toward our highest life, there we experience the transformation of our whole selves in God; and thereby we feel ourselves to be wholly enwrapped in God.

  3. We feel ourselves to be one with God; for, through the transformation in God, we feel ourselves to be swallowed up in the fathomless abyss of our eternal blessedness, wherein we can never more find any distinction between ourselves and God. And this is our highest feeling, which we cannot experience in any other way than in the immersion in love. And therefore, so soon as we are uplifted and drawn into our highest feeling, all our powers stand idle in an essential enjoyment; but our powers do not pass away into nothingness, for then we should lose our created being. And as long as we stand idle, with an inclined spirit, and with open eyes, but with out reflection, so long we can contemplate and have enjoyment. But, at the very moment in which we seek to prove and to comprehend what it is that we feel, we fall back into reason, and there we find a distinction and an otherness between ourselves and God, and find God outside ourselves in incomprehensibility.

  4. We feel God and ourselves. Hereby we now find ourselves standing in the Presence of God; and the truth which we receive from the Face of God teaches us that God would be wholly ours and that He wills us to be wholly His. And in that same moment in which we feel that God would be wholly ours, there arises within us a gaping and eager craving which is so hungry and so deep and so empty that, even though God gave all that He could give, if he gave not Himself, we should not be appeased. For, whilst we feel that He has given Himself and yielded Himself to our untrammeled craving, that we may taste of Him in every way that we can desire and of this we learn the truth in His sight yet all that we taste, against all that we lack, is but like to a single drop of water against the whole sea: and this makes our spirit burst forth in fury and in the heat and the restlessnesss of love. For the more we taste, the greater our craving and our hunger; for the one is the cause of the other. And thus it comes about that we struggle in vain. For we feed upon His Immensity, which we cannot devour, and we yearn after His Infinity, which we cannot attain: and so we cannot enter into God nor can God enter into us, for in the untamed fury of love we are not able to renounce our selves. And therefore the heat is so unmeasured that the exercise of love between ourselves and God flashes to and fro like the lightning in the sky; and yet we cannot be consumed in its ardour. And in this storm of love our activity is above reason and wayless; for love longs for that which is impossible to it, and reason teaches that love is in the right, but reason can neither counsel love nor dissuade her. For as long as we inwardly perceive that God would be ours, the goodness of God touches our eager craving: and therefrom springs the wildness of love, for the touch which pours forth from God stirs up this wildness, and demands our activity, that is, that we should love eternal love. But the inward-drawing touch draws us out of ourselves, and calls us to be melted and noughted in the Unity. And in this inward- drawing touch, we feel that God wills us to be His; and therefore, we must renounce ourselves and leave Him to work our blessedness. But where He touches us by the outpouring touch, He leaves us to ourselves, and makes us free, and sets us in His Presence, and teaches us to pray in the spirit and to ask in freedom, and shows us His incomprehensible riches in such manifold ways as we are able to grasp. For everything that we can conceive, wherein is consolation and joy, this we find in Him without measure. And therefore, when our feeling shows us that He with all these riches would be ours and dwell in us for ever more, then all the powers of the soul open themselves, and especially the desirous power; for all the rivers of the grace of God pour forth, and the more we taste of them, the more we long to taste; and the more we long to taste, the more deeply we press into contact with Him; and the more deeply we press into contact with God, the more the flood of His sweetness flows through us and over us; and the more we are thus drenched and flooded, the better we feel and know that the sweet ness of God is incomprehensible and unfathomable. And therefore the prophet says: O TASTE, AND SEE THAT THE LORD is SWEET. But he does not say how sweet He is, for God s sweetness is without measure; and therefore we can neither grasp it nor swallow it. And this is also testified by the bride of God in the Song of Songs, where she says: I SAT DOWN UNDER HIS SHADOW, WITH GREAT DELIGHT, AND HIS FRUIT WAS SWEET TO MY TASTE.

Earthly and Heavenly Life

THERE is a great difference between the brightness of the saints and the highest brightness or enlightenment to which we may attain in this life. For it is only the shadow of God which enlightens our inward wilderness, but on the high mountains of the Promised Land there is no shadow: and yet it is one and the same Sun, and one radiance, which enlightens both our wilderness and the high mountains. But the state of the saints is transparent and shining, and therefore they receive the brightness without intermediary: but our state is still mortal and gross, and this sets up an obstacle which causes the shadow, which so darkens our understanding that we cannot know God and heavenly things so clearly as the saints can and do. For as long as we dwell in the shadow, we cannot see the sun in itself; but Now WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, Says St Paul. Yet the shadow is so enlightened by the sunshine that we can perceive the distinctions between all the virtues, and all the truth which is profitable to our mortal state. But if we would become one with the brightness of the Sun, we must follow love, and go out of ourselves into the Wayless, and then the Sun will draw us with our blinded eyes into Its own brightness, in which we shall possess unity with God. So soon we feel and understand ourselves thus, we are in that contemplative life which is within reach of our mortal state.

The state of the Jews, according to the Old Testament, was cold and in the night, and they walked in darkness. And they DWELT IN THE LAND OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, says the prophet Isaias. The shadow of death came forth from original sin; and therefore they had all to endure the lack of God. But though our state in the Christian faith is but still in the cool and morning hour; yet for us the day has dawned. And therefore we shall walk in the light, and shall sit down in the shadow, of God; and His grace shall be an intermediary between ourselves and God. And, through it, we shall overcome all things, and shall die to all things, and shall pass without hindrance into the unity of God. But the state of the saints is warm and bright; for they live and walk in the noon-tide, and see with open and enlightened eyes the brightness of the Sun, for the glory of God flows through them and overflows in them. And each one according to the degree of his enlightenment, tastes and knows the fruits of all the virtues which have there been gathered together by all spirits. But that they taste and know the Trinity in the Unity, and the Unity in the Trinity, and know them selves united therewith, this is the highest and all- surpassing food which makes them drunken, and causes them to rest in Its Selfhood. And This it was that the bride in the Book of Love desired, when she said unto Christ: TELL ME, O THOU WHOM MY SOUL LOVETH, WHERE THOU FEEDEST, WHERE THOU MAKEST THY FLOCK TO REST AT NOON, that is, in the light of glory, as St Bernard says; for all the food which is given to us here, in the morning hour and in the shadow, is but a foretaste of the food that is to come in the noon-tide of the glory of God.

Yet the bride of our Lord gloried in having sat under the shadow of God, and that His fruit was sweet to her taste. Whenever we feel that God touches us from within, we taste of His fruit and His food: for His touch is His food. And His touch is both indrawing and outpouring, as I have said before. In His indrawing, we must be wholly His: thereby we learn to die and to behold. But in His outpouring, He wills to be wholly ours: and then He teaches us to live in the riches of the virtues. In His indrawing- touch all our powers forsake us, and then we sit under His shadow, and His fruit is sweet to our taste, for the Fruit of God is the Son of God, Whom the Father brings forth in our spirit. This Fruit is so infinitely sweet to our taste that we can neither swallow It nor assimilate It, but It rather absorbs us into Itself and assimilates us with Itself (44). And whenever this Fruit draws us inward and touches us, we abandon, forsake, and overcome all other things. And in this overcoming of all things, we taste of the hidden manna, which shall give us eternal life; for we receive the sparkling stone, of which I have spoken heretofore, in which our new names were written before the beginning of the world.

This is the NEW NAME WHICH NO MAN KNOWETH BUT HE THAT RECEiVETH IT. And whosoever feels himself to be for ever united with God, he possesses his name according to the measure of his virtues, and of his introversion, and of his union. And, that every one may obtain his name and possess it in eternity, the Lamb of God, that is, the personhood of our Lord, has delivered Itself up to death; and has opened for us the Book of Life, wherein are written all the names of the elect. And these names cannot be blotted out, for they are one with the Living Book, which is the Son of God. And that same death has broken for us the seals of the Book, so that all virtues may be fulfilled according to the eternal Providence of God. And so, in the measure in which each person can over come himself, and can die to all things, he feels the touch of the Father drawing him inward; and then he tastes the sweetness of the Inborn Fruit, Which is the Son; and in this tasting the Holy Ghost teaches him that he is the heir of God. But in these three points no one is like to another in every respect. And therefore each one has been named separately, and his name is continually made new through new graces and new works of virtue. And therefore every knee shall bow before the Name of Jesus, for He has fought for our sake, and has conquered. And He has enlightened our darkness, and has fulfilled all the virtues in the highest degree. And so His name is lifted up above all other names, for He is the King and the Prince over all the elect. And in His name we are called and chosen, and adorned with grace and with virtues, and look for the glory of God.

Tabor

AND so, that the Name of Christ may be exalted and glorified in us, we should follow Him up the mountain of our bare intelligence, even as Peter, James, and John followed Him on to mount Thabor. Thabor means in our tongue an increase of light. So soon as we are like Peter in knowledge of truth, and like James in the overcoming of the world, and like John in fulness of grace possessing the virtues in righteousness; then Jesus brings us up on to the mountain of our bare intelligence to a hidden solitude, and reveals Himself to us in glory and in Divine brightness. And, in His name, His Father in heaven opens to us the living book of His Eternal Wisdom. And the Wisdom of God enfolds our bare vision and the simplicity of our spirit in a wayless, simple enjoyment of all good without distinction; and here there are indeed seeing and knowing, tasting and feeling, essence and life, having and being: and all this is one in our transcendence in God. And before this transcendence we are all set, each in his own particular way; and our heavenly Father, of His wisdom and goodness, endows each one in particular according to the nobility of his life and his practice. And therefore, if we ever remained with Jesus on mount Thabor, that is, upon the mountain of our bare thought, we should continually experience a growth of new light and new truth; for we should ever hear the voice of the Father, Who touches us, pouring forth with grace, and drawing us inward into the unity. The voice of the Father is heard by all who follow our Lord Jesus Christ, for He says of them all: " These are My chosen sons, in whom I am well pleased." And, through this good pleasure, each one receives grace, according to the measure and the way in which God is well-pleasing unto him. And therefrom, between our pleasure in God, and God s pleasure in us, there arises the practice of true love. And so each one tastes of his name and his office and the fruit of his exercise. And here all the good abide, hidden from those who live in the world; for these are dead before God and have no name, and therefore they can neither feel nor taste that which belongs to those who live indeed. The outpouring touch of God quickens us with life in the spirit, and fulfills us with grace, and enlightens our reason, and teaches us to know truth and to discern the virtues, and keeps us stable in the Presence of God, with such a great strength that we are able to endure all the tasting, all the feeling, and all the out pouring gifts of God without our spirits failing us. But the indrawing-touch of God demands of us, that we should be one with God, and go forth from our selves, and die into blessedness, that is, into the Eternal Love Which embraces the Father and the Son in one enjoyment. And therefore when we have climbed with Jesus on to the mountain of our bare thought; and if, then, we follow Him with a single and simple gaze, with inward pleasure, and with fruitive inclination, we feel the fierce heat of the Holy Ghost, burning and melting us into the Unity of God. For when we are one with the Son, and lovingly return towards our Beginning, then we hear the voice of the Father, touching us and drawing us inward; for He says to all His chosen in His Eternal Word: this is my beloved in whom I am well pleased. For you should know that the Father with the Son, and the Son with the Father, have conceived an eternal satisfaction in regard to this: that the Son should take upon Himself our personhood, and die, and bring back all the chosen to their Beginning.

And so soon as we are uplifted through the Son into our Origin, we hear the voice of the Father, which draws us inward, and enlightens us with eternal truth. And truth shows to us the wide-opened good-pleasure of God, in which all good-pleasure begins and ends. There all our powers fail us, and we fall from ourselves into our wide-opened contemplation, and become all One and one All, in the loving embrace of the Threefold Unity. Whenever we feel this union, we are one being and one life and one blessedness with God. And there all things are fulfilled and all things are made new; for when we are baptized into the wide embrace of the Love of God, the joy of each one of us becomes so great and so special that he can neither think of nor care for the joy of anyone else; for then each one is himself a Fruition of Love, and he cannot and dare not seek for anything beyond his own.

Enjoyment of God

Three things are needful thereto; these are, true peace, inward silence, and loving adherence.

  1. For true peace between the person and God must love God in such a way that he can, with a free heart, renounce for the glory of God every thing which he does or loves inordinately, or which he possesses, or can possess, contrary to the glory of God. This is the first thing which is needful to all.

  2. Inward silence; that is, that a person should be empty and free from images of all things which he ever saw or of which he ever heard.

  3. Loving adherence to God, and this adherence is itself enjoyment; for whosoever cleaves to God out of pure love, and not for his own profit, he enjoys God in truth, and feels that he loves God and that God loves him.

There are still three other points, which are higher still, and which establish a person and make him able to enjoy and to feel God continually, if it be His good will to have it so.

  1. Rest in Whom one enjoys; that is, where love is overcome by the lover, and love is taken possession of by the lover, in bare Essential Love. There love has fallen in love with the lover, and each is all to the other, in possession and in rest.

  2. Falling asleep in God; that is, when the spirit immerses itself, and knows not how, nor where, nor in what it is.

  3. The spirit beholds a Darkness into which it cannot enter with the reason. And there it feels itself dead and lost to itself, and one with God without difference and without distinction. And when it feels itself one with God, then God Him self is its peace and its enjoyment and its rest. And this is an unfathomable abyss wherein person must die to himself in blessedness, and must live again in virtues, whenever love and its stirring demand it. Lo ! if you feel these six points within you, then you feel all that I have, or could have, said before. And introversion is as easy to you, and contemplation and enjoyment are as ready to you, as your life according to nature. And from these riches there comes that common life of which I promised to speak to you at the beginning.

Common Life

THE one who is sent down by God from these heights into the world is full of truth and rich in all virtues. Seeks not self but the glory of God; just and truthful in all, and has a rich and a generous ground, set in the richness of God: must always spend himself on those who need him; The living font of Spirit, can never be spent. One is a living and willing instrument of God, God works what and how He wills; and the person gives the glory to God. Ready for all that God commands, and strong and courageous in suffering. This one has a universal life, for he is ready alike for contemplation and for action. Only the Contemplative person has this, and they contemplate and enjoy God having within the six points above. They are deceived who fancy themselves contemplative, and yet inordinately love, practice, or possess, some creaturely thing; or who fancy that they enjoy God before they are empty of images, or that they rest before they enjoy. All such are deceived; for we must make ourselves fit for God with an open heart, with a peaceful conscience, with naked contemplation, without hypocrisy, in sincerity and truth. So help us God. AMEN.

Hadewijch

Background

1838 Scholars discovered 13th manuscript - 45 anonymous poems - impressed by literary quality and profoundly convinced it is profane love poetry. But later, another manuscript with the same poems appears with 30 letters (and 16 letters...) and 14 visions - with evolution. And it is now seen as religious. Intensity of expression is surprising. Manuscripts of 15th century, from 13th century - one in royal library Brussels. one at univ gent. one at JR society in Antwerp.
Bio unknown. All written in dutch, with Beatrice of N. she is the first to write mystical literature in dutch, and first in Europe in the vernacular. We know a few things we know: female. (We have not found vita.) Our texts don't have personal information in them, copiests left it out. We can deduce that she is early 13th century - from linguistics, from the Duchy of Brabant. From liturgical details we can see elements from the diocese of Liege. She writes in style of contemporary courtly poetry of court of duke of Brabant (site of kiezerberg abbey). Must have been familiar with court life, culture, poetry. Very familiar with Cistercian literature - Clairvaux, Thierry (12th C). She translated and inserted Thierry into a letter. Good cultural education and good spiritual / theological education. Drops Origen's name in passing. (Cistercians pick Origen up). Few manuscripts, and dutch language - shows it was intended for a small circle. Visions written for only one person. Poems were songs, music for some has been discovered - to existing melodies. Some verses difficult to write, and rhyme scheme - and music adds a layer of complexity. Few Latin words in the middle dutch text, they exactly coincide with the words of a Latin hymn. Technical complexity, artifice. Others based on profane courtly love songs. Interweaves liturgy and courtly love poems. Two English translations available by Columba Hart, and by Marie de Van Baest. Van Mierlo, SJ published works twice. Good scholar but stubborn. Convinced Hadewijch was beguine. Many Cistercian nuns with vita, and not her. RF says he thinks she might be Cistercian.

Vision 7 Oneness in the Eucharist

Bkgd Pentecost Matins. (another time she was too ill). Intense desire to madness / death. Inexplicable, astonishing, so language is strange. I content my Beloved in both humanities. Experiencing also humanity of Christ. MiddleAges humanity of Christ = passion. Can't know this without knowing divinity. Have to go through suffering to be God with God. We don't know the physical conditions of people without heat, electricity, analgesics, refrigeration. Those she wrote for seems to want to skip human pain - escapist mysticism. Not suffer for its own sake, but don't skip it. Takes Christ's passion seriously. Take or leave the suffering as it comes, but stay in love at the deep level. Vision Eagle: get ready. I was fearful, I wanted to honor the unification, but it was too beautiful. Eagle to God: "So be it." Eagle to H: incarnation again - JR quotes this. Incarnated human, in bethlehem, and is it happening again in humans. 1) Christ child from altar = 2) taking eucharist = 3) form of man at last supper. Gives self to Her = esse completely ad alium. Same as regular sacrament, as the custom is. {frequent communion desired by cistercians, but custom said once a year.} = 4) embrace, my members felt his members, pain of passion, bore for a short time, 5) he faded, on the outside, now he is within 'one without difference.' {first in vernacular}. 6) she passes into him: melted away in him. > vision 8.

Poem 26

1 - even if seasons dejected, all will brighten - love poems start with scenes from nature (natureingang) - contrasts with mood of lover, or parallel. She never uses the convention in a superficial way. Winter (dark night) passing - Winter is darker here than is Spain. Beloved you being too far away from me, and all my delight hangig upon you. JR/SE: See (contemplation) the bridegroom comes (Christ) - go out (ad alium) to meet him. "Goes all out questing after you." esse ad alium I is the poet, in 19th C. But in Hadewijch's day "I" is beyond the poet, the reader should be able to take up the "I." The typical lover of God. Art of middle ages was not focused on the artist.
2 Complete orientation to the other, but not reaching it. content you fully with righteous love, fierce and free proud: noble - proud to belong to beloved here. Free love = pure love; different between hired and servants - love God for who he is, not to get something. Without reason. Not enslaved by I love because of reward or punishment. anything less
would be a desparate failing to you: you shall love the lord with your whole heart, strength, etc.
3 Sheba came to seek Solomon. She was swallowed up in wonder / love. H makes it stronger than the bible. The wondering of his being flashed upon her. Carried out of herself, she gave him all, whatever she had inwardly, nothing remained - esse ad alium; bible only says gifts.
4 It is right she gave him all.... instead of wanting in high wonder, she has been grounded in love. Tarrying among the unwashed masses, in comparison to solomons glory, keeping common company with the peers. For those who don't meet the challenge, it might happen but later all their ease among common company ... it will be late before their dees of love are recounted in wonder.
5 Rally toward lavish love ... cleve utterly to love ... marvellous wonders recounted ... endure grievous wiles ... abandon themselves ... without restraint ... to please love fully. Endure unprediciable - twists and turns. Parallels to vision 7, Christ is love incarnate, and she seems to come close to that here. If love is less than total, you lose life.
6 utterly lost in the power of love ... discharge the debt of love ... fairest detention ... unconquerable strength ever renewing - and what God wills in 1st commandment. But falling short = the knowledge of falling short unable to meet the call - want to meet it, and it is impossible = defectus amoris. what they achieve of themselves is consumed in high love's receiving. Narrow vessel, FT. Shows the expanse of love of God. The come out of the spirit, i.e. brings person to awareness of life of the other.
7 love and reason are complementary in H. Give yourself to love completely dying in failure of love, given to the other, is resurrection = life. Summation: overcoming in a storm of loving = hero, loiterers = censured. Winter but spring is announced. Hadewijch is not understandable but JR is pretty understandable.

Letter 12

Letter of spiritual direction, from details, we can see it is to a man with responsibility over a community, perhaps also H's group.
1 May God be God for you and may you BE love for him. Apophatic, everything is just God. May God grant you to live Love's work in all things that belong to Love.
3 Mary drew God into herself in annunciation by humility. (from Clairvaux: s71.SOS 10.) Humility = power. Unconquered by service - not enchanted by own good works. storm, assault & encounter of court games. Tangle / engage with God. You know well, means you don't know it.
13 Beginning to love = begin eternal life of God. Heaven and earth are in service of Love ot God and will never perfectly fulfill it. Heaven has dynamics / vibrance of love. Fruition = enjoyment of love = life of trinity. The journey is my destiny / endless movement / eternal progress of Gregory of Nyssa (no actual connection, but same experience).
31 Thought of God is not God, if we could think God, apprehend = less than us. (Thierry) Apophatic = to deconstruct theological system = Dennis Turner = God is God. In awareness of who God really is, there is attraction to God, and awareness that concepts don't satisfied.
40 low-minded not enthralled by Love.... They are never attained by the depths of love, so that they can never attain the one they love or content him; and nevertheless they will nothing else — either to content God or to die in the attempt — nothing else matters.
53 I exort you ... make haste to Love, and help us in order that God may be loved. Think always of God's love so untouched by use - we are so far from it, but some enjoy God and mutually indwelling with God / flow in and out. (Thierry) JR takes the flowing in and out. God, none can know, Love incarnated to come to our aid. We can't know God, but God will aid us in this, by full mutual love. This is unspeakably delightful bliss, but God knows, in the bliss there always remains woe. Because you're trying to respond, chivalrously, but still weakly.
76 Love is often impeded, religious emotions become more important than God. She must have lived in a group who were inclined to prefer mystical bliss to giving. >>
151 Important and most difficult command: Love God. (Good dutch translation of latin). Write it everywhere, waking, sleeping, dreaming, thinking, reciting, with all we are, never forget. How dare we give Love short measure - fearful robbery! Think about this and work without neglect to promote Love above all things. Jacob is everyone who conquers - (Isidore of Seville = etymologies of names.) - to conquer God to be conquered oneself. Nevermore forget love - live wholely for love (old and new testaments).
Jacob - fire - conquer by love, Conquered God to be conquered by love. Mutual conquer / vulnerability. Jacobe then helps others become conquered. He was conquered and limped. Help those who walk still on two feet, rather than limping like Jacob, who was then blessed. Limp on the side that there is something more than God - smitten there, then get the blessing. Others get a blessing, but don't taste it experiencially.
Joseph - flame - leader and protector for the others who are not there, but want it, are still in exile.
Esau - stubble - aliens (exiles) who will be set on fire by the ministrations of the leader. Lead 'brothers' on the right way, teach them to love. Hade & liturgy. Villers monastery - excellent ruin.

Godfried of Villers

Villers impt motherhouse with daughters houses in the mystic movement 1146 - early cistercian, contemporaneous with Clairvaux. Correspondence between Villers and Bingen asking her theological questions. 1244 Abbot General, stephan puts study house in paris, but Villers wouldn't help - they wanted to support contemplative theology, not the academic theology of paris. Godfried was benedictine in Cologne, then went to Villers, vita was written by a fellow monk. 1717 edition translation. Towards the end of vita are two visions. He was sacristan, with attention for divine. Purified day by day, love for heavenly homeland, exausted in acquiring virtues. Stayed after compline, pouring out heart in sorrow for sins - sacristan could do that, christ appeared, in tunic, not as judge in purple. I wash you, you wash others. Clairvaux said gospel happens now.
Celebrating mass - he received in his heart a foretaste of Jesus' dearest spirit (mutual love), and he was comforted, not by himself, but the one who made him. Asked for physical revelation of Jesus as child - most beautiful of children of earth. {quote from a vision of Bernard of Clairvaux.} He held the one by whom he is held. = continuity with sacramental form. Lived out of innermost spirit fixed in Christ. Visions are part of the culture - but hadewijch has more mystical / theological reflection.
Intellectual method of contemplative / mystical theology is Lectio - Meditatio - Oratio - Contemplatio. Academic theology also questions / denies direct contact with God.

Poem 9

Poem 12: now the gentle season is born that will bring us flowers in the land - spring. She doesn't always speak of winter and darkness. Minne = proper name for God. What we experience of love is and experience of God. She personalizing love rather than depersonalizing God. Love is the person of the Holy Spirit.
1. Always one may sing of love,
Be it autumn, winter, spring or summer,
{in deepest desolation or consolation}
And plead one's case against her sovereignty {wrestle with God}
For no person of courage speps aside for her.
But we are slack and often say uneasily:
"Should she (minne) keep me in her hold this hard and fast?
I had rather mangle with those
That cultivate tranquility
{prefer to stay in the good religious experience - stay in self}
and stay at home. Why sally forth
and forfeit {loose} myself?"

2. Shallow persons of slight sense,
They have such misgivings aobu the ose
That they shy away from love,
From whom all good whould have ocm eto them
They assume to win - {by pleading weakness}
Faithfulness, however, will expose them and make them kown as poor,
and totally naked compared to love's riches.
These are the persons that have barted away all they had
without love's urge.

3. Those without colors {e.g. tartan} are without spiritual nobilitiy. Let God recognize that you are of Love.

4. Gracious, graceful, fair-speech enhance nobility.
Enduring anything for love without growing resentful.
Give to everyone - help the helpless more than friends
- these are the colors of love. High love will recognize the kinship.

5. Outer and inner goodness, honors King,
So with those who love - give all their love for love.
{BoN - will especially have love for love alone.}

6. I speak of love, but it is cold comfort to those in exile.
but Love ever requites even though she comes late.
many a night by day

7. Who would sing of love, who strips them of all their strength.
Human logic says love should be rewarded....

8. love united to love. But this is self centered.
But wrestle with love and be brought to naught, this is the goal of love.
So that in love he might be brought to naught
The power of that would surpass anything:
It is the high essence of which love
Was born in the beginning {incarnation, kenosis, crucifixion}

9. fears of love seem grim; we make off with small gains- lack love's clear worth.
Enlightened reason: love and mind say: How to be fully sufficient to love.
Into that no insight is true enough,
And no task heavy enough. Always there is a new task ready.
{I isn't necessarily Hadewijch.}

10. If you know a better way, more power to you.

Beatrice

Seven Manners of Holy Love: Prologue

Manners are paired, and move deeper, description of joy and pain of love. Manners are aspects, not higher. Explores and reflects on what is love? Complicated issue. H says at one point she was thinking three years on this question. From the highest come seven ways of love which work back to the highest. God is origin and goal. Text is full of allusions to other writers, this line is reminiscent of Wm of St. Thierry 12th Century, who has a text on nature and dignity of love where he says this.

I prologue
II III Servants sense and intellect
IV V Friends contact with God
VI VII Sons in God

1. A longing actively originating from love which has this love to rule in the heart before she can dispel every resistance thoroughly, and she cannot but work with strenght and intelligence, and courageously grow in this.

§ 1 This first way is a desire that most certainly originates from love, for the good soul desiring to serve faithfully, to follow vigorously and to love truly is drawn on by the zeal to attain and remain in that purity, liberty and nobility in which she is made by her creator, after His image and to His resemblance. (Genesis: made to the image in the direction of Christ, Image, to come to a likeness. and the intra-trinitarian love is the goal. We can desire to love like Christ loves and is loved. The rest is all a development of this movement.)

The soul desires to lead her whole life herein, so as to work, grow and ascend to a greater height of love and a closer knowledge of God (this knowledge of God was deleted by latin translator), until the completion for which she is equipped and is called by God (=Christ). Morning and evening the soul strives for this and surrenders totally to it. It's sole thought is to reach this totality. (This text has only one imperative tense, simply explains, this may happen.) This explains her questions and her desire for knowledge and her prayer to God. And her thoughts about how she can reach this and how she can receive the nearness to the equality with love, in the full glory of the virtues, and in the complete purity of the nobility of love, which has been recovered in her.

§ 2 This soul often scrutinizes what she only is, and what she should be, what she had, and what her desire nevertheless lacks. (lucid self analysis) With all her diligence, and with an always bigger desire, and with all the intelligence she has, she exerts to guard against and to shun what can hinder and prevent her from making progress in love. So she exerts to draw towards her and to keep everything which can help her and can bring her to love. And never rests the heart or does it subside from searching, demanding and learning.

This is the highest concern of the soul placed in this situation. A soul that has to work in it and has to drudge in it, untill the moment that through her seriousness and through her loyality she obtains from God that from now on she can serve love for ever without impediment from past misdeeds, with a free consciousness and with pure spirit and a clear intelligence.

§ 3 For certain, such a way of desire of such a great purity and nobility originates from love and not out of fear. Because fear makes one suffer, to do and to let for fear of the anger of our Lord and the judgement of the righteous judge, or for fear of eternal revenge, or temporal affliction. But love works and strives for purity and excellence, and the fruition, which are all part of her own being. And to them who dedicate themselves to her, she teaches to live like this. (Fear has a value to keep on the right path, but it isn't the focus here. Fruition in WmST fructio, frui, complete belonging one to the other, forever, completely.)

Serve only from love

2. Sometimes the soul has another manner of love. Then she serves the Lord only from love, without any reason and without any reward of mercy or of bliss. (De diligendo deo of Clairvaux - without manner and without reaons) § 1 As a noble lady serves her Lord out of great love and without reward, and who takes please in being allowed to serve Him, and that He permits her to serve Him, in this way she desires to serve love with love, without measure and beyond measure and surpassing beyond every human sense and reason, faithfully performing every service.

§ 2 Here, she is so burning in her desire, so prepared to service, so nimble in drudging, so soft in misfortune, so happy in sadness ; and with all she is, she desires to give Him great pleasure. And so she finds pleasure in being able to do something, and to be of help and to be of use to love and to honour Him.

Desire to do too much

3. Love connected to much pain and misery. It comes to this that she desires to answer love fully, and to follow her in all homage and in all service, obedience and subservience. § 1 This desire is sometimes being brought about violently in the soul, and then she has the firm intention to literally do all the work with strong desire and set off with suffering, to permit and to bear everything, and to advance without sparing herself and without measure with all her work in love. In this way she is prepared to every service, and ready and fearless to drudge and to suffer pain; nevertheless she stays unsatisfied in everything she does. But above all it is for her the heaviest pain, that in relation to her great desire she cannot do enough for love, and that in love so much is being kept from her. (Want to give more than able - liseux: missionary, martyr, all service. Desire to love is bigger than human capacity. Mutuality is lacking, God totally loves and is worth, but human response is impoverished.)

She knows all right that this is superhuman work, and that is goes beyond all her power, because what she desires -that which is impossible and improper for every creature (but for God, yes) - is that she alone would like to do as much as all human beings from the earth together, and as much as all spirits of the kingdom of heaven and as much as all the beings above and below and countless many more, to serve love, to love her, and to honour her according to her dignity.

And no matter how much she is failing in her work, she still wants to realize it with all her dedication and with strong desire. But all this cannot satify her. She knows all right that this desire is only to fulfil far above her power and above human reason and above every notion ; yet she cannot moderate this desire, or conquer, or quiet. She does everthing she can ; she thanks and praises love, she works and drudges because of love, she sighing desires love, she gives herself completely to love. And all that does not give her peace. (Never satisfied with what is done.)

§ 2 It is a great pain that she has to desire that what she cannot obtain and so she has to stay in the misery of her heart and remain in her dissatisfaction. (No solution to this.) Thus it is for her as if she dies though living, and dying feels the heavy pain of hell, and her whole life is hellish and merciless and displeasure because of the fright of the terryfying desire that she cannot appease or calm. In torment she has to stay, untill the moment that our Lord consoles her and places her in another way of love and of desire, in an ever bigger knowledge of Him. Then she has to work according to what is been given to her by our Lord.

(Thus far activity of the person who 'works' for love, and senses its limitation, yet there is a stronger desire, drawing in / up / deeper. This leads to awareness of the fourth level.)

God Gives Love

4. Our Lord is used to give us yet another manner of love, sometimes in great delight, sometimes in great pains, and about these we want to speak now.

§ 1 Sometimes it happens that love is sweetly been awakened in the soul and happily raises, and that she moves in the heart, without any help of human activity (under going love passively - Spirit prays in groans that are unutterable). And so the heart is been tenderly touched by love, and so full of strong desire been drawn inside love, and so hearty seized by love, and so strongly dominated by love, and so lovely contained by love, that she is wholly conquered by love. (Like Wesen of JR, but she doesn't have vocabulary.)

In this she experiences a strong bond with God, a spiritual clearness, a wonderful salvation, a noble freedom, a delightful sweetness, a great superior power of strong love, and an abundant fullness of great joy. Then she experiences that all her senses are one in the grip of love and that her will has become love, and that she is so deeply plunged and absorbed in the abyss of love, and that she has become love completely.

The beauty of love has eaten her. The power of love has consumed her. The sweetness of love has plunged her into nothingness. The greatness of love has absorbed her. (Only love can hold this - love for God and God's Love, they can make word play because they don't have the convention of capitalizing God's Love.)

The nobility of love has embraced her. The purity of love has let her reach the highest development. The sumblimity of love has pulled her up and has oned her one in such a way, that she has to be completely of love, and that she cannot but live with love.

§ 2 If she experiences herself in this way in this abundance of salvation, and in this complete and great fullness of heart, then her mind plunges completely in love, and her body escapes, and her heart melts (SoS ch 5: also iron in fire image.) away and all her power becomes useless.

She is so much conquered by love that she hardly can control herself, and that often she has no power anymore of her limbs and senses.

And like a vessel full to the brim overflows and floods immediately when one stirs in it, she is suddenly violently been stirred and completely conquered by the great fullness of her heart and even so that in spite of herself she has to break out often. (iubilus - breaking out of love. De Blaere - shortest definition of mysticism is immediate, passive experience of the presence of God. Texts and reflections come later. All four elements are here.)

Effect Immediate Contact with God

5. Sometimes it happens that love is being awakened strongly, and raises overpowering with great impetuosity and with great passion, as if she wanted to break the heart of the soul by force, and tear the soul out and above herself in the purging of and the failing in love.

§ 3 She is also strongly been moved to bring about the great tasks of the work of love or to realize the different orders of love. Or she desires to rest in the sweet embraces of love, in the desirable beatitude and in the satisfaction of what she has from Him. Her heart and her senses seriously look for it and ardently desire for it.

When the soul is in this state she is so powerfull of mind, very undertaking of heart and strong of body, so fast in working and busy inside and outside, that it seems to her as if everything that has to do with her works and is busy, even if she wholly at rest. With this she feels a strong sadness inside and a great tensed expectation about love and many vicissitudes in desire, and manifold misery of deep dissatisfaction. Or she experiences the pain of the soul by the great feeling of love itself (moved), without any why or because she is extremely demanding in the light of the desire for love, or because she is dissatisfied about the absence of love.

With all this, love becomes so immoderate and -like she burns there so strong and so furious in the heart- she breaks out in the soul in such a way, that it seems to her that her heart is repeatedly being painfully wounded (deeply moved SoS 4:9), and that these wounds are being daily renewed and being made more painful by even more painful misery and new emotional pains. (Ps 63, Hade v. 7) It seems that its veins break open, and her blood is being heated, and her marrow pines away, and her legs weaken and her chest scorches, and her throat dries up (ps 22) so that her face and all her limbs take part in the heat inside, take part in this primal rage of love.(suffering lover in pain - in love drawn to the other - serious, but healthy pain - Felt also interiourly). Then she feels an arrow going through her heart to her throat, and on the brain, as if she would lose her mind. (From Origen's commentary on SoS - Arrow is Christ softening the hardened human heart, breaks it and it comes to life again.)

And like a devouring fire that draws everything towards itself and consumes what it can destroy, thus she feels that love ardently rages in her, without saving her and without measure, and that she takes and consumes everything it can get hold of. (reflected in beginning of JR - he could have known this as an anonymous text)

By this she is being hurt heavily and her heart is weakened very much and all her strenght is nullified. Her soul is strenghtened, and her love is cherished and her mind is suspended. For love is so much elevated above apprehensiveness, that the soul by her own power cannot acquire unity with her. Break the bond yet not the unity of love (Wants to come closer, but not merge). But the alliance with love has her so much in its grip and she is completely overcome by the excess of love that she cannot hold a measure and reason, or restrain herself moderately, or to be able to stay herself wisely - (This is eliminated in the latin vita, wild experience of God's love, intensely moved, then calmed down).

The more she is been given from above, the more she asks, and the more is being told to her, the more the desire grows to approach with desire the light of truth and purity, of nobility and the pleasure of love. Always again she is being pulled and more and more excited and nothing contents or satisfies her. What heals her most and cures her wounds, only that gives her health. (Person perceives God within - image to likeness - rhythm and cadence in the original - suffering of too much love, limitations of person are broken, opened to transcendence of God's love.)

Love Conquers All

6. When the bride of our Lord has made progress and has climbed up to greater salvation, she experiences yet another way of love, closely connected and with higher knowledge. She feels that Love has conquered all resistance in her, and that she has recovered all shortcomings and has subdued her senses. Without resistance she has mastered herself, so that Love knows the person's heart is safe and Love can use it in peace and has free exercise it. (The person is a temple where Christ is present - rejoicing - free - avoids misunderstanding of merging of God & person)

In this situation all things seem small to her, easy to do or to leave, to allow and to bear light, like it belongs to the dignity of love. Then it is pleasant for her to practice in love. Then she also experiences a Divine power and a clear purity and a spiritual sweetness and a desirable freedom and a discerning wisdom and a gentle equality to God.

And then she (God) is like a housewife who has well taken care of her house. Who has furnished it in a clever way and who has put it in order nicely. Who protects it wisely, who guards it cleverly, and who works according to plan. She brings inside and outside. She does and leaves everything according to her will. With the soul it is likewise : love rules enormously in her, works powerfully and rests in her, does and leaves, internally and externally, and all that according to her (Love/God's) will.

Just like a fish swims in the wideness of the sea, and rests in the depth, or a bird that flies boldly in the space of the height of the air, so she feels her mind go about unrestrained in the depth, space and height of Love. (Height, depth, length of Christ - Saint Paul Eph 3:18, also JR - space suggests immensity, whereas in 7th time could be a restraint)

Love's power has drawn the soul and has accompanied, guarded and protected it, given her the intellect and the wisdom, the sweetness and the strenght of love. Yet she has hidden her sovereignty for the soul until she (soul) has climbed up to a greater highness and has become completely free of herself, and until love rules powerfully in her. (Love actually draws, but for some love conceals its action till the person is free from self-interest - fully operating from within esse ad alium - true for all, not all experience, unless completely turned outward to the other. Also in little book of enlightment - JR - some don't experience mostly because partly self-focussed, not completely given -

Then love makes her (soul) so strong and so free that she does not consider human or devil, no angel or saint, not God Himself in her doings, in her work or her rest. She knows very well that love is in her, completely awake and as strongly working in the rest as in the abundance of work. She knows very well and notices that love is not situated in the drudging and sweating of those in whom she reigns sovereignly. (not limited to toil, but its more than what I achieve.)

(responding to an objection or false conclusion - I could just rest then and let God do it all - only place there is imperative in Beatrice - Just to avoid wrong experience, not to instruct the uninitiated ) But all who want to come to love, have to look for her with awe, have to follow her loyally and have to practice her with strong desire. They do not succeed if they spare themselves much labour and effort and undergoing inconveniences. And all small things they have to esteem highly until the moment that they are ready that love is going to rule inside them, through which loves becomes sovereign with superior power and makes all things small and softens all drudging, and makes every effort sweet, and pays all debts.

This is freedom from conscience and sweetness of heart, and purity of morals and heart, and nobility of the soul, and sublimity of the mind and beginning of eternal life. The soul already lives as an angel on earth, and after that follows eternal life, that God in His goodness may give to us all - (there is a difference, because then you are free of time and space, but the fullness of life is already here and now, a veil remains, encounter of eternity and time - this could be the end of the text - and what had come afterward some say it is agitated again - RF says its in place because it is the final, fulfillment / sundering)

Love beyond human

7. The blessed soul still has a more sublime way of love that gives her not little to do inside. She is being pulled above the human measure of love, above senses and reason, higher than everything of which our heart is capable of on its own. (corresponds / effect of step 6) Only with love of eternity itself she is pulled into the eternity of love, into the insusceptible wisdom and the silent highness, into the deep abyss of the Godhead, who is everything in everything that exists, incomprehensibly elevated above everything, imperishable, almighty, all-embracing, and who acts all-ruling in everything that exists. (immanent and transcendent - quoting from treatise on love of God - trying to emphasize that it is about GOD)

Violence So profound is she here sunk in love and so strong is she pulled by her desire, that her heart is moved strongly and is restless inside, so that her soul flows out and melts of love, and her mind is ardently connected to a strong desire. All her senses set themselves to the fact that she may live in the pleasure of love. Persevering she desires this from God and with her entire heart she requests God for this. This she must desire a lot, because love does not let her calm down or recuperate. No quiet life ! Love elevates her and depresses her, puts her suddely to the test and again torments her. She brings death and gives life, she makes healthy and hurts again. She makes insane and then again wise.

General Thus she lifts her up to a higher being. In this way she has climbed up spiritually, above temporality and to the eternity of love, which is timeless. Above the human forms of love and above her own nature she is lifted by the desire to live above. There is her being and her will, her desire and love of the certain truth, the pure clarity, the noble highness, the luxurious beauty and the sweet company of the highest spirits who are all filled with abundant love, and who in clear aknowledgment are in the possession and the pleasure of their love.

Then she desires to stay there among the spirits and most among the blazing seraphs. In the sublime Deity and Trinity she finds her lovely resting-place and her joyful house.

She looks for Him into His majesty. She follows Him there and sees Him with her heart and her mind. She knows Him and loves Him and desires Him so much, that she can respect no saints, no human beings, no angels or creatures, unless with the same love by which she love everything through Him. Him alone she has chosen in love, above and under and in all the rest. (Loves God who captures whole attention, and loves all else in God - Common Person of JR - Loves all with the love of the trinity, but choose God alone above, in, underlying everything.) With everything of desire her heart could bring in, and with the whole strenght of her mind, she longs to see Him, and to possess and to enjoy.

DoH Therefore the earth is a great misery for her, and a tough prison and a heavy sorrow. She disdains the world. The earth has become a burder to her and what belongs to the earth cannot satify or content her. It is a great pain for her that she has to be so distant and well seems a stranger. Her misery she cannot forget, her desire cannot be stilled, her longing harasses her miserably, and by this she is exceedingly and without mercy harassed and tormented. (pain of powerful love of step six)

Therefore she lives in a great longing and in a strong desire to be freed from this misery and to be dissolved from this body. Then she says with a sad heart, like the apostles : "Cupio dissolvi et esse sum Christo", i.e. "I long to be dissolved and to be united with Christ." Phil 1:23

Similarly the soul has a strong desire and grevious impatience to be freed to live in Christ. Not out of sadness for today or out of pain for future grief but only out of holy and eternal love she desires eagerly, languorous and full of desire to go to the landscape of eternity, in the glory of pleasure.

This desire is great and strong in her, and her unbearable situation is heavy and tough, and the pain that she had because of desire is infinitely great.

Nevertheless, she has to live in hope, and it is precisely this which makes her yearn for and languish.

Oh, holy desire of love, how strong is your power in the loving soul! It is a heavenly passion, a sharp torture, a long sorrow, a treacherous death, a dying life! (JR also has this)

Up there she still cannot come and here below she has neither rest or duration. The thought of Him she cannot bear anymore because of desire, and to lack Him is a torture because of her desire. Thus she has to live with great discomfort.

Therefore she cannot and does not want to be consoled, like the prophet says: "Renuit consolare animam meam", i.e. "My soul does not want to be consoled." (Ps 76:3) In that way she may reject each consolation by God Himself or by His creatures. For the pleasure that this can give her, gives love new strenght. It thrusts her desire to new heights and renews her desire to devote herself to love, to enjoy love and to bear her exile without any pleasure. Thus she remains unsatiated and unsatisfied, despite all gifts, because she still has to miss the presence of her love.

This is a very laborious life, because she does not want to be consoled if she has not acquired what she seeks so restlessly.

(Skip - more poetic) Love has dragged her on and has led her and taught her to go her way. This she has followed faithfully, often with a lot of trouble and effort, in great spiritual powerlessness, with strong desire, with a lot of impatience, in great unrest, in weal and woe, with much grief, in searching and asking, in miss and possession, in growing and falling certainty, in imitation and desire, in worries and fear, in languishing and depraving. With much faithfulness and unfaithfulness she is ready for everything in joys and sorrows. Dead or alive she wants to belong to love. And in her earnest heart she suffers.

Because of love she wants to deserve the kingdom of heaven. If she is tested here in all misery, then her refuge is there in all glory. Because that is precisely where the work of love lies, that she desires the nearby creature, and that she pursues that nearness the most in which she can love the most. Therefore she always wants to follow love, experience love and enjoy love, and this cannot happen to her in this misery.

To go to her own country, where she has founded her house and in which she rests with love and with desire ! All hinder taken away, she is lovely received by love!

There, she will gaze eagerly what she has so tenderly loved, and she shall possess for eternity the One she has served so loyally. She shall enjoy with happiness the One she has so often embraced with love in her soul. There, she shall enter happily, like Saint Augustine says it : "Qui in Te intrat in gaudium Domini sui ...", i.e. "O Lord, who enters in You, he enters in the joy of his Lord." There, fear has no place. For there, she shall possess Him in the best way in the best of all.

There, the soul is with her Groom and she becomes totally one spirit with Him, in inseparable loyalty and in mutual love for ever. (this inseparable faithful eternal love is trinitarian)

The soul that, in times of mercy, wanted to do everything for Him shall enjoy Him in eternal glory, where one shall do nothing else but praise and love. May God bring us all to that. (ends like #6 - patristic allusion to end of Saint Augustine on the Trinity - Short - 1/2 to read aloud - not necessarily non-bodily - )

Amen.

Allowin

589-654, Brabant, noble family, Merovingian period - Xnity only present in cities during the Roman empire - when empire collapses, christianization and cities become irrelevant - second christianization in seventh century throughtout the city and countryside. Allowin is part of rural nobility. Amandus is an important missionary, founded monastery @ Ganda (Gent) and Allowin was there then was a hermit. Baptized by Amandus as Allowin, but known by pre-christian name Saint Baf. 9th century biography takes from older documents. The mysticism seen before is also here in its basics.
Death is approaching, and fell asleep - he saw (messenger of) God as a Dove descended on him - at first he is afraid - but calms down. Interpretation - alludes to dove @ Jesus baptism. He possessed the Trinity steadfastly in his heart (wesen). Rom 8:35.
HE saw the Cross descending on him = his death is united to Christs. As his belief increased, Christ more and more showed Love, and so he wanted to only go to Christ. Not my will but yours be done. Monumenta Germaniae Historia. From the beginning of Christian culture in Brabant - already the full relation of Christ to person. (Simplicity of dove / unity of trinity = word play in dutch. Doesn't make sense in latin.)

Problems

Gerard's Prologue

In the Carthusian monastery of Herne (some way from Brussels) Bro Gerard (procurator, knew latin, greek and hebrew, scholar) copied 5 manuscripts from JR, explaining some problematic things, one of the oldest commentary, indication of reception.
p. 2, And so I All in accord with church, some I don't understand. We were perplexed at realm of lovers, especially about the gift of counsel. They asked JR to come and explain, which he did, coming many miles on foot (at 70 years of age). Seemed on appearance to be a spiritual person. JR read and commented some well known teachers. 2-3 pulled him aside, then alone, Gerard asked about the book and it came to light that it was secretly lent and copied. Now 30 years later, he said he would write another collection - The prophet Samuel was written to explain what was unclear (little book of explanation - concise explanation of the core of JR's teaching, without images, etc.).
Reason why he wrote little book of explanation was told. Apart from other explanation, he shows 3 types of union: with means, without means and without difference. Perplexed by (without difference), isn't this impossible? It is shorthand for 'that they may be one in us, as I am one in you.' But Gerard says that not one substance, as JR says the creature never becomes God, but is united without difference. But Gerard hasn't noticed that difference and alterity. United without difference, = we share loving as the HS is love of Father / Son, As the Father Loves Son, so Father loves us, But he never says without being 'other' than God. There is a conceptual problem here, from the beginning - Gerard likes JR, but dismisses it as bad word choice. Relational element requires 'otherness', and relationship is important.
Minne = experienced full mutual loving self-gift - resting in the other, having one's foundation in the other (something of agape (self-less), filia (mutual love), eros (Strong in Hadewijch - desire and longing)) -
Liefde = experienced on level of emotions -
Caritate = works of love. Contemplative lover of God is so united with the life of trinity that they love others with God's love. No opposition between loving God and others, it is animated by God.

Gerson

Letter to Bartholomew Clantier OSCO Herne. Written around 1398. Bartholomew had sent Spiritual Espousals to Gerson, his friend who was chancellor of University of Paris, the CDF of the day, and canon of Cathedral in Brugge - several incomes - fixed incomes, but RF says not enough what with inflation, eg duke makes foundation for yearly income, 200 years later, it wasn't enough, not indexed. Bartholomew liked it, and knew Gerson was very interested in mystical theology, he taught a course on it, changed name to mystical (from contemplation). Gerson finds a problem on 3rd reading. First two books (active life, innerlife & life of virtues, second and third of levels of Beatrice) fine, but in the third part....
Rejects third part - Life in the trinity isn't acceptable to Gerson. Vision and enjoyent of light of glory = beatitude. Gerson says God is not the subject of vision, but the object. God doesn't contemplate himself in us. Mystical experience then couldn't be more than this.
It sounds like too much.... JR never says the person ceases to exist. Gerson is sympathetic, but he misunderstands. Could be like Drop of wine in the sea, converted into it. JR doesn't say this. Present at council of constans, he rejected JR, though not by name, Jesuits forbidden to JR.
Why does he misunderstand? Influenced by nominalism, though he isn't a nominalist. Ockham says whatever exists is individual, all reality is a collection of individuals, and in this perspective the concept of esse ad alium isn't real, it is merely our construct, relations aren't real. Ockham was condemned by the same group as condemned Eckhart, he was insulted that the group that treated the mystical fluff also treated his serious thought. Today is quite nominalist, individualist. How did we receive the insight that being is relationship? Which is more basic? Did this cause secularism, or was it caused by it? Gerson wants to preserve the individuality of the person in God, so he rejects the drop in the ocean. Individuality requires mediation, which JR maintains in books one and two, and says this is consistent with life in God. Gerson read JR in latin and it makes it easier to fall into the misunderstanding. He used Jordaens translation, somewhat rhetoric, but generally reliable. Wesen - could be communio, but it related to zyn/wesen, being is communion between creator and creature, but being is the first concept. He goes back to Clairvaux and Richard of St. Victor, good methodological consideration.
Groenendaal was shocked and asked a member of the community, Jan van Schoonhoven to write a defense. One of his arguements is to tie it with Clairvaux (which are really Thierry), was he a safe author. (No contact with the East, so not a likely influence, except Wm of St. Thierry knew origen and gregory of nyssa.) St. Theirry said we share completely, and only difference is that we recevie by grace what Christ has by nature.

Explanation

A few later, there is only one manuscript, now a CWS late medieval mysticism of low countries. Author knows JR thoroughly. Reader has to understand JR's anthropology. His criteria of truth are Grace, Faith, Scripture, Saints, Theologians.
Third part without difference or separation, never one with God as transformed to God, as added to God. God isn't as fully in the person as in Christ. If christ is the subject of the I that I am, then there is another hypostatic union, but that is unique. .
Third unity God draws the person in, and the person doesn't reject, but says yes, died to self and all outside of God. Drawing in and the yes, something happens on the wesen level. All human sight and insight is dark and light shines in the darkness that shines and transforms. Spirit only knows God. Iron in fire. God can't be known except in divine simplicity and can only be known in simplicity. This is a good and reliable and coherent with JR.

Arnhem Mystical Sermons

Sanctorale & Temporale sermons dated between 1525-60. Found in St. Agnes convent. Anonymous. Important because 1. it's the largest middle dutch collection, 2. mystical sermons are rare, 3. combination of sanctorale and temporale is unusual. 4. Many hapax legomena. 5. 16th century finds a synthesis of different authors.
experience.png Liturgical Mysticism has strong connection between liturgical readings, songs and themes which are integrated into mystical theology. New in 16th century mysticism. Pearl & Temple and Sermons. Mysticism is passive and immediate experience & liturgy is active and participatory; these will be integrated here.
Mysticism after modernity, Don Cupitt, says mysticism is always active and mediate, only language can turn an event into something - language prevents immediate experience. Mysticism is a protest against institutional religion. Immediate experience is a modern fiction. - IC argues: take mystics seriously, mystics aren't in protest, but try to work in the church. And she argues there are similar elements that are found across traditions.
Evangelical Pearl Anonymous woman. 1537-8. Soon translated to latin, french and german. Part III chapter III. Great feasts celebrated to integrated into the persons heart / life. Every day is Good Friday. Meditations on the liturgy.
Temple of our Soul Chapter 8. The feasts can be celebrated internally or externally. Feasts are perpetually present in the heart of the righteous person. Wesen is completely reserved for God and for mutual enjoyment, abundance. Consecration of the Church is accomplished only in the most intimate part of the soul, in the same place that God has reserved for himself and united to himself, where neither angel nor human person nor any other creature can enter - that is the noble superessence [overwesen] of the soul - and that same place he desires to have for himself alone and he does not want to share it with anyone else. [5] exterior temple is made for the inner temple, its purpose is to perfect the inner temple. [6] that temple is made by human hands of faltering stones, the temple of the soul is made by God, embellished by God, music played by God. Inner liturgy is foundational to celebrate external liturgy. Inner liturgy continues, whereas the external liturgy is time bound and successive.
Evangelical Pearl is not specifically structured, but the Temple is well structured around the liturgical year. It is at the start of the Reformation. Interrelationship of liturgy and mysticism which feed into each other, Eastern liturgy is group mysticism.
1. anthropology of God's indwelling
2. exterior liturgy perfected in interior celebration
3. to integrate liturgy ot mysticism, requries the right attitude
4. interior and exterior liturgies are distinguishable but interdependent and mutually enriching.
Arnhmen Mystical Sermons
Easter 85. without distinction + liturgy. Ambuities of intermediaries. Images are helpful to turn inward, but don't get there stuck there. Liturgy turns us to God, but isn't God. External liturgy gives images, concepts and tools to lead to and to understand the inner liturgy.
Locus mysticus: synergy of externior liturgy representing on the sensory level the inner experience of the individual. In the 16th century this is re-emphasized: three sources, evangelical pearl and temple of our soul and the Arnhem Mystical Sermons. Late 16th century there was a reaction against this. Antiphons in latin are in the margins of the illuminations. Text in middle dutch. Father holding son like pieta with dove on shoulder.
Dedication of the Church The community gathers outside at dawn, light 12 candles, circle three times, go in make cross on the floor. Altar and inner walls blessed and marked with 12 crosses, candles placed, altar is dedicated, relics placed - Remembered annually. Sermon recounts mystical interpretation of the temple: church structure has outer church and inner church and the sanctuary, all are represented in the interior life of the person, also this is all a unity. The temple is polluted and in need of purification. Restoration of likeness to God and union with God = deification. The person cleans the church and cleans the outward senses with the sharp broom of the crown of thorns. She purifies the walls and does a cruel flogging of the members. Washing the floor of the heart with water and blood of Christ. This is all preparation for the celebration of the rite. Active and passive, we cleanse outwardly and Christ purifies inwardly. Christ, church and person are all overlayed. Senses > members > heart. Inside the person, Christ has placed 12 crosses, these are the mind, intelligence and love, and faith, hope and love. In the middle choir is memory, understanding, will, desire, discernment, passion. Christ will impress himself onto these faculties. The 12 candles shine the light of Christ onto the crosses. The person then responds in embrace of Christ who embraces and divinizes. THe liturgy is seen in a divine inward exuberance for God. Christ is the most true bishop / celebrant. The goodness Christ seeks can only come if Christ replicates Christself in the heart of the beloved. THis then decorates the heart > members > senses. Love is the deepest part of the person, deeper than mind and intelligence. As the mass begins, "she is bereft completely of herself by God. Eucharistic union is a spiritual and sacramental union, mystical union is above categorization of the intellect and of language, there is not fusion, but mutual indwelling. Liturgy, especially the Eucharist influences the whole human person. Passive and immediate God experience in harmony with particularities of Christianity.
There are some who don't experience this, but still they should come to Christ and participate in Liturgy, because the deification is taking place even if it isn't so deeply felt. All who turn to God are united, and God takes them to Godself, though the mystic feels it, the union in darkness may be more helpful. The special gifts give extra help to the weak. Deification is in every God-loving soul, there is no automatic mysticism, the ultimate question is who turns to God, who is deified. But still it ends: may God grant this to us all. Those united in darkness and unknowing may be more faithful.
Conclusions Distinctive feature of Arnhem liturgical mysticism. There is a harmony between outer liturgy and mystical experience. Liturgy induces, invites to, interprets and integrates mystical experiences. LIturgy provides a rhythm to integrate and interpret the experience. Mysticism is often seen outside liturgy, but this tradition shows a way to unite them.
False mysticism Liturgy is context, which roots the experience in the tradition. Misleading mysticism is for JR, does it help a person to love God and neighbor. If so, great, if not there is a problem. It is not something new, but a deeper experience of what is always already present, but not yet.

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