Chapter XV: The Cultus of Blessed John Ruysbroeck

Numerous pilgrims now wended their way to visit Ruysbroeck's tomb. Ex-votos were suspended there in acknowledgment of favours received. His picture also was honoured in various churches. And each year on the Monday following Trinity Sunday the Chapter of St. Gudule's came over to Groenendael to assist the Canons at a Mass sung in his honour. In a word, on all sides the holy Prior was regarded and, as far as possible, treated as a Saint in glory.

Yielding to representations and entreaties from many quarters, James Roonen, Archbishop of Mechlin, ordered another translation of the remains, November 1622. This was duly performed with all the prescribed formalities. The skeleton was found entire. The bones were carefully taken and reverently washed and then placed in a new reliquary. The water used in this cleansing emitted a delicious odour, and it was afterwards instrumental in effecting many miraculous cures. The Infanta Isabella of Spain laid the foundation stone of a chapel to be erected at her expense near _Ruysbroeck's Tree_ as a suitable shrine for the relics. She also provided a magnificent sarcophagus. As this chapel was outside the monastic enclosure, ladies were now able to pay their devotions at Ruysbroeck's tomb itself, whereas hitherto they had been able to reverence the relics only from a distance.

So far, however, no authoritative recognition of the heroic virtues of John Ruysbroeck had come from Rome. In 1624 the Archbishop commissioned the learned Albert le Mire to draw up the necessary preliminary documents to be submitted to the Sacred Congregation. These were approved, and three commissioners were appointed to Initiate the apostolic process, so called. Their labours were completed by 1627. Then, on account of the wars and other troubles which afflicted the Low Countries at the time, the Cause was suspended.

When the French overran the Netherlands in 1667, to prevent profanation of the holy relics, they were carried to a place of greater safety in Brussels; they were restored again in 1670. In 1783 the Priory itself shared the fate of so many other Religious Houses, and was suppressed by the Emperor Joseph II.; whereupon the relics were again transferred to Brussels and laid to rest in a side-chapel of St. Gudule's.

Another attempt was then made by the Chapter of St. Gudule's to obtain from Rome an authorised Office and Mass in honour of John Ruysbroeck. The petition was favourably received; but once more there was a violent interruption, this time from the upheaval of the French Revolution.

St. Gudule's was sacked by the _sans-culottes_ in 1793, and the reliquary of Ruysbroeck was desecrated. It is said, however, that the relics were not actually dispersed, and that they were afterwards sealed up again by a Notary named Neuwens; but unhappily at the present day all trace of them has disappeared.

Finally, in 1885, the late Cardinal Goosens, Archbishop of Mechlin, approached the Sacred Congregation once more, and a tribunal was appointed to examine into the Cause, February 8, 1900. This was brought to a happy issue in 1908 by a Decree of the Sacred Congregation, dated December 1st, and approved by His Holiness, Pius X., December 9, confirming the cultus "shown from time immemorial to the Venerable Servant of God, John Ruysbroeck, Canon Regular, called the Blessed." Later, August 24, 1909, the Congregation granted and approved an Office and Mass of Blessed John Ruysbroeck for the Mechlin clergy. The privilege of this Office and Mass has also been extended to the Canons Regular of the Lateran, who are the lineal representatives of the Canons of Groenendael and Windesheim, and therefore in a special sense the children of Blessed John.

For the moment there may seem to be but little in common between this Mediaeval Mystic and the bustling modern world, so little as to suggest the thought that Blessed Ruysbroeck can have no message to deliver to our day. On the contrary, the Solitary of the Forest of Soignes stands for a profound truth, oblivion of which is rendering Society sick unto death to-day. John Ruysbroeck preaches to the world its utter need of God.

For the Catholic he enforces his lesson in a special manner. Unlike false mystics, who invariably pretend to dispense themselves and their adherents from the chief normal means of grace, namely the Sacraments, Ruysbroeck insists upon frequent recourse to the Sacraments, but more especially to the Blessed Eucharist, as the speediest and most efficacious means of bringing each soul into true union with God. Our present Holy Father, desirous and ambitious of "restoring all things in Christ," has pointed to the same divine remedy for the renewal of our souls. May there not be seen in this a providential reason wherefore the solemn beatification of this holy Religious has been delayed six centuries, to be reserved to our own days?

The proper prayers of our Saint's Mass beautifully summarise the lessons of his life as follows:

Collect

God, Who didst vouchsafe to adorn Blessed John, Thy Confessor, with sublime holiness of life and with heavenly gifts, grant us, through his merits, and after his example, to despise the fleeting things of the world, and to desire only the joys of heaven.

Secret

May the intercession of Blessed John, who in offering the Sacrifice merited to overflow with heavenly delights, make us worthy, we beseech Thee, Lord, of the bread of angels.

Post-Communion

We beseech Thee, Lord, by the intercession of Blessed John, grant to us who are refreshed with the heavenly banquet, that, delivered from worldly desires, we may be ever fervent in Thy love.

Footnotes

[1]By Earle Bailie. London: Thomas Baker. 1905.

[2]_Cf._ the Polish sect of _Mariavites_, or _Mystic Priests_, under the
misguidance of the woman Mary Frances, whose extravagances were
condemned by Rome, September 1904, and again April 1906.

[3]Provost is the equivalent in a College of Clergy of the Abbot in a
Monastery; though many Congregations of Canons Regular have borrowed
the title and style of Abbot from the monastic institute.

[4]Translation by J. P. Arthur. _The Founders of the New Devotion._ Kegan
Paul. 1905.

[5]Especially: _Outlines of the Life of Thomas a Kempis_. By Sir Francis
Cruise. _C.T.S._ of Ireland. _Thomas a Kempis_. By the same. London:
Kegan Paul. _Life of the Venerable Thomas a Kempis_. By Dom Scully.
London: Washbourne. _Thomas a Kempis and the Brothers of the Common
Life_. By Kettlewell. London: Kegan Paul. _Thomas a Kempis, His Age
and His Book_. By De Montmorency, London: Methuen.

[6]Father Sharpe, in his recent admirable volume, _Mysticism: Its True
Nature and Value_, writes thus of the mystic teaching, properly so
called, of a Kempis's world-famous masterpiece: "_The Imitation of
Christ_ ... probably owes much of its vast popularity to its constant
recurrence to the elementary duties of religion and morality, and its
insistence on the necessity of their performance as the prerequisite
of the more exalted spiritual states. The 'purgative,' 'illuminative,'
and 'unitive' ways are seen, so to speak, together, and are dealt with
as aspects or constituents of the Christian life as a whole, to the
completeness of which all three are necessary and, in different ways,
of equal importance. The purely mystical passages are comparatively
few and short; and the abundance of practical directions the book
contains has sometimes caused its mystical character to be entirely
overlooked. This disproportion, however, is quite sufficiently to be
accounted for by the character of the work, which is that of a
directory of spiritual life in general, and not a scientific treatise
on any particular department of it. In such a book attempts at
describing the indescribable phenomena of mysticism would obviously
have been out of place, whereas the practical details of the lower and
preliminary states admit of and require minute explanation. But the
tone of the whole book is mystical, and the most commonplace duties
and the most humiliating strivings with temptation are in a manner
illuminated and glorified by the brilliancy of the result to which
they tend. Thus, in point of fact, the higher and lower elements, the
mystical and the non-mystical, the purgative, the illuminative and the
unitive, are blended in actual human experience" (pp. 188, 189).

[7]The whole subject of mystic theology is excellently well treated by
Rev. A. B. Sharpe, M.A., in a volume entitled _Mysticism: Its True
Nature and Value_, already quoted, just published by Sands & Co. There
is frequent reference to our Saint and his writings.

FINIS

Transcriber's Notes

--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

--Moved footnotes from page footer to end of text

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