The real, scholarly work towards extending and encouraging the cult of Blessed John Ruysbroeck, whether among the learned or the devout, is being performed, as is seemly, in the Catholic University of his native Belgium, namely, at Louvain, where a Chair has been instituted for the study of Old Flemish, chiefly for the sake of a correct understanding and rendering of the writings of the Holy Mystic of Groenendael.
And here we may note that while it is customary with some to speak of Ruysbroeck as illiterate, this term must be taken in a strictly limited sense. Possibly, he could not have composed in fluent and elegant Latin: he was not a classical scholar; but certainly the Latin of the Bible and the Fathers was quite familiar to him. His writings, moreover, display an intimate knowledge of the Scriptures, the Fathers, theology, liturgy, apologetics. The natural science of the day was not unknown, as witness his applications from astronomy, and, it must be confessed, from astrology. With St. Denys the Areopagyte he shows himself very intimate, and his pages contain whole passages borrowed or adapted from St. Anselm, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, and especially St. Augustin. Nearer his own days St. Bernard and Hugh of St. Victor seem to have influenced him very considerably.
Experts in Old Flemish assure us that his style is most chaste, his language vigorous and clear. He was in truth a poet. When carried away by the beauty or sublimity of his subject, he indulges in a wealth of imagery, comparison, metaphor, astounding at times in boldness and originality. Occasionally even he lapsed into verse; but on the whole his verse is of less beauty and strength than his prose, as he himself seems to have been aware. On the other hand, his prose, after the manner of St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, the two Victors, and later Thomas à Kempis, frequently gives evidence of deliberate rhythm and rhyme. In a word, far from being illiterate in the strict sense of the word, Blessed John was well acquainted with all the rules and arts of rhetoric; he knew how to employ them; and for all the sublimity of his discourse he did not disdain the use of these aids to interest and persuasion. Finally, it is to be noted that we are expressly informed by contemporaries of Ruysbroeck that he wrote by preference in the vulgar tongue, the more readily and effectively to meet and refute the erroneous doctrines published in the language of the people by the false mystics of his day.
XIV
Last Days
Of the life of our Saint there remains little to be told save the record of the last days and the after glory. He had attained the good old age of eighty-eight, when his mother appeared in a vision to warn him to make ready for the approaching end. It must seem to us there was little need for such warning to one whose whole life had been one long preparation for the coming of the Spouse! He was taken with dysentery, accompanied by fever, and for his greater comfort, and that his lifelong friend van Coudenberg might be at hand to console and assist him, they put him to bed in the Provost’s chamber. But the humble Prior besought them to treat him as any of the lowliest brethren and to bear him to the common infirmary. This was accordingly done. There he lay for a fortnight, gradually wasting away with the burning fever, and still more, doubtless, with his burning desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, for he was constantly heard murmuring such ejaculations as that of the Psalmist, Sicut desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum. He received all the last rites, and the end came in the greatest peace, while his weeping brethren prayed around him, on the Octave day of St. Catherine, V.M., December 2, 1381, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, the sixty-fourth of his priesthood.
That same night the Dean of Diest, watching by the holy remains, seemed to behold our Saint, clad in the priestly vestments and all radiant with glory, ascend the altar steps as if to celebrate the sacred mysteries. The Dean had always held Ruysbroeck in the deepest veneration and, having some skill in medicine, he had come over to Groenendael on hearing of the Prior’s illness to see whether he could administer any relief. His charity was rewarded by the edifying sight of his happy death, and by this consoling vision after.
And, as the Venerable à Kempis informs us, “God also revealed to Gerard [Groote] the death of this most beloved Father, which revelation he made manifest in the hearing of many of the citizens by the tolling of the bells; and more privately he made known to certain of his friends that the soul of the Prior, after but one hour of Purgatory, had passed to the glory of Heaven.” We may note here that à Kempis himself was a child of three years when Ruysbroeck was called to his reward. Gerard Groote followed his friend and spiritual father to the grave three years later.
The Groenendael Canons offered the holy Sacrifice and all the wonted suffrages for their departed Prior’s repose, but they prayed with the conviction that they needed his impetration rather than he theirs. They were all eager to possess themselves of any little thing which had been his. Some cut off locks of his hair, and one managed to secure a tooth! Appropriately enough, this relic later cured a Mechlin lady of a severe attack of toothache. However, in all simplicity the Brethren laid Blessed John to rest in the little chapel which his own hands had helped to raise.
Five years later his saintly associate, the Provost Francis van Coudenberg, rejoined him beyond the grave. The Bishop of Cambrai, John T’Serclaes, came to assist at the obsequies. During his visit he heard so much of the heroic virtues of the late Prior that he ordered an exhumation of Ruysbroeck’s body with a view to a more honourable burial by the side of the Provost in the new church, which had now replaced the little chapel. They were all filled with awe and wonder to find the entire body, save only the tip of the nose, incorrupt, and the priestly vestments intact. Also a most sweet odour exhaled from the holy remains. To satisfy the devotion of the people, the Bishop commanded that the body should be exposed to their veneration for three days. On the third day, amid a vast concourse of the faithful, Ruysbroeck was laid to rest by the side and in the tomb of his lifelong friend van Coudenberg. Over the sepulchre was placed the following simple inscription:
Hic jacet translatus Devotus Pater
D. Joannes de Ruysbroeck
I. Prior hujus monasterii
Qui obiit anno Domini
MCCCLXXXI
II. Die Decembris