The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage

...scribed in chapter twenty-eight. Woven into this is an important chapter on "Ecstasies and Divine Revelations." The fourth stage of prayer, the prayer of union, begins with the thirty-fifth chapter of the second book and reaches its peak in the seventy-first chapter and the two following it.

The Blessed Jan van Ruysbroeck Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) was a Flemish mystic known as the "Doctor Ecstaticus" for his profound writings on the soul's union with God., called "the Wonderful" original: "der Wunderbare", was born in 1293 in the small village of Ruysbroeck, not far from Brussels. At the age of eleven, he began his studies with his uncle, Master Hinckaert, a canon A member of the clergy serving a cathedral or collegiate church at St. Gudula in Brussels. From this relative, he evidently received a thorough theological education and was ordained as a priest at twenty-four. Until his fiftieth year, he served as a simple secular priest A priest who lives in the world rather than in a monastic community at St. Gudula; then, he withdrew from the world with a few friends and founded the Groenendael Monastery in the Forest of Soignes. In the year 1350, this community adopted the rule of the Augustinian Canons Regular A religious order of priests living in community under the Rule of Saint Augustine, and Ruysbroeck became its prior following the death of his friend and fellow brother, Franco van Coudenberg. He died in the year 1381. The veneration of the "Blessed" Jan van Ruysbroeck, which had existed since time immemorial, was officially recognized by a decree of the Congregation of Rites The Vatican body formerly responsible for the process of beatification and canonization on December 1, 1908. — What is truly beautiful about the saints is that they do not wish to be anything "extraordinary" original: "Absonderliches" but rather "wish to be like other people," that they are "internally so rich and overflowing with good teachings," and that they possess "an all-encompassing love that flows out into heaven and onto earth." This gives their writings a certain...