Page "John of Ruysbroeck" Paragraph 6

This period, from his religious profession ( 1349 ) to his death ( 1381 ), was the most active and fruitful of Ruysbroeck's career.

His fame as a man of God, as a sublime contemplative and a skilled director of souls, spread beyond the bounds of Flanders and Brabant to Holland, Germany, and France.

All sorts and conditions of men sought his aid and counsel.

A characteristic story was that one day two priests came from Paris to ask his opinion of their spiritual state, to be told: " You are as holy as you wish to be!

" His writings were eagerly caught up and rapidly multiplied, especially in the cloisters of the Netherlands and Germany ; early in the fifteenth century they are to be found also in England.

Among the more famous visitors to Groenendaal mention is made of Johannes Tauler, but though the German preacher certainly knew and appreciated his writings, it is not established that he ever actually saw Ruysbroeck.

Gerard Groote in particular venerated him as a father and loved him as a friend.

And through Groote, Ruysbroeck's influence helped to mould the spirit of the Windesheim School, which in the next generation found its most famous exponent in Thomas à Kempis.

Ruysbroeck wrote twelve books, seven epistles, two hymns and a prayer.

A landmark in Ruysbroeck scholarship was the translation into English in 1894 of Maeterlinck's essay that formed the introduction to his L ' Ornement des Noces Spirituelles de Ruysbroeck l ' Admirable.