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THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL
MARRIAGE (cont) |
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by Blessed John of Rusybroeck |
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THE SECOND BOOK |
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45. How Christ was, is, and ever will be the Lover
of all |
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In order that we shall possess and desire this state of being
common to all above the other conditions of which we have spoken
(because this state is the highest of all) we shall take as a
model Christ, Who was, and is, and eternally shall remain common
to all; for He was sent down to earth for the common benefit of
all men who would turn to Him.
Yet He Himself says that He is not sent but unto the lost sheep of
the house of Israel. These, however, are not only the Jews, but
all those who shall see God in eternity. These belong to the house
of Israel, and no one else; for the Jews despised the Gospel, and
the Heathen entered and received it. And so all Israel, that is to
say, all the eternally chosen, shall be saved.
Now mark how Christ gave Himself to all in perfect loyalty. His
inward and sublime prayer flowed forth towards His Father, and it
was a prayer for all in common who desired to be saved. Christ was
common to all in love, in teaching, in tender consolation, in
generous gifts, in merciful forgiveness. His soul and His body,
His life and His death and His ministry were, and are, common to
all. His sacraments and His gifts are common to all. Christ never
took any food or drink, nor anything that His body needed, without
intending by it the common good of all those who shall be saved,
even unto the last day. Christ had nothing particular and of his
own, but everything in common, body and soul, mother and
disciples, cloak and tunic. He ate and He drank for our sake; He
lived and He died for our sake. His pains and His sorrows and His
miseries were of His own and for Him only; but the fruits and the
profit which came forth from them are common to all. And the glory
of His merits shall be common to all in eternity.
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46. Reproving all those who live on Spiritual
Goods in an Inordinate Manner |
Now Christ left His treasure and His revenue here on earth. These
are the seven sacraments and the outward goods of Holy Church,
which He has gotten through His death, and which, therefore,
should be in common. And His servants, who live thereon, should
therefore be in common. All those who live on alms and are in the
ecclesiastical state, should be in common at least in their
prayers: and especially all religious who live in cloisters and in
cells. In the beginning of Holy Church and of our Faith, popes,
bishops, and priests, were all in common; for they went out and
converted the folk, and established Holy Church and our Faith, and
sealed them with their blood and with their death. These men were
simple and onefold, and they had steadfast peace in the unity of
the spirit. And they were enlightened with godly wisdom, rich and
overflowing with faith and with love towards God and towards all
men. But now, notwithstanding it is become wholly otherwise; for
those who to-day possess the heritage and the revenue which were
given to those others out of love and because of their holiness,
are unstable of soul, and restless, and in multiplicity; for they
have altogether turned towards the world, and do not thoroughly
apprehend in their ground those things and that business which
they have in hand. That is why they pray with their lips, but
their heart does not savour the meaning, that is to say, it does
not feel the secret wonder which is hidden in Scripture, and in
the sacraments, and in their office. And therefore they are coarse
and dull, and are not enlightened by the Divine truth, and they
often seek food and drink and ease of body without moderation:
would to God they were at least clean of fleshly sins! As long as
they live thus, they shall never be enlightened; and whereas those
others were generous, and overflowing with charity, and kept
nothing for themselves, these are now greedy and avaricious, and
deny themselves nothing. All this is contrary and unlike to the
saints, and to that common way of which we have spoken. I speak of
the general state of things: let each prove himself, and teach and
reprove himself, if needs be; and, if not, let him rejoice and
rest in peace in his clean conscience, and serve and praise God,
for the good of himself and of all men, and for the glory of God.
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47. Showing how Christ has given Himself to all in
common in the Sacrament of the Altar |
As I will specially praise and glorify this state of being in
common, so I find another special treasure which Christ has left
in Holy Church to all good men; in His supper upon the high feast
of the Passover when Christ knew that He would pass from this
exile to His father, after He had eaten of the Paschal Lamb with
His disciples, and the ancient law had been fulfilled. At the end
of the meal and of the feast, He desired to give to them a dish of
singular excellence which He had long wished to do. And herewith
He willed to make an end of the ancient law and begin the new. And
He took bread in His holy and venerable hands, and consecrated His
sacred Body, and after that His sacred Blood; and He gave them
both to all His disciples, and left them to all good men in common
for their eternal profit. This gift and this excellent dish
rejoice and adorn all high festivals and all banquets, in heaven
and on earth. In this gift Christ gives Himself to us in three
ways. He gives us His Flesh and His Blood and His bodily life,
glorified and full of joy and sweetness; He gives us His spirit
with its highest powers, full of glory and gifts, truth and
righteousness; and He gives us His personality through that Divine
Light which raises His spirit and all enlightened spirits into the
most high and fruitive unity.
Now Christ desires that we shall remember Him so often as we
consecrate, offer, and receive His Body. Consider now how we shall
remember Him. We shall mark and behold how Christ inclines Himself
towards us with loving affection, with great desire, and with
yearning delight, and with a warm and tender outpouring of Himself
into our bodily nature. For He gives us that which He has in
common with our manhood, that is, His Flesh and His Blood, and His
bodily nature. We shall also mark and behold that precious body
martyred, pierced and wounded for our sake, because of His love
and His faithfulness towards us. Herewith we are adorned and
nourished in the lower part of our manhood. In this most high gift
of the Sacrament He also gives us His spirit, full of glory and
rich gifts of virtue, and unspeakable marvels of charity and
nobleness. And herewith we are nourished and adorned and
enlightened in the unity of our spirit and in the higher powers,
through the indwelling of Christ with all His riches. Moreover He
gives us in the Sacrament of the Altar His most high personality
in incomprehensible splendour. And through this we are lifted up
to and united with the Father, and the Father receives His adopted
sons together with His natural Son, and thus we enter into our
inheritance of the Godhead in eternal blessedness.
When a man has worthily recollected and considered these things,
then he shall go out to meet Christ in the same way in which
Christ comes to him. He shall lift himself up to receive Christ
with his heart, with his desire, with sensible love, with all his
powers, and with a joyful craving. For even thus does Christ
receive Himself. And this craving cannot be too great; for then
our nature receives its own nature, that is, the glorified manhood
of Christ, full of joy and worth. Therefore I would that a man, in
thus receiving, should melt and flow forth in desire, in joy, and
in delight: for he embraces and is united with Him who is the
fairest, the most gracious and most lovable of all the children of
men. In this yearning devotion, and in these delights, many a
great benefit has been bestowed upon men, and many a secret and
hidden wonder of the rich treasures of God has been revealed and
disclosed to them. When a man, in thus receiving, bethinks himself
of the martyrdom and the sufferings of this precious Body of
Christ, which he receives, then he may sometimes rise into such
loving devotion and such sensible compassion that he desires to be
nailed with Christ to the cross, and longs to shed his heart's
blood for the glory of Christ. And he presses into the wounds and
into the open heart of Christ, his Saviour. In this exercise many
a revelation and many a benefit have often been bestowed upon men.
This sensible love and compassion, and the power of the
imagination united with the inward contemplation of the wounds of
Christ, may be so great, that the man thinks that he feels the
wounds and the bruises of Christ in his own heart and in all his
limbs. And if any man could indeed in any way receive the stigmata
of our Lord, it would be such a man as this. And herewith we
satisfy Christ as regards the lower part of His manhood.
We shall also dwell in the unity of our spirit and should flow
forth with an ample love in heaven and on earth, with clear
discernment. And by this we bear some resemblance to Christ as
regards the spirit, and give Him satisfaction.
We shall also, through the personality of Christ, with simplicity
of intention and with fruitive love, transcend ourselves, and also
the created being of Christ, and rest in our inheritance, that is,
in the Divine Being in eternity. This Christ always desires to
give us in ghostly wise, whenever we so exercise ourselves and
make ourselves in readiness for Him. And He desires that we shall
receive Him both in a sacramental and a spiritual way, as is meet
and right and as reason demands. Though a man may not always have
such feelings and such desires, if he intend the praise of God and
His glory, and the increase of his own being and blessedness, he
may go freely to the table of the Lord, if his conscience be clean
from mortal sin.
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48. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature in the
Trinity of the Persons |
The most high and superessential Unity of the Divine Nature, where
the Father and the Son possess Their nature in the unity of the
Holy Ghost�above the comprehension and understanding of all our
powers, in the naked being of our spirit�is a supernal stillness,
wherein God broods above all creatures in the created light. This
most high Unity of the Divine Nature is living and fruitful; for,
out of this same Unity, the Eternal Word is incessantly born of
the Father. And, through this birth, the Father knows the Son;
and, in the Son, all things. And the Son knows the Father; and all
things in the Father. For they are one Simple Nature. From this
mutual contemplation of the Father and the Son, in the eternal
radiance, there flow forth an eternal content[53] and a fathomless
love, and that is the Holy Ghost. And through the Holy Ghost, and
through the Eternal Wisdom, God inclines Himself towards each
creature in particular, and lovingly endows and enkindles each
one, according to its worth and the state into which it has been
put and to which it has been destined by its virtues and by the
Eternal Providence of God. And thereby all good spirits, in heaven
and on earth, are moved to virtue and righteousness.
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| 53. |
The Flemish "welbehagen" is perhaps more
accurately translated "well-being," "comfort" or "good
pleasure." Cf. The Book of Truth, cap. 10. The idea intended
is the complete and blissful self-comprehension and
self-satisfaction of the Divine Essence; the "perfect round"
which is enringed in love. So Dante�
"O luce eterna, che sola in te sidi,
sola t'intendi, e, da te intelletta
ed intendente te, ami ed arridi!"
(Par. xxxiii. 124.) |
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