Saint Who?
Saints Who Taught about Prayer
Blessed John of Ruysbroeck
Priest and religious († 1381) Feast: December 2
John was not beatified until five centuries after his death. But during his lifetime, he was highly respected as a spiritual director, and his mystical writings inspired Catholics in his native Belgium as well as France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
John was eleven years old when he impulsively decided to leave his mother and the village of Ruysbroeck behind to live with his uncle, a priest. His uncle recognized that John had a vocation, and he paid for the boy’s education. After ordination, John served in Brussels for more than twenty years. He became involved in a local controversy when he wrote a rebuttal to the heretical ideas being spread by a popular pseudo-mystic. Perhaps because of persecution, John decided to move to a nearby forest and live as a hermit. Other men sought him out, and he soon established his own community of canons regular.
John often composed his mystical writings while he wandered through the woods and, he said, always under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He wrote in a striking style about the contemplative life and such spiritual phenomena as the mystical union of a soul with God in prayer.
Heavenly Father, you have impressed your image
in our nature; make our souls like living mirrors, reflecting your love.
