Reflections from the Mirror of a Mystic

Bl. John Ruysbroeck (Jan van Ruusbroec), surnamed the Admirable, was born in Belgium in 1293. The rare grace of contemplation attended him from childhood. Until the age of sixty he lived as a secular priest; he then left the world and retired to a monastery near Brussels.

These selections taken from the works of Blessed John Ruysbroeck contain lessons of piety suitable to every state and condition of life. No one is so perverse or devoid of grace, as to read Ruysbroeck without being stirred by a salutary compunction, while no one has arrived at such heights as not to find in Ruysbroeck the secret of something higher.

If a ray from these sun-lit heights, reflected albeit faintly in these pages, shall have power to cheer and encourage some toiler in the plains below, this little work will have fulfilled its mission.

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