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John of Ruysbroeck

  excerpts from

THE ADORNMENT

OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE

 

translated by Evelyn Underhill

 

BOOK I    THE ACTIVE LIFE

 

CHAPTER XV

 

OF PATIENCE

 

FROM the renunciation of self-will [Chapter XIV] springs patience; for none can be perfectly patient in all things save the man who has subjected his own will to the will of God, and also in all profitable and seemly things, to the will of all other men. 

 

Patience is a peaceful endurance of all things that may befall a man either from God or from the creatures.  Nothing can trouble the patient man; neither the loss of earthly goods, of friends and kinsmen; nor sickness, nor disgrace, nor life, nor death, nor purgatory, nor devil, nor hell.  For he has abandoned himself in perfect charity to the will of God, and as he is not burdened by mortal sin, everything that God imposes on him, in time and in eternity, is light to him.  By this patience a man is also adorned and armed against peevishness and sudden wrath, and impatience in suffering; which often stir a man from within and from without, and lay him open to many temptations. 

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

OF MEEKNESS

 

FROM this patience there spring meekness and kindliness, for none can be meek in adversity save the patient man. 

 

Meekness gives a man peace and rest in all things.  For the meek man can bear provoking words and ways, uncivil looks and deeds, and every kind of injustice towards himself and his friends, and yet in all things remain in peace, for meekness is peaceful endurance.  By meekness the irascible or repulsive power remains unmoved, in quietude; the desirous power is uplifted toward virtue; the rational power, perceiving this, rejoices.  And the conscience, tasting it, rests in peace; for the second mortal sin, Anger, fury, or wrath, has been cast out.  For the Spirit of God dwells in the humble and the meek; and Christ says: BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, FOR THEY SHALL

INHERIT THE EARTH, that is, their own nature and all earthly things, in meekness; and after that the Country of Life in Eternity.