Jan van ruysbroeck biography of williams

Flemish mystic, whose name probably derived from the village of Ruysbroek, near Brussels, where he was born in 1293.

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As a child he showed distinct religious inclinations and spent his adolescence exploring a wealth of mystical literature. He decided to follow the clerical profession, and in 1317 he was duly ordained. A little later he became vicar of St.

Gudule, a parish in Brussels.

During his long term in this capacity he became widely esteemed for his erudition and for his personal piety, while his sermons and even his letters were passed from hand to hand and perused with great admiration by many of his fellow clerics.

He did not court fame nor publicity of any kind, and at the age of sixty he retired to Groenendale, not far from the battlefield of Waterloo, where he founded a monastery.

There he lived until his death, devoting himself chiefly to the study and practice of mysticism, and maintaining those charitable actions befitt