The meeting in Ruusbroec's Spiritual Espousals

Abstract

Jan van Ruusbroec's Spiritual Espousals takes its four-steps framework from a phrase in the Gospel of Matthew (25:6): See,/ the Bridegroom cometh,/ go out/ to meet Him. The final stage, meeting Him (Christ), is not merely the goal of the previous three, but also the subtlest point that both attracts and challenges any Christian mystic experience and thinking. As Paul Mommaers says: The culmination of this initial stage is what Ruusbroec calls ontmoet or meeting. Not only is this term the key to the entire Espousals from the first page to the last; it is the heart of the mystical experience he has described in some ten other works. Everything he has written, literally everything, hinges on this notion of meeting. This article will approach three aspects of the meeting in the Brabant mystic's masterpiece and at the same time try to comprehend the unique character of his spiritual world.