BLOSIO (DE BLOIS), FRANÇOIS-LOUIS, venerable. Benedictine abbot and ascetical writer, born at Donstiennes (Hainaut) in October 1506 of an ancient and noble family, died at Liessies on 7 January 1566. Page to the Archduke Carlo, later Carlo V, after sustaining an injury in a tournament, at the age of fourteen he left the court and his family and entered the abbey of S. Lamberto at Liessies (1520), whence he was sent to Ghent and then to Louvain for his studies. He was twenty-two when, in Louvain in 1527, he received news of his election as coadjutor to the aged abbot; but only in 1530, upon the abbot’s death, did he definitively leave the university and return to Liessies. That same year he was ordained a priest and blessed as abbot.
He worked tenaciously for seven years to reform his community, into which practices he did not approve had infiltrated; but almost in vain. Gentle and amiable
toward everyone, he was not intimidated by resistance and waited for his reforming ideas to be appreciated and accepted by his monks, who finally committed themselves to renouncing their old reprehensible customs, while at the same time asking him to moderate his demands. B., after long prayers and reflections, and also urged by the counsel of persons loyal to him as well as by the intervention of Carlo V, finally decided to yield, but first he wanted assurances that his work would not be hindered. B. immediately established the new regime of observance at Liessies; and, in order to provide a stable directive, composed the Statuta, which were approved by Paolo III (1545). In their compilation he made use not only of ancient local customs, but also of the Constitutions of the Congregations of Bursfeld and S. Giustina of Padua. He recalled the monks to the practice of common life: the monk’s entire life was to unfold within the monastery, which the holy abbot therefore wished to be so aesthetically attractive that it would serve as a continual reminder of Paradise.
Through his discretion and well-judged indulgence, B. soon obtained a flowering anew of monastic observance, and the reform begun at Liessies was introduced a few years later in its dependencies and subsequently imitated by other monasteries as well. A prudent and farsighted administrator, he devoted much attention to the financial reorganization of the principal monastery and the other houses, repairing the damage caused by the continual wars. When he died at the age of sixty, he left the abbey and its dependencies well organized and firmly rooted in the spirit of the observance he had established, which later proved so beneficial to the development of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the Netherlands.
Only with the destruction of the monastery and the dispersal of the monks, brought about by the Revolution, did the fervor of religious life preserved there unchanged since the death of the holy abbot come to an end at Liessies.
B. is now known more for his ascetical writings than as a monastic reformer. He left, in fact, Speculum monachorum (Louvain 1538); Paradissus animae fidelis (there 1540); Psychagogia ex SS. Patribus collecta (there 1549); Collyrium haereticorum (there 1549); Institutio spiritualis (there 1553); Consolatio pusillanimum (there 1555); Margaritum spirituale (there 1555); Conclave animae fidelis (there 1558), which received an extraordinary welcome among religious.
The practical and immediate purpose B. had in view did not allow him to arrange his doctrine systematically and rationally, and one would search in vain for an organic plan in his works, with the exception of the Institutio spiritualis and the Speculum animae, where the gradual development of his thought is more evident. B. treats the entire body of ascetical doctrine, wishing to respond to the most urgent needs of souls. At times he enters into theological questions, which he expounds with clarity and precision. But his true aim is to assist monks and other souls who turn to him in their spiritual ascent. He is not an author of great originality; his doctrine derives from the assiduous reading of the greatest teachers of Christian spirituality, beginning with the Fathers. His preferred authors, after Sacred Scripture and the Rule of s. Benedict, were s. Augustine and s. Gregory; his writings also show the influence of s. Gertrude and s. Mecthilde. He also follows more recent authors such as Tauler and Ruysbroek, and manifests great sympathy for the Exercises of s. Ignatius.
Arising chiefly from the Rule of s. Benedict, scrupulously observed, B.’s spiritual doctrine is above all Christocentric, demonstrating in this characteristic also its liturgical inspiration. Christ, “to whom nothing must be preferred” (s. Benedict), and his mysteries dominate B.’s thought. He recommends their study and meditation in every treatise, insisting especially on the Passion of Jesus as the most suitable means of union with God; and he composed an explanation of II.
Contemplation of Christ and his sufferings will be a continual summons to mortification and recollection. The soul then habitually lives in the presence of God, who fills it with himself, so that it no longer seeks consolation outside him. It therefore has no further aspirations except toward heavenly things and beatitude. Habitual attention to the presence of God and constant aspiration to the joys of heaven likewise reveal the adherence of B.’s doctrine to the thought of s. Benedict.
There is thus nothing new in B.’s spiritual doctrine as regards its content, but it offers a method of interior life suited to everyone, even the weakest, just as his monastic ideal, once freed from the excessive rigidities of its early period, was followed for more than two centuries by monks of varying degrees of virtue.
His doctrine is still studied today, and new translations of his works are being produced in many places (a complete one in Italian has also been announced in the Scripta monastica of the abbey of Praglia). This indicates B.’s continuing relevance; Pope Pius XI would have wished him to be declared a saint and a Doctor of the Church. The title of “venerable” has been universally accorded him because of the reputation he acquired through his works and in homage to his virtues. He is commemorated in the Benedictine Martyrology on 7 January.