John of Leeuwen

JOHN OF LEEUWEN. - The most notable mystical writer of the school of Groenendaal, together with Ruysbroeck. Born in 1295, he led the life of an itinerant craftsman before entering the monastery of Groenendaal as a lay brother, died in 1378. Because of his good-naturedness toward guests he was called "the good cook." Of great austerity, he enjoyed an elevated contemplation.

He composed in the vernacular various ascetical and mystical treatises that were greatly in vogue in the Netherlands and beyond the Rhine, where they were in part translated into Low German. Miraeus, still in the 17th century, affirms that these treatises deserved to be translated into all languages. A disciple of the great Brabantine mystic Hadewych, as also of Ruysbroeck, together with whom he lived at Groenendaal, G. nevertheless knew how to give a personal stamp to his works. More than the others, he dwells on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and in particular on the Interior of Jesus as the road toward the contemplation of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Essence of God. G. was the first in the Netherlands to rise up against Eckhart. A man of the coarse and passionate common people, who sharply criticizes the depraved customs of his time, G. nevertheless shines for his sound and robust faith, for apostolic ardor, for uprightness and childlike simplicity.