MARIA d'OOSTERWIJK (MARIA VAN HOUT; de Ligno, Lignana). – Mystic, born at Oosterwijk, a village near ’s Hertogenbosch (Boscoducale) in North Brabant, around 1470 into a wealthy family, died in Cologne on 30 September 1547; from her parental home she entered the beguinage of her native town and, while still very young, set out toward the heights of contemplation.
In 1531 the Carthusian G. Kalckbrenner anonymously published a first work by M. Van Hout, Der rechte wech 120 der Evangelischer volkomenheit (The True Way to Evangelical Perfection), with an appendix containing several of her spiritual letters, which reveal the entire sublime development of this soul enamored of the divine absolute; then, in 1532: Dat Paradijs der liefhorvender sielen (The Paradise of Loving Souls). The two masterpieces of Netherlandish spirituality in the sixteenth century cannot be attributed to M.: Vanden tempel onser sielen (Of the Temple of Our Soul [1543, republished several times until 1626 and translated into various languages]) and Die evangelische Peerle (The Evangelical Pearl [1535 and 1538]), which are instead works of an intimate friend of hers, whose doctrine and spirit M. shared.
The influence of her books, in the Netherlands, France (Ecole française), and Germany, is incalculable. M.’s doctrine, highly speculative in character, is essentially Christocentric and theocentric; sacramental and liturgical life has within it a clearly defined organic function. M. presents a synthesis of the mystical currents of the Middle Ages in the Netherlands and the Rhineland.