These are a few of my favorite Beguine!
These are a few of my favorite Beguine!
The Beguines were a Christian order of laywomen in the Low Countries, primarily from the 13th to 16th centuries. (The Beghards were the laymen’s order). They took no vows, but focused on caring for the poor and prayer & contemplation. They were discouraged from teaching, yet often looked to for spiritual direction. The Beguines were seen as the mystics of their age.
Our first is from a modern day “Beguine,” Dorothy Day:
Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other's faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.
A few more for good measure:
Do good under all circumstances, but with no care for any profit, or any blessedness, or any damnation, or any salvation, or any martyrdom; but all you do or omit should be for the honor of Love. -Hadewijch of Antwerp
If you love the justice of Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment then you will seek to do compassion. Compassion means that if I see my friend and my enemy in equal need, I shall help them both equally. Justice demands that we seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner and comfort them and offer them our help. Here lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devils much distress. -Mechthilde of Magdeburg
I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love, and this Soul is God by the condition of Love. I am God by divine nature and this Soul is God by the condition of Love. Thus this precious beloved of mine is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she is transformed into me, and such a perfect one, says Love, takes my nourishment. -Marguerite Porete
One more, a little bonus, from Beatrice of Nazareth:
And so as the fish swims in the vastness of the oceans and rests in the deep sea, and as the bird boldly soars in the heights and the vastness of the air, in the same way she feels her spirit roam free through the depths in the heights and the immensity of love.
(In all fairness, Beatrice was raised for a year or so by Beguines after her mother died. Although she later became a nun and wrote a number of works in common Flemish—Seven Degrees of Love is all that survives—it’s rather clear the Beguines had an impact on her life.)