Monday, January 19 : Blessed Jan van Ruusbroec

“See, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him" (Mt 25,6)… The Bridegroom is Christ and human nature is the bride, whom God created according to “his own image and likeness” (Gn 1,26). In the beginning he placed his bride in the noblest and most beautiful, the richest and most luxuriant place on earth, that is, in Paradise. God subordinated all other creatures to her, adorned her with grace, and gave her a commandment so that through obedience to it she might deserve to be made firm and steadfast with her Bridegroom in eternal faithfulness and so never fall into any adversity or any sin. But then came an evildoer, the enemy from hell, who in his jealousy assumed the form of a cunning serpent and deceived the woman. They both then deceived the man, in whom human nature existed in its entirety. Thus did the enemy seduce human nature, God's bride, through deceitful counsel. Poor and wretched, she was banished to a strange land and was there captured and oppressed… But when it seemed to God that the right time had come and he took pity on his beloved in her suffering, he sent his only-begotten Son to earth… into the body of the glorious Virgin Mary. There the Son wedded this bride, our nature, and united her with his own person.