Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Excerpted Life of Fye Vreysen, c.1430-54: Modern Devotion, Basic Writings

A collection of brief lives and remembrances of sisters of 'houses' that practiced some measure of that 'modern devotion' found in Holland and thereabouts in the fifteenth century. They are excerpts of individual lives, there will be a few. All are translated by John Van Engen and available for purchase in a sharp book by the Paulist Press.

This one, a former adherent, was a nice girl. But, one time, she went off with some friends and never came back. She also appears as one of the last of sixty-seven lives in a middle Dutch collection that Van Engen found and drew on for his translations. This collection, he says in his introduction, was found in the Deventer Archives but belonged to the canonesses at Frenswegen around 1480. He says there must have been an original produced around 1456, now lost. The author was probably another unknown sister. These lives must have been living in a House of Master Geert Grote set up in the later 1300's. The story concludes with ruminations on those found and lost.
"Sister Fye Vreysen (d. 1454) Good sister Fye did not work long for the penny of eternal life, because she was quite young when she died and lived here about six years. By nature she was friendly and personable. She put herself out remarkably to serve the sisters where she could, and used often to take work out of the hands of the older sisters -- and so quickly that when one thought to do it she already had it done. Yet she used to think she was the laziest of all and to lament that. Because she was so loving and ever ready to serve, she was loved by all the sisters. She spent most of her time in the workhouse, where she proved herself so well suited that everyone was glad to work alongside her. If she was next to someone who seemed not so strong, she often did much of the work for her, and then acted so kindly and friendly as if someone had done it all rather for her. No one ever heard her complain or grumble that she thought something was too much or anything of that sort. ...
But she was still young and had not visited much in the world, and the flesh and the devil and the world can prove very distracting from the good. She would probably have gladly been something in the world, which also distracts from a good will and a firm resolution. The result was that after she returned to the house she never again had the same love for this way of life. She became progressively sick in the body and declined from day to day until she finally died. 
We have said this to point out that we should be very careful and anxious about going often to spend time with our worldly friends, who have no taste for the things that belong to the spirit of God. We should not fall into a passion or displeasure if on occasion a superior denies us the right to go off somewhere to please our nature. They often perceive things unknown to us, and see that almost nothing is so harmful to us as frequent visits with our worldly friends, especially those who have sunk the roots of their hearts into the love of this world and hold nothing greater than temporal well-being. To go around much with such people... is nothing other than a kind of sweet poison or drink of death... and unworthy of the kingdom of God. ... For the spiritual things in which they should be enveloped have no taste for them, and that which would give them pleasure according to the flesh they cannot get. They are therefore like those who sit uncertainly between two tables and fail to get enough from either." [pp. 131-2]
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John Van Engen: Devotio Moderna, Basic Writings ; Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press, New York, 1988

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