Beguines' Love of Scripture

Museum of Beguine's Room Beguinage Brugge Belgium







I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.(Psalm 119:11)

A Day Centered about Scripture
Each morning the women rise early and gather together to hear Scripture read. They are grateful for the opportunity to learn God’s Word. Individuals have no Bibles of their own at this time in history, but spiritual communities possess portions of Scripture that have newly been translated into Dutch, German and French. Few Beguines know Latin, so they are privileged to hear God’s Word in their native language.
After the morning chapel the women return to their rooms where they work with their hands throughout the day—sewing, spinning, and pressing linen (see above photo). All the while they repeat the morning’s passage in their minds. As they labor in silence, they meditate on the Bible reading, savoring God’s Word in their hearts. They reflect on the portion of Scripture and seek how it relates to their lives. Their whole day will focus on this passage. The opportunity to learn Scripture and soak in it throughout the day is one of the main reasons that these women joined the Beguines.

Midday they proceed to the cupboard in the corner of their room (see photo). The top third holds the dishes they brought from home, and the bottom section serves as a pantry. The middle opens into a table where they eat alone as they reflect on the day’s Scripture. Praying the passage back to the Lord, they apply it to their own life in order to be transformed by its truth.
Throughout the afternoon the women continue to work alone and then gather again in the evening for a closing chapel service for the day. Afterwards, they take time to enjoy each other’s company and share what they have learned from God’s Word throughout the day. The Beguines appreciate the fellowship they are privileged to have in Christian community.

Our Lives
Like the Beguines of long ago, let us value the tremendous opportunity we have of hearing the Bible in our own language. In appreciation, let us savor Scripture and allow it to permeate our hearts and minds throughout the day. May we soak in God’s Word, treasure our time with the Lord and be transformed by his truth and presence in our lives.

©2008 Glenn Myers
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Love Takes Risk

Beguinage Brugge, Belgium














Although ardent desire permeates the pages of Scriptures, it often startles us when we first experience it. We are not sure what to do with such intense inner emotions. Often to experience such powerful inner longing is painful, and we are afraid of being overwhelmed.

If we are truly to experience the Lord’s love for us, we must learn to let go of control. Not only is love a powerful force, but when we are in love with God Almighty, we cannot be the ones in charge. Much of our contemporary spirituality that seeks to place God—and our relationship with him—into a neat, orderly box is merely a fantasy of our own making. Vibrant, living relationship does not fit into quick quiet times. Moreover, any “god” contained by our boxes and controlled by our expectations is not the God of Scripture who rides on the winds of the storm and in whose presence the mountains shake to their very foundation (Psalm 18).

The Beguines were not willing to settle for such tame spirituality or such a shadow of relationship with the true God. They wanted to encounter the Creator of the universe and were willing to be overwhelmed by his divine presence in prayer.

Afraid of Disappointment
Another reason we are afraid to tap into our subterranean desires is that we know we might be disappointed. Will we be hurt if we expose our hearts? What if our longing for love is not fulfilled? What if we surrender our hearts to such intense longing for Jesus only to find that we cannot truly experience an intimately relationship with him as we had hoped?

Love requires risk. When we open ourselves to be loved, it also leaves us exposed to hurt, and most of us avoid such a position of weakness. True relationship makes us vulnerable because relationships are never static. They ebb and flow, and our emotions are bound to go up and down. Even a relationship with the Lord has highs and lows as we see throughout the Psalms. The Lord never forsakes us, but at times we cannot experience him as we would like. Other times he surprises us with his manifest presence. Vital Christianity entails risk, and take that risk, we must!

Here again the Beguines provide wisdom and insight. Another of these devout women of the thirteenth century named Hadewijch wrote a letter encouraging one of the young women who looked to her as a mentor:

"O beloved, why has not Love sufficiently overwhelmed you and engulfed you in her abyss? Alas! when Love is so sweet, why do you not fall deep into her? And why do you not touch God deeply enough in the abyss of his Nature, which is so unfathomable? Sweet love, give yourself for Love’s sake full to God in love" (p. 56).

Hadewijch was aware that we can be hurt or disappointed even in our love relationship with the Lord. Because it is truly a love affair with another Person, we are vulnerable. As a result, some people who lack courage fear that cost will to too high and therefore withdraw from Love. In doing so, however, they lose all the good that they would have gained from opening their hearts to the Lord, asserted Hadewijch.

Therefore, we need to take courage: we must take the risk of opening up to the Lord. In one of her poems Hadewijch challenged us as her readers to “take the adventure”! Although our hearts might temporarily feel hurt at times, in the long run we will discover God’s great faithfulness to us. If we persevere, we will experience the fidelity of divine love.

"He who wishes thus to progress in love
Must not fear expense, or harm,
Or pain; but faithfully confront
The strictest commands of Love . . .
In all her comings and in all her goings:
Anyone who behaved thus, relying on Loves’ fidelity,
Would stand to the end, having become all love in Love" (p. 218).


Personal Reflection: Tap into Our Longing
Let us not settle for bland devotion or some tame religion. Rather, like these women of old, let our spiritual formation throb with longing for the Lord and pulsate with passion for an intimate relationship with the personal Creator of the universe. Willing to release control, let us pursue the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and body—not satisfied with anything less than the adventure of being in love with Almighty God!

Hadewijch’s powerful writings can be found in Hadewijch: The Complete Works, translated by Mother Columba Hart, in The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1980).

2009 © Glenn E. Myers

Longing for the Bridegroom

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is not water. (Psalm 63:1)

As we passionately pursue Jesus, we begin to realize how powerful a force that yearning is within us. Longing for the Lord can be intense. Throughout his life King David passionately pursued the Lord. David tells us in Psalm 63 that not only his heart, but his whole body ached for God’s presence. Likewise David compares his intense longing for the Lord to the way that a thirsty deer gasps desperately for water in the heat of the Judean desert. “As the deer pants for streams of water,” he cries out in Psalm 42, “so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”

Many of the Beguines experienced the same overwhelming desire that David describes in the Psalms. These godly women in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries abandoned themselves to the Lord and longed for him with their whole heart, soul and body.

Intense Love
Because we have the writings of some of these Beguines, we can learn from their intense desire for Christ. Not satisfied with brief daily devotions, as so many Christians settle for in our day, these women sought the Lord in intense prayer. Their spiritual formation was constantly fueled by a burning love for Jesus and a yearning to draw closer to him. Mechthild of Magdeburg expressed to the Lord her inner longing:

Jesus, dearest Lover of mine, let me approach you . . . with deep love for you in my heart, and never let me grow cold, so that I constantly feel your love in my heart and in my soul and in my five senses and in all my members. Then I can never grow cold.

Like David in Psalm 63, Mechthild longed for the Lord with her whole being. Her body literally ached for the Almighty in her life and her physical senses craved his divine touch. Such a spiritual fire characterized the women of the medieval spiritual revival and can be found throughout their writings.

Mechthild’s ardent yearning for the Lord ignited a fire in her heart. Her desire for the Lord was intense and indeed all-consuming. Mechthild cried aloud in her longing for the Lord’s intimate love which is so sweet and wonderful that she said no one could begin to explain “even half of the intensity of my longing and the pain of my suffering and my heart’s pursuit and my soul’s striving for [you], to hang inseparably in your embrace forever.”

Personal Reflection
At times we all ache deeply inside. Instead of trying to ignore that ache or numb it with food, medication or busyness, we need to realize that we are ultimately craving more of God. When we do so, we can begin to allow the Lord to fill all the empty places in our hearts.

2009 © Glenn E. Myers

Passionately Pursuing Jesus

The Beguines formed communities out of a passionate desire to seek an intimate relationship with Christ. Desire is central to spiritual growth. It is our source of energy and the fire that empowers our whole pursuit of God. Our inner yearning provides direction for all that we do in life. What we desire is perhaps the most important thing about us.

In her book, Flowing Light of the Godhead, Mechthild of Magdeburg articulated this passionate desire for Jesus With a cry of her heart Mechthild expressed her longing for the Lord’s intimate love:

O Lord, if it could ever happen to me that I might gaze upon you as my heart desires and hold you in my arms, then the divine pleasures of your love would needs permeate my soul to the degree possible for people on earth. What I would be willing to suffer thereafter has never been seen by human eyes. Indeed, a thousand deaths were too little. Such, Lord, is my painful longing for you!

This burning love for the Lord characterized all of the early Beguines. They loved the Lord intensely and dedicated their whole life to desiring him. They pursued Christ by memorizing and meditating on Scripture, living a holy lifestyle, and practicing intense personal prayer that focused on an intimate relationship with Jesus. They also grew in the Lord through community fellowship and serving the needy around them.

The medieval Beguines are a wonderful model of spiritual desire for contemporary Christians. Their passion for the Lord, their pursuit of spiritual intimacy and their determination not to allow anything to distract them from that pursuit are wonderful examples for us today.

Desire for the Lord
We were designed to desire God above all else and to pursue him with our whole being. We were fashioned to love the Lord with our heart, soul and body, and to enjoy intimate fellowship with him forever. David expresses his undivided focus on the Lord in Psalm 27:4,

One thing I ask of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple. (NIV)

Personal Reflection
How can we uncover the deep yearning for the Lord inside of us? How can we nurture the same desire for Christ that we see in these women from an era long ago?

First, we need to acknowledge the distracted state of our inner lives. Taking an honest look at our disordered desires, we need to face the many things that pull on our affections and clamor for our attention. To begin the process, it is helpful to examine where our time goes. If we do this honestly, we will recognize how disordered our priorities—and disoriented our hearts—are. As we recognize our twisted wants and wishes, we can begin to surrender them to the Lord one by one. Some things we crave may be good, in and of themselves, but they must take a proper place in our lives. Others may in fact be idols that we need to discard and renounce.

Second, we must tap into the deep desires of our heart. If Christ truly lives within us, then our most profound longings are for him. Accessing our true desires, however, is often more difficult than it may sound. We will need to take time apart from all the pressures, responsibilities and people around us in order to attend to the matters of our soul. Most likely we will need to cultivate greater solitude and silence in our lives if we are to provide an environment in which our hearts will open up. If we do, we will begin to discover that the Lord truly is our genuine desire. Like the Beguines of old, we will realize how much we long for him and how much we want to grow in an intimate relationship with him.

The Beguines recognized that an intimate love relationship with the Lord is available to all believers, not just to a special few spiritual Christians. My prayer is that we would become like David in the Psalms and the Beguines of the High Middle Ages who longed for only one thing. Let us burn with desire for the Lord so that nothing else matters!

2009 © Glenn E. Myers

Seven Manners of Holy Love

Beatrice of Nazareth is often associated with the Beguines. Her mother died when she was six years old and she spend a year living with the Beguines and receiving her early education from them.

Only one section of Beatrice’s original writings have survived—a booklet on our love relationship with Jesus entitled Seven Manners of Holy Love. Here she describes seven ways we experience being in love with the Lord. Although we grow from one step to the next, we never completely leave behind our earlier expressions of love.

The first manner or mode is longing love—we simply long for the Lord and cannot get enough of him. Beatrice notes that love is the foundation of our whole relationship with God, not fear. When we truly love the Lord, we find it easy to give up shallow worldly pleasures in order to have him.

The second expression of love is service. Because we truly love the Lord, we want to do anything we can for him. Although we still long to experience his sweet presence, we shift our focus from ourselves to Jesus. If we are maturing as believers, we concentrate less own feelings and more on how we can serve the One we love.

Try as we might, however, we can never serve Christ enough. Thus, the third experience of love is one of frustration. We do all the ministry we can, but we never feel like we have done enough. Indeed, as Beatrice notes, we never will be able to fully express our gratitude for our salvation—so we feel tormented inside.

Eventually that frustration gives way to a fresh experience of Jesus’ love for us. Thus, the forth mode is overwhelming love. This is a wonderful season of life! We feel ourselves wrapped in our Savior’s arms and loved by him.

We can never seem to get enough of that love, however, and eventually we enter into frenzied love . Here we crave more and more encounters with the Lord, says Beatrice. We are overpowered by our passionate desire for the Lord, and sometimes we feel like we are going crazy.

In time our frenzy gives way to the deep, new settled love of Beatrice’s sixth mode: bridal intimacy. This profound love is what we have been hoping for in our whole relationship with Jesus. As the New Testament describes Christ as the Bridegroom and the church as his bride, we experience this on a personal level.

In this lifetime, however, we will never experience the fullness that awaits us. Thus, mode seven is a return to the longing love. Our relationship begins with desire and will continue with desire, so long as we are on this earth. That longing is good, though, because it keeps us growing deeper and deeper in our love for the Lord.

Personal Reflection
Just as human relationships go through stages—described in many books in our day—so our relationship with Jesus follows a similar path. Indeed, if our relationship with the Lord is truly personal, it will of necessity bear some of the same dynamics as our closest human relationships.

Beatrice’s analysis of our love relationship with Christ is insightful. Most readers identify with several, if not most, of her stages. While we may not all experience the same intensity as Beatrice describes, many readers have found comfort, reassurance and fresh hope from Beatrice’s wisdom.

To learn more about Beatrice and to read her original work, see The Life of Beatrice of Nazareth, 1200-1268, translated by Roger DeGanck (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991).

2009 © Glenn E. Myers

Beguines: Forming Christian Communities

Across Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and northern France, laywomen came into a personal relationship with Jesus during the late Middle Ages. In order to grow spiritually, they formed households where they could have fellowship with likeminded sisters in Christ. At first the Beguines purchased large houses where half a dozen or a dozen women could live together as a spiritual community. Just after the year 1230, however, Countess Johanna of Flanders, and other nobility made sizeable donations of land and money, allowing the women to establish large Beguine complexes. The Beguine movement exploded.

Known as beguinages, in French, and Begijnhoven, in Dutch, these communities consisted of scores of quaint townhomes built around an open square the size of several football fields placed side-by-side. The open space provided gardens for the women and, in due time, also housed a church building for the Beguines. To provide safety for all the women, a large wall surrounded the entire complex.

In Belgium alone, ten thousand women joined Beguine complexes in the next half century! Most beguinages held several hundred women, but three of them grew to enormous size: Ghent housed 700 Beguines, Liège 1000, and Mechelen eventually holding some 1900 Beguines!

While only a few Beguines still live in Belgium today, more than a dozen of these complexes are preserved as historical sites today.

Personal Reflection
These medieval women were remarkable in their initiative to form Christian households. Forming such lay communities was virtually unheard of in their day, but that did not keep the Beguines from starting something new. They were determined to have fellowship with likeminded believers and in doing so started a whole movement that lasted strong into the nineteenth century.

We today need to have that same determination in establishing spiritual friendships that will help us grow. It might be meeting with another person one-one-one each week, or it might entail beginning a small group. For some, it could be the establishment of a full-blown community like the Beguines.

An excellent book describing the Beguine movement in Belgium is Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200 – 1565 (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).

2009 © Glenn E. Myers

Beguines Tending those in Need

The sun shines on the Belgian countryside as Mary recites her vows to the young man named John. Mary comes from a well-to-do family in the town of Nivelles, and, as most marriages in her day, Mary’s has been arranged by her parents. The year is 1190, and Mary is fourteen years old.

Because John’s family is also wealthy, the couple lives comfortably, and the first several years of their life together are unremarkable. All of this changes dramatically, however, when Mary makes a radical response to the gospel. Unwilling to settle for the complacent Christianity of her day, she recognizes the need for a personal response to Jesus’ invitation. Upon committing her life wholeheartedly to God’s service, Mary convinces John to join her in the venture and they give all of their possessions to the poor. They take an extraordinary step of faith as they lay aside their life of privilege to pursue a life of prayer and service to others. Rather than moving apart from each other to enter separate convents, as is the custom for godly couples in the Middle Ages, Mary and John remain together and devote themselves to seeking the Lord and serving the infirm.

They move some thirty miles to the town of Williambroux and consecrate the next fifteen years to serve a group of lepers. Their days revolve around the tasks of feeding and washing the ill. The stench of decaying flesh fills John and Mary’s nostrils as they bandage open sores. Far from the affluence they have known, their lives center about menial chores and the constant danger of contracting leprosy, yet the couple is content to serve Christ by salving the neediest of the needy.

Because John and Mary give away their inheritance to provide for the poor and sick, they assume the task of supporting themselves while they serve the infirm. They subsist on the meager wages they can earn working with their hands. After a day attending to lepers, Mary often stays up half the night to spin and sew, making enough income to provide them with the basic necessities of food and clothes. In addition she goes door-to-door raising funds for their ministry, seeking donations from middleclass and affluent people in town, suffering the humiliation of being called a beggar.


News travels throughout the region of Mary’s commitment to Christ, her deep Christian walk, and her passion to grow in the Lord. As word spreads, women begin to migrate to the leper hospital to join the work and to be mentored by Mary. In addition to caring for the physical needs of the lepers, she provides spiritually for those who joined her group. Proving to be a wonderful spiritual director, Mary often receives words from the Lord for those who seek counsel from her, and her sanctified life serves as a model for all to see.

Mary’s group develops into one of the first Beguine centers in Belgium. Several other towns in Belgium also see groups form, often around a lead figure like Mary. One of these groups forms in the nearby town of Leuven as women establish an infirmary for those who are ill. Hospitals are virtually nonexistent at this time, so tending the sick is left into the hands of well-meaning Christians who dedicate their lives to serving others.

Today much of the Beguine complex in Leuven still stands as part of the university there. The original infirmary/hospital from the early 1200 serves as the faculty dining hall!

Personal Reflection
One of the things that impresses me most about the Beguines is that they kept personal spiritual growth together with service to others. So often we choose one or the other. Either we pull apart for deep personal growth or we become so active serving others that we neglect our inner spiritual life. The Beguines in general, and Mary of Oignies in particular, kept love of God and love of neighbor together in a beautiful way. They serve as wonderful examples to the to twenty-first century church!

You can read about Mary, her profound commitment to service and her deep prayer life in James of Vitry, The Life of Mary of Oignies, in Two Lives of Marie d’Oignies, translated by Margot King (Toronto, Ontario: Peregrina Publishing, 2002).

2009 © Glenn E. Myers

Believers Called Beguines

The setting is twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe. It is the era of chivalry, and tens of thousands of men have gone on the Crusades. Although everyone in Christendom is part of the church, medieval Europe has been spiritually dry for hundreds of years.

In this state of affairs, the first flames of revival spread as itinerant preachers proclaim the gospel and call nominal Christians into a personal relationship with Christ. The spiritual climate changes rapidly as hundreds and then thousands of laypeople repented of a worldly lifestyle and committed themselves to Jesus.

In order to grow, many of these vibrant believers form new Christian communities to cultivate their faith and provide meaningful spiritual fellowship. After coming to Christ they are profoundly in love with Jesus, and they long to know him better. Thirsty for more than church membership or religious ceremony, they seek to nurture intimacy with the Lord by living with likeminded followers of Christ.

In particular, middleclass women across Belgium, the Netherlands, northern France and Germany pool their resources to buy houses where they can live in community. Known as Beguines, these laywomen pulsate with spiritual vitality in their pursuit of inner growth. The households they establish provide these women with friendships and a safe place to live and work.

In addition, they form communities to learn God’s Word. When the Beguine Movement begins, few resources are available for spiritual formation outside of such a community. Only portions of the Bible are accessible in the local language (for them, medieval Dutch and German); families and individuals seldom own a copy. Local priests give few sermons and are often known for their immorality rather than a life of godliness. Devotional materials are nonexistent except in Latin—in fact, some of the very first writings in German and Dutch are spiritual formation manuals written by the Beguines. Therefore, these godly women gather each morning and evening to hear Scripture read. The Beguines then meditate on passages throughout the day as they work at sewing and spinning.
One of the early Beguines, Mechthild of Magdeburg, expresses her deep, personal love for Jesus, “I delight in loving him who loves me, and I long to love him to the death, boundlessly, and without ceasing.” Mechthild then exhorted us, the readers, to pursue the Lord in the same way: “Love him so fiercely that you could die for him. Thus you burn ever more without ever being extinguished as a living flame in the vast fire of high majesty.”[1]

That is the invitation of the Beguines—to love Jesus so fiercely that we are on fire for him and that we would be willing to die for him. These women were radical believers in their day, and they summon us to genuine faith and deep communion with the Lord today.

Personal Reflection
As an evangelical, reading about the Beguines is so interesting and so encouraging. We are not the first Christians to emphasize conversion and to nurture a personal relationship with Jesus. These women were so radical in their commitment to Christ and their cultivation of an intimate relationship with him!

For further reading about Mechthild’s deep desire for the Lord, see Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, translated by Frank Tobin, in The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1998), 134.

[1] Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. Frank Tobin, in The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1998), 53.

2009 © Glenn E. Myers