May the Lover “Submerge You”!
[“May God make known to you, . . .who he is and how he deals with his servants, and especially with his handmaids—and may he submerge you in him. Where the abyss of his wisdom is, he will teach you what he is, and with what wondrous sweetness the loved one and the Beloved dwell one in the other, and how they penetrate each other in such a way that neither of the two distinguishes himself from the other. But they abide in one another in fruition (enjoyment), mouth in mouth, heart in heart, body in body, and soul in soul, while one sweet divine Nature flows through them both (II Peter 1:4), and they are both one thing through each other, but at the same time remain two different selves—yes, and remain so forever” (Hadewijch of Brabant [c. 1200-50; Beguine], Letter #9).]
[“ . . . so that by (God’s promises) you become partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4).]
O Lover,
It was a decade ago when I was first skewered by the above citation from a letter Hadewijch wrote in Middle Dutch to a youthful directee. Recently I refound the quote, now with a bit more awareness as to its wisdom. And so T. S. Eliot’s ever-expanding cycle—“the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started [but] know the place for the first time”—continues.
As I glimpsed a decade ago, Hadewijch’s images for the longing with which You have seeded us beloveds are stunning, filling and then overspilling the spirituality categories available. On the one hand, the desire for union with You waxes kataphátic (“with images“) depicted in language which is relational, intimate, and amorous. On the other hand, the larger body of her writings has her repeatedly overflowing far out beyond these same images into what we call the apophátic (“sans images” [ineffability]). Yet in both modes Hadewijch finds herself “panting for You” (a la Ps 42:1) and praying that You will “submerge” in Your Self her reader.
Moreover, Hadewijch’s quote beautifully lays bare the relationship of the human person with You, O Lover. Indeed, her’s is a historically groundbreaking representation regarding Unítas Déi. A decade ago I tended to view personal identity retention and fusion of the true self with You as alternatives to be debated and chosen between, with my vote leaning toward the latter. Now all that I am absorbing about You who are Love Itself augurs for “betweenness” as intrinsic to Your loving relationality even as union unfolds at the deepest center. In other words, all with which I am here grappling is profoundly paradoxical repeatedly moving beyond either/or impasses. In a way my heart longs for even while my intellect balks at, the perennial thirst of the truer self for both merger and the retention of personal identity is being unfolded together by Your Spirit. Hadewijch thus beautifully navigates through and beyond the dangerous shoals of a dualistic take on indistinctiónis (fusion)versus distinctiónis (retention of personal identity). That this 13th C woman, sequestered within the genderal and educative confines of her time, would have been among the first to allude to this paradoxical truth may be as close to a miracle as I am liable to experience.
Finally, what Hadewijch shows me in her holding together of fusion and identity retention is that at the core depth there is an “uncreated something” (Eckhart) in both my neighbor and my true self which is inextricable from You, O Lover. For example, in all of the Synoptic texts of the Great Commandment the second part involves loving “your neighbor as yourself” (Mk 12:31; Mt 22:39; Lk 10:27). This has generally been understood as referring to loving our neighbor “like,” ‘similar to,” or “equal to” how we love ourselves. But each text can also be translated to mean that the neighbor whom I am invited to love IS my very self! Eckhart writes that there is that of the Grunt of both my neighbor and my deepest self which is indistinguishable from the Abyss who is You. Not entirely unlike the triune image of Your interiority depicted as both encompassing wholeness and pulsing relationally, all creatures, whether neighbor, enemy, or myself, are You at the center. In a manner bold, inexplicable, and harbinger-like, Hadewijch at least partially glimpsed ubiquitous reciprocal interpenetration of You, O Creator, with the creation, a delicious entanglement which might be called pan-én-theistic.
This Beguine’s shorthand to her mentee for all of the above? May the Lover “submerge you”!
