By Angela Swierczynski
In 1623, Our Lady of Consolation was founded in Cambrai, France. Shortly after the monastery’s establishment, Augustine Baker arrived as an official spiritual mentor to the convent. Baker provided a basic three-step outline for the nuns to achieve passive contemplation, referred to as mystic union. Baker’s teachings influenced the process of spiritual reading and writing at Cambrai, and extant works from the convent in turn demonstrate how his philosophy impacted the cloister’s devotional writings.
Under Baker’s model, the first step toward mystic union was reading spiritual texts written by the great mystics. The nuns and monks would spend several hours each day immersed in religious texts, in silence. In order to move on to the next step, they would familiarize themselves with a wide array of their readings. The second step toward mystic union was active contemplation. The nuns and monks would use their spiritual readings as a guide for everyday life and writing. While reading was emphasized at the monastery, it was not encouraged after reaching this second step in order to avoid reading for pleasure. The third and final step to achieve mystic union with the divine was passive contemplation. This phase involved using the previous steps to show how “God was to be contemplated ‘aboue all images and formes’” (Wolfe, “Reading Bells” 140). This method of mystic union took years of practice and dedication. Baker himself did not achieve mystic union; however, he encouraged nuns and monks to aim for passive contemplation out of a belief that it represented the pinnacle of contemplative experience.
As the Cambrai nuns followed this program, they produced many texts that reflected on their own contemplative experiences and, in turn, became incorporated into the house’s library for other nuns to read and imitate. Barbara Constable (professed 1640, d. 1684) created spiritual miscellanies and transcribed Baker’s texts in order to support his practices, both within and outside of the convent. Constable professed at Cambrai after Baker’s departure, yet she acknowledged his importance to the convent by transcribing at least seventeen copies of his treatises (Wolfe, “Barbara Constable” 166). In addition, Constable assembled citations from a wide variety of spiritual authors in composing her own miscellanies. Because she could read Latin, French, and English, she had the necessary skills to make a variety of texts accessible to the other nuns. Giving the rest of the convent more access to books helped them in their process to mystic union by providing them with material for their meditations or spiritual readings. Constable formatted her miscellanies in ways that were similar to printed books, revealing that she hoped to spread Baker’s doctrines outside of the convent: “The physical layout of her manuscripts reflects her intention to reach Catholics beyond the walls of her community” (Wolfe, “Dame Barbara” 168). Her writings thus defended Baker’s teachings by offering material for contemplative meditation and by seeking to disseminate Baker’s ideas.
Margaret Gascoigne (professed 1629, d. 1637), another Cambrai Benedictine, uses the genre of spiritual meditation in her Devotions, which Baker edited after her death. In addition to reading the texts provided by Baker with close attention, Gascoigne shows her active and passive contemplations by providing her own interpretations of Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Divine Love. In her writings, “Gascoigne echoes and elaborates on God’s commands in ways that reflect her increasing turn away from worldly concerns” (Goodrich 110). She applied Julian of Norwich’s writings to her own experience with God, and elevated this line of thinking above anything else. Her writing thus shows how she followed Baker’s steps to achieve mystic union. After her death, Gascoigne’s Devotions became influential within the English convents at Cambrai and Paris, shaping the spirituality of other nuns well into the nineteenth century (Goodrich).
Like Constable and Gascoigne, Gertrude More composed works that were strongly influenced by Baker’s teachings. In particular, her poetry provides an example of passive contemplation by quoting spiritual readings and using them as a guide for everyday devotional life. In “Amor Ordinem Nescit,” More writes, “And henceforth let me draw no breath, / But to aspire my love / To thee, my God and all my good, / By whom I live and move” (l. 41-44). Here More quotes Acts of the Apostles 17:28, “For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring.” In writing about living and moving by God, More explains how God is her life force not only in this moment, but throughout her life. More also changes the perspective from “we” to “I,” privileging an individual relationship with God and thus reflects on her ability to achieve a personal union with God.
Later in this poem More writes, “Thou wilt not sinners’ death, / But that we do convert and live / Even while our souls have breath” (l. 238-240). In this moment, More quotes Ezekiel 33:11, “Say to them: As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways: and why will you die, O house of Israel?” She writes about God not wanting the wicked to die, but to want them to convert and live. Here, God reminds her that even if she has sin, he would rather have her alive and converted than sinful and dead. More incorporates this as a basis for meditation by exploring this quote through her own interpretation. Throughout her poetry, More uses biblical quotations to demonstrate how she not only participated in spiritual readings, but also how she formed her way of thinking around them using Baker’s three-part method.
Baker’s three-step process to mystic union helped the Cambrai nuns to meditate on spiritual readings and interact with them in their own writings. The Cambrai nuns in turn transcribed and transmitted his work outside the Convent, including to their Paris filiation, so that other monasteries could potentially benefit from reaching mystic union. More, Gascoigne, and Constable all recognized the importance of reading and writing for achieving mystical oneness with God, and their works reveal that the Cambrai nuns extended Baker’s teachings by creating devotional works that reflected and encouraged passive contemplation.
Works Cited
Goodrich, Jaime. “‘Attend to Me’: Julian of Norwich, Margaret Gascoigne and Textual Circulation among the Cambrai Benedictines.” Textual Circulation among the Cambrai Benedictines, pp. 105-21. Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2017.
Wolfe, Heather. “Dame Barbara Constable.” Catholic Culture in Early Modern England, eds. Ronald Corthell, Frances E. Dolan, Christopher Highley, and Arthur F. Marotti, pp. 158-188. University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.
—. “Reading Bells and Loose Papers: Reading and Writing Practices of the English Benedictine Nuns of Cambrai and Paris.” Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing: Selected Papers from the Trinity/Trent Colloquium, eds. Jonathan Gibson and Victoria E. Burke, pp. 135-156. Routledge, 2004.