Life of Blessed Henry Suso by Himself

Introductory.

THERE was a Friar Preacher in Germany, by birth a Swabian,—may his name be written in the Book of the Living!—whose desire was to become and to be called a Servitor of the Eternal Wisdom. Now it happened that he became acquainted with a holy and illuminated person, who was in poverty and suffering as regards this world. This poor sufferer was a woman; and she used to beseech the Servitor to tell her something about suffering from his own experience, that her suffering heart might gather strength from it. And she acted thus towards him for a long time. When he came to see her, she drew from him by confidential questionings the manner of his beginning and progress in the interior life, as well as certain exercises and sufferings which he had passed through: all which he told her in spiritual confidence. As she found comfort and direction in these things, she wrote them down, to be a help for herself and others; and she did this by stealth, so that he knew not of it. Later on, when he found out this ghostly theft, he reproved her for it, and, forcing her to give up to him the writing, he burnt all of it that was there. When, however, the rest of it was given to him, and he was going to treat it in like manner, he was stopped by a heavenly message from God forbidding it. Thus what follows remained unburnt, for the most part just as she had written it with her own hand. Many good instructions were also added to it by him, after her death, in her name.