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Denys à Ryckel, better known as Denys the Carthusian, was born in the year 1402 at Ryckel, a village near St. Troud,
in the Bishopric of Liège. In his twenty-first year he entered the Carthusian Order at Roermond in Holland, and there died
in the year 1471 at the age of sixty-nine.
By scholastic writers he has been given the title of Doctor Ecstaticus
(the
Ecstatic Doctor), both from his frequently having been rapt in ecstasy, as well as from the depth and sublimity of his valuable
writings on the contemplative life.
He is also, probably, the most prolific of ecclesiastical authors. His
entire
works, as recently re-edited, fill no less than forty-two stout
quarto volumes, forming in themselves an almost complete
ecclesiastical library.
The following Exercise of the Purgative Way is taken from the fortieth
volume. It is here
printed in the hope that it may prove helpful, not only to those who have been lately turned to God's service, but also to
devout souls who wish to nurture their spirit of compunction, so necessary to real progress in the spiritual life, for as
the Imitation says: "Give thyself to compunction of heart and thou shalt find devotion."
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Carthusian Reflections
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