Meanwhile the bereaved mother had discovered the place of John's retreat and had quitted her village of Ruysbroeck to reside with him at Brussels. As, however, she was not permitted to dwell in the Presbytery, she made her abode in a _Béguinage_ hard by. Thus she had at least the consolation of seeing her son from time to time. She must have been much comforted also for the deprivation of his company by the constant evidence of his growing sanctity. And, further, we are assured that she set herself to make profit of her sacrifice by emulating in her own person the holy life of her son John, and his saintly masters, Hinckaert and van Coudenberg. II As a Secular Priest in Brussels In due course Canon Hinckaert procured for his nephew one of the lesser prebends of St. Gudule's, and John was ordained priest in the year 1317, at the age of twenty-four. His good mother did not survive to witness this happy event in the flesh, nevertheless even beyond the grave she had good cause to rejoice therein. After her departure from this world she had often appeared to her son, lamenting her pains, beseeching his prayers, and sighing for the day when he would be able to offer for her the holy Sacrifice. And John was unceasing in his supplications. But immediately after the celebration of his first Mass, as he related to his Religious Brethren later, God granted him a vision full of consolation: when the sacred oblation was accomplished, his mother came to visit and thank him for her deliverance from Purgatory. The touching incident is well worth recording, if only to show that it was through no lack of natural affection that the child John had so unceremoniously forsaken home and mother. Moreover, of these two holy souls it was singularly true that _having loved each other in life, in death they were not parted_, for they were privileged often to converse together, and finally it was from his mother that Ruysbroeck learned the date of his own approaching departure. For twenty-six years in all Blessed John lived as a secular priest in Brussels. Content with his modest chaplaincy in the Church of St. Gudule, and with his holy companions Hinckaert and van Coudenberg continuing happily in apostolic simplicity and poverty the Common Life on which he had entered a mere child, Ruysbroeck passed his days in peaceful retirement and almost uninterrupted prayer and contemplation. A characteristic episode of this period reveals to us the man as in a flash, his mean garb, his emaciated figure, his absorbed demeanour, his utter abandonment in God. He was passing through a square of Brussels one day, silent and recollected, as was his wont, when two laymen remarked him. "My God," exclaimed one, "would I were as holy as that priest!" "Nay, for my part," returned the other, "I would not be in his shoes for all the wealth of the world. I should never know a day's pleasure on earth."