EUROPE : BELGIUM: RIP PHIL BOSMANS AUTHOR









KNA REPORT: The Belgian religious and Author Phil Bosmans has died. By Christoph Arens (KNA)

Brussels (kath.net/KNA) his books are vitamins for your heart: light, goodness, love - this simple basic melody runs through the lyrics of the Flemish religious man and Author Phil Bosmans, who died on Tuesday in a Belgian hospital at the age of 89.

About ten million times, his books - without large marketing strategy - have been sold worldwide in the 1980s. The classic scored countless editions and about one million copies sold only in Germany entitled «Do not forget the joy».

The religious born 1922 in Gruitrode in the Belgian province of Limburg, has made courage to life not only Christians. He turned to people who «have a heart under her jacket» with titles such as «Love does daily wonders» or «Flowers of happiness you yourself have to plant» Ruling have transported messages «in tangible portions», a lecturer once described a further success of the author.

Bosmans was ethnic missionary. A graduate of a school in 1941, he entered the order of when Grignion de Montfort, and was ordained a priest in 1948. He went to the workers of Northern France, to people who do anything did with the traditional language of the Church and with citizenship.

From 1950 he participated in the Mission in Belgium, moved with a mobile chapel on land, gave sermons and meetings, found time for home visits.

1954 then the great exhaustion: Bosmans suffered a breakdown, kept the bed for two years. The doctors wrote him off. But in 1957 he was sufficiently recovered that he could go to a task, which would become his life's work: after a model in the Netherlands, while the took in Antwerp built the «Federal Government without a name"up - a political movement, which wants to revive the love for God and neighbour in everyday life through Word and deed.

The took became the master of spell cards, brought aphorisms and texts, the trademark for a counseling from the spirit of the Gospel. It began with radio speeches and «Lever cards» - printed aphorisms that give a boost to life as a mental lever.

The religious achieved particular notoriety but by the «"Vitamins for your heart": after ruling over a decade had operated a kind phone mission, a selection of texts in book form was published.» It was a bestseller.

But ruling was not only a master of the word: he founded the first social stop in Belgium for ex-offenders and the unemployed without support, then a House for homeless women. In Germany, a German-language «bunch without a name"came out in 1988 the organisation «Friends create friends».

1994 then a stroke of fate: due to a stroke, ruling was since then on the right side paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. «God has crossed out my schedule», he commented on his disability that him but not bitter.

He lived in the following years in a small room at the Montfortaner monastery in the Belgian Kontich. It was full of clown representations that Bosmans loved so much.

The Author had continued writing almost entirely in the past few years. However, further unpublished texts were published by him. His works have been translated into 26 languages, he was awarded numerous prizes and awards.

Last week the 89-Jährige was recorded with a severe bronchitis and fever in the Saint Joseph Hospital in the Belgian Mortsel. Soon, it became clear that his condition was irreversible. In the Tuesday editions of Belgian newspapers, it was reading that would be expected at any time to leave.

«My last word: gratitude» means the movement, with the ruling itself by the public adopted. All in the spirit of his decades-long career.
SOURCE: http://kath.net/detail.php?id=34804

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