Beyond Death

These past few days I’ve been in Bruges, and in the rare moments when I wasn’t forced to weave through crowds of tourists, I felt as though I were suspended in time.

The strongest sense of this suspension came as I stood before the Hospital of St. John, founded around 1150, where the still waters reflect the building’s brick walls and the sky seems to lower itself just enough to brush the pointed rooftops.
To those looking from the outside, it appears as though it has risen directly from the water, like a kind of Ark frozen in time.

But this is neither an optical illusion nor an architectural accident: it was deliberately built next to the canal, with low foundations and openings at water level to allow for transport and resupply by boat, and to ensure a constant flow of fresh water.

Founded in the 12th century, the Hospital of St. John (Sint-Janshospitaal) is one of the oldest hospitals in Europe. But don’t imagine it as a hospital in the modern sense of the word!
It was more of a place of refuge: travelers, pilgrims, the poor, and the sick could find a roof over their heads, a hot meal, and a straw bed.
They could stay for one or two nights if they were just passing through. And the mentally ill, those society wanted to forget, found care, food, and understanding here. No one blamed them for their condition, and no one turned them away.
Because the central idea was this: illness is not a fault.
A revolutionary stance for an era we too often and too easily dismiss as “dark.”

This hospital did not operate “thanks to the government” (which, of course, didn’t exist at the time), but thanks to the generosity of the wealthy.
Yes, the rich! But those of the past, who had no qualms about directly funding hospitals, orphanages, churches, and shelters.
Their donations kept these institutions alive.

They did it, certainly, out of personal inclination, but above all out of a deep fear of God. To give, for them, meant to save one’s soul, because faith was not a private consolation but a passageway between the earthly world and immortality.

Today, religion, when it exists, is often reduced to a kind of private expiation chamber, a confessional for the self, where a simple sign of the cross is seen as enough to land straight in Heaven.
The sacred has been dismissed as a relic of another time.
But back then, it was alive… and shaped gestures, architecture, daily choices, and personal decisions.

And today?
Well… today we have billionaires who, when they decide to be charitable, create foundations named after themselves. They keep the money circulating inside controlled, tax-deductible circuits, useful mainly to bolster their image.
No real impact, no genuine sacrifice.
They’re celebrated as patrons, yet they don’t donate a cent to the public institutions that are falling apart.
And if they want to make headlines, they rent out the entire city of Venice for a wedding, paralyzing a living city for pure exhibitionism.
And to think that just one of their parties could fund a hospital for ten years.

Inside the Hospital of St. John, today, you walk beneath Gothic vaults, through austere halls and rooms still filled with the scent of medicinal herbs and candle wax.
But it’s not only that… there’s art, and plenty of it!

The complex houses the Memling Museum, which preserves some of the most moving works by the Flemish painter Hans Memling, who actually worked here.
His altarpieces, like the famous Shrine of St. Ursula, or the reliquary that holds her bones, were not merely decorative: they were spiritual tools, meant to comfort the sick, accompany the dying, and lift the soul where possible.

Art was not a luxury… it was a form of healing.

(And technically still could be, if we weren’t all so obsessed with looking cool for a few seconds on social media… okay, today I’m in a polemical mood.)
The cloister and the garden were part of the therapy.
Patients had access to a silent cloister and a medicinal herb garden, which served not only physical care, but contemplation and spiritual renewal.

But it was also a place where people died… in the grace of God.
Death was an integral part of hospital life: the institution offered spiritual accompaniment for the dying, and many of its artworks were designed to gently prepare them for the passage into the afterlife.

This place has also inspired many writers, artists, and modern pilgrims.
It’s not uncommon to find references in 19th- and 20th-century travel books or artists’ diaries to the evocative power of this place, which continues to inspire poets, painters, and visitors in search of silence and meaning.

Today, the Hospital of St. John is a museum, yet it still reminds us that the past was not necessarily more cruel than the present, but perhaps more aware of its own limits. And that hospitality, care, and beauty were not contradictions, but essential needs.
Within the complex, you can visit a perfectly preserved historic pharmacy, complete with original vials, albarelli, instruments, and cabinets.
Herbs and remedies were prepared on-site by skilled nuns.

Bruges preserves this place the way one preserves a relic.
And those who enter, if they listen carefully, can still hear the slow footsteps of pilgrims, the whispers of the nuns, and perhaps, with a little luck, a question that concerns us all:

What have we done, with all our wealth and knowledge?
How is it possible that, once upon a time, the wealthy built hospitals, and today they simply accumulate riches without ever touching those who truly need help?
We’ve become so focused on making money that we no longer see the suffering of others, it feels distant, inconvenient… almost unreal.

And so we remain angry, disillusioned, and justify it all with a shrug.

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