SAINT AELRED January 12th. Patronal Feast of Nunraw Abbey
SAINT AELRED (The more familiar form of the name Aelred is Alfred. We are in changed days from the time St. Aelred had 500 monks at HIS MONASTERY OF Rievaulx - DAYS FOR PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS TO THIS SMALL COMMUNITY OF NUNRAW UNDER AELRED'S PATRONAGE).
This painting of St. Aelred reminds me of the former late Abbot of Pluscarden, Dom Alfred Spencer OSB(Subiaco).
He had this picture in the windowsill of his room when I was visiting him during his last illness. He recalled that as a Novice in Prinknash Abbey he wished to take the name of Aelred. Another monk already had that name so his Abbot suggested he take the name of Alfred as a substitute. Before parting Dom Alfred kindly gave me this picture which is now with Fr. Aelred at Nunraw.
Saint Aelred was born at Hexham in 1110. After studies at Hexham, Durham and perhaps Roxburgh, and further sound education at the Scottish Court where he was the steward and the confidant of King David, he entered the newly founded abbey of Rievaulx in Yorkshire. Aelred became novicemaster and afterwards abbot of Revesby, a daughter house of Rievaulx. He was then thirty-three years old, a normal age at which to become abbot in this fresh and flourishing period of a new order.
About 1147 Aelred was chosen abbot of Rievaulx. He died there on the twelfth of January 1167. Walter Daniel, Aelred's enthusiastic biographer, various friends together with Aelred's own writings bear witness that he was a good father, always setting a good example and a source of peace. He could see beneath men's foolish or thoughtless actions, he never seemed to have a grievance against anyone. Aelred used to say: 'It is the singular and supreme glory of the house of Rievaulx that above all else it teaches tolerance of the infirm and compassion with others in their necessities. All whether weak or strong should find in Rievaulx a haunt of peace, and there, like the fish in the broad seas, possess the welcome, happy, spacious peace of charity.'
At first sight a strange theory for an abbot who stood at the head of a severe Cistercian House. But it sheds light on Aelred's character and his affection for everyone of the brothers who lived within the cloister.
No wonder that Aelred's high estimation of love and affection in an ideal spiritual friendship was not always followed or rightly interpreted; by the older and infirm monks. He himself tells of monks being zealous in their malice, whispering in corners, murmuring against their abbot and spreading false reports about him. But the saintly abbot was indifferent to the opinions of these murmurers and indulgent to the feebleness of everyone. He demanded the same attitude of mind from his monks. 'My sons, say what you will, only let no vile word, no detraction of a brother proceed from your mouth.'
Aelred survived in the memory of Rievaulx's monks as the fine and prudent shepherd, as the abbot who loved peace and the salvation of the brethren and inward quiet.
The Mirror of Charity
The essence of St. Aelred's teaching is contained in his book The Mirror of Charity. This was written at the request or St. Bernard. Aelred was slow to comply saying that "he had not come from the schools but from the kitchens where subsisting peasant-like and, rustic amid cliffs and mountains you sweat with axe and maul for your daily bread..."
The following extract from the beginning of the Mirror of Charity illustrates the main theme of the book.
"Let your voice sound in my ears, good Jesus, so that my heart may learn how to love you, my mind how to know you the inmost being of my soul how to love you. Let the inmost core of my heart embrace you, my one and only true good, my dear and delightful joy. But, my God, what is love? Unless I am mistaken, love is a wonderful delight of the spirit: all the more attractive because more chaste; all the more gentle, because more guileless; and all the more enjoyable because more ample. It is the heart's palate which tastes that you are sweet, the heart's eye which sees that you are good. And it is the place capable of receiving you, great as you are. Someone who loves you grasps you. The more one loves the more one grasps, because you yourself are love, for you are charity."
"Meanwhile I shall seek you, O Lord:, seek you by loving you. Someone who advances on this way of love surely seeks you, and someone who loves you perfectly, O Lord, has already found you. And what is more equitable than that your creature should love you, since it is from you it received the ability to love? Creatures without reason or without sensation cannot love you; that is not their nature. Of course they also have their own nature, their beauty and their order, not that thereby they are or can be happy by loving you, but that thereby, thanks to you, by their own qualities they may help us to love you."
In his introduction St. Aelred gives us an interesting tip. He says that if the length of this book puts you off, look through the chapter headings and see which you would like to read, and which leave out. But the main thrust is easy to spot. The art of arts is the art of love.
"Those who love you, rest in you. There is true rest, true tranquility , true peace, true Sabbath for the mind."
