St Aelred of Rievaulx, 12 January, 2nd Patron of Sancta Maria Abbey, Nunraw

Solemnity. Community Sermon.

Archive: aptly named, Visual Theology.  

St Aelred of Rievaulx: celebrating 900 years
http://visualtheology.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/st-aelred-of-rievaulx-celebrating-900.html

The 19th May was the 900th anniversary of the birth of St Aelred of Rievaulx. Today the Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire of which he was abbot lies in ruins. Back in the twelfth century it was part of the vibrant expansion of ‘freshly expressed’ monasticism across western Europe.  Aelred’s ministry as abbot may only have lasted for twenty years but his wisdom and spiritual insight have enriched the practice of Christianity for the succeeding eight centuries.

His writings on Spiritual Friendship provide a timeless lens through which we see our deepest human needs for secure and safe intimacy put into a wholly Christian perspective. Perhaps it is for the following extract from his ‘Mirror of Charity’ that Aelred is most fondly remembered:

It is no mean consolation in this life to have someone with whom you can be united by an intimate attachment and the embrace of very holy love, to have someone in whom your spirit may rest, to whom you can pour out your soul; to whose gracious conversation you may flee for refuge amid sadness, as to consoling songs; or to the most generous bosom of whose friendship you may approach in safety amid the many troubles of this world; to whose most loving breast you may without hesitation confide all your inmost thoughts, as to yourself....someone you can let into the secret chamber of your mind by bonds of love

(St. Aelred of Rievaulx, from Mirror of Charity)

This gift of friendship, long cherished by the Celtic tradition in these islands which valued the Anam cara or soul friend, is earthed in one’s own humility and utter dependence upon the grace of God. It is through the healing and wholeness which Christ brings to the soul that the difficult, demanding and life-giving dance of such friendship becomes possible and sustainable. Aelred is absolutely clear that the safe-keeping of one’s soul and spiritual wellbeing is in God’s hands. With admirable directness and a large measure of self-disclosure he says

Let no one deceive himself, let no one flatter himself, let no one have any illusions: the young never obtain or keep chastity without great contrition of heart and bodily affliction. Even in the sick and the aged it is not safe from danger…This is a gift which is not to be attributed to any merit of our own but to his free grace.

(St. Aelred of Rievaulx , from Pastoral Prayer)

This personal awareness colours his spirituality and prayer and frees Aelred to embody a wonderfully Christ-like, love-oriented disposition towards others:

O Good shepherd Jesus, good, tender, gentle shepherd, behold a shepherd, poor and pitiful, a shepherd of your sheep indeed, but weak and clumsy and of  little use, who cries out to you, troubled on my own account, and troubled for your sheep….
My powers of perception and speech, my work time and my leisure, my doing and my thinking, each single thing that makes me what I am, the fact that I exist and think and judge, let all be used, let it be spent for those for whom you did deign to be spent yourself
(St. Aelred of Rievaulx , from Pastoral Prayer)

For Aelred, spiritual friendship exists in stark contrast to worldly friendship:

Worldly friendship, which is born of a desire for temporal advantage or possessions, is always full of deceit and intrigue; it contains nothing certain. nothing constant, nothing secure; for, to be sure, it ever changes with fortune and follows the purse….for spiritual friendship, which we call true, should be desired, not for 

consideration of any worldly advantage or for any extrinsic cause, but from the dignity of its own nature and the feelings of the human heart, so that its fruition and reward is nothing other than itself.
(St. Aelred of Rievaulx , from Spiritual Friendship)

So it is that Aelred is moved to write of the ‘spiritual kiss’ which is of the essence of such Christ-like friendship:

The corporeal kiss is made by the impression of the lips; the spiritual kiss by the union of spirits….the spiritual kiss is characteristically the kiss of friends who are bound by one law of friendship; for it is not made by contact of the mouth but by the affection of the heart; not by a meeting of lips but by a mingling of spirits, by purification of all things in the Spirit of God, and, through his own participation, it emits a celestial savor.
(St. Aelred of Rievaulx , from Spiritual Friendship)

Indeed, for Aelred, Christ is always present in spiritual friendship. At the beginning of his book he begins the section on the origin of friendship with these words:

Here we are, you and I, and I hope a third, Christ, is in our midst….Come now, beloved, open your heart, and pour into these friendly ears whatsoever you will, and let us accept gracefully the boon of this place, time, and leisure.

Aelred’s timeless wisdom and insight is a wellspring of hope in difficult times.

 
 

Posted 21st May 2010 by David Perry