Brother Elias 2nd April 2025

A question from Tena about Abbot John and his enemas

My question is for Father John to find out how he learned about the practice of administering the monthly (If I remember rightly?) enemas. I know he eagerly read and collected texts available to him and was always learning. And because I have friends who have benefited both physically and emotionally from the practice, I’d love to know if he was aware ahead of time of the possibility for the inner healing that some of the brothers experienced.

*        *        *

Father John suggests I go to the infirmary at the end of the day, after Vespers, when there will be a chance of Brother Michael, Father William and Brother Christopher all being free to have a conversation. He says he’ll let them know, and come across to join us. 

So that’s what I do. The three of them have settled the residents of the infirmary in their rooms and given out the evening doses a little early, to make some time free to talk with me. When I show up in the infirmary frater, I find them sitting round such low embers as remain of the fire, now — at the end of the day — it’s no longer needed for cooking the porridge and heating up the water for washing and hot drinks. Springtime varies for temperature, the evenings still coming in chill, so I think they must be glad of that last glow of the embers and the residual warmth coming off the stones of the fireplace. I know I am.

Father John has told them about Tena’s question, and when I get there they’re already discussing it. Father William makes space for me to sit beside him on the bench (with a quick glance, and an almost smile), and we hear the door latch click and the quiet tread of the abbot coming along the passage to join us by the fire.

As ever, once the abbot is with us the sons of his house fall quiet to wait for what he wants to say. And as always, no time can be wasted on preliminaries because getting these men all together and unoccupied in one place and time is a rare treat and not to be used up by bland courtesies.

“Obviously I knew how valuable enemas are for health,” says Father John, “because everyone does. My mother was a wise-woman, and the folk from our village would come to her for help with their various ailments, which was the way I first learned how to care for people’s wellbeing. She used enemas sometimes, with good effect. Then, when I came into monastic life, I learned a lot from Brother Edward, who also used enemas to cleanse the blood and the digestive tract; and the books in our library recorded how reliant on enemas were the physicians of the ancient world — Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Arab, all of them.

    “But it wasn’t evident to me how helpful they are for soul health, for the wellbeing of mind and mood, until we began the practice of taking them regularly rather than just responsively because of illness. In particular, enemas promote serenity and calm — which has to be a blessing in a community, does it not? When the liver is relieved of congestion, of toxic burden, it becomes apparent that it is a restful organ, it generates peace. And that makes sense, doesn't it, because it filters out poison from the blood, cleansing is a significant part of its rôle. If we assist that work of cleansing, it then can itself rest. And you feel it. But what do my brothers think? Michael?”

I can feel a sort of slight defensiveness in his tone. I get the impression that this is something he has had to argue and advocate, that acceptance of his proposed point of view has not been simple. Brother Michael smiles at his abbot, and pauses to gather his thoughts. Then he says: “I didn’t know anything much about care of bodily health until I came here, so almost all of what I know I learned from you, Father John. And now it’s very familiar. So I find it hard to distinguish my own opinions from yours. 

    “I think my main observation is that what you’ve put in place includes a hot bath as well as an enema — and I think the warm water, infused with herbs and flowers as well, helps the pores of the skin open up, and allows poison to leave the body and nourishment to go in. Also the men find the bath comforting and relaxing. And they are relieved of the tasks of the day, and the bath house is quiet and calm, surrounded by birdsong and the fragrance of herbs, and you can hear the water flowing in from the freshet: I mean, it’s lovely.

    “So, I think the whole experience induces peace, which is absolutely as it should be. I think having someone to tend to them, having the sheepskin to lie on in the confinement of the empty bath, having a blanket to tuck around them — it’s reminiscent of childhood, of infancy. There’s something very soothing about it all. 

    “Don’t mistake me, I entirely accept what you say, John — er, Father John — about the natural peace of the liver relieved of its toxic burden, about its restfulness as an organ of the body, but for accuracy in assessing what we’re doing, I believe we mustn’t overlook these other aspects of the whole experience. They amount to more than mere accidentals.”

He glances at his abbot for approval of this estimation, and Abbot John nods in thoughtful affirmation. “Absolutely right,” he says. “Christopher? What do you think?”

Brother Christopher frowns at the fire, thinking deeply. “Most of all what I notice,” he says then, “is the sense of trust that pervades it all. It’s an intimate procedure, isn't it? It requires surrender, it implies vulnerability, and there’s something about that . . . it . . . I mean . . . it ends up with a closeness, an entrusting of the man into the hands of the brother caring for him. For me, giving the enema, it feels like a privilege, because I can so keenly sense the vulnerability, the man entrusting himself into my hands, trusting me to be gentle, to be respectful, to be . . . er . . . to give him back his dignity, to restore him, if you see what I mean.”

“Absolutely,” says Abbot John; and, “Exactly that,” says Brother Michael.

“Well, friend?” The abbot looks across at Father William, sitting beside me, who has said nothing so far. “Out of all the men in this monastery, not one resisted having any such thing done to them as vehemently as you did. What’s your verdict now?”

Because he’s sitting next to me, I can’t see William’s face. He’s leaning back on his elbows on the refectory table behind us. I don’t feel anything nervous or tense coming from him, he seems just relaxed.

“I still think my initial response was reasonable,” he says. “Something can be both reasonable and wrong, can’t it?”

His abbot is looking at him, his gaze playful and affectionate. “Say more?”

“Oh, well then — nothing in life had led me to suppose that making myself that open and vulnerable to my brethren in community was likely to end well. For the most part they wanted more than was intended to be on offer, and they were far from gentle and respectful. I don’t mean here in this house, I’m talking about my general experience of how I expect to be treated. 

    “But that’s where I was wrong, and I suppose I should have been able to work out that whether something is intrusive and abusive, or whether it’s — oh, God, what should I say? tender? gentle? kind? — depends more on who does it and less on what it inherently is.

    “And now? Do I look forward eagerly to having a horn nozzle inserted into my anus and a quart of herb tea poured up into my gut? No, not really. But is it good for me? Is it healing? Yes, in every sense. And every time — every time — I am moved by the gentleness, by the respect, whether it’s Michael or Christopher who does the business, by the competence and kindness and the sense of a dear and beloved physician. Would I recommend it? Probably not. I’d say it should be very much a matter of personal choice. Have I found it helpful? I have. Sometimes . . . well, it’s been cathartic and restoring, and allowed the poison of my soul to be drawn out along with whatever is sloshing around in my blood and gut. It’s reached startlingly beyond what I was expecting, to where body and soul divide or become one.”

Abbot John says quietly, “Body and soul are one, Brother. And yes, I agree with you — a lot of the time it's not the method, it's the man. Not so much what you do, as how you go about it. Healing comes that way, and harm as well.”

What Isolde wanted to know

 Isolde said...

I'm not sure which of the brothers I should direct this question to, and I haven't read all the books yet so it's possible there's one who'd be a perfect fit and I just haven't met him yet.

But my question, for people who live in community and have to be careful not to have exclusive relationships, is about how you avoid playing favourites/choosing sides and getting tangled up about "loyalty". For instance, my family is big and loving but a bit cracked, and there's something I want to tell my grandfather and a couple of uncles about, but I've never discussed it with my father and I don't know if he'll ever be able to receive it if I try. And normally this might not be a problem, except that my father and these other relatives are estranged from each other, and so I can't help feeling that by "choosing" one "side" to reveal my heart to, and leaving the other out of it, I'm playing favourites. How can you tell the difference between having favourites and whatever the legitimate alternative might be? Especially in a context where you shouldn't be splitting up into cliques — whether because it's monastic life or another type of family living in a fallen world.

*        *        *

I climb the day stairs to where the library is, and the robing room, the brothers’ cells — and the novitiate schoolroom. I’m hoping Father Theodore will be there. I asked permission of Abbot John to talk this through with him, and he said, “Yes, good idea,” somewhat distractedly because he was trying to get through a pile of correspondence before Vespers, but he’d only just begun, and people kept interrupting him, including me.

The door stands ajar, and it is all exactly as I hoped. Theodore is by himself, quietly moving round the room setting things to rights: checking the ink supplies, putting books away, ordering the circle of stools and benches ready for tomorrow morning. The fire is still glowing on the hearth, but very low, enough to air and fragrance the room and send out a little warmth.

He straightens up from what he’s doing. “Oh, hello. Welcome. Were you looking for me?”

So I say yes I am, and that I’ve brought a question from a friend if he’s got time to talk about it. If he’s too busy I can just leave it with him for later because I’ve written it out for him. He smiles and stretches out his hand for me to give him my bit of paper I'm holding, with Isolde’s question.

“Would you like to sit down?” he says. “I do have time, I’m free now until Vespers. This is an excellent time to talk.”

Good. That’s what I was hoping.

He collects a short, thick candle burning in a holder from the table, and carries it with him to the hearth, where he sits down on the hearthstone beside the fire, and reads through Isolde’s question carefully and thoughtfully. I sit myself down on one of the low stools just nearby, and wait. He looks up at me. “This is worth asking,” he says; then he reads it again.

After that he lays my piece of paper down on the hearthstone beside him, weighting it in place with the candle in its holder.

“Let me say straight out,” he says, “that yes, sometimes there are favourites and factions in monastic life as there would be anywhere, and it can all get suffocating and toxic and be difficult to purify, to put right. That can certainly happen.

“But let’s assume Isolde’s situation is different from that — not toxic, I mean, not suffocating. She wants authentic relationship. She has something to confide, but her father — who she feels is unlikely to receive it well — has distanced himself from the men she really wants to tell; her uncles and grandfather.

“It may be unwise to jump to conclusions, but what comes first to my mind is that one man in that situation sounds almighty hard to please. He’s fallen out with his father and brothers, and Isolde thinks he’ll probably object to whatever it is she wants to share. Hmm. 

“So, hesitantly, since I can’t actually be present with that group of men to come to my own conclusions, I would proffer this: a relationship is a two-way thing. If you cannot tell your father what you want to tell your uncles and your grandfather, maybe that’s not favouritism or a clique but just that he has indicated he cannot be trusted with your truth. Trust is given, but also earned. Maybe. I cannot be certain if I’m reading it right, but that’s one possibility.

“Setting that aside, there’s the matter of time to consider — because things have a way of working out if you give them space and peace — and, as well as time, timing; waiting for the kairos. It might be a possibility to hold the intention to bring her father into her confidence when the moment is right, when she feels ready to trust him with her truth.

“Because, look, you don’t have to tell everybody everything. There are things I would choose to say to Francis or Michael that I would be unlikely to say to Richard or Gilbert. And this can be a question of mutuality, or reciprocity, or whatever you want to call it — that some things you might want to share belong to this relationship but not that, will be readily understood by this man but not that. I think that has to be all right.

But this brings me on to the more general aspect of what Isolde says — about what is appropriate and what is exclusion, and how we manage that here.”

He draws the paper out from under the candleholder, and reads through it again, tilting it to the illumination of the flame, then carefully replaces it.

“This is easier for me to answer, because it’s certainly something we think about and I know how it works in this house.

“We understand there can be pitfalls in this matter of relationship and confiding, closeness and trust. It's aspect of our commitment to celibacy — availability as well as restraint. There is meant to be an openness to how we love, a generosity of spirit that welcomes and includes. But at the same time, you can’t force people to be loved and included; sometimes they just want to stand there with their arms folded, glaring at the ground and saying ‘Shan’t!’ through gritted teeth; and we all have to live with it as best we can until they thaw — or leave. I think you know, loving Father William was a very long-term project, that paid off handsomely in the end. We had to stay open and accepting; and I tell you, ‘hard work’ doesn’t begin to describe that man when he first came here, but it was worth it.

“And then, when we make the choice to take our way together, that requires us to develop a habit of acceptance, not of jealousy. If Father John wants to talk something through with Father Francis and not with me, it’s part of the discipline of holy chastity that I refrain from getting defensive about that, I don’t let it drive a wedge between me and Francis, I don’t go all frosty on John; I just respect his right to have conversations with whoever he wants, whoever he finds most helpful. Because, why not? Another time I’ll be the one he wants to confide in; it all depends what he wants to talk about, I suppose.

“As well as that, in the monastic way we make a regular practice of confession, when we take time to talk in depth privately with our confessor — and what we say there is sub rosa and absolutely nobody else’s business. Just having that aspect to monastic life frees us from the supposition that everyone has a right to know everything that’s going on. They don’t. End.

“There’s also the way we handle privacy here. Each man has his own cell, of course, and we each spend a substantial amount of time alone; but even so, living in community is very  . . . er . . . exposing. We do end up knowing one another very clearly, very well. We see one another’s mistakes and indiscretions, everyone’s faults and foibles are on view. We see one another’s disappointments and the antagonisms that arise. We behold one another’s grief and humiliation. All of that.

“So, privacy here is a gift, that we make to each other. It’s part of the attitude of respect and compassion we each bear towards our brothers. There are times when you weigh up whether to see — or not — a man’s tears or his immaturity or his vulgarity. Or sometimes a person just wants to be left in peace. We have to learn to weigh it up, and decide when to see and include and comment — and when to just let something pass, decide we didn’t hear, didn’t see. Otherwise we’d all go crazy from being altogether over-observed.

“In monastic life, we have a name for this clear choice to not see: mortification of the eyes. It’s how we give one another privacy, and also how we protect ourselves against temptation. ‘What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.’ Something like that.

“And of course, we spend a significant chunk of every day in silence. We come out of Compline into the Great Silence that lasts all the way through until after the morrow Mass, and we keep silence in the cloister and go about the work of the day in silence for the most part.

“It allows us to get things in perspective, to refrain from hasty judgements, to bring whatever’s bothering us before the sacred heart of Jesus to be restored to peace and properly understood.

“Silence, solitude — I hold firmly to the view that everyone needs these as much as good food and sunlight and sleep. They are necessary for the spaciousness that allows generosity, and the peace that nourishes the human spirit.”

“George Fox,” I tell him, “said ‘Carry around some quiet inside thee.”

Father Theodore considers this, and smiles. “Did he?” he says. “Yes, I love that. Who’s George Fox?”

“Well,” I say, “he lived about 200 years after your time. But I think you would have liked him. George Fox was heavily into silence. And peace. He proposed four testimonies, in terms of how we live — peace, simplicity, equality and truth.”

Father Theodore takes this in, and nods in appreciation. “Yes,” he says. “I think you’re right about that. I would have liked George Fox.

“But, look, do you think any of this will be of use to Isolde? I dearly hope so, because there’s the Vespers bell, so I’ll have to love you and leave you — in the nicest possible way. Is that all right?”

And I certainly hope it is, because he had to go.

 

 

 

 

What Anne asked Father Peregrine and Father John

 Anne said...

I'm loving reading these extra insights into these beloved people. When I think of Tom and Peregrine in his later years it is the scene with the bowl of raspberries that hits me again: the realization of how deceptively easy it is to use power to disempower others, even when trying, we think, to help. I have a question, then, for John and, if possible, Peregrine, which is haunting me. How, when you have been elected into a position like abbot or bishop or any role of authority, do you hold the power given you gently enough to empower rather than disempower others? And how do you stop yourself beginning to take the influence the rôle gives you for granted?

*        *        *

I waited until the end of the day to bring Anne’s questions to Father Peregrine and Father John, because although I come across them surprisingly in all kinds of places, my own room seems to function as a kind of portal, like the transporter chamber in Star Trek — and I wanted to be with both men together, to see what they would say to each other as well as separately to me.

Abbot John, as he always does, deferred to Father Peregrine when I put Anne’s question to them — looked to him for his answer, and waited quietly for him to speak.

And Peregrine said, “Let me say first how I love the way your friend has worded this: How do you hold the power given you gently enough to empower rather than disempower others? I find that moving, and beautiful, and very unusual as a concept; that someone would hold power gently, with delicacy.

“She has put her finger there on the core of something central to monastic life. Because it is a very authoritarian structure — obedience is at the heart of it — and yet it is intended to travel towards freedom, to fulfil us, not oppress us. 

“Let me come back to that, if I may, after first looking at the second part of what she asks us: How do you stop yourself beginning to take the influence the rôle gives you for granted?

“If I am honest with myself and with Anne, I must at once confess that when I was first appointed as abbot at St Alcuins, I did take that influence for granted. I had grown up on my father’s manor and followed in his footsteps, expecting to command and rule, to decide and choose. I was accustomed to a situation where, apart from my father himself, everyone either did what I said or was swiftly punished. 

“When I entered monastic life, I grasped the idea of humbling myself and denying myself — as a concept, a proposition. I’m not entirely sure that I surrendered to it completely, ever. Maybe, as a tree is espaliered to grow in a particular pattern, so a man will be permanently shaped by early expectation and example. I suppose it must be so. And I was trained to rule.

“But everything in life is a gift, even when we cannot receive it with unfeigned delight. When my hands and my leg were broken, I was appalled by the helplessness, the loss of dignity and autonomy, by the unrelenting and enforced vulnerability it imposed upon me. To say it was transformative is perhaps stating the obvious, but it made all the difference to my handling of the power entrusted to me in my obedience as abbot.

“How can I put this, how describe it? It opened a connection for me with the vulnerability in others, and — this was important — it opened a connection for them, too, with the vulnerability in me. If a man cannot cut his own food or walk reliably along a pathway, or successfully open a door, then both how he expresses authority and how it is received are modified by his own disadvantage and disability. It had of itself a gentling effect, that our meeting ground was in a place of vulnerability — the sons of my house because the Rule required them to submit to me, and me because there was so much I couldn’t do, so many ordinary undertakings where I needed their help. We beheld one another’s frailty, we found one another in weakness. It didn’t matter how aristocratic had been my upbringing, I still couldn’t climb the stairs; and regardless of how skilled was the work of their hands or how briskly they could stride along the track to the farm, they still must submit to what I required of them. Do you see? It established a kind of mutuality. We met in inescapable human frailty. Perhaps because of that, I think they felt I somehow understood.

“But forgive me; I am enlarging on what intrigues me, and I hope also addressing your friend’s question, but I can see that staying present here in a different century is requiring a great deal of stamina on Father John’s part. What were your own thoughts, my brother?”

Abbot John smiled. “Well, firstly that it is such a joy and such a privilege, because of being in a time not our own, to be able to sit with you and talk like this again, my beloved father. It is something I had never imagined could happen. But yes, I admit I am tiring a bit, so I’d better get to it.

“I do not think it would ever be possible for me to get used to the influence of being an abbot. Sometimes it seems ludicrous, other times it is straight up terrifying, always it is a responsibility that I find very daunting. Just for instance — take Father Theodore; he knows more than I ever will of theology and church history, he is more accomplished in every respect; and yet I owe it to him to hold my light steady, to stand in the obedience that has been entrusted to me, to keep faith with its strength which proceeds from the holy Rule. Me fulfilling my obedience and him fulfilling his, is how we stand firm for one another. Even on the rare occasions I may have had to rebuke him, it is not an opposition, far from it. Never more than in those moments am I absolutely on his side. And the same is true of those times when, his abbot though I may be, he has had to challenge my course of action, and hold me to account.

“I think something we all come to understand when we enter monastic life, is that when our superior disciplines us, calls us to account, they are not belittling us or lording it over us, but standing with us in a shared fidelity. The authority of the abbot is a strength to help a man when he wavers, when he falters. At its best, anyway; I mean, there are some rotten abbots as well, of course.”

He pauses then, and adds with a little grin: “Speaking of rotten abbots, did you think to ask William for his response to this question? No?” 

He looks at me, his eyes full of laughter. “I wonder why. No, but seriously, I saw him, you know, with Father Oswald who we took in after he had been maimed and blinded. I saw that Oswald felt safe with William. Not everybody does, and that’s fair enough, but in his way William acquitted himself well as the superior of his house. And he’s a remarkably good confessor. But, yes, he might not be the most obvious man to ask — at least at first glance.

They both look at me, and I ask them, is that all? Shall I write that down for Anne?

“One more thing,” says Father Peregrine. “I think this cannot be complete without speaking of Jesus. The cross is what speaks of his power and authority, because there he redeemed the world. Even in the Old Testament, the scripture framed the power of kings and prophets and judges as accountability. Solomon, Moses, David, Elijah — all of them wielded authority only to the extent that they submitted themselves to the authority of God. On the occasion in the gospels when Jesus was asked by the centurion to heal his beloved servant, that army officer said of himself that he commanded others because he was a man under authority. His power was not from his ego, but vested in him by the Roman Empire. In the same way, an abbot’s power is part of a web of accountability and obedience. I, as a man, am the servant — the property — of Jesus; who in turn gave his life for us, was flogged and spat upon for us, is the servant king. If I remain authentically located in him, expressing not my impulses to power but the true authority of his shalom, then there is real peace, there is no abrasiveness, no oppression. Then our life here flows with the river of grace.”

“And please thank your friend Anne,” adds Father John. “I have no idea if anything either of us said will be what she needs to know, but if nothing else, it has been the occasion for us meeting here, out of time, in the twenty-first century. And these moments of unexpected encounter are such a treasure, such an unexpected gift.”

*        *        *

I also want to ask Father John about what Isolde wrote to me, but for that I think I should go and find him in the 14th century. He was beginning to look distinctly threadbare at the end of this conversation; being in an unaccustomed timeline can be exhausting.