Thinkabout for The Campfire Church on Facebook for today, the feast of St Michael and All Angels.

 

The British Isles experienced evangelisation from two sources.

One was St Augustine of Canterbury. He brought a version of Christianity that came to us from Italy, after the conversion of the Roman emperors. This form of Christianity was shaped and structured by Roman concepts of civic life and their judicial system — it arrived in England already filtered through the Roman cultural perspective.

Now, this didn’t sit well with all of England. In fact the division in church practice was eventually addressed by King Oswiu at the Synod of Whitby in 663 and 664 AD. St Peter was the person in the gospels to whom Jesus said, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” Until then, Peter had been know by his birth name, Simon (he was renamed by Jesus because of the word Petrus meaning “rock”)   Peter was therefore considered to hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and there is a strong association between St Peter and Rome — according to writers of the time, he was martyred there under Emperor Nero.

So in honour of and deference to St Peter, King Oswiu ruled in favour of Roman Christianity, and thus England followed the Roman expression of Christianity after that until the Henry the 8th’s Reformation.

The synod where this decision happened took place at Whitby Abbey — a double monastery for both men and women under the leadership of Abbess Hilda — who nurtured and encouraged Caedmon the poet, who wrote the fragment that remains as one of the very first evidences of English verse. Hilda would not have been pleased at the outcome of the synod vote, because she — like Queen Eanfled (King Oswiu’s wife) — favoured the other expression of Christianity that had come to England from St Columba’s monks based on Iona. They were the original missionaries to the British Isles, and under their influence Northumbria was converted before Augustine arrived.

Now, St Augustine was prior of a monastery in Rome when, in 595AD, Pope Gregory the Great sent him to evangelise King Aethelberht and his Kingdom of Kent. Up until then, the Kentish people followed the religion of Anglo-Saxon paganism.

So there was a two-pronged ingress of the Gospel into England. When Columba was thrown out of his monastery in Ireland, he was commanded to go until he could no longer see Ireland any more. So he travelled by sea up as far as Iona, and from there he could no longer see Ireland, so that’s where he settled. He established his monastery there on Iona, and so came down through Scotland into Northumbria, evangelising first Scotland and then England.

Meanwhile Augustine sailed from Italy to south-east England — he landed at Thanet in Kent — and brought the Gospel by that route.

You would have thought, then, that southern England would have been evangelised by Augustine. But he encountered resistance. The Sussex people have a saying, “We won’t be druv”. In case you don’t understand that, it means we will not be driven. The Sussex people are markedly stubborn. Here, where I live, in East Sussex, in this little pocket, Augustine completely failed. But where he failed, Columba’s monks, as they gradually permeated the country, succeeded.

King Offa of Mercia, who ruled for about forty years in the second half of the 700s, took advantage of instability in southern England to establish himself as an overlord. His daughter Eadburh married Beohrtric of Wessex, and between them they established sovereignty over south-eastern England — Beohrtric and Offa. Towards the close of the 700s, when King Offa gave a parcel of land on England’s south coast at Bexhill, to be dedicated in perpetuity to the praise and glory of God, the treaty was signed according to Columba’s Celtic form of Christianity.

The difference between these two approaches to Christianity (Columba’s and Augustine’s) was massive.

Roman Christianity was highly structured — it was based on the Roman legal system, after all — hierarchical and patriarchal.

Celtic Christianity was more rooted in the natural world, both in inspiration and expression.

Anglo-Saxon paganism harmonised far better with Columba’s approach than Augustine’s. Augustine’s was imposed from without and above and established dominance— and yes, it took hold — but Columba’s monks worked with what they already found in place, and showed the people how it connected with the vision of the Gospel.

In the old religion, the natural world was sacred, alive, ensouled. The wells were holy, seen as the places were life issued from the womb of the earth, as a woman’s waters break when a child is born. Everything was holy — the trees, the streams, the rocks, the birds, the animals. All of it was alive with spiritual power. 

Their religion was expressed in the wheel of the year, the turning of the seasons in farming and in the seasons of the light — England is quite far north, the winters are very dark and cold, but the summer days are long; and we have prolonged dawns and dusks at the beginning and end of each day, the mysterious twilight times when the veil between the world is thin; the veil that separates us from what the old Celts called “the realm of weird”).

What Columba’s monks did was to settle upon each of the existing pagan festivals a Christian equivalent, exploring a Gospel theme that resonated with the seasonal theme of the Old Religion — but at a respectful distance of a few days, to allow space for the observance of both, and it worked.

At the very xenith of the year, at the midsummer solstice in June, when the light is at its greatest ascendant, Columba’s monks set the feast of John the Baptist, the herald of Christ. 

This is brilliant. Christ is the light, the day-star, the sun is analogous to his glory. But that’s not his feast. Standing there at the height of the year, John the herald points down to the dark, deep days of the winter. It is there, at the deepest, darkest, coldest moment, the time of hunger and frost and death, that the infant light is born at the winter solstice; what the Old Religion spoke of as Yul, “the Turn”, the moment when, in darkness and death, light and life are born again. That’s where the monks settled Christmas, the feast of the Incarnation.

But halfway between the feast of St John the Baptist in June, and the feast of the Incarnation at the winter solstice, comes the Autumn Equinox — Alban Elfed, the Harvest Home.

The harvest season begins when the sickle is put in to reap the barley at the beginning of August — Lughnasadh in the Old Religion, where Columba’s monks settle Lammas, which comes from Loaf-Mass, for the barley loaf that fed the people.

But the harvest season concludes at the autumn equinox when the weather changes — and now by this time all must be safely gathered in, so the barns are full because the cold, lean days are coming.

There at the autumn equinox, alongside Alban Elfed, Columba’s monks settled the feast of St Michael and All Angels. The angels are the reapers of God’s harvest, ensuring all is safely gathered in. St Michael stands at this golden time of harvest thanksgiving, pointing down the year to the coming winter; and his message is “Prepare, for the dark days are coming. Be ready.” He’s not talking about the harvest of wheat and barley, he means the harvest of souls. He’s pointing down to the ending of our days in death, the winter of life. The time of the coming of Christ, but this time in judgement. And he’s saying, “Prepare. For yourself and your household, your family: are you ready?”

Today, the 29th September, is the Feast of St Michael and All Angels.

May we heed his word to us — “Prepare, for the dark days are coming. Do the work of body and of soul. Life is uncertain, and it ends. Stand always ready.”

The things Wendy wanted to ask Brother Michael

I had a message from my friend Wendy with a question for Brother Michael in the infirmary — but I want him to see the whole message, not just what she said to ask. So I copy all of it out to show him. It was early evening when I got her message, and I had a few end-of-day things to do still. In any case, I thought just then Brother Michael would be taking care of the old mens’ supper, then clearing up, then Vespers, then going round with the evening medicines and helping his charges get ready for bed. But by seven o’clock I decide he’s probably all done, and might have time to talk to me before Compline.

I gather Father William is still under obedience to spend at least two evenings a week in the calefactory — evidently Abbot John does not consider him to have overcome his antisocial tendencies yet! I meet him walking along the cobbled path toward the abbey buildings just as I'm making my way down to the infirmary. He lifts one hand in a kind of understated wave when he sees me coming his way. When we meet up, I ask him, “I know this might strike you as an odd question, but if someone asked you to describe Brother Michael, what would you say? What does he look like, in your opinion?”

I feel intrigued to hear what he might say. I mean, I know Brother Michael very well, I can tell you what he looks like with no trouble at all. For a start he’s Irish, although that's not an appearance thing, I know, but they have a look, the Irish, don’t they? Something humorous and quirky, a kind of wit, something merry but — equally — something decidedly immoveable and courageous . . . oh, do you know what I mean? Anyway, he’s of medium height, quite stocky but not plump at all. His hair is either light brown or dark blond, with just a hint of auburn. He has blue eyes. Fair-skinned. Level brows. A straight shortish nose. He walks gracefully, and has a purposeful stride when he’s going a distance — say, to fetch something from the abbey. He has a very ready smile. How am I doing? But look, you want to know what William said. Which was: “Calm. Kind. Competent. Perceptive. Understanding. Is that it? I’m so sorry — I absolutely promised Thaddeus a game of chess, and he’ll be disappointed if I keep him waiting any longer than I already have. Is that all you wanted?”

I assure him that yes, it is, and he does one of his almost-a-smile and courteous little bow, and then he's off on his way. I carry on down to the infirmary, interested that William didn’t specify anything physical at all. But he’s quite right — that is what Michael looks like.

Anyway, I expect you’d like to know the rest of Wendy’s question, and here it is:

“Hi Pen, I am absolutely loving these posts! It feels like such a luxury to be able to ask the monks a question! Actually, I have two, and they're both for Brother Michael. The first, which might be impertinent (and he doesn't have to answer if he doesn't want to) is "what did Father Peregrine say and advise when he and Francis confessed their attraction to one another?"  The second is "How does he keep his state of abiding joy when he is beset by night terrors and can't be with the person he loves? Is the joy a blessing which comes naturally to him, or does he have to work at it? And if so, how?" I'd also really like to know what Brother Michael looks like. I can picture in my imagination most of the other monks, but I am absolutely stuck when it comes to him! Maybe Father William could describe him?”

Reaching the infirmary and going inside, I first come across Brother Christopher, folding some sheets they’ve had airing in front of the fire (it's been a soggy day, but infirmary laundry can't always wait on good weather). “Hello!” he says. “Who were you looking for? Brother Michael?” When I tell him that, yes, I was, he folds up the drying racks — wooden, with leather hinges — and invites me to sit down by the fire.

“I’m sorry to ask,” he says: “I'm not meaning to pry; but is this something private or not particularly?”

I tell him that I think this could definitely be rather private, yes; so he says in that case he’ll finish folding the bedding somewhere else. He bundles up the unfolded sheets on top of the folded ones, scoops them all up in his arms and takes them away, saying with a smile. “He won’t keep you waiting. He’s just setting out the night doses for later on. He’ll be here in two shakes of a duck’s tail. It’s nice to see you.” And then he's gone. 

    It surprises me how blasé they all are about me appearing and disappearing. I think those men see more of the invisible world than they let on.

I’ve not been there long when I hear the easy, unhurried tread that tells you Brother Michael is on the way. “Welcome!” he greets me, sitting down on the other chair at the fireside. “It seems like an age since I saw you! What a treat! Is all well? How’s the gut pain? The foot numbness? The dizziness? Are you surviving church? Less lonely? Doing any writing? Managing a walk each day?”     

    So we talk about that for five minutes, and then I hand him the email I’d copied out. I want to be sure he has time to think about it carefully before anything else intervenes to claim his attention. He takes it and gets up to bring the candle to the end of the table near his chair, so he can hold what I've written to the light. I watch his face as he reads it all through, serious and thoughtful — and as William said, calm and kind. Yes, he’s quite right. Yes, that is what Michael looks like.

He lets his hand rest in his lap, still holding the piece of paper. 

“Two things,” he says, “before I answer what she asks. “The first is, please will you tell Wendy that I will be praying for her, and for her mother too. Every day. I will hold her in my prayers. We will walk this way together. And I will ask Father William to say Mass for her. Please let her know. We are with her. Yes, we are. The second thing is this — I have no way to evaluate how an answer might be received, in your times, to what she asks concerning Father Peregrine. This . . . would it hurt anyone’s faith, if we touch upon such things?”

So I tell him — and I hope I’m right — that 2023 is a very different time from 1326; social attitudes have moved on. Thinking about it now though, I do wonder. People have been very good at not necessarily saying things, haven’t they? Since forever. 

Brother Michael listens to that carefully, and nods in acceptance. “Well then,” he says, “let’s get that out of the way first, shall we?

“We went together to see Father Abbot, Francis and I. We told him how we felt and what had passed between us. He listened, and he said that of course there are many kind of loves, and this has always been so. He thanked us for coming to tell him, for trusting him, for being honest with him. He said we must surely know it happens often enough. He said that sometimes it has a poisonous quality — concupiscent, manipulative, predatory. But he said sometimes it is love pure and simple, something that flowers naturally; only, then we have to decide what to do.

“He asked us, each of us separately, first Francis and then me, to tell him what the quality of it was — not the expression of it, but the inner reality, the power of it. He said, please be honest; and we were. Francis said it had the quality of a flower or a sunset, or a butterfly, or a song or a flight of birds across the sky; something that enraptures your whole being such that you never want to let it go, but you know it has to end. It was all a long time ago, to be sure, but I shall never forget him saying that. And me . . . I could only say it was just the dearest thing, precious, a treasure lodged in my heart. For always.

“Father heard us both; and then he asked us — so, what about your vocation? What about your vows? And we explained that’s why we'd come to see him; we needed help to find the courage to let it go. Not to deny it but to release it. We — both of us — we wanted Jesus to be our first love. We wanted the thing we had come for, to live the way of the cross, to live with an open heart. To make ourselves both vulnerable and available, nothing closed off for a particular and primary relationship. He took our word for it. He trusted us to make and keep it so. And we did. We always have. I know, and he knows — Francis — that the song abides, the beautiful flight of birds, the heart’s treasure, the simple love that cannot be erased . . . and should not be, I think.

“But there’s what you feel and what you do, isn’t there? This is the tension of faithfulness, the discipline of love. And we have kept faith. The unexpected beauty of it is that, in keeping faith with the whole community and the vow of celibacy, I realised I had also kept faith with him. There was no discord, as it turned out. It has its fulfilment in the wholeness — the integrity — of daily life, of love.

“Father also said to us that in the practice of consecrated life, there always has to be the discipline of restraint; because, he said, the very nature of temptation is that it deceives us into mistaking a problem for a solution. In grasping for relief, for what temporarily feels good, we mire ourselves in deeper. You cannot be a disciple if you can’t say no.”

He looks at me. “Yes?” he asks me. “Is that . . . ? Do you see? Does that tell you what you need to know? This will not be unsettling for anyone?”

I thank him, and I say that yes, it's just perfect, and that I think if anyone has a problem with that then they're the problem, not him.

“Very well,” he says. “You judge it appropriate to write it down then, in your . . . er . . . thing?”

The electronic world is not a concept they easily grasp, I have found.

“Yes, I do. Oh, thank you, Brother Michael,” I say. “Thank you ever so much. And then — about the abiding joy?”

[Shall I remind you what Wendy asked?

“How does he keep his state of abiding joy when he is beset by night terrors and can't be with the person he loves? Is the joy a blessing which comes naturally to him, or does he have to work at it? And if so, how?”]

He smiles. “There’s quite a bit in that, isn’t there! One by one, then. Night terrors: there comes, in my dreams, this dread — an absolute horror — suffocating, consuming — of being overwhelmed, being insufficient, being engulfed by the need and pain and suffering of others. That there will not be enough of me, that I will not be able to hold steady for them, that they will drag me down with them into the hell that has hold of them, and I will not be strong enough to pull them out onto terra firma, offer them the hope and stability they need. It haunts my dreams — only sometimes, and especially when it’s been a long and tiring day, a difficult day. I start out of sleep panic-stricken and distraught. But when that happens, I whisper the name of beloved Jesus, I reach for his presence; and gradually the spring of joy inside me re-establishes, and I can go back to sleep in peace. 

“As to being with the person I love — well, I am. I think your friend might have noticed that nothing draws us closer together than a common vision and a shared task. Two people can be in a marriage, or work together in a farm or at an inn or something, or they can be part of a circle of acquaintance trying to have a good time. But if they have no shared task and no common vision it comes to feel hollow, it falls apart. The apostle said we must not be unequally yoked, and Jesus commended us to take his yoke upon us. If we do that we are together — the bodily relationship as lovers is a very secondary thing. Love is fulfilled and consummated in shared vision and common task. We have that, Francis and I. We are — both of us — Christ’s. Nothing can ever take that away from us, and it unites us. Yes there is renunciation in it; but deeper, there is joy.

“Then, her question, is it something that comes naturally or do I have to work at it.” He stops, and laughs. “I’m so sorry to be mysterious, but no. Neither. It is in me but not of me. It is there for any of us. The spring of life, of hope, of joy, the fountain that wells up to eternal life, it is the presence of the Spirit of Jesus. It is the consequence of being loved, of being his. It’s not mine, you see — it’s his. It’s just that I find it on the inside; it isn’t located  in any external reality. It’s at the core of my being. And yours. And Wendy’s. It’s there for the finding, for those who belong to him. Abiding joy. Yes.”

“Blimey, Michael,” I say. “You are something else!” 

He looks at me somewhat quizzically, and I realise what I just said was not really fourteenth century idiom, was it? But he doesn't question it; all he says in reply is, You'll not forget, now, will you? You'll remember to tell her — I'll be praying for her, and for her mother. Every day."

What an anonymous reader wanted to know about William and Madeleine

It’s been more chilly; the air is damp and it’s rained a lot. The days of sitting on the bench under the cherry tree in the infirmary garden are gone for the time being. The evenings are darker. The flowers in the physic garden have lost their colour, all just seedheads now.  

Even though the evening is damp and dark, the infirmary door still stands open. So I go in. I’m looking for Father William. I’m not sure who will be here. Somebody always stays overnight, because the old men who live here are frail and can't just be left — but the infirmary brothers take turns to do that. Actually, they’ll have said Compline already, so it may be that no one will even talk to me — they’ll be in silence now, won’t they? But I just go with the connections along the Earthways that bring me here. It is what it is.

Coming in to the infirmary frater, where the big fireplace is, I find who I’m looking for — William, sitting by himself, gazing into the glowing remains of the fire. 

I’m walking quietly, and my shoes aren’t noisy (Birkenstock sandals), but he hears me and looks round.

“Can I talk to you?” I say. “I had something I wanted to ask you. It seems a bit big. I thought it would be better not to say it in the middle of things. There’s always so much going on in the infirmary. I thought this could be a good time, but I do know you’re in silence. I can just go away if you’d rather.”

They are lucky here, in this building. They — like the abbot — have actual chairs by the fire, not just stools. It helps, if you’re old and frail, to have something to rest against, and not have to hold yourself up with no support. William just indicates the other chair drawn up near the hearth, for me to sit down. 

“What did you want to ask?” he says. I know if the Silence is broken then it absolutely cannot be by small talk, so I refrain from remarking on how peaceful and cosy it feels in here, and just get to the point.

“Somebody wrote to me,” I tell him. “I don’t know who it was, actually. But this is what they said. I’ll read it out to you:

‘I know that Madeleine is no longer with us, and I don’t know how far back Pen can travel, but I would dearly love to know more about her love story with William. They were both well established in their lives when they met. They had both found stability after terrible crises and they were welcome in the community as single people. I wonder what they sensed in each other that made them upend their way of life to become husband and wife? Did William find tenderness in Madeleine? What did she find in him? What good things did they learn from each other?’”

Dead silence. I suppose I’m not surprised. He leans forward and rubs his face in his hands. “Madeleine . . .” he says: “oh, Jesus . . . I . . . This is for . . . I mean, you make this public, don’t you?”

“It’s all right,” I tell him. “You don't have to, if it’s too private. Not if you don’t want to. If it helps to know, I did ask Abbot John, just in case you might need permission to talk about it. He says you can.”

And he chews his lip, and looks into the fire, and then he says, “All right, then.”

So I wait, and watch him blink, watch the thoughts move across his face, and the layers of his soul that I can see, here in the firelight and the light of the candle left out on the table close by. He sighs.

“Can I read that?” he asks. I give it to him, and he reads through it carefully.

“Let’s take this one thing at a time, then,” he says. “So, to start with, that we were both well established in our lives when we met. Were we? What does the person mean? Is this a gentle way of saying we were both getting on a bit?” Amusement flickers in his face. “Old enough to know better, maybe? That would probably be true. Your reader says we had both found stability after terrible crises. Well, look — when I met Madeleine, she was all over the place. She was frantic. Savage, frankly. She had John in bits. It was coming back here with us that brought some measure of peace, of safe haven, I think. And me — well — ah, heaven, my life has been one long nightmare of terrible crises starting at Day One. I . . . it never . . . I can’t find my way to . . . Oh, never mind.

“I think — though you can surely see why this is what I wanted to think, so I could have been wrong — that the healing came because we found each other. Be that as it may, your reader is entirely right to point out that our welcome here was as single people. And yes, that was the source of so much futile struggle and so much anguish. Trying to stop it, trying to renounce it. . . I couldn’t, you know, I just couldn’t. It . . . Neither could she. Like someone asking you to move a volcano off the heat so it doesn’t boil over. Not going to happen.

“Then this that asks what we sensed in one another that made us upend the lives we’d put in place. I’m not sure what to say. Some things are inevitable, irresistible . . .  possibly. I just . . . it was . . . I wanted it so much. I loved her so much. What I sensed in her, though? Well, it’s there in John, too. A steadiness, a sanity, a fundamental goodness, a grounded, practical earthy — erm — charism maybe? A gift. For healing. For somehow going straight to the heart of a thing, for walking undeterred past every defence I put in place as if it wasn’t even there. I think . . . well . . . why did Adam and Eve become man and wife? Because they were the only people in the world. And so it was with Madeleine and me.”

He looks down at the paper and reads through it again.

“Did I find tenderness in her? It would be hard to put into words the absolute intimacy, the astonishing sweetness of our love. I can only say it felt like being made whole. That I let her see all the jagged, broken, painful, ugly, misshapen shards and rubble inside me, and let her touch that, and let her hold me and kiss the wounds inside that hurt so bad they drove me almost out of my mind if I didn’t nail them down hard. She found it all. She opened it up. She touched it and made it better. I think that might be tenderness.

“And what did she find in me? Oh, well — a very hard time, apart from anything else. I didn’t really speak her language. I didn’t have the skills of a householder, and she found that frustrating, of that I am certain. To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure what she found in me, except maybe pit after pit of ugliness and pain that went down to the torn and cauterised roots of my soul and she got the unenviable task of trying to put it right — and she did, she did. We argued a lot, and damned near wore each other out. It wasn’t an easy marriage; but, oh, there was so much love.

“And it says, what did we learn from each other that was good? ‘Learn’. That sounds like skills, maybe. I can’t imagine she learned a great deal from me. She already had the skills she needed for married life. I think she felt safe with me, and that meant a lot to her, I believe — though she never said so. I guess she learned patience, and restraint. She had to. Some of the things I did and said had her at her wits’ end; she thought I was crazy. Feeding the fox and the crow, and not slaughtering the pigs. Then I broke things and burned things and forgot things she never, ever would have — and it did not come easy to Madeleine to get past or overlook any of that. She had definite ideas about what mattered and how things should be done.

“What I learned from her . . . More than anything, I think, I learned that it’s possible to open yourself up and let someone in and they won’t hurt you — at least not intentionally. I learned . . . no . . . What happened was I found the thing I craved so desperately and ravenously, needed so badly . . . just to be held. To lie with my body against hers, and have her hold me in her arms. There’s been so much fear, you see, so much strategising and scheming and contriving, and just raw physical pain. I cannot tell you what comfort and relief it brought to be held.”

He doesn’t look at me, but he says, quietly, “Is that enough, do you think?

And I tell him that yes, I think that probably answers the question.

 

What Tony asked Brother Cormac

 Tony had a question for the cellarer, Brother Cormac. This was what he wanted to know.

'When Brother Tom returned home to St Alcuins, after accompanying Abbot Peregrine on his trip to debate with Prior William, he told you how the events had unfolded. What was your response, and how did it affect your relationship with Tom and with Peregrine? Later you voted for Father William to be accepted into the community at St Alcuins. How did you reach that conclusion? Did you ever regret it? How do you and William get along these days?’

Brother Cormac is easier to find than many of the brothers of St Alcuin, because the checker is a very small building, and that’s where he generally is. Actually, in the modern world, it’s interesting looking for the checker if you ever go to visit the site of an old abbey, because I think people may not always realise what it is — there’s usually no indication. You can look for it in the abbey court, which is the part of the abbey (in the old days) where the public was allowed to go. The guest house will be in the abbey court, and the west door of the church, after you come in through the gatehouse. In abbeys (the older ones, often) where the abbot’s house was not a separate building but part of the cloister square, that will also have a door onto the abbey court. The checker usually stands alone, just a small building in the middle of the court, where tradesmen could come and do business with the cellarer, with bills to be paid or orders to be taken. It’s fun looking out for it.

Anyway, in the checker is where Brother Cormac can reliably be found most of the time, and that’s where I found him today, and asked him the things Tony wanted to know.

Brother Cormac has very blue eyes, and extremely direct gaze, and one receives the impression of being looked at very hard. He thought about what I asked him, and moved around on his work table a few scraps of parchment with messages on them, tidying them into neat piles while he thought about what I’d said. Brother Cormac has very long, bony fingers.

So I watched him thinking. He is an intense kind of person, but reposeful, somehow. A very gathered energy. It’s a bit like having a personal audience with a blowtorch.

And then he said:

“We were all very young, when Tom went with our abbot to St Dunstans. We — all of us — loved Father Peregrine. He formed us. There was something about him quite unforgettable. We owed him this debt of love and gratitude, because who he was shaped our vocation; not just a bit, a lot. 

“So yes, I heard about that visit, and the encounter, and stowed it away in my memory as something to take note of, but there was no reason to dwell on it at the time. I doubt any of us obsessed over it, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d forget. 

“Then, of course, William showed up here. At that point we all heard what Tom thought about him, with no ifs or buts, at full strength and some length. It was a memorable Chapter meeting. 

“We had two votes, you know. The first time he begged admission to our community, he’d not even been with us a week. It was all a bit sudden, and it sticks very clearly in my memory — the silence, and the few hands raised in favour of letting him stay; Theodore, Francis, James. Not me. I could see he was just trouble incarnate. I mean, we all could. It’s just that Theo and Francis and James wanted to give him a chance, as did Father John.

“The second time we voted, William had tried to take his own life and then had pneumonia — and for heaven’s sake, what kind of a man would you be if you said he couldn’t stay? It was risky; but sometimes you have to take a risk, don’t you? It was, perhaps more than anything else, what made clear to me that the Gospel itself is risky. I think about that sometimes. How people talk about the tender mercy and love of God, and the utter security and peace of belonging to him. And I think, yeah, right — like Jesus at half-past ten in the morning on Good Friday. That kind of utter security and peace. There is inherent risk in loving, in making yourself vulnerable to another human being with all their moods and needs and temperamental quirks. Even, sometimes, their malice and resentments and penchant for cruelty. Depends who you’ve got, and in William I didn’t think we’d got anything very promising.

“It went as well as it could have done, I suppose, until he had the bright idea of bringing Madeleine back here — and yes, I gather that though she was Father John’s sister, it was William’s idea, wouldn’t you know it? And with all that unfolded there, I ended up keeping his secrets, and that didn’t sit easy on my conscience. It all felt very unstable, didn't bode well. And he left, of course.

“And then came back. Once again, asking admission. Once again, we all said yes, me included. And so — why?

“The thing is, when you live in community in the way we do, there is no hiding. You absolutely know a man. You can see him — who he is, what he is; and what he isn’t.

“Father John asked us before he went to see William over at Caldbeck, what we wanted to do if William asked to come home. And we said yes; bring him home. All of us.

“Why? Well, I can only speak for myself, but I saw how much he loved Madeleine, and I could guess at the grief of losing her. Considered practically and with a cool head, given the age he was and what the man’s like, it seemed to me the chances of him doing that again, ever, were nil. He’s a priest, he’d taken life vows — to a certain extent we had to follow what our Rule says, and take him back.

“And since then — what did you ask me? Did I ever regret it, how do I get along with him now? No, I have never regretted it, not at all. He lives faithfully, he’s shrewd, he’s been immensely helpful to me, teaching me how to do what my obedience requires, watching over me to some extent, helping me when I get in a muddle — which I do, because the cellarer’s work is difficult on so many levels. You have to hold a lot in your head, it’s not enough just to have it written down, you need a good grasp of every aspect of the money and the requirements, you need foresight and a good memory as well. Like Janus looking two ways at once. He helped me with all of that, and sometimes he still does.

“How we get along? William, and me — both of us — we . . . it’s not that easy to get close to either of us. You take someone like Francis or Josephus, or Michael, they’re everyone’s friend, easy company. I’m not and neither is William, and if you put together two people like that, you can’t expect cosiness, can you? But . . . I trust him. I esteem him. I admire his mind — he’s observant, quick-thinking, nobody’s fool. And I am grateful to him for one particular thing; more than anyone else in our community he absolutely sees and understands the vulnerability and defencelessness of animals, and how much they suffer at human hands, because of human arrogance and indifference. I love that in him.

“Yes . . . yes . . . he’s a brother in Christ. I’m glad he’s here. Very glad, actually.”

He looked at me, that gaze very clear, very honest, very true; and he just nodded. 

Tony also had a question for Brother Conradus; but I'll tell you about that another time.