What Debi wanted to say to Father Francis.

 Debi, who helped me so much with understanding Father Felix, had a question for Father Francis. This was what she wanted to say to him:

“When you had your "dark night of the soul" and discovered Jesus outside in the darkness, it changed you. In the aftermath of my own dark night experience, I say that God rewrote my story, helping me see Jesus' presence throughout the most difficult parts of my life. I also say that my healing journey has been one part instantaneous and nine parts hard work. I am wondering what your experience has been. What did Christ's presence instantly change for you, and what has been the work you have done to find peace and wholeness? 

I would also like to let Francis know that his story was the first time I ever knew someone else struggled in the same ways I did — with shame — and was part of my own healing journey.”

I wondered if maybe I should ask the abbot’s permission to seek personal and private information from his prior, with a view to writing it up on the word wide web. He looked at me with a certain level of amusement. “Go ahead,” he said: “I mean, you always do.”

I suppose he’s right, isn't he? 

“If you want a good moment,” he added, “catch him after Vespers. He’s usually here, there and everywhere, and rarely on his own, in the middle of the day. I’ll tell him you’re looking for him. You can talk to him in the parlour if you like — I’ll ask Brother Thomas to light the fire for you.” 

You must admit, these are exceptional men: how many people do you know who would set up an appointment, fire and all, for one of their community to talk to what appears to be a ghost?

Everything’s earlier in the abbey after Michaelmas — Vespers and supper at a quarter past four, and Compline at half past six, which is when darkness falls in north Yorkshire at this time of year.

The parlour Father John meant is between the abbot’s house and the refectory, and opens onto the abbey court. So I turn up there at half past five, and find Father Francis sitting quietly by himself, waiting for me. Brother Tom has lit a small fire on the hearth there, as promised — just enough to be cheerful and warm the room: a fire for an hour or so; sticks, fir cones, some charcoal, and two or three chunky not-quite-log-sized bits of birch. It looks friendly and it smells nice.

I think Francis was considering Debi’s message, which I wrote out and left with Father John to pass on. He’s certainly looking thoughtful; but he stands up to greet me with that smile everyone who comes here knows and loves, welcomes me in and invites me to sit down in one of the chairs, and closes the door so we won’t be interrupted.

Something that makes me very peaceful here in this place — balm to my soul — is the lack of small talk. Don’t get me wrong, they’re kind and courteous, never blunt or rude, in fact I think I could learn quite a bit from them when it comes to that; but they get to the point. There is never that long for us to talk before the next obligation claims their attention. In fact they are even better at gentle and courteous goodbyes than they are at saying hello. There is, in short, no point in hanging about. So, “Did you read what Debi said, then?” I ask.

And Francis nods. “I did,” he says. “I certainly did. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. Will you tell her, please, how grateful I am that she let me know my own struggles helped strengthen her and gave her hope. That means a lot to me. If her path has been similar to mine, then one thing I know is that she has many times been lonely, and scared. When — even across a separation of centuries like this — someone stretches out their hand to you, looks round to say, “Me too”, it alleviates loneliness. It is encouraging. It lifts you up. Say thank you to her, please, from me.”

I promise him I’ll pass that on.

“Then, that’s such an interesting thing she asks,” he says, looking down at the scrap of paper he holds in his hands, tilting it so it catches the light from the candle in the sconce on the wall: “one part instantaneous and nine parts hard work . . . and, what did Christ's presence instantly change for me, and what has been the work I have done to find peace and wholeness?”

“Honestly? I had to think hard about that. The moment when I had that . . . vision, I suppose; when I found the presence of Jesus in the place of abandonment and despair, and realised he would be with me always, even there — it did, right then, change everything. It healed me and gave me the hope I needed to  . . . er . . . well, just to live, to carry on, to let myself be seen and known. And also to trust, I think.

“So then I had to ask myself, how did I build on it? What work did I have to undertake to find peace and wholeness? That’s what I’ve been asking myself all this afternoon. At first I couldn’t find my way to the truth of it, but then when I was sitting in chapel just before Vespers, I managed to identify it. 

“I think, for me, the healing was complete, not partial. There was born in my soul, right then, this sense of peace, the companionship of Jesus — that he is with me, that he goes ahead of me into any thing I have to face; that he will never leave me, never abandon me, never let me go.

“This isn’t to say that everything since that moment has been straightforward and easy; by no means! But I realised the difference — maybe — between my experience and Debi’s is that she had to work toward wholeness and peace: ‘one part instantaneous,’ she says, ‘and nine parts hard work’!  But it was different for me. In my case, the hard work came as a consequence of the wholeness and peace that the Lord Jesus gave to me as a gift of healing, as a grace. It wasn’t, for me, that I had to work for it, but that from that moment on I knew I must work from it. It became, I suppose, the obedience laid upon me to fulfil — doing whatever might be in my power to live out that wholeness and peace, to let it be seen, and to pass it on. Nothing forced, nothing beyond what is simple, just committing to be real with people, so they would somehow sense that I am with them, that I am for them, in the same way that the Lord Jesus let me see he is with — and for — me. Unconditionally.

“I — er — I hope that makes sense. It’s a matter of remembering, when I feel uncertain or inferior or under attack, that this loving presence of Jesus is something I can entirely trust, he will not abandon me. So I can afford to let myself receive that, and open my heart, my soul maybe, to pass it on, until we have a continuum of love, an infinity loop of companionship and healing. And . . . I hope this doesn’t sound conceited . . . you don’t wait. You just move forward in trust that it will work, that the peace will hold firm, that somehow it will make the change that’s needed in any given situation. I hope that makes sense for Debi. Please thank her for the connection, and for making me think about it — this undeserved enduring gift of peace.”

And this, as it happens, is the feast day of St Francis of Assisi; how pleasingly apt.