He gathers from the conversation, as he enters the teaching circle and takes his place, that Father Theodore has been allocating duties for the week ahead. Colin indicates the score that he replaced on the shelf as he came in, and relays the message from Father James about singing with Father Gilbert in the afternoon; and Father Theodore nods and gives his permission.
“Now you’re back, then, Colin, let’s begin our lesson. I wonder can anyone tell me, literally I mean, what is monasticism? Where does the word come from? What is its origin? What language?”
Uncertain silence greets these questions; but they all know they can rely on Brother Felix. “It’s Greek, isn’t it, Father? I’m thinking of Aristophanes’ play, The Birds. It has monopods in it – people who have only one foot. And monotonous – when someone has no variety in their voice but speaks all on one note. So, something to do with the practice of… well, being one, I suppose.”
Colin looks at him in astonishment. How does he know all this stuff? He looks at the novice master and sees the lively interest in his eyes, the response to something intelligent being said for once. Colin seriously doubts that anything he could possibly say would spark that same glow of interest. Now he thinks about it, he remembers Brother Cedd saying something similar only a few days ago – that even if he scraped the bottom of his mind so thoroughly he began to chisel into the actual wood, he’d never dredge up any observation as intelligent as the things Brother Felix comes up with.
“That’s entirely correct,” says the novice master. “Monasticism began in the desert, and the word expresses something of that – the practice of being alone; solitary, set apart. The Greek is μ – monas – as I’m sure you all know. It means ‘unit’, and is in turn derived from μ – monos – meaning ‘alone’. If you put those together and think about it, you could argue that it’s also about the practice of becoming one; of drawing apart to create new unity. Community, in fact – being one with each other.
“Now, from the same root grows the word monad – also Greek. It came from Pythagorean thinking, and it was a term for the first being, the source for all beings, the origin of all being. The monad is divine. Before the monad there was nothing, and if we trace back through the whole tree of life to the primal root, the original being, that’s the monad. In our vocabulary, what would that be?”
“God,” says Brother Robert, but thinks he’s probably wrong when Brother Felix says, “Christ.”
“Say more, Brother Felix.”
“I’m thinking about the Gospel of John, how in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and without him was not anything made that was made. And that is Christ, in his cosmic perspective.”
“Thank you,” says the novice master. “Yes. Can you – all of you – see, then, that the word ‘monasticism’ has a whole lot more inside it than simply meaning ‘alone’? It may have meant that, to express the drawing apart into solitude of the desert fathers, who all lived as hermits in caves, but it also bears inside it an association with the divine, with the Logos, the origin of all life – and with being one. Who remembers where Christ prays that we may be as one – completely one, as he and the Father are one?”
This time Brother Cassian is hell-bent on preventing Felix from having all the glory. “John 17,” he says quickly. “The big long prayer on the night before his death, after the Last Supper.”
“Yes,” says Father Theodore: “and what does Christ say and do at the Last Supper? Colin? Do you know?” He speaks gently, and his eyes are kind; from this Colin discerns the answer must be something easy, but he’s so nervous about being asked anything that for a moment he can’t think at all. He tries to shut out the look of faint incredulity on Brother Felix’s face. “It’s how Brother Cedd put it last week,” he says at last: “I think I must be just such an idiot.”
Father Theodore frowns. “He said you were an idiot?”
“No. He said he was.”
The novice master looks at him thoughtfully. “Well, you aren’t and nor is he. If I remind you that the Last Supper was the occasion of the institution of the Eucharist – does that jog your memory?”
“Oh!” says Colin. “Right! He broke the bread and poured out the wine, and he said, ‘Do this to remember me.’”
“Exactly so. Let me try and put these things together for you. We have the monad, the divine original being from whom all creation proceeds. In the Gospel of John, we have Christ the Logos, the living Word proceeding from God, and without him was nothing made that is made – all things came into being through him. So John is identifying Christ as the monad; Greek thought systems at work. It’s why we call him the ‘only Son’ of God. If we look at the French, that helps us – fils unique – the only son. Do you see? This idea of singleness, of the only being quite like this, associated with Christ? Then, still in John’s Gospel – and that’s important – we have Christ’s prayer that we may all be one as Christ and the Father are one. Why it’s important that this is in John’s Gospel is because of the prologue identifying Christ with the monad. This is a huge idea John is importing: the implication is that by our love – our agape love for one another in community – we will be taken up into participation of the divine.
“So then, look at Christ’s words at the institution of the Eucharist – which we also call ‘communion’, being made one. He breaks the bread, he pours out the wine – ‘This is my body,’ he says, ‘this is my blood.’ So now we have an image of something scattered and torn, fragmented, spilt, dismembered. Remember what I taught you about the Didache – the earliest catechism? How it says concerning the broken bread, ‘As this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and then, when gathered, became one mass, so may Thy Church be gathered from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom’? Look at it, brothers, think about it, see what’s going on. Christ says, ‘Do this to remember me’, to make me one again.
“It’s about unity and brokenness, about the origins of life held together in unity, then the scattering and fragmentation caused by violence and sin, then the healing – the shalom – of unity rediscovered in love, in our life together, in the monastic way.”
“‘God was in Christ,’” quotes Felix in soft and reverent tones, “‘reconciling all things to himself.’ That’s… I can’t remember if that’s in Corinthians or Colossians, Father.”
Thank God there’s something he can’t remember, thinks Colin.
“Because it’s both,” says the novice master. “The fifth chapter of second Corinthians and the beginning of Colossians.8 And yes, that’s the point. The whole purpose of the monastic life is to express the divine principle at the heart of creation: unity with one another and with God, reconciliation, single-heartedness, undivided by particular friendships or carnal loves. Is that… am I… do you understand?”
There is a sudden plea in his eyes. These things that set his soul on fire, he so wants to communicate them. The circle of young men look back at him and, even though it is small, it includes those who understand him perfectly and love the theological and philosophical integrity of it, those who glimpse and then lose sight of what he’s teaching them, and those who haven’t a clue what he means but would never dream of saying so because they love him and he’d be so disappointed.
“Augustine,” says Brother Felix: “‘the Body of Christ – I Am’.”
“Exactly!” Father Theodore always speaks quietly, but Colin notices he can pack some passion into what he says sometimes, even so. “Yes, exactly.”
In the impressed silence, Brother Cassian clears his throat. “So – Father – is there something we have to do about all this? I mean, does it have a practical application? Or is it just part of the workings of faith and divine mystery?”
“Oh, it’s practical.” The novice master nods enthusiastically. “It’s not meant to be all above our heads, just a scholarly exercise. Nor is it all about being clever and being right. That’s not what Jesus was interested in. It’s for the healing of our
souls and the creation of joy, of peace. To become one requires a lifetime’s practice and effort. We try, we stumble, we fail, we get it wrong, we come back and try again, we understand, we forgive, we help each other up. It requires of us the exercise of patience and kindness, of self-control and humility – gentleness. And it asks faithfulness of us. We won’t get there unless we are faithful, simply because Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is the kingdom of Christ.
“Though I’ve heard Abbot John say in a homily – it was a new thought to me, and I think he’s quite right – that we just have to turn the key, open the door. He connected up the words of Christ from the book of Revelation, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock’,9 with the words of the thief on the cross, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’.10 He said that in the same way as we re-member Christ in our communion, so Christ re-members us in the coming of his kingdom. We are healed, we are made one with each other, we regain our integrity as his kingdom comes on earth. But Father John said that when he asked himself, where does Christ come into his kingdom, he realized that it happens wherever and whenever we say he can. He stands at the door and knocks. We just have to open it. So it’s true both that this process takes a lifetime, and that it’s the gift of a moment. And maybe, after all, a lifetime is made up of a sequence of moments giving us the chance to say ‘Yes: come on in’.”
And then the thing that every time reminds Colin why he loves Father Theodore. Suddenly uncertainty comes into the novice master’s face. He falters. He looks anxiously round the group. He says, humbly, “I’m sorry. I think I’ve gone off on a pet hobby-horse of my own. I’ve been talking too much, haven’t I? I expect you have much better ideas than mine. And now it’s time we were packing away ready for the Office. Remember – Brother Cassian, Brother Boniface, Colin – Father Gilbert wants to see you in the choir after you’ve eaten. But Colin, I need you to come up and see me first – just for our routine conversation. Thank you, brothers. I’m so sorry I went on so long.”
Colin, reflecting on this as the novices go along the upper corridor and down the day stairs to the cloister together, thinks how curious it is that while he feels so much in awe of his novice master, there’s something about the man that makes him want to give him a hug sometimes, just to reassure him.
Chapter
Seven
Father Bernard has felt unhappy about this since he first had to do it. Years have gone by, nothing has improved. The problem has even been compounded by passing time, because if you do anything long enough it becomes tradition, it acquires a strength of its own. You tie a man with one linen strand and he can snap his bonds without the slightest effort. You wind the same strand round him a hundred times and you have a prisoner. There’s strength in habit. What you do every day becomes who you are. And that’s the whole problem.
It all started back in Abbot Columba’s time – whom they called Father Peregrine. To be fair, Bernard wasn’t sacristan then; that only started when Father Chad held the reins between abbots. Back in Father Peregrine’s time, he’d been sent as a novice to help out Brother Paulinus – and somehow got stuck with it, even after he’d been ordained and Father Chad made him sacristan. Bernard hoped he’d only have to do both jobs for a while, until they got a new superior in post.
And now there’s Abbot John, who apparently hasn’t noticed how extremely unreasonable and unfair this is; at any rate he shows no signs of doing anything about it. Father Bernard wonders if he can raise the matter. Not really, he thinks, seeing his only objections are that he’s sick of it, has enough to do already, and doesn’t see why someone else shouldn’t take on the job for a wonder. He suspects that on those criteria he could be the first in a very long queue asking for a change. The abbot himself doesn’t always look entirely overjoyed with the obligations his role places upon him.
There is something else, though, and if he’s honest (which just now he’s trying to dodge) Father Bernard knows this is not altogether admirable: it’s that he thinks, as an ordained man and the sacristan at St Alcuin’s, being expected to do the laundry is, frankly, beneath him.
It’s not that he has no help. Someone usually spares one or two of the novices from their regular occupations. Brother Cassian occasionally helps if the children aren’t in school – when they’re out picking the plums or the cherries. Brother Robert often comes over; there are natural spaces between jobs in the pottery. Brother Cedd hardly ever shows his face when there’s washing to be done; though, thinking about it, poor Father Clement is squinting badly these days. He’s relying on that lad, training him up in the fastest possible time. You can’t blame him wanting to make the most of what eyesight he still has. Now, Brother Boniface is a frequent assistant – because candidly he’s of little use in the scriptorium, but he delivers a mighty beating to a linen sheet with a paddle. Good thing he’s not left overseeing the schoolboys. And Colin, the new lad – ah, good value there! A hard grafter, no airs and graces; not like that Brother Felix.
Father Bernard, if he had to suggest someone else to take on responsibility for the laundry, would put forward Brother Richard. The fraterer’s work can’t possibly be as onerous as a sacristan’s duties; he doesn’t have to be up first in the middle of the night and again at dawn, for one thing. And a fraterer’s work isn’t so lofty. There’s not such a jarring contrast. What does the fraterer have to do, after all? Keep the whetstone and sand in good order, all tidy and ready in the lavatorium for the brothers to sharpen their knives. Set the table and clear everything away after meals. Make sure there are water jugs supplied and filled at mealtime – and ale. Work with the kitcheners to get the bread to the table, and the bowls of condiments – which have proliferated since Brother Conradus took charge in the kitchen with his conserves and pickles, his chutneys and mustards, and the good Lord knows what else. He has to change the towels but that’s only once a fortnight, and the last abbot put a stop to tablecloths – said they went beyond the boundaries of holy poverty – so he hasn’t got to bother with those. It’s the fraterer’s obedience to see the towels washed and repaired, but at the moment Brother Richard tosses them in with the rest of the things – as Father Bernard sees he has done today. He has to sweep the frater, of course, and the adjacent paths and cloister passage, and strew the floors with fresh herbs. He has to keep the lavatorium clean – so laundry should come naturally to him. But how long can those chores take a diligent man?
It hardly compares with his own responsibilities as sacristan. He’s the timekeeper for the whole community for one thing. The sacristan’s is a high-ranking office; he has to be a priest. He has to care for the candles and light them, scour the sacred vessels every week, bake the hosts, launder and iron and fold the corporals – which shouldn’t cause any man to say, “Oh well, if he’s doing that he might as well take on the rest of the laundry while he’s at it.”
So now, because it’s Tuesday, he has to take the barrow and collect all the dirty linen from the big chest by the bottom of the night stairs, and cart it along to the laundry room to be scrubbed. Thank God they at least wash their own braies. Half the men put out their sheets this week, the other half the following week. It’s a big load.
The water running into the laundry troughs is clean and pure. It comes from two springs high up in the hills, piped along lead-lined masonry conduits and passing through cisterns allowing sediment to settle and pressure to build. The laundry is warm (if oppressively steamy) from the fires under the big brass water pots. Father Bernard grudgingly concedes he should be grateful; at St Alcuin’s he doesn’t have to kneel at the water’s edge and scrub the sheets in the river shallows – at least their system is properly organized. And Father John lets them have the good olive oil soap all the way from Italy. Bernard still remembers the stink of the soap his mother made from lard when he was a lad. This is much nicer, and scented with Brother Walafrid’s herbal oils furthermore – lavender and rose, rosemary and lemon balm. Right round the edges of the drying gre
en behind the laundry room, where Father Bernard spreads the sheets to dry in the sunshine, latherwort is growing in abundance. Well organized, true, and well provided for – but there’s no getting away from it, this is back-breaking work. Especially because Father Bernard is tall. The stone troughs and their slanting stone scrubbing slabs are that bit too low. By the end of the morning he will barely be able to straighten up. He knows that already. Tuesday is not his favourite day.
When he gets to the laundry with his mountain of linen, he can hardly believe his eyes. No one has come to help him. The water is heating – Brother Richard lights the fires early on while Bernard is still busy in the vestry – but now he’s gone, and there’s nobody around. It is physically possible to tip the water from the cauldron into the trough without help – whoever built the place thought of that when they sited the firepits and the washing troughs – but it certainly isn’t easy, and Father Bernard has scalded himself on that manoeuvre more than once. He could also do with some help to haul the wet things that have been soaking in lye to be rinsed off and washed through. They get so heavy.
He stands in the middle of the laundry room feeling immensely sorry for himself for some little while. It looks as though there really is no one coming to help him. He thinks of going to look for Brother Richard, but if he’s honest (and he’s still dodging that) the sense of absolute martyrdom has a sort of horrible addictive sweetness he’s half enjoying. He thinks he’ll struggle on alone. This is his cross to bear. This is what people are like. Where is help when you need it? What’s the point of all the fine talk about faith and dedication if you can’t even see to it there’s someone on hand to help with the washing? Call this a community? Huh. Moodily, he shoves the plug into the drain, and lets the water begin to accumulate in the big stone trough.
A Day and a Life Page 5
