⛪ Saint of the Day : January 12
"ONE thing thou lackest." In these words God called Aelred from the
court of a royal Saint, David of Scotland, to the silence of the cloister.
He left the king, the companions of his youth, and a friend most dear, to obey the call. The conviction that in the world his soul was in
danger alone enabled him to break such ties. Long afterwards the
bitterness of the parting remained fresh in his soul, and he declared
that, "though he had left his dear ones in the body to serve his Lord, his
heart was ever with them." He entered the Cistercian Order, and even
there his yearning for sympathy showed itself in a special attraction to
one among the brethren named Simon. This holy monk had left the
world in his youth, and appeared as one deaf and dumb, so absorbed
was he in God. One day Aelred, forgetting for the moment the rule of
perpetual silence, spoke to him. At once he prostrated himself at his
feet in token of his fault; but Simon's look of pain and displeasure
haunted him for many a year, and taught him to let no human feeling
disturb for one moment his union with God. A certain novice once
came to Aelred, saying that he must return to the world. But Aelred
had begged his soul of God, and answered, "Brother, ruin not thyself;
nevertheless thou canst not, even though thou wouldst." However, he
would not listen, and wandered among the hills, thinking all the while
he was going far from the abbey. At sunset he found himself before a
convent strangely like Rieveaux, and so it was. The first monk he met
was Aelred, who fell on his neck, saying, "Son, why hast thou done so
with me? Lo! I have wept for thee with many tears, and I trust in God
that, as I have asked of Him, thou shalt not perish." The world does not
so love its friends. At the command of his superiors Aelred composed
his great works, the Spiritual Friendship and the Mirror of Charity. In
the latter he says that true love of God is only to be obtained by joining
ourselves in all things to the Passion of Christ. He died in 1167,
founder and Abbot of Rieveaux, the most austere monastery in
England, and Superior of some three hundred monks.
⛪ Reflection —When a man has given himself to God, God gives back
friendship with all His other gifts a hundredfold. Friends are then
loved no longer for themselves only, but for God, and that with a love
lively and tender; for God can easily purify feeling. It is not feeling, but
self-love, which corrupts friendship.
Source : Lives Of The Saints By Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. Edition