Saint Aelred of Rievaulx

David, King of Scot David, roi d'Écosse King of Scotland who introduced the Order of Tiron to his country. land, appointed him steward of the palace. In the exercise of this office, he earned the esteem of the prince and his court, having known how to preserve in high station two virtues that are rarely found there: humility, without which there is no true Christian, and the gentleness that is inseparable from it. One day, when a person of quality made insulting reproaches to him in the presence of the king, he listened with patience and even thanked him for having the charity to warn him of his faults. This conduct so happily impressed his enemy that he immediately asked for his forgiveness. Once, while he was busy discussing some matter, he was interrupted by someone in the company who overwhelmed him with invectives: he received them in profound silence and then resumed the thread of his discourse without showing the slightest emotion. Only one thing prevented him from leaving the world, which was that he would have to leave his friends. However, by reflecting that death would sooner or later separate him from those he cherished most tenderly, he accused himself of cowardice and resolved to break ties that were more agreeable to him than all the other pleasures of an honored and opulent life. So that the sacrifice might be comp lete, Rieval Cistercian monastery where Aelred was a monk and later abbot. he left Scotland an d went to Rievaulx, institut de Cîteaux Monastic order to which Bertrand and the Abbey of Grandselve belong. where he embraced the Cistercian institute u nder the guid saint Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux and spiritual master of Raoul. ance of William, a disciple of Saint Bernard and the first abbot of the monastery. He was twenty-four years old when he took the habit. One would have said that fervor fortified his naturally weak and delicate body, so much joy did he show in the practice of the greatest austerities. Prayer and pious reading occupied almost all his time: the ardor of divine love so embraced his heart that he found nothing but sweetness in that which most contradicts the inclinations of nature. "This yoke," he exclaimed, "does not overwhelm me; it only lifts my soul; this burden has nothing heavy about it." He speaks with a kind of transport of divine charity; and one must judge by his frequent and fiery exclamations that his most ordinary and agreeable occupation was to produce acts of this virtue. Let us listen to him: "May your voice, O good Jesus, be heard by my ears, so that my heart may learn to love you, so that my spirit may love you, so that all the powers of my soul may be entirely penetrated by the fire of your love, so that all my affections may rise toward you, O you who are my only good, my joy, and my delight! What is love, O my God? It is, if I am not mistaken, that ineffable pleasure of the soul which is all the sweeter as it is purer, all the more sensible as it is more ardent. He who loves you possesses you, and he possesses you in proportion to how much he loves you, because you are love. This is that torrent of delight with which you intoxicate your elect by transforming them into yourself through your love."

In the year 1142, Aelred was elected, against h is will Revesby Cistercian monastery of which Aelred was the first abbot. , Abbot of Revesby, a Cistercian monastery that William, Earl o f Lincoln, had just founded Guillaume, comte de Lincoln Founder of Revesby Abbey. on his estates; the following year, he was compelled to take over the governance of the Abbey of Rievaulx, where there were then three hundred monks. He describes their way of life as follows: "They drank only water, ate only very common things and in very small quantities; they slept little, and even then only on boards; they engaged in hard and arduous labor; they carried heavy burdens, without fearing fatigue, and went wherever they were led. Rest and amusements were unknown to them. To all these practices they added a rigorous silence; they spoke only to their superiors, and only when necessity required it; they detested disputes and lawsuits." The Saint also speaks of that peace and charity which united them together by the sweetest bonds. He expresses himself on this subject in the most touching manner: one sees that words fail him to give an idea of the joy that the sight of each of his religious caused him. He loved to repeat this recommendation to them.

Our Saint was offered several bishoprics; but his humility and his love for solitude caused him to refuse them all. His only pleasure was to attend to the exercise of prayer and to maintain his fervor through pious readings. Should he fall into dryness, he would open the divine Scriptures, and immediately his soul was fully penetrated by the lights of the Holy Spirit; his eyes were bathed in tears, and his heart felt the most vivid impressions of divine love. To complete the characterization of the Saint, we shall cite the words of a famous abbot of the same order: "What life was ever purer than that of Aelred? Who was more circumspect in his speech? The words that came from his mouth had the sweetness of honey; his body was weak and languid, but his soul was strong and vigorous. Like the bride of the Canticles, he languished in the expectation of eternal goods; his heart was like a sacred altar, upon which he offered continually to God the fire of his love, the mortification of his flesh, and the odor of his burning desires... Under a thin and emaciated body, he hid a soul nourished and fortified by the anointing and sweetness of grace: hence that ineffable joy with which he praised God. He patiently suffered those who importuned him and never made himself important to anyone... He willingly listened to others and was never in too much of a hurry to answer those who consulted him. He was never seen in anger; his words and actions bore the sweet imprint of that anointing and peace with which his soul was filled."

During the last four years of his life, he weaned his body from all earthly pleasures: thus he became extremely thin, so that one would have taken him for a spirit rather than a man. Setting aside the advice of physicians, he concerned himself solely with God regarding the health of his soul. He had the Confessions of Saint Augustine continually in his hand, instead of the saint Augustin Cited for his definition of fraternal charity. books of Cicero, which he had read assiduously in the world. Often he would place himself in a pit dug into the floor of his oratory, and there he would reflect that he was but dust, conversing with the inhabitants of the heavenly dwellings, as we do with our fellow men, and several voices were often heard where he was alone.

His death, which he had announced in advance, occurred on January 12, 1166. He was 57 years old. He had been abbot for 22 years. The General Chapter of Cîteaux (1250) placed him among the saints of the Order and decreed that his feast would be celebrated solemnly on January 12. However, it was moved to March 2 in the new m Benoît XIV Pope who beatified Jerome Emiliani. artyrology that Benedict XIV published for the use of this Order.

One will find in the patrology of Abbé Migne, vol M. l'abbé Migne Publisher of the Patrologia Latina. . CXCV, the complete works of Saint Aelred, divided into two classes; here is the list:

## ASCETIC BOOKS:

Sermones de tempore et sanctis. — Sermones de generibus in cap. XIII et seq. Isaïæ. — Specu lum charitatis. — C Speculum charitatis A major ascetic work by Aelred. ompendium speculi charitatis, lib. III, cum compendio ejusdem. — De sp irituali amicitia, l. De spirituali amicitia Aelred's celebrated treatise on friendship. III. — Regula sive institutio inclusarum. — Tractatus de puero Jesu duodecim.

## HISTORICAL BOOKS:

Descriptio belli Stendardii sub Stephano rege, an. 1138. — Genealogia regum anglorum. — Vita sancti Edwardi regis. — Vita Davidis, regis Scotiae. — Vita S. Margaritæ, reginæ Scotiæ. — 300 epistolae. — Hist. de sanctimoniali de Worthum.

His style is very close to that of Saint Bernard, his contemporary and spiritual father, whom he had taken as a model in everything: one also finds in it something of a disciple of Cicero and Saint Augustine. In his Sermones de tempore et sanctis, he uses simple and familiar language, because he was addressing lay and illiterate brothers, what are called the conversi brothers who, on Sundays and feast days, but not on other days, attended the sermon in the monks' chapter. An abbot had, in this case, to make himself accessible to all, and condescend to the ignorance of the least cultivated minds.

The sources from which the history of Saint Aelred is drawn are first his own works, then his life written by an anonymous author, which is found in Hollandus (vol. II of January, p. 80, new ed.). See also the notices found in M. Migne's Patrologia, etc.