* * *
Winter
ON JANUARY 13, 1052, Hermann of Altshausen sat by flickering candlelight, poring over a book that he was analyzing for his world chronicle. But that day, the strange visions of the monk Wetti of Saint Gallen failed to hold his interest. It was extraordinarily cold in the cell. Berthold had covered the two windows with leather hides and woolen coverings, and had kindled a good log fire, but an icy draft kept blowing through the room.
The Master had dismissed the students after a brief lesson. “Go and run about outside, so that you may get warmer. Remain in the inner courtyard or in the abbey garden!” He could no longer bear to see their blue, frozen young faces. Once again, his kindness had gotten the better of him.
From time to time, his numb fingers wrote a word on his wax tablet. Then he pricked up his ears. He had heard voices in the cloister outside his cell. He heard the dark tones of Berthold and the quick tenor of his brother Werinher.
“No, I cannot tell him! I simply cannot!” Werinher lamented. “If you tell him, it will be easier for him to bear …”
“But you alone are the proper person to do so, Werinher,” replied Berthold with great seriousness. “In this case, I am only an outsider. But … perhaps it is really better … Yes. I will do it, no matter how difficult I find it.”
“May God bless you for this, Berthold! There is no greater service of love that you could ever do for me, Brother.”
Berthold fended off his thanks: “I am doing it for the Father.”
It was only at this point that Hermann noticed that his stylus had etched deep, meaningless runes on the wax. He slowly smoothed the writing surface, without realizing what he was doing. Was it him they were discussing outside the cell door? What was Werinher not able to tell him? Bad news? Well, Berthold would come in now …
The door opened. The sick man waited, motionless, for the first word from his companion.
“Father …” Berthold began, and cleared his throat. He remained in the shadow, and Hermann could not see his face.
“Father, would you like to go to the Gnadensee?”
The Gnadensee—on this icy January morning? The lame man reflected: Does he want to tell me outside? I expect that he wants to go to the lake because he knows that I love it. Well, if that helps him …
“Good, Berthold,” he said aloud. “We will go to the Gnadensee.”
The young monk wrapped up the Father carefully in his coat, in cloths and coverings, and lifted him into the wheelchair, spreading a sheep’s skin over his knees. He anxiously avoided meeting the sick man’s eyes while he was going about these preparations. His hands, otherwise so nimble, were nervous and clumsy.
The monastery porter opened the gate for them with a reluctant grumble. “I have never seen anything so ridiculous. You want to go out in weather like this? If you get ill …”
The icy wind attacked the two monks savagely. Berthold’s wide black coat flapped like a flag at half-mast. Unkempt ravens flew off with ugly screeches. No white dove circled around the crest of Abbot Berno’s tower.
Without a covering of snow to protect it, the landscape seemed rigid and dead. The filigree of branches rose up to meet the monotonous gray of the low sky. The land on the other shore had withdrawn into a gray mist. It was a dreary, lifeless picture.
Would this landscape turn green and blossom in a few weeks? Could the warmth of the sun give this dead land a garment of mild and lovely colors, and make the lake shine?
Berthold steered the wheelchair to the Herrenbruck harbor, where an emperor and a Pope had once walked with all the splendor and pageantry of their courts. Now, a couple of gray planks lay over the gray water. The frozen ground crunched under Berthold’s feet, and the wheelchair creaked. The wind howled painfully, as shrill as a professional mourning woman. The brown reeds rustled and crackled as the wind took hold of them, and the pale grass by the wayside shivered.
Like a shadow, the church of Saints Peter and Paul emerged out of the gray mist. Berthold had still not spoken.
“Can I help you in any way, my son? You are bearing a burden of some kind.”
Every word of the sick man took the form of a cloud of breath that hung before his stiff lips.
“You want to help me, Father? I … it is I who want to help you,” replied Berthold, hesitantly. “Father, you …” He still hesitated, then he asked: “May I bring you back?”
The sick man had an uneasy premonition. It ascended threateningly from his subconscious mind: if Berthold had to struggle so hard to bring him the news, it must be terrible indeed. And it was in fact Werinher who ought to have brought it to him. Werinher, his brother … was the news about his family?
No, no! Let it be anything else … anything else than that! His mother? No, nothing must have happened to her. Had she not been transparently pale, the last time he had seen her? Pale and weary, although she had tried to hide it? “Dear Lord, anything else … but not that. Lord, have mercy on me … not my mother …”
Berthold brought him quickly to the abbey. The wind had dropped, and it began to snow. At first, fine little flakes fell, but they became bigger and more numerous, as the snow fell thickly. Soon, the frozen ground had a white covering. The white flakes slid over the lame man’s face like tears running down. He did not even know that it was snowing. Not his mother … not his mother …
In the narthex of the monastery church, Berthold shook the snow from the cloths and coverings and dried the Father’s face. Hermann freed his right hand from the layers of fabric and took his companion’s hand.
“Tell me, Berthold!” he asked, while he thought all the time: Not my mother … not my mother …
Berthold crouched down, so that the Master could see his face. The young priest still shrank from the task that lay before him.
“Father, the Lord asks you to make the greatest sacrifice of all …” he gasped. He did not finish the sentence, but Hermann knew everything.
“My lady mother?”
“Your lady mother, the noble Countess Hiltrud of Altshausen, fell asleep peacefully in the Lord on January 9, in the presence of your lord father and her children.”
The sick man stared at him. In his mind, he saw the narrow, still face of his mother, as he had seen her when he left Altshausen. His mother had passed away; did not that mean that the last remnant of warmth had departed from his wretched existence?
The tears ran down over the sunken cheeks of the lame monk, silently and ceaselessly.
“My lady mother,” his trembling lips murmured, “now heaven has found you. You are at home. I am sure that we must not mourn too much for you, since you are certainly with God. You spent your life doing good to others … and to me, the last of the poor ones of Christ.”
Berthold knew where he must bring the Father. He steered the wheelchair into the monastery church and took it to the altar of Our Lady, the Mother of all mothers. He knelt for a long time on the cold stone floor beside the vehicle and prayed the Salve Regina for the deceased and for her lame son.
“Mother of mercy, show the Lady Hiltrud your Son, just as I hope that you will one day show him to my beloved Master. Ask your Son to be consolation and strength for him. Dear Mother of God, be to him a Mother, more than ever before.”
A little while later, he took the lame man to the crypt of Abbot Berno, which had been erect four years previously with money donated by the Lady Hiltrud.
Hermann felt the loss of his mother deeply and painfully, but he never for one moment had the feelings of insecurity, of loneliness, and of abandonment that had tormented him after the Lord Berno’s death. The strings of his harp were not torn out. For were not the two departed ones very close to him?
“The curtain has become very thin, my lady mother, the curtain between time and eternity. Your son is even more keenly on the lookout for heaven now. You promised to help him find it.”
The two departed ones also knew about him. Their love and their care had made a rich and meaningful life out of his wretched existence as a cripple, and they would also guide his homeward path. Would his pilgrim journey be long?
“
Werinher was waiting for his brother in the corner cell. He was speechless, and Hermann had to console him.
“You will bring our dear lady mother the last greetings I give her as her son, Werinher.”
“What? You are not going with me to Altshausen, Hermann?”
“No, brother, I shall pray here for our lady mother.”
“Why do you not want to come with me?” Werinher’s incomprehension was giving way to an angry impatience.
“I would not survive the journey at this time of year, Werinher.”
The younger brother was unconvinced. “But do you not owe our lady mother the journey? Think of all she did for you! You were her favorite son.”
The sick man’s face reddened with anger, and his eyes blazed. It was only with an effort that he suppressed a heated answer.
“Brother, your pain is robbing you of the ability to think clearly. I cannot travel. Would it please our lady mother, if the journey meant my death? Would she not rather wish that I remained on Reichenau and thought of her here? It would have been a consolation for me too, if I had been permitted to pray at her grave.” Hermann hid his face in his hands.
Werinher was deeply moved. “Forgive me!”
Hermann immediately looked up. “But of course. All that matters is that you understand me, brother.”
“
Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the monk Dietbert.
“Hermann, Father Abbot wishes to see you.”
“And why does not the abbot come here, on this occasion?” grumbled Werinher. “Now my sick brother has to go through the winter cold again.”
“I have no idea,” shrugged Dietbert.
“Father Abbot did once come to us,” said Berthold furiously. “On that occasion, he needed texts for the Pope.”
“He should have done the same today,” said Werinher harshly.
“What a fuss you are all making,” said the lame man in surprise. “I am supposed to be able to travel to Altshausen, but I cannot cover the little distance to the abbot’s quarters?”
“In this case, it is not a question of the shortness of the distance,” said Berthold darkly. Then he fell silent, and Hermann took care not to ask any questions. He had understood Berthold and Werinher perfectly well.
The cloister was bitterly cold and draughty, but a boy stood there in a light garment, a boy with strawberry blond hair and green eyes.
“Bruno!” Hermann called out in surprise to the fifth child of Mistress Magdalen, who had been born on the very day on which his father died on the gallows. “How did you get in here?”
“The side door in the monastery church is usually open,” smiled the boy. Then his bright young face turned serious. “I … I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry to hear the news … and to give you this.”
He quickly pressed a little wooden figure into the sick man’s hand and ran with light and nimble steps into the inner courtyard. The driving snow swallowed him up as rapidly as if he had been an apparition from the other world.
What present could Mistress Magdalen’s son have given the Father? Berthold was curious, and bent forward. He saw a little wooden figure, obviously meant to be Our Lady. Hermann’s crooked fingers caressed the little statue.
“It is still very much the work of a child … and yet there is more to it than that. Just see, Berthold, how slender and fine the face is. The figure is delicate, the figure of a young girl, and yet the posture is that of a queen.”
“The boy knew your lady mother well,” said Berthold in a quiet voice.
“You too saw the resemblance? He probably thought of her while he was carving the statue. After all, he knew that it was thanks to her request that my father permitted him to leave the county, so that he could learn an honest trade here on Reichenau.”
“And he had seen, even before that permission came, how your lady mother cared for his family, how she healed the wounds that had been inflicted by a harsh law. It was the most moving experience during our time in Altshausen to see how Mistress Magdalen found herself again and began a new life, thanks to your lady mother.”
“Berthold, she was only one of the many who were restored to health by the kindness of my dear lady mother.”
“
The Lord Udualrich opened the doors of his chamber to the lame man. He praised in eloquent words the noble benefactress of Reichenau, who had now departed from this life.
“I shall offer the holy sacrifice for your lady mother tomorrow.”
“My Lord and Father Abbot, I thank you for this gift, which is the greatest of all gifts. Would you permit me on this occasion to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, for the third time since my ordination? If Brother Berthold stands beside me and supports me with his help at every point, I will be able to do so, by the grace of God.”
“I am happy to grant your request, Hermann.”
“May I also compose an epitaph for my lady mother? Werinher could take it with him.”
“But surely you will go to Altshausen yourself?”
“I would almost give in to the temptation, my Lord and Father Abbot, if you were to offer me the journey. But … I may not do so.”
The Lord Udualrich was perplexed. “Do you feel worse, Hermann?”
“If I were to go to Altshausen, Father Abbot, I would expend my last strength on the journey. But my last strength must belong to Reichenau.”
The abbot’s visible astonishment at this reply gave way to a feeling of kindness toward the sick monk. The old antipathy, which had existed so long, disappeared.
“Would you please look at this carving, Father Abbot? A child made it and gave it to me.” He handed the abbot the little figure of Our Lady.
The Lord Udualrich studied the carving intently.
“Doubtless you too think that the boy is gifted.”
“Certainly, Hermann. This child’s statue bears the promise that he will one day be a great artist. He must be given help and encouragement.”
Abbot Udualrich smiled at Hermann.
“And that was what you wanted to suggest to me, was it not?”
“Yes, Father Abbot,” said the sick man candidly. “I secretly hoped that you would guess that.”
“And that is what I did,” said the Lord Udualrich cheerfully. “We agree, then.”
“The little master carver is Bruno, whom you entrusted to our Brother carpenter as an apprentice, Father Abbot, because … the Lady Hiltrud asked you to do so.”
“Take the carving with you as a greeting to your lady mother. I shall not forget Bruno. What else can I give you … my son?”
“Your blessing, Father Abbot.”
For the first time, Abbot Udualrich’s blessing was no mere formula. He had a genuine desire to give it.
Berthold’s amazement had increased, as he followed the conversation. Could one believe the Abbot? His conduct hitherto had not been such as to inspire confidence.
“
The little statue of Mary stood before the lame man when he dictated the epitaph for his mother’s tomb. It began: “Mater egenorum, spes auxiliumque suorum …Hiltrud, mother of the needy, the hope and help of those who were hers, gives back to the earth here in this mound what she owes to the earth. Hiltrud ennobled her most noble parents, from a noble lineage, through the brilliant splendor of her striving for perfection. She entered only once, in chastity, into the sacred covenant of marriage. She devoted her mind and her heart to the divine service. Martha’s modest portion appeared to her to be worth striving for. What she taught others, she herself exemplified faithfully.
“She gave joy, richly and piously, to the poor with clothing, with food, and with consolation. She went wherever distress commanded. She was submissive and mild. She was meek and patient, and avoided strife. She was loved by all, and we hope that she found favor with Our Lord …
“Believe me, this is not a poet’s nonsense. Nor am I a son who heaps excessive praise upon his mother. Ask the voice of the people in the meadows of our homeland, and it will be clear to you that I have said only a little …”
Berthold too found that the verses contained no exaggeration of any kind. He too had seen how the “good Martha” looked after those who were in need, including the family of the hanged thief Bruno. Thanks to her intervention, the clash between Count Wolfrad and Hermann, initially so harsh, had been resolved in the lame man’s favor. Without his noticing it, she had mollified her husband’s roughness. And how kindly she had welcomed her son’s young companion! Berthold, who had been an orphan since the age of nine, had felt once more like a child sheltered in the love of a mother.
But she had not only looked after her children and her household. The people of Eritgau also belonged to her great family.
Even in her old age, she had remained maidenly, this wise, well educated, and cheerful woman who lived in the splendor of marital chastity. Her family could always rely on her for help, and she won over people’s hearts and minds to goodness. The true source of her strength was her deep interior life, which prompted her to trust steadfastly in God. In this trust, she had accepted the death of her eight children, and had endured every suffering.
While Werinher was making his way through the wintry Swabia to Altshausen, Hermann offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass for his deceased mother. Abbot Udualrich and the monks were present, praying in their choir stalls. Berthold had prepared everything, down to the smallest detail, in order to make it possible for the sick man to celebrate the sacred liturgy, and he stood at his side.
None of those present could tear his eyes away from the extraordinary and moving impression made by the picture: the lame man sat in an armchair behind an improvised altar. The high altar, with the great cross above it, soared up like a mountain behind him. In the center of the wide room, the sick man seemed even more sunken, more stooped, and more fragile than usual.
The light of the candles fell on the furrowed, shrunken face and the crooked hands, which moved in slow and laborious gestures. It was still early in the morning, and the monastery church lay in a gray twilight. The only pool of light was on the sacrificial altar of Hermann of Altshausen.
Berthold gave him all the support he needed, without drawing attention to himself. It was as if he had rehearsed every movement carefully.
Hermann had lost his awareness of the community. He scarcely felt the supportive hands of his companion. He was completely recollected. He had entered into the sacred action, and was filled with a marvelous peace. He believed firmly that his lady mother was at home.
At the offertory, the oblatio, he once again laid the sacrifice of his own life alongside the bread on the paten, so that he too might become bread, bread for the hands of the Lord. He felt a new love growing in him while he celebrated the sacrifice of Christ, a gentle and compassionate love for those who were far from the Lord, and a kindly mercy. It was as if he had to fetch those persons home into the communion. He knew that his sacrifice had been accepted anew.
Just at the moment when he bowed his head to give thanks after the sacred celebration of the Eucharist, the sun rose. Its rays fell through the windows in the eastern choir, lit up the cross and the high altar, and wrapped the lame man too in their splendor.
The Sequence of the Cross
In the year of grace 1052, highly disturbing things happened behind the stout walls of the abbey. The monastic life ran, to all appearances, within its pre-ordained framework, which was laid down by the Rule. The bells rang at the appointed times, calling to prayer and to work, to meals, to recreation, and to the chapter meeting.
The monks of Reichenau got through their day as they had always done. But only a very superficial observer would have thought that nothing had changed.
A pressing unease had grown in the hearts and minds of most of the monks. Perplexity, indignation, and hurt pride smoldered there, and awaited their hour. The Lord Udualrich had dismissed the prior, and other monks of proven quality, from their offices, without consulting the community of the brethren. He had then appointed men who were sympathetic to him. His wasteful and imprudent administration imposed ever new burdens on the abbey. He separated himself haughtily from the monks. He never took one step in their direction; they had to come to him. He did not serve; rather, all had to serve him.
Hitherto, the disquieting talk that was buzzing through the monastery had stopped at the cell of the lame man. It had not dared to cross the threshold. Would not the internal mutiny break down before his clear eyes and the objective reasons he would put forward? Had not a wave of indignation ebbed away before him, once in the past? Some monks remembered all too well the pitiful attempt to act against Abbot Berno.
Berthold seemed to have changed: he had avoided Hermann’s piercing eyes for some days now. What was he hiding from him?
The sick man was working on a new Marian antiphon.
“O blossoming rose, Mother of the divine light. Virgin chaste and pure, fruitful branch of the vine, brighter than the dawn, pray for us in our needs, so that we may be worthy of the home of the eternal light on the day of the strict judgment …”
The door slammed shut and put an end to his prayerful meditation. Berthold came up to his work desk. His face was somber.
“Since when have you made such a din?” Hermann rebuked him indignantly. His train of thought had been interrupted.
Berthold did not excuse himself. He stretched out his finger and knocked the little statue of Mary once or twice on its head.
The sick man was puzzled. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I thought at the time that it was nothing but hypocrisy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“About the terribly generous decision of our Lord and Father Abbot Udualrich to let young Bruno be apprenticed to a master carver,” replied the young monk, with caustic bitterness. “Do you know where Bruno is now?”
“No, but …”
“Please, Father, do not react by defending the abbot because he is the abbot. I could not stand that! Injustice is injustice. A broken promise is a very great injustice, and that has been done both to you and to the boy. Bruno is working as a groom in the stables on the estate. What do you say now?”
After a pause, Hermann replied, composedly: “I shall speak to Father Abbot.”
“And you think there is any point in doing so? He will probably make you another fine promise, and he will be even more ready to forget what he has promised.”
“Berthold, I forbid you to speak like that! How do you know that Bruno was assigned to serve with the prior knowledge of Father Abbot?”
“Well, I have no evidence of that. But I am convinced that the words he spoke to you then were empty. He did it only to please you.”
“My poor friend,” said the lame man compassionately, “has your aversion to the Lord Udualrich so completely overwhelmed your ability to think in supernatural terms?”
Negative reports about the abbot were brought to Berthold from all quarters, and he found this question more than he could bear. He turned abruptly and left the room.
Hermann had to wait for a long time, far too long, until he returned, although it was high time for Berthold to put him to bed. His back was sore from having sat for a whole day. He bent it more and more, until his forehead touched the table surface.
Where was Berthold?
Berthold had to trust Hermann to investigate the matter of Bruno. He had to struggle to adopt the correct attitude to the Lord Udualrich.
Where was Berthold?
The sick man’s pains intensified, and his impatience increased and made him bitter. “He knows how tired and exhausted I am, when I have been sitting all day. Does he want to punish me for rebuking him?”
Darkness fell, and the lame man’s forehead was still on the table surface, supported by his trembling right hand. Hermann had never before found his dependence on the help of the young monk a source of humiliation, but now he felt degraded and abandoned.
When steps approached, he straightened up with a great effort. There were red imprints on his brow and his hand.
“Forgive me for not coming before now,” murmured Berthold. Hermann had the impression that he spoke hastily; but it did not occur to him that the brevity might have been the fruit of uncertainty and embarrassment.
“He does not even tell me why he has neglected me. Well, he does not have to give an account of himself to me,” thought the lame man, wearily and bitterly. Without a word, he let himself be helped onto his bed; without a word, he shook his head at the question whether he had any wishes for the coming night; without a word, he gave the blessing. He himself had secretly hoped for a good word.
Next morning, another monk entered his cell, Gerfried of Augsburg. Had Berthold asked the abbot to discharge him from his service? Gerfried remained standing at the foot of his bed, without offering to help him.
“Forgive me, dear Brother, for coming to you so early in the morning, but I am charged with a commission that brooks no delay. The brethren have sent me to you, who are the faithful son of our revered and blessed Abbot Berno.”
The sick man had the feeling that a great and imminent danger threatened. Had not Gerfried been one of the most zealous adversaries of Abbot Berno in the past? And was he not still one of those who spread rumors and stirred up strife? Hermann’s shining eyes looked directly at the unctuous monk. He said nothing. Whom did this stocky man with the brown skin remind him of? Was it Cheirisophos?
The smooth voice of Brother Gerfried sought to woo him with flattery: “We attach great value to your prudent counsel and your utterly honest judgment, Master Hermann.”
Yes, this reminded him of Cheirisophos.
“We intend to present a petition to the emperor.”
The lame man asked, calmly: “Who are ‘we’? And why do you want to present a petition to the emperor?”
This objectivity confused Gerfried. “We … well … most of the members of the community of Reichenau, or a good number of them, at any rate. You yourself can surely identify without any difficulty the reason for our petition, Hermann. We want to complain about the way in which Abbot Udualrich governs our abbey. Just think: he has sold off works by you that ought to have remained in the monastery library! You surely do not want the inheritance of the Lord Berno—especially his spiritual inheritance—to be reduced any further. It is vital for you, just as it is for us, that the spirit of Cluny should be preserved intact here.”
Hermann lifted his head as far as he could. He breathed more quickly, but his words betrayed nothing of the agitation that had befallen him.
“So,” he said, to all appearances serene and uninvolved, “you want to present a petition to preserve the religious spirit in the abbey? Dear Brother, I know of a simpler way to attain that goal. Live the spirit of Cluny, all of you, and then the inheritance of the Lord Berno will not be diminished. Why do you not speak openly with Father Abbot about your difficulties?”
“With Udualrich?” cried Gerfried, shocked. “Speak openly with Udualrich?”
“In my opinion, that is the only path you can take with a good conscience. If you have complaints about essential matters, it is your sacred duty to present them to Father Abbot in reverence and openness, instead of intervening secretly with the emperor. Every secret of this kind is a conspiracy against the spirit of the religious life. Let me add one thing: never again mention where my writings are to be found. What I have written belongs to the Lord. I have neither the right nor the wish to make any objections on that score.”
The visitor smiled scornfully. “I see. That tells me a lot! And we thought that you were an honest disciple of the Lord Berno and that it mattered to you whether his work was preserved. You adapt to whichever abbot is in office, don’t you, Hermann?”
“The abbot who is in office is God’s representative for us,” said the lame man, with a certain severity.
Gerfried waved his hand dismissively. “I do not believe in your theological motivations. It is a human and a very … natural prudence that makes you take Udualrich’s side and refuse to support us.”
Without greeting him, the monk left the cell, and at once Berthold entered.
“Are you too one of them?” shouted the sick man.
“One of whom, Father? I do not understand you. Gerfried asked me to wait outside, because he had something important to say to you.”
“Forgive me, Berthold! I have done you an injustice.”
“You … to me?” stammered the young monk in confusion. “And I wanted to ask you for forgiveness. I have behaved toward you like a little boy.”
“Does the little boy see that his attitude toward Abbot Udualrich is mistaken?”
“Father … I have tried to see that, but I cannot. You ought to hear what the monks in the abbey are saying. You ought to hear the bitterness that is spreading everywhere!”
“Do you make your own attitude dependent on what other people are saying, my son? We must continue on our own path, without being disturbed by other people’s attitudes, if that path proves to be path indicated by God.” The lame man’s eyes were sad. His words had not convinced his companion.
“How can we be certain that it is God’s path?”
“Berthold, I could give you many reasons, but all I ask for is your trust. Go with me, even if that runs counter to what you think and feel at present. Do not leave me alone now!”
“Father, I have no intention of leaving you! What makes you think that?”
“Berthold, I am asking much of you. The disciple must not leave the master alone, even when he would prefer to flee,” replied the lame man. He added, quietly: “He must not abandon him, even when that seems to him to be the better and more prudent thing to do. Faithfulness is rare. I know that your faithfulness will be put to a hard test in the coming time.”
“Why do you doubt me?” cried Berthold, almost indignantly. “I will stay by you, no matter what happens.”
“Simon Peter once promised the Lord Jesus Christ that he would remain faithful, even if all the others abandoned him … Let us not make presumptuous promises. Let us rather pray that the Lord may give us the strength to remain faithful.”
“
In the next weeks, many attempts were made to win over the lame man, who had experienced much injustice and many slights from Abbot Udualrich, to join in presenting the petition. His name was well known, and carried weight with the emperor and the Pope.
Neither requests nor threats had any power to influence Hermann. When monks visited him, he did his best to set out the religious reasons for his refusal, and he succeeded in convincing Dietbert, Fridebolt, Randolf, Tradolf, Eginhard, and several other monks of the folly and injustice of such an intervention.
“Why do they want to present a petition? Is this not, in reality, prompted by jealousy? No one would think of doing such a thing, if he himself was one of those to whom the abbot has entrusted offices in the monastery. That is why this intervention is contrary to the will of God. The Lord Udualrich is our legitimately elected superior. God gives every community the superior whom it deserves. Let us pray much for our monastic family. Let us pray much for our Father Abbot Udualrich. Let us observe our Rule with great faithfulness.”
Hermann did not realize that he was the heart of Reichenau at this critical time. He often had himself brought to the tomb of Abbot Berno, where he prayed for the Holy Spirit for the abbot and the brethren. His love for Reichenau had become a painful and selfless love.
One day, Abbot Udualrich sought him, and found him alone at the tomb of the Lord Berno.
“Hermann,” he whispered, “may I ask you for a favor? I should like to enclose a prayer or a hymn from your hand, as a special greeting, in a letter to the Holy Father. You know our Holy Father, and you know what would bring him joy.”
The sick man looked without suspicion at the broad face of the abbot. Were not his eyes full of uncertainty? Did he not truly need help?
The Lord Udualrich, who otherwise paid little attention to the sick man, now steered his wheelchair through the cloister to the corner cell. Some of the eyes that observed this unusual scene darkened with malice. The man from Altshausen was ingratiating himself with Udualrich.
“
When Berthold went to fetch him from the monastery church, Gerfried beckoned him. “Save yourself the trouble of looking for your Master in the church. Someone else has taken excellent care of him. You should have seen how carefully our Lord and Father Abbot Udualrich personally steered the wheelchair. A truly touching picture! It reminded one of another abbot who steered his wheelchair once.”
Gerfried was delighted with the effect his allusion to Abbot Berno made. Berthold’s shoulders twitched uncomfortably. Was the Father seeking the abbot’s favor? That was unthinkable, even if the lame man spoke out against an intervention and was indefatigable in his defense of the Lord Udualrich.
Hermann was already sitting at the work desk when Berthold entered the cell. The Lord Udualrich had lifted him onto the armchair, and that too displeased the young monk. He studied the face of the sick man attentively, and with a distrust that he did not admit to himself. Was not his face more cheerful than it had been recently? If Berthold had come a moment earlier, he would have seen the bird that had hopped through the open window onto the work desk—a man of childlike purity could find pleasure in something like that. But Berthold supposed that the smile meant that Hermann was pleased with the service the abbot had rendered him.
Hermann pondered aloud: “I wonder whether the Holy Father would like it if I wrote again about the thorns? Or should I sing the praise of the holy cross, which is laid so very much on his shoulders?”
“You … you are writing to the Pope, after all?” cried Berthold in agitation. The most recent wish of the discontented monks was that not only the emperor, but also the Pope should be informed about what was happening on Reichenau.
Hermann looked at him darkly, and his brows met in the middle of his forehead. “Are you too starting to talk like the others? Do you think that I would now, after all this time, take part in the disobedient petition?”
Berthold was so confused that he stated, honestly: “Without you, there will be no petition.”
“Thanks be to God! I will never ever support this plan. Ruodhard is going to Abbot Udualrich, and he will tell him openly why there is discontent in the abbey. We can safely entrust the further course of events to the Lord. I have just mentioned a poem. Father Abbot wants to enclose it in a letter to the Holy Father.”
“So that is why he took care of you. After all that he already knows, he probably wants to cover his back with the Pope. And to that end, he is misusing your name and your influence with the Pope. You cannot and you must not write for him.”
“Berthold, I hope you are not conscious of what you have said.”
“I said it very consciously, Father. And I shall say it once again: You cannot and you must not write for him, because otherwise, the brethren will believe that you are courting the abbot’s favor.”
“Let them believe what they like. I obey.”
“In this case, you do not need to obey!” cried Berthold, passionately and loudly. “In Rome, you are a protective shield for the abbot. He is exploiting you, and later on, he will despise you all the more. Do not write!”
“Have you forgotten that we are to obey our superior as we obey God himself?” asked Hermann, in a serious tone.
“God cannot want you to be exploited and abused in this way. He cannot want you to attract the hostility of many persons.” Berthold flew into a rage. “This command is not from God!”
All at once, Hermann of Altshausen was only the theologian and older confrère whose words were uttered with dignity, from a position of distance and superiority.
“Brother, you are a professed monk and a priest, and yet you do not know that the commands of the superiors are to be regarded as coming from God, even when the one who issues the commands does not possess the degree of perfection that we would like to see in him? God speaks through the mouth of the superior—of every superior, Brother. And we must accept the commands of our Lord and Abbot Udualrich as if Our Lord Jesus Christ were issuing them to us. You may, and you must, say ‘no’ only in the case of an instruction that is contrary to the honest decision of your conscience, an instruction that enjoins a sin upon you.
“Let me give you one piece of advice: Do not allow yourself so easily to pronounce a destructive judgment on the behavior and the state of soul of another person. That is unchristian and Pharisaic. Each person is guilty only to the extent that he possesses knowledge of what he is doing. Only God knows when and where his guilt begins. We are sinners, and that is always something we share with those whom we judge or condemn …
“It would be too much to ask of you, if I were to dictate the verses to you. So go, and take your writing implements with you!”
“Father … I …”
“That is enough, Berthold. I can manage on my own.”
The priest-monk turned brusquely on his heel and left the room. His rapid, angry steps echoed in the cloister.
For a long time, the lame man sat before his work desk, as if he had been turned to stone. So Berthold too was one of them. He felt no indignation. What was he to do? How could he help? As he pondered, he folded his trembling hands.
“Lord, do not allow Berthold to become an adversary of the abbot. Do not allow him to stray from the path of obedience in his youthful impetuousness, for there is no other path for one whom you call to serve you. Lord, have mercy on him and grant him understanding. Do not permit him to run away from you by refusing to obey the Lord Udualrich.
“Let my other brethren too learn that you are to be found only along the path of obedience.
“Our community is at risk: have mercy on it. Discord, hatred, jealousy, mistrust, and coldness have made their way into the abbey. Do not allow your work to perish through our guilt.
“Grant us love for one another and reverence for our superiors! If there is anything that I can give you, take it, O Lord. Give us only your mercy, and we will be saved!”
“
The lame man wrestled with the Lord in prayer, over and over again. Then he forced his weak fingers to take up the goose quill. He laid his left hand heavily on the parchment. In shaky letters and at the cost of great exertion, he wrote for Leo IX a hymn in praise of the Crucified Lord, Grates, honos …1 He knew in advance that the unclear letters he wrote would not meet with the Lord Udualrich’s approval. This time, the verses did not flow (as they usually did) from the free and effortless stream of his thoughts. They were wrested from his tormented and struggling spirit. They had neither facility nor a self-contained conceptual meaning. His inner distress cried out from the words. The hymn in praise of the cross and the Crucified Lord was the lament stammered by the soul of a crucified man.
Once again, Berthold was late. He brought the evening meal with a feigned tranquility. They were polite to each other, but precisely this politeness denoted a distance between them.
“Would you be so kind as to bring this parchment to our Lord and Father Abbot, Brother?”
Berthold bowed and left. Hermann sat before his meal. He knew that he could not eat anything. Nor was that all: he knew that, when Berthold came, he would have to ask him to spend the night in his cell. The day’s exertions were wreaking their revenge on the lame man. His hands trembled continually after the excessive strain of writing, and unusually strong headaches told him to expect another of the terrible attacks that he had known and feared since the journey to Altshausen.
He breathed in relief when a knock came. But instead of Berthold, it was his brother Werinher who entered.
“You are at your supper. Am I disturbing you?”
“No, come in. I am not eating.”
Werinher sat down opposite him. Lost in thought, he contemplated his older brother, the most beloved and the most hated monk of Reichenau.
“Hermann, do you know what they are saying about you? I have told them clearly that their conjectures are complete nonsense. Even if the abbot pushes your wheelchair on one occasion, that means nothing at all. But life here is getting more and more intolerable. People talk all the time. They whisper and criticize. I cannot endure it any longer. I want to go.”
Despite the growing dusk, Hermann tried to catch his brother’s eyes. “Do not talk like that, Werinher. You had similar plans once in the past.”
“And now I am going to put them into action. I will go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Abbot Berno held me back that time. I felt so secure with him that Reichenau became my home. But I am not going to remain here now. I must go to the places where Our Lord lived and suffered. It is there that my earthly journey will end. No, brother, do not contradict me. I know your objections. You will tell me that one can become holy anywhere, and under any abbot. You will tell me that going away, even on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, is a cowardly flight …”
“Yes,” Hermann broke in quickly, “going away is a cowardly flight. We must hold out in the place where God has put us.”
“And what if he calls us to the Holy Land?”
“If he wants to have you in the Holy Land, the abbot will not refuse you permission for the pilgrimage. Take that as a touchstone that shows whether or not your plans come from God. Have the courage to present your wish to Abbot Udualrich.”
Werinher cried out indignantly. “What are you asking of me? I am to tell a man like Udualrich …?”
The lame man could no longer control the jerky twitching of his hands. The attack would come any minute now. This made him interrupt his brother.
“Werinher, brother, dear brother, for the sake of Christ …” His words became indistinct, as a spasm seized his facial muscles. “The Lord Udualrich is the abbot appointed for you by God,” he babbled imploringly, “appointed by God. Promise me …”
“What am I to promise you?” asked Werinher sharply.
“To … say … it … to … him!” gasped Hermann with the last reserves of his strength. After this, only inarticulate sounds came from his mouth.
“What is wrong with you, Hermann? Is it your sickness? Did I excite you so much?”
He lifted his brother, who was rigid from the spasm, from the armchair and laid him carefully on his bed. He looked helplessly at Hermann as he groaned. “I will fetch Berthold!”
Hermann of Altshausen lay there, fettered by his lameness and dependent on the services of the companion who was his Good Samaritan—and who had just gone from him in rancor and bitterness. The last of the poor ones of Christ …
When Berthold came running into the cell, the attack had reached the same level of vehemence as in the night in the parish priest’s house near Altshausen.
The sick man’s illness was now writing a new and more impressive Sequence in honor of the holy cross than he himself could ever have composed.
For hours on end, Berthold supported Hermann as he fought for breath or was shaken by spasms. He wiped sweat, tears, and spittle from his face, made him poultices with the herbal essence, and gave him small quantities of spiced wine.
Slowly, the sick man slid into a sensation of soothing languor and detachment. Everything became distant and unreal. The pains fell silent. He slept. The presence of his companion had spared him the worst—the dreadful inner distress.
Berthold carefully renewed the poultice on his forehead and listened to his weak but peaceful breaths. In the light of the candles, he looked at the emaciated face with its hollow cheeks, the deep furrows excavated by pain, the dark rims under his eyes, and the eyelids that were bluish and transparent.
“Have I caused him concern?” He could no longer understand himself or his conduct.
At one point, he left the cell and returned with his writing implements and the parchment that Hermann had given him that evening. He wrote all night long. He had never made such a beautiful and smooth copy.
When morning came, he brought the Abbot Hermann of Altshausen’s hymn in praise of the cross.
“Finished already? That is good.” The abbot’s self-assured smile daunted Berthold, but he had taken his decision, and he was not content with half-measures.
“The Father finished the hymn yesterday evening, but I … I …”
“Well, of course, you wanted to copy it out first. That was very sensible on your part. No one can read the shaky scribblings of the lame man.”
The abbot’s superficial manner sorely tempted the young monk not to expose himself to humiliation, but he remained on his knees.
“Do you have a wish, Berthold?”
“Yes, Father Abbot, I want to tell you something. There was another reason why I did not want to bring you the parchment yesterday evening, although the Father had instructed me to do so.”
The Lord Udualrich looked at him in astonishment. “I see. And why did you not want to obey, Berthold?”
“Because … because I did not believe in the legitimacy of the commission that was entrusted to him. I thought that it would damage the Father, if he carried it out, and I had already attempted to persuade the Father that he should not write.”
The abbot’s broad face was hard at work as he registered this. Was he about to explode in fury?
“And why was it so important to you to prevent my commission from being carried out?”
“Because …” Berthold faltered. His face was bathed in perspiration, and in his distress he pressed his damp hands together in the arms of his habit. “Because the brethren believe in any case that the Father is trying to ingratiate himself with you.”
The abbot looked at him with an expression of utter amazement. Then he laughed a booming laugh. “Hermann? What are you saying? Hermann is ingratiating himself with me? Is that what they think?”
The laughter ceased abruptly, and his brows came together.
“What happened then? You tried hard to prevent Hermann from writing … and what did he do?”
“The Father became very angry at my behavior. He rebuked me severely and sent me away. He wrote down the Sequence without my help. I ought to have brought it to you yesterday evening, but I was disobedient.”
“And why are you now bringing me the parchment that you have copied out, Berthold? Did he convince you?”
“Yes, Father Abbot, he convinced me. He had a new and particularly grave attack. It was terrible to have to see how he was tormented. But he sent me a look from time to time that showed me that he was consciously enduring his distress in expiation of my attitude and my conduct. When the attack wore off, my mind had changed. I wrote down the hymn for you, and I now ask you for forgiveness and for a penance.”
Had the abbot heard the last words? He was looking down at the parchment with the Sequence of the cross.
“A strange man, this Hermann, a strange man. Powerlessness and power. He does not hate me, he sees through me. He sees through you, Berthold. He conquers you, as he did this night.”
Berthold ventured to interpose: “He conquers the evil in me, Father Abbot.”
The Lord Udualrich bowed. “The evil in us. If he were healthy, he would have to be the Abbot of Reichenau.”
He straightened himself. “You know that, despite your openness, you have merited a penance, Brother. I charge you … to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass in the cell of Hermann of Altshausen.”
“Oh, Father Abbot, thank you for this penance!”
“Berthold, even a man who never became father can act like a father, if there is someone to speak to the good that is in him; someone who respects him when others despise him.”
Flight
Dawn was just beginning to creep over the mountains by the lake, when Hermann woke from a light slumber. In the semidarkness, he recognized the outlines of a man.
“What is it, Berthold?” he asked in a low voice.
The monk came closer and bent over him.
“It is not Berthold, Hermann. It is me—Werinher.”
“Werinher?” What brought his brother to him at this time of day? “Has something happened, brother?”
“No, nothing has happened. But something is about to happen, Hermann. Luither and I are beginning our pilgrimage to the Holy Land,” whispered Werinher.
Hermann took hold of his brother’s habit with both hands, as if he wanted to hold him fast.
“You are going on pilgrimage? Are you leaving Reichenau in secret?”
His hands clutched the black woolen cloth.
“Yes, Hermann, we are going away in secret. Is there anyone here who would have any sympathy with our wish? Do you? So we are going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land without telling the abbot and hearing him say ‘no.’”
“Werinher, you cannot do that! You must not! You would be deserters, absconders, excommunicated … Werinher, think about what you are doing.” Hermann gasped as he implored his brother. In this emergency, his hands, which were otherwise so weak, held the cloth in an iron grip.
“We have thought of everything, brother. There is no turning back now. A fisher boat is waiting not far from the Herrenbruck harbor. I just wanted to bid you farewell. I expect that you will refuse me your blessing …”
“Werinher, my brother, by the memory of our lady mother, remain here! I ask you!”
The lame man tugged frantically at his brother’s habit.
“Hermann, I have to go. Pray for me.” He noticed that the sick man was holding him fast. “Let go of me!” he demanded impatiently.
“Werinher! Remain here!” Hermann groaned.
“Let go of me! I do not want to hurt you.”
“You are doing that in any case. Remain here!”
The lame man held his brother’s habit so firmly that Werinher had to use force to get it out of his hands. An unequal struggle began.
“Let go of me!”
“Remain here!”
When Werinher finally freed himself forcibly, the sick man’s hands still held a piece of cloth. Hermann fell back on his bed, exhausted.
“I must … report your … flight …”
“Follow your conscience, Hermann. I am following mine.”
A cold draught brushed Hermann’s forehead as he lay on his bed with a piece of black woolen cloth in his painful hands.
“Werinher?”
The door closed quietly, and Werinher crept away through the cloister.
“I must inform the abbot. I must report my own brother,” thought Hermann despondently. A little bell stood on a stool beside his bed. After several vain attempts, he had it in his hand, and then he rang it. It sounded loud in the silence of the cloister, and he hoped that Berthold would hear it. The bell cried out its desperate plea for help, until it slipped from his hand and rolled over the stone floor with a noisy clang.
Berthold rushed in, out of breath and agitated. “What is wrong, Father?”
“Help me! I must get to Father Abbot as quickly as possible!”
The lame man’s voice held such distress that his companion did not ask any questions. A short time later, the wheelchair was creaking on its way through the cloister. Berthold knocked at the door of the abbot’s quarters. A somewhat reluctant voice asked from within the room what important matter was at stake.
“Hermann of Altshausen asks urgently to speak to you at once, Father Abbot.”
The door opened at once.
“Hermann, what has happened? You look like a ghost,” said the Lord Udualrich, blinking and still half asleep.
The sick man’s hands tensed up. He felt like shouting.
“Father Abbot, I have something important to tell you … My brother, the monk Werinher of Altshausen and the monk Luither of Regensburg have just run away. Werinher told me that they are on their way to the Holy Land.”
The lame man bowed his head low. It was hard to denounce his own brother …
The abbot did not reply. Had he not grasped the significance of Hermann’s words? Berthold pressed his right hand to his lips in horror. Poor Father Hermann! He was not to be spared anything.
Finally, the Lord Udualrich spoke in a cracked voice: “You yourself are telling me that your brother has absconded, Hermann? Why did you not give him the chance to get away first? You could have covered his flight for long enough.”
“No, Father Abbot, I could not do that. I told Werinher that I would tell you about his flight. They are rowing over the Gnadensee.”
Once again the abbot, who was visibly shaken, hesitated before he took the grave decision: “Then we must pursue them.”
“That is what I would ask you to do, Father Abbot!”
The two monks stared at the sick man, almost in shock.
“You ask me to do so, Hermann? But Werinher is your brother.”
“Werinher is my brother—my brother who is running away from God.”
Abbot Udualrich sent monastery servants after the runaways, but they came back without results. Hermann sat for hours on end at the window. Before him lay a piece of black woolen cloth, torn from a monastic habit.
He saw many a boot crossing the Gnadensee, but none of them brought the two monks Werinher and Luither back to Reichenau. In his presence, no one spoke about what had happened. The sick man’s pain at his brother’s infidelity was too great.
“
One day, a messenger from Italy came to Abbot Udualrich. The man, a pilgrim on his return journey from Rome, gave the abbot a letter that the two monks had written somewhere in Italy. Had the unceasing prayer of the sick man reached them and moved their hearts to repentance and conversion?
They implored the abbot to forgive them for acting without his authorization. They asked for the retroactive permission to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
“If you do not permit us to travel farther, Lord and Father Abbot, we shall return by the quickest route to Reichenau. We shall cast ourselves before your feet as penitents and ask for the grace to be readmitted to the community of the brethren. If you are so generous as to grant us retroactively the unmerited permission to go on pilgrimage, we shall not cease to pray for you, our Lord and Father Abbot, in reverence, gratefulness, and penitence, at those sacred places that were sanctified by Our Lord Jesus Christ. We will faithfully take with us all the concerns of our beloved Reichenau to the Holy Land …”
Initially, the Lord Udualrich was little inclined to grant the wish of the two absconders. They were to take the quickest route home and receive their punishment and penance. Was he to give a retroactive permission that approved of the way they had behaved? That was too much to ask.
Abbot Udualrich needed the celebration of Vespers, during which he saw the grief-stricken face of the sick man in the choir stall opposite him, in order to change his mind.
He forgave the two absconding monks and gave them retroactively the permission to go on pilgrimage. He wanted to see a smile on the lame man’s face again, and he felt very richly rewarded when Hermann thanked him.
A change had taken place in the Lord Udualrich. Once he had understood who the lame man was, and once he had lost his old aversion, he automatically took his cue from Hermann’s every word and wish. Without any presumption on his part, it was Hermann who guided the abbot, and thus the abbey too. The lame man served by means of his counsel, unreservedly and unassumingly. Udualrich sought his advice ever more frequently before taking any decision. The complaints of the monks diminished, until they finally disappeared. The spirit of Cluny had imperceptibly reconquered Reichenau. And the abbot was now seen in prayer at the tomb of his predecessor.
“
Months passed. The year 1054 was noted in Hermann’s world chronicle before Reichenau received any further news of the pilgrims. The monk Luither had written a letter. He began by describing their happy arrival in Jerusalem, after they had overcome many obstacles and dangers.
Then he went on: “And now I must give very sad news to you, Lord and Father Abbot, and to the dear brethren on Reichenau: our Brother Werinher of Altshausen is dead.
“He was at the very grave of Our Lord Jesus Christ when he first began to feel seriously unwell. He rejoiced at this: ‘Brother, my wish will be fulfilled! I shall find my last resting place in the Holy Land.’
“But he soon recovered, and we went on pilgrimage to the Jordan, where Our Lord was baptized by John. The long, hot, and stony way was doubtless too much for Werinher. He bent down over the water that was sanctified by the Lord, dipped his hand in it, and blessed himself. Suddenly, he stood up and asked me: ‘Luither, do you hear a call from the other shore?’ I listened, but all I heard was the rushing of the water.
“‘I have been called!’ he insisted, obstinately. ‘I must go over to the other shore!’
“It was then that I noticed that he had fever again. It was only with the aid of another pilgrim that I brought him back to the hospice in Jerusalem, where I found a doctor, a Greek. He was celebrated for his skill in healing, and he had lived for more than a decade in the Holy City. But the doctor could do nothing for this sickness. The body of our Brother Werner deteriorated, and he had great pains. He suffered with patience, indeed with joy. His last words were: ‘I am coming to the other shore!’
“He died on December 25, Anno Domini 1053,2 the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord.
“Pray for the soul of our departed brother. After such suffering and such a death, we may surely believe that he will enter into the peace of God.
“The Greek doctor, Master Theophilos Cheirisophos, sends special greetings to the monk Hermann of Altshausen. He thanks him for his faithfulness. He has found the light.”
“
This time, the monks of Reichenau were afraid to encounter the lame man. How could a man bear such blows of fate? His behavior made them uneasy, because his face, which was becoming ever more transparent, bore an expression of peace.
“Werinher followed the call of God. He more than atoned through his suffering and dying for what he had done wrong by acting secretly. Thanks be to God!” said the sick man to Berthold when he assured him gently of his sympathy. “And Master Theophilos Cheirisophos … Do you still remember him? He was my doctor in Aachen. Now he lives in the Holy City. He calls himself ‘Theophilos’ once more, and he has found the light. A home has been given to the homeless wanderer. Berthold, God is infinitely good!”
He intoned the Magnificat. The young monk responded only hesitantly. At this moment, there was something almost uncanny about the Father, who behaved so little like one who belonged to this world.
“
Berthold wrote down the news of the death in the world chronicle. As was the custom, Abbot Udualrich decreed the celebration of a Requiem Mass, followed by a funeral banquet, on the next day. The news of the death of the monk Werinher of Altshausen made its way slowly to more than one hundred abbeys with which Reichenau was linked through the fraternity of prayer. Many prayers for the dead man were sent after him into eternity in each abbey. Even in death, the brethren did not abandon him.
Tomorrow, there would be a candle at Brother Werinher’s empty place in the refectory, burning as a symbol of his entry into the light of eternity.
“
That night, Brother Hermann had a strange dream. Berthold brought him to the Gnadensee, which lay in the gleam of the springtime sun like a vessel full of light. At Herrenbruck harbor, a well-known shining figure awaited them—Pope Leo IX. He greeted the sick man with great cordiality.
“Would you like to cross the Gnadensee, Hermann? I must go over to the other shore. You have accompanied me so faithfully all these years, and I do not wish to do without your companionship now.”
“May Berthold travel with us, Holy Father?”
“No, not yet. He must stay behind. He will follow us later.”
The lame man was sad that he had to leave his faithful companion behind—all the more so, since he was pleading: “Father, remain here!”
“I leave you my thorns, my son.”
Then he was on the white ship, which slid calmly over the tranquil Gnadensee. The abbey became gray and shadowy, until it dropped out of sight.
“The star is going out,” said the Lord Leo in a serious voice.
That too was painful, but the pain passed as quickly as a breath. The ship landed at the other shore.
“Hermann, we are at home.”
The lame man looked into a brightness, shining and sparkling. With some difficulty, he could make out in this light the outlines of huge buildings, domes, roofs, and gates.
“The New Jerusalem, the Eternal City,” called the Holy Father joyfully.
Then one of the gates opened, and they came out, shining and bright, youthful and healthy, those whom he loved, his lady mother, his brother Werinher, and Abbot Berno.
“Do you know now why all suffering must be, Hermann?” Abbot Berno asked him.
“In order that Christ may be glorified, for his sake.”
“For his sake!” The words rang out like a bell. “For his sake! For his sake …”
Abbot Berno bent down to him. Hermann looked into the joyful, kindly eyes of his father in Christ, and felt clearly the sign of the cross that the abbot slowly traced on his forehead.
“You are still sick, Hermann, my son. Do not be afraid. Soon, you will be healthy … like us.”
And Abbot Berno turned to Pope Leo IX. With a grave and solemn voice he asked him: “Are you ready? Then come with us, Holy Father. The gates of the Eternal City are opening wide to welcome you. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are waiting for you.”
Pope Leo IX went into the midst of the radiant light.
1. [First line of the Sequence: “May thanksgiving and honor (be to you) …”]
2. [“In the year of the Lord.”]