The day stairs take you to the angle between the south and west ranges. Along the whole upper floor of the south range stretches the dorter – the community’s cells – those of the novices are at this end, in effect next to the day rooms of the novitiate. There’s also a door leading to a narrow stone stairway on the outer wall. Convenient to the dorter, it goes down to the reredorter and the lavatorium. Each man has an item of cell furniture for his use in the night, but this easy access to the reredorter is obvious common sense. Beneath the cells in the south range the abbey’s store rooms – massive, deep, cavernous – keep their supplies well stocked. Ideally, a food store should be situated at the north end of a house, on the cold side of the building. But here the walls are so thick, the rooms set in so deep, the windows so high in the wall, that everything stays cool enough. The store rooms are situated on the south side to give close access to the river. The cells on the upper floor, each with its tall, narrow window, get the best of the passive solar heat; the men sleep as warm as may be. Not exactly cosy, even so; in the winter some cannot sleep for the shivering cold – “starving”, as they say hereabouts, in Yorkshire.
Just now, though, the cells are deserted. In the afternoon, those who need to may take a short rest and many a man will be reading and praying quietly in his cell; but if the afternoon gives opportunity for study and contemplation, the morning is the time to get active things done.
Climbing that stone stairway up from the cloister, instead of turning to the right along the dorter in the south range, Father James, coming straight from Chapter, turns left past the novitiate rooms and the scriptorium to the robing room in the east range.
A massive table fills the centre space. Here he cuts out the black woollen cloth for habits and scapulars and cloaks, and the fine linen for undershirts and drawers.
The abbey walls are of such depth that the windowsills make excellent work surfaces of themselves. Thread, needles, shears, awls, leather, bolts of cloth and everything else he needs, Father James has stacked in orderly manner on the capacious shelves occupying all one wall. A lot of it is black. In another wall is the door through to the scriptorium, where he helps out on days when he has nothing to make or mend here in the robing room. Either side of that door, a run of low cupboards creates a useful countertop. On it, among other odds and ends, is the book where Father James records the measurements for every brother in the community. And in the corner, where the cupboards join the outer wall, stands poised as if she has just landed there an exceptionally beautiful statue of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, masterfully executed, her robes intricately painted in colours rich but soft. She is wearing a most complicated, elegantly contrived golden crown. Her kind eyes, gently glowing complexion, and slightly parted, almost smiling rosy lips grace the daily work of the robing room. She has not always stood here. She was a gift from Lady Agnes d’Ebassier – as was Our Lady of Sorrows down in the chapel. A valuable piece, of considerable artistry, of good size but not immense, the previous abbot’s first thought when his benefactress presented her was that if he put that in the church she’d be stolen within the month. Too big for a cell, too pretty for the novitiate, it occurred to him Father James might like her up in the robing room. And he does. Before he came to St Alcuin’s, James worked with his father as a silversmith. Almost nothing is too gorgeous for his taste. In this environment of spare simplicity – a place of stone walls, bare wood, humble stools and benches of plain and practical construction, pewter ware and rather basic pottery – Our Lady Queen of Heaven ascended to his work room sweet and enchanting as an exceptionally colourful sunrise. Yes. He loves her. Of course, she has stood there now so long he doesn’t always notice her; but still she makes him happy, with her colours, her femininity, and all that glorious gold. And he usually murmurs, “Good morrow, my Lady,” as he crosses the room to the window near the corner where she stands, to spread out on the windowsill in the good light his needle-roll or his order list or anything else he needs to examine.
They’ve had two postulants so far in Abbot John’s time, two young men from Escrick, Bernard and Colin. One left after not so very long. What Bernard imagined as a quiet, contemplative, frankly quite easy life, turned out to be tougher than he envisaged. For one thing he was expected to work hard. He was not gently born, but still, scrubbing floors and digging out horse muck had not been on his list of aspirations. And the praying went on so long and happened so often it got beyond boring. Then there were the constant interruptions – doing what he was asked when it was asked of him, without delay, setting any project aside (however interesting, regardless of how crucial a stage he might have reached) when the Office bell began to ring. He hadn’t anticipated he’d be required to be that available.
“But… that’s what the simplicity of our life is all about,” explained the abbot, slightly surprised. “It’s not just an end in itself. Living simply, owning nothing – it sets us free. Not to be idle, but to serve, to work, to love. It’s the simplicity that gives us to one another. And we give up everything, Brother – everything to which we cling. That’s why we move men from one occupation to another. There’s a risk of becoming precious and possessive about the work we undertake. The art of freedom and peace is all in the willingness to let go. And that’s what makes us available to learn to love – when we no longer have anything to cling to, or defend.”
All of which meant precisely nothing to Bernard, and he didn’t last long. But Colin stayed. His request to enter as a postulant coincided with a period of some turbulence. Abbot John went through an experience of personal tragedy that knocked him sideways for some while; then the community came to the brink of financial ruin. For men leading disciplined lives of prayer in a quiet place, there seemed to be a lot going on. But eventually the time came that the abbot judged right to accept the two young men from Escrick into their midst. And Bernard left, but now Colin is about to be clothed, and receive his name in religion. He will soon no longer be Colin but Brother Christopher.
“It’s a special name,” the abbot said to him. “A strong name. You know the story of St Christopher? That the Christ Child asked if he would carry him across the river, and he readily said yes. But he almost didn’t make it, because the little lad on his shoulders grew so unexpectedly, unbelievably heavy. It was because – he couldn’t see this of course – Christ is carrying the weight of the whole world. He almost dropped him; but he made it through.”
And Colin sat in silence, taking this in. After a while, somewhat unnerved, he asked the abbot: “So… why have you chosen that name for me?”
Abbot John laughed. This is something else Colin has noticed – these men have a natural instinct to puncture the bubble of solemnity before it grows too enormous. Just when you are filled with the gravity of the occasion, the importance and consequence of whatever’s going down – someone generally cuts it to size by finding it funny. “Don’t take yourself so seriously, Colin,” the novice master has said to him on a number of occasions: and once (he remembers, now), “Whatever’s the matter? By the Mass, you look as though you’re carrying the whole world on your shoulders!”
So he hopes – he really hopes – the abbot has not chosen this name for him because he makes too much of an issue out of everything. But that’s not the reason.
“What we learn from St Christopher,” according to the abbot, “is the necessity to carry no baggage if we want to make it through. He had the bare minimum, the staff in his hand. If we undertake to be Christ-bearers – as Our Lady was, as St Christopher was – we have to really get to grips with understanding that this will cost everything. There is simply no room for extra baggage. There’s no room for anything else. That’s why we are celibate. That’s why we own nothing, why we always look for the humblest and the least. If we try to carry anything else – anything – we won’t make it through. And Christopher didn’t – take anything extra, I mean; he did make it through. When he stepped out to cross the river, his staff in his hand, wearing only his simple tunic, he took no pack of possessions; he only carried Jesus. And you’ll notice, the master asks nothing of the man he’s not willing to undertake himself; Jesus wasn’t carrying anything either. Well – apart from the whole world.
“Christopher’s a good name, Colin; one to think on your whole life long. It’s about the connection between freedom, simplicity, and responsibility. It’s about knowing what you’re getting into, and being willing to keep going. Because there will be moments – trust me – when you can only mutter, ‘Hold tight, Jesus! Both hands, for God’s sake’; and do your best not to lose your footing. I should think it’s a name a man could feel honoured to bear; and it’s yours if you want it.”
So of course he said yes, though he had to admit it felt daunting.
This morning, when the novice master comes up to join them in the teaching circle at the end of Chapter, Colin catches the sadness and concern in Father Theodore’s face before he takes his place among them with his usual smile. This comes as something of a sudden revelation. Until this moment, Colin has always thought of a smile as something that just happens to your face because you feel happy. But it dawns on him today, when the novice master’s face a moment before makes it all too clear he is not happy, that a smile – like a friendly word – is a jewel of grace in community. It is the gift of loving kindness, from a man willing to turn away from himself and his own preoccupations, to think about how someone else might be feeling.
It’s while Colin is still digesting this insight that Brother Robert pipes up: “Father Theodore? Where’s Brother Cedd?”
This has been a matter of discussion among them while they were waiting for their novice master to come up from Chapter. It turns out none of them has seen him this morning. They decide he must be ill, gone to seek out Brother Michael in the infirmary.
When Theo steadily meets Brother Robert’s gaze, and says quietly, seriously, “I don’t know”, they understand. And it sends a shaft of loss right into the heart of them. Brother Cedd. Studious, though not especially scholarly. Humble and gentle. Exceptionally gifted as a scribe. Rarely the centre of any conversation, not the life and soul of the party, the thought of losing him from their company surprises them by the sense of bereavement it brings.
They know they are not supposed to ask questions; this has been explained to them before. Here, they have been told, we cling to nothing. We belong to one another in Christ alone. A man may come and he may go – but all life is a matter of changing and losing. Nothing lasts forever. Let the shock of passing act as a reminder to set your hope upon eternal things. Let it not disturb your peace.
When the novice master turns his gaze upon him, Colin realizes his mouth has dropped open in sheer surprise at the news. He shuts it hurriedly, and again Theodore smiles.
“Colin,” he says, “will you go along to the robing room? Father James says he has your robes ready to try.”
Colin is not a lad of massive intellect, but even he doesn’t fail to notice how the sudden frisson of excitement he feels, sparked off by these words, tosses aside as if it were of no consequence at all his shock and sorrow of the moment before.
He stands up to go. “Yes, Father,” he murmurs. As he leaves them to whatever they will be studying this morning, he knows he has caught a glimpse of what Father Theodore is always impressing upon them. They are not to be indifferent, or try to suppress individual temperament – in any case, that would be impossible. Their hearts are flesh and blood, not made of stone. But they must learn to hold steady, passing through the turbulence of life. They must learn not to drop the precious charge of what they have been called to carry, when they must wade through wild waves – whether of accomplishment and success or shame and grief. One minute there will be the cold shock of hearing someone has left them; the next will bring exultant joy for a set of robes. Praise, blame, the regard of others, material prosperity, comfort, health – these can be swept away in a moment; they are ephemera. They must learn to prefer the lasting things, and the things that will make them strong – patience and kindness, faithfulness and humility; the presence of Christ in their midst. They must learn to discern him; sometimes he is there unrecognized, as they will see.
He supposes that this effervescence of excitement, that at last he will be clothed in the habit of the order, cannot be categorized as one of those properties of eternal life he is meant to espouse. Nonetheless, he feels almost giddy with happiness as he knocks on the robing room door. As Father James opens it and invites him in with a welcoming grin, it occurs to Colin to wonder – Brother Cedd – wherever he is – is he still wearing his Benedictine robes? Or has he ditched them?