"Let your voice sound in my ears, good Jesus, so that my heart will learn to love you, my mind how to love you, the inmost core of my heart embrace you, my one and only true good, my dear and delightful joy. 
The more one loves the more one grasps because you yourself are love, for you are charity.
I shall seek you Lord, seek you by loving you…" "

From the writings of St. Aelred. 

Timeline of St. Aelred.
1110: Born Hexham, England.
1130: Steward, Court of King David (son of St. Margaret) of Scotland.
1134: Entered Cistercian Order at Rievaulx, England.
1142: Novice Master at Rievaulx.
1143: Abbot of Revesby, daughter house of Rievaulx.
1147: Abbot of Rievaulx.
1167: January 12, died at Rievaulx.
1476: Feast established by Cistercian Order.

Aelred has become one of my favourite saints over the years, and my favourite Cisterican writer. This wasn’t always the case!  Being a good Lancastrian I wasn’t too keen on reading anyone who came from a rival county.  It’s a bit like Nathaniel in the Gospels – can anything good come out of Yorkshire? (The exceptions being the road to Lancashire and Yorkshire pudding!) However, Aelred was a man who was very popular and made many friends.  When he died people didn’t mourn a saint,or a church leader but a friend.

Aelred was born in Hexham, Northumbria, in 1110. His father, who was a married priest, sent him to spend several years at the court of King David I of Scotland. Aelred became a steward or Master of the Household. Aelred had several brothers and one sister. He was sent on a mission by King David to the Archbishop of York. This involved involved meeting Walter Espec, a Yorkshireman who lived at Helmsley, and who had had donated the land for the new monastery. On his way back from this mission, Aelred passed by the new monastery's small group of buildings of the River Rye and, moved by the experience, joined the community. David and Walter had been important influences in the arrival of the Cistercians in the North of England. The Abbey of Rievaulx was only a recent foundation.. On March 5, 1132, twelve monks from Clairvaulx led by Abbot William, a former master of the schools of York, settled in the valley of the River Rye two miles from Walter Espec's castle. Espec donated over 1,000 acres to the Abbey. Building started in 1132 and was it was this young monastery that Aelred joined in 1134.

Aelred would play a prominent role in the affairs of the monastery, and in 1142 went to Rome to inform the pope of the election of a new Archbishop of York. On his way through France, he visited his monastery's mother-house Clairvaux. It was here he met St. Bernard, who was so impressed by this young english monk. that he convinced him to write his Mirror of Charity. He completed this work upon his return for the novices, as he was Novice Master. Aelred was elected the Abbot of Revesby, a daughter house of Rievaulx in 1142 and was then elected as the third abbot of Rievaulx in 1147. He remaiined Abbot until his death in 1167. At his height there were over 500 monks, mainly of them lay brothers and Rievaulx founded many of the houses in the North and parts of Scotland. His death had a big impact on those who loved him. The following extract is a sermon by one of his many friends, Gilbert of Hoyland on hearing of his death.

“How great a honeycomb, how vast and how rich has been transferred in these days to the heavenly banquet! I mean the Lord Abbot of Rievaulx, whose passing was announced to us while we were treating of this verse. It seems to me that by his having been taken from us, our garden has been stripped and has been consigned a large bundle of myrrh to God, its cultivator. Who was purer in life or more prudent in teaching than he? He was lucid in interpretation, not hasty in speech... He questioned modestly, tolerating the troublesome, himself troublesome to no-one...Acutely intelligent, deliberate in statement, he bore annoyance with equanimity. We must grieve that recourse to so great a man has been taken from us...He who here was our help, there is our honour. And if our apiary seems deserted and our garden stripped, yet he left many sheaves from which God is well able to create bundles of increase in virtue."

Sermon 41 Gilbert of Hoyland

"God is friendship"

Aelred and Spiritual Friendship.

Many people associate Aelred with the idea of Spiritual friendship yet it is a tradition long associated with many Church writers. In such a short introduction to Aelred, the complexities and riches of Aelred’s doctrine cannot be done justice to.  Fundamentally, he considers friendship an essential part of human nature   (cf. Mirror of Charity 2: 9-14; 2:52) Linked to this is his idea that God is friendship, developing his ideas from God is love from the writings of the school of John in the NT. He is not unaware of the pitfalls and dangers, perhaps from his own experience of human friendships ( c.f. Mirr 1:70 – 71) 

For Aelred, love had three parts

1. Attraction – this is the natural impression made on our mind.
2. Intention – Is the inclination after the decision has been made to act on the intention.
3. Fruition – Is the result of our decision to act.

 He is aware that original sin cannot be avoided as we can decide to follow up sinful or wrongful inclinations. The result of this would be wrongful fruition.  We will be only really able to love with perfect freedom in heaven. We have to discipline our will if our natural attraction is at fault. This perfect love can be closely perfected however by the love of friendship itself.

Aelred’s idea on friendship can be found in many of his books, especially in the Mirror of Charity and Spiritual Friendship.  The Mirror of Charity was written at the request of
Bernard when Aelred was Novice Master.  Bernard asked Aelred to reply to criticisms about the hardness of Cistercian Life. Aelred had written some conferences for his novices but protested to Bernard he knew more about kitchens than books!  Aelred wrote on the love of God and humanity. It is said by many to be his best book, showing the beginnings of his ideas on friendship and his love and humour. It contains three main sections:

The nature of charity.
Replies to objections of complainers.
Discernment required in the practice of charity.

The main themes would include a theology of community, humanity as capax dei, the capacity to know and love God and each other.

The book on Spiritual Friendship seems to have been begun after his election as abbot in 1147.  It is set somewhere in a monastery dependent on Rievaulx, probably Wardon.  One of the speakers is Ivo of Wardon who was a close friend of Aelred.  Aelred dedicated his treatise on Jesus’ at the age of 12 to him.  The book took a series of years to write, possibly because of the demands as abbot, also because of his continuing experience. I think what comes through from this book is his understanding of human experience and his own natural wisdom.  This was not an experience borne from a schools education, or philosophical wisdom as he came from a fairly backward part of the world!  He had a gift for friendships and a love that was gentle and kind, not the fire and passion of Bernard, but nevertheless leaving just as strong a love on the people around him.  The important thing in the eyes of Aelred was that human friendships were good because they led to God.  The third part of the Mirror of Charity had been on the principles that lay behind friendship.  As a young man he had been greatly affected by Cicero’s treatise On Friendship and he adapts this teaching in the light of Scripture and the teaching of the Early Church Fathers.
It is divided into 3 sections:

1. The nature and origin of friendship
2. Vindication of its value
3. The practice of friendship

It takes the shape of vivid and intimate dialogue.  The first part seems to take place at Wardon, where Ivo, one of the speakers, lived.  The second part was written after a lapse of time and two new characters have been introduced, Gratian and Walter Daniel.  The third section has Aelred responding to the more practical and immediate concerns of his questioners. The book reflects Aelred’s personal understanding of friendship, his quest to deepen his knowledge and help others to do the same, always rooted in love, love of God. He made friends wherever he went.  He showed concern for all in his community.  One of his most popular works in community is his Pastoral Prayer, written at the end of his life and after a lifetime of experience.

I think his ideas on human friendship are especially important for us today because of the idea that human friendships lead to God.  It is in each other that we meet God’s love Aelred is saying to us today.   We meet Christ in those who irritate us the most, who drive us to distraction. We also meet Christ over a friendly meal, in our families, in social activities, in jokes!  He didn’t always choose the best, or the holiest as friends but showed his compassion for the weak and possibly most temperamental members of the community.  Neither was he the strongest or the best himself. That I think that should give us hope too, that we don’t always have to strive to be the best, or the most prayerful or the most important person in our families and communities. We have only to be the person God asks us to be.