Aelred de Rievaulx
1110-1167 12th century Feast day: January 12
Praying two together, and finding that there were not two.
Who was Aelred de Rievaulx?
Son of a married Saxon priest of Hexham, he grew up at the Scottish court and became steward to King David, then left it all for the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx in Yorkshire. Abbot for twenty years, he governed a community of several hundred men and wrote a treatise on friendship (a rare thing in a cloister) in which his own brothers speak under their real names. Ill and crippled at the end, he had his cell built against the infirmary so as to stay within reach of them.
In their own words
Here we are, you and I, and I hope that a third is between us, Christ. There is no one now to make a noise, no one to break in on the talk of friends; into this solitude, so welcome to us, no voice and no tumult creeps.
A little while ago, when I was sitting in the crowd of the brethren and everyone was talking at once around me […] you alone kept silent; then you would lift your head, ready to bring something out, and as if the voice were cut off in your throat, you would lower your head and be silent again.
So, praying to Christ for his friend, and longing for his friend to be heard by Christ, he turns toward Him with care and with desire; and suddenly, without noticing it, affection passing over into affection, as though he were touching the very nearness of Christ's sweetness, he begins to taste how sweet He is, and to feel how gentle.
So love grew between us, affection warmed, charity was strengthened, until it came to this: that we had one heart and one soul, willing the same and refusing the same, and that this love was empty of fear, a stranger to offence, without suspicion, abhorring flattery.