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Tuesday 22 January 2013

Aelred of Rievaulx


When in the monastery, I read much, again, of Aelred, especially on friendship. In his Spiritual Friendship, he reminds us of two things. One, that one must surround one's self with really holy companions in order not to fall away. And, two, that Christian community must be based on friendship.

Aelred was classically educated and many of his ideas are from Cicero.

The impact of his work on monastic life was profound. His monastery was famous for the love shown among the monks in the form of friendship.  Here are snippets in the form of a dialogue:


8. In my opin­ion, from amor comes amicus and from amicus amicitia. That is, from 
the word for love comes that for friend, and from friend, friendship.

9. Now love is an attachment of the rational soul. Through love, the 
soul seeks and yearns with longing to enjoy an object. Through 
love, the soul also enjoys that object with interior sweetness and 
embraces and cherishes it once it is acquired. I have explained the 
soul’s attachments and emotions as clearly and carefully as I could 
in a work you know well enough, The Mirror of Charity.





20
 But if in our own Christian times 
friends are so few, I seem to be slaving in vain to acquire this virtue, 
for I am terrified now by its astonishing height, and I almost despair 
of reaching it.

21
 Hence it is the mark of a virtuous mind 
always to think steep and lofty thoughts, either to reach the desired 
objectives or to understand and grasp more clearly what should be 
desired. Indeed we should believe that one who by understanding 
virtue has discovered how far he is beneath it has made no little 
progress.

22
 No wonder the 
followers of true virtue were rare among the heathen, for they were 
ignorant of the Lord and giver of the virtues,

23
 of whom it was written, 
the Lord of virtues, he is the king of glory.

24
Though challenged, though injured, though tossed into the 
flames, though nailed to a cross, a friend loves always.

 And as our 
Jerome says, “a friendship that can end was never true.”

.
25
According to Cicero’s definition, you would agree that those people 
excelled in the virtue of true friendship of whom it was said that 
“the multitude of believers was of one heart and one soul. No one claimed 
any belonging as his or her own, but all was held in common.”

26 How could the highest agreement in things divine and human, 
with charity and good will,

27
 fail to exist among those who were of 
one heart and one soul? How many martyrs laid down their lives for 
the brethren? How many spared neither cost nor toil nor their 
bodies’ torture? I suppose that often, not without tears, you have 
read of that maiden of Antioch who was delivered from among 
prostitutes by the glorious deceit of a soldier, who became her 
companion in martyrdom after having found himself the guardian 
of her virginity in the brothel.


29
 He also said, “no one has greater love than to lay down 
his life for his friends.”

30.
 I could cite for you many examples of such heroism, if sheer 
numbers did not prohibit it and the mass of material impose silence 
on me. For Christ Jesus preached and spoke, and they were multiplied 
beyond counting.

31.
 IVO. Are we to conclude, then, that there is no distinction 
between friendship and charity?

32.
 AELRED. On the contrary, the greatest distinction! Divine 
authority commands that many more be received to the clasp of 
charity than to the embrace of friendship. By the law of charity 
we are ordered to welcome into the bosom of love not only our 
friends but also our enemies.

 But we call friends only those to whom we have no qualm about entrusting our heart and all its 
contents, while these friends are bound to us in turn by the same 
inviolable law of loyalty and trustworthiness.

There is much more. The point I want to highlight is that there is a great need for Catholics to form friendships and to form those into communities of lay people.

I have tried to do this where I have been...to no success.

to be continued....