A Retired Rector's Reflections

Love, welcome and acceptance help nourish hope and faith for us all. In my personal experience communities, among them some churches, which have enriched my life, and in which I have been able to give, are those in which I have felt valued and appreciated. For me these have often been small communities.

In the twelfth century Aelred of Rievaulx (feast day January 12th) wrote profoundly of love and friendship. His words inspire today. The monastery, the place where Aelred found Christian community, was for him a place of friendship, ‘a school of love.’ A place where people could be open to one another and where there was care, compassion, challenge and love.

For Aelred these qualities had to be worked on. An essential was inner peace, being comfortable with who we are, and not hiding behind false masks of our own making. Friendship and love for the other, in Aelred’s view, required acts of will. He encourages us to apply ourselves to make friends, to have the courage to share love with others, and have the openness to receive love.

Walter Daniel, a friend of Aelred, and his biographer, records Aelred as saying “Remember … that it is the singular and supreme glory of the house of Rievaulx that above all else it teaches tolerance of the weak and compassion for others in their necessities … All, whether weak or strong, should find in Rievaulx a place of peace .. The house which withholds toleration from the weak is not to be regarded as a house of religion. ”

These are inspiring words. My hope is that in our world which so often seems troubled, and where many seem to fall by the wayside local churches may be grow more and more to be ‘schools of love’ and ‘places of peace’ for all people, and, as Aelred says may churches work to be places of tolerance and compassion.