Prayer and Thought in Monastic Tradition by Santha Bhattacharji;Dominic Mattos;Rowan Williams;

Author:Santha Bhattacharji;Dominic Mattos;Rowan Williams;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780567120991
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2019-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

Putting up with separation: Endurance will be rewarded with meeting in heaven

In these travels, Anselm was engaged with the world and its practical demands. This was an uncongenial necessity. But it enabled him to write with sympathy to those who were finding their responsibilities stressful and disruptive of their spiritual lives and their peace. Letter 53 is to Hernost, who has been Bishop of Rochester for less than a year; when he hears how Hernost is worn out by his duties. Anselm has ‘human’ feelings for him: contristat me humana maestitia meus affectus. Suffering now earns rewards later is the only comfort he can offer.56 Letter 78 was written to Gundulf, about his appointment as Bishop of Rochester, 1077; Gundulf was evidently finding it heavy going.57

Anselm’s old Bec friend Henry was having a hard time as Prior at Canterbury. Letter 63 was written in awareness of talk of persecutors and slanders. Henry had not written himself or sent actual messengers to tell Anselm but Anselm has heard that relations are not good between Lanfranc and Henry. Yet there has apparently been a reconciliation; Anselm does not want to hear the details. He is glad to rejoice that truth is established and he reassures Henry that he had never believed the untruth anyway. Letter 73 belongs to the same strand. It is written to Henry again and again about troubles with Lanfranc. Advice is offered formally on behalf of Abbot Herluin of Bec.

Anselm approached such unwelcome responsibilities himself by regarding them as a duty. In the spirit of Gregory the Great’s Regula Pastoralis he was conscious of the need to maintain a spiritual balance. This is the theme of Letter 61 to Fulk, abbot-elect of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, who is reluctant. Refuse till it amounts to disobedience, counsels Anselm, then accept. Letter 62 to Abbot Walter, who has abandoned his monastery after malicious gossip. Anselm tells him he must come back and carry on. Letter 88 from Abbot Fulk tells Anselm to take his own medicine now he is an abbot himself.

In a similar spirit he writes of the stresses and discomforts of maintaining close friendships in absence. Anselm’s remarks in the letters to his absent brothers make no complaint about their lack of stability in the life they had begun at Bec. But did Anselm really miss these friends and want to see them? It was a platitude of the classical letter-writer – absence does not matter. Friends can be friends without meeting very often. Anselm notes in Letter 2, with characteristic disregard for the longing to see someone loved in person, that however rarus sit aspectus, affectus may be continuus.58 Letter 37 to Lanzo, now a novice at Cluny, speaks of the unity of souls even when bodies are separated. Reunion after death can be hoped for if separation is borne patiently now. But we should at least ‘visit each other’ through letters when we can, suggests Anselm. However, sometimes it seems that visits are wanted. When are you coming to see us? Anselm asks Henry in Letter 40.

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