Mystic Monday

Today dear children we take a trip to the 12 Century where we meet Aelred of Rievaulx a Cistercian monk and Abbot.

His most well known work was on Spiritual Friendship and has been published in English.

The quote today is on the importance of having a spiritual director, or barring that, someone in whom you can confide when your spiritual journey takes you to places you cannot navigate without help:

A man is to be compared too a beast if he has no one to rejoice with him in adversity, no one to whom to unburden his mind if any annoyance crosses his path or with whom to share some unusually sublime or illuminating inspiration . . . He is entirely alone who is without a friend.

But what happiness, what security, what joy to have someone to whom you dare to speak on terms of equality as to another self; one to whom you can unblushingly make known what progress you have made in the spiritual life; one to whom you can entrust all the secrets of your heart; one before whom you can place all your plans.

Pax