In This House of Brede

by Rumer Godden

‘Don’t worry. We have you tucked in our sleeves,’ those ample sleeves, particularly of the wide black cowls they wear in choir and the chapter house.

We have chosen a stillness more powerful than all activity. A detachment more fulfilling than all possession, A wisdom exceeding all knowledge And a love beyond all.

The motto was ‘Pax’ but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Pax: Peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort – seldom with a seen result:

‘A vocation is a gift,’ said Dame Ursula. ‘If it has been truly given to you, you will find the strength.’

‘Nowadays there’s a tendency to make everything utilitarian – even the things of the spirit,’ said Dame Clare. ‘Beware of this,’ and ‘That wasn’t the way of the saints,’ said Dame Ursula. ‘They didn’t set out to be of use.’

‘We Benedictines do not take the same vows as other Orders: poverty, chastity and obedience. For us, our first vow is of stability, stability to our chosen house.

In religion a different year revolves within the natural one,

‘One of the hardest things about being a nun is that you have nothing to give,’

One fault allowed – no, encouraged – can grow in a community like the mustard seed into a monstrous tree. ‘No one lives to herself.’

When you are in trouble,’ Abbess Catherine told herself, ‘think of a bird caught under a net; the more it struggles and makes a flutter, the more it gets enmeshed; if it is still and looks about for a hole, keeping its strength, it has a chance of escape.’

‘You can do nothing of yourself,’ the old Abbess had said. ‘But you can make yourself an instrument through which strength can flow.’