St. Aelred of Rievaulx

From Homily 26 on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah
by St Aelred of Rievaulx

Wishing to make his soldiers lightly armed for this spiritual war, our
leader says, Those who do not renounce all their possessions cannot be my
disciples. And again, Those who do not hate their father and mother and wife
and children, and even their own soul, cannot be my disciples. And so the
lightly armed soldiers…are those who disentangle themselves from all this
world’s affairs and riches, from all their longings and even from their own will.
They can thus safely resist the Moabite vices into which they had fallen and
nakedly follow the naked Christ.

When these lightly armed soldiers feel themselves attacked by natural
provocations, demonic suggestions, or their own thoughts, they send forth to God
a loud wail of the heart and a wretched lamentation of voice with tears and sighs,
saying with the prophet, I am terribly afflicted and lowly; I roared out my
complaint from my heart.

…Thanks be to you, good Jesus! Truly, your compassion is over all your
works! If inwardly where God sees, a person’s heart turns to God and is crushed,
then God’s heart will soon turn to that person. God’s heart expresses his
goodness and compassion. My heart will cry out to Moab. Moab wails in
repentance; Christ cries out in mercy. Moab wails in fear; Christ cries out by
showing pity. Moab wails in confession; Christ cries out with forgiveness. Moab
seeing the strong wind coming, fears and wails; Christ, stretching out his hand
and crying out, rebukes the hesitating, trembling one, saying You of little faith,
why did you doubt? The cry thus answers the wail, desire answers desire, mercy
answers the wretched one; the doctor, the sick one; compassion, the one laboring
and in pain.

Further…the depths of Scripture…are opened to us when the Lord cries out
in our hearts…The more outer persecution or inner disturbance saddens us, the
more does divine consolation from the sacred writings cheer us. For whatever
has been written was written for our instruction, so that we might have hope
through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures. I say to you, brothers,
nothing adverse can happen, nothing so sad or so bitter can take place, which
does not quickly vanish or is not more easily endured as soon as the sacred page
is opened to us. This is the field to which Isaac went to meditate when the day
was already drawing to a close; Rebecca met him there and relieved his pain with
her sweetness.

How often does day give way to evening for me, good Jesus! How often
does unbearable pain take the place of what little consolation I have, just as the
dark of night succeeds daylight. All things turn to boredom, and everything that I
see is a burden. If someone speaks, I barely hear; if someone knocks, I barely
perceive it. My heart grows as hard as a rock, my tongue clings to my palate, and
my eyes dry up. What then? I go out, of course, to the field to meditate, I reflect
on the sacred book, and I fix my meditations in wax. Then suddenly, Rebecca
comes to meet me. In other words, your grace, good Jesus, scatters the darkness
with your light, drives away boredom, and breaks up the hardness. Soon tears
follow sighs, and heavenly joy accompanies tears. Unhappy are those who do not
enter this field and rejoice in this way when some sadness disturbs them!

Aelred of Rievaulx. Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah. CF 83. Trans. Lewis White.
Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2018. 256-265.