If
you are a fan of Brother Cadfael, Ellis Peters' Benedictine monk who solved
mysteries in medieval England, a fun experience awaits you. Robin Whiteman has
mined the 20 Cadfael book for their wisdom, and offers 366 samples, one for
each day of the year. Here is a brief taste:
January 1: You can fairly claim the day hasn't been wasted, if something's been learned.
February 15: I opened the Gospels, and I got my answer, and it set me thinking afresh and seeing clearly where I had formerly been blind. And how to account for it I do not know.
March 6: Now and then the simplest explanation turns out to be the true one.
May 1: "I know my herbs," said Cadfael. "They have fixed properties and follow sacred rules. Human creatures do not so. And I cannot even wish they did. I would not have one scruple of their complexity done away, it would be lamentable loss."
June 1: It was a matter of principle, or perhaps of honour, with Brother Cadfael, when a door opened before him suddenly and unexpectedly, to accept the offer and walk through it.
July 5: The failure of the priesthood to set an example of piety and simplicity helps to turn people to false prophets and dissenting sects. The Church has a duty also to purge its own shortcomings.
November 16: The very act of kneeling in solitude, in the chill and austerity of stone, and saying the familiar words almost silently before the altar, brought him more of comfort and reassurance than he had dared to expect.
December 31: Life goes not in a straight line, but in a circle. The first half we spend venturing as far as the world's end from home and kin and stillness, and the latter half brings us back by roundabout ways but surely, to that state from which we set out.
Robin Whiteman, Brother Cadfael's Book of Days. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2000. Review by Clair Woodbury.
Congregational News August 2005 Vol. 11 No. 5