Historical setting: 602 C.E. The cottage in the Vosges Mountains
It’s already dusk and Ana has prepared a straw tick and a linen in the main room of the house. But now, at our door are two more guests, Brother Servant, and Father Columbanus himself, arriving here without informing any guards or other monks, or even mentioning this visit to those listening walls of Luxeuil. This meeting between the two endangered Celtic abbots of Gaul requires no scribe.
The two abbots in our midst greet one another with kisses.
Back when Ana and I first met Bishop Felix he was a young priest and a follower of Father Columbanus. He was making regular pilgrimages to Annegray, and then was returning to Châlons where he reported back to King Guntram on the success of the Celtic community.
So, when the Father sent us with a message to the “Bishop of Châlons” we soon learned the title was something of an inside joke. Father Felix wasn’t a bishop then. To be a bishop in Gaul requires the approval of the other bishops. Elevation is a matter of Frankish social class regardless of spiritual calling. Protecting this power structure of and by the aristocracy requires the constant purging of those who could be bishop but who are not of Frankish nobility. That makes Father Columbanus a pariah to the Frankish bishops. The priest appointed by the King was suspect of being Celtic also. But the true distinction of a holy man’s allegiance seems to be tonsure. If Irish, the front will be shaved, with full hair in the back while the Frankish tonsure is shaven as a wreath of hair. Father Felix, notably, has no hair, so he has no tonsure. By quirk of Creation, the noble bishops of Gaul are denied their measuring tool.
Now Ana and I prepare straw beds for three guests in the main room. The children are amazed to find that all three of these visitors already know the vesper psalms we sing in this household each evening. I suppose my children thought this music was theirs alone. Now they assume these adults are singing children’s chants.
Haberd and Brandell, our music critics, are very impressed. When I tucked them in Haberd whisper, “The abbots sing nearly as well as Gabe and Greg. And I think they even, nearly, know the words.”
I answered, “nearly.”
Dear God, help us nurture our ways of belonging to one another, full on, without too many nearlys and other incompletes. Amen.
(Continues Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023)
Lazarus Ink 