Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [115]
“You do not think your uncle is drawing closer to God?”
What should he say? He thought of his uncle’s easygoing family life, his long fishing expeditions, his frequent sleep during the divine service.
“Not much,” he answered awkwardly.
If the abbot suppressed a smile, Osgar did not see it.
“This girl,” the older man asked, “this Caoilinn, whom you feel you have a duty to marry. Have you ever …” He glanced at Osgar and saw that he was not understood. “Have you ever had carnal knowledge of her, my boy?”
“No, Father. Never.”
“I see. Ever kissed her?”
“Only once, Father.”
“You have urges, perhaps?” the abbot probed and then, apparently losing patience with this line of questioning: “Well, no doubt you do.” He paused, eyeing the young man thoughtfully. “You think you might like it here?”
In this earthly paradise? This mountain retreat halfway to Heaven?
“Yes,” he answered slowly. “I think I should.”
“You mightn’t be bored, perhaps, up here in the mountains?”
“Bored?” Osgar stared at him in astonishment. He thought of the churches, of the scriptorium, of the wondrous silence of the big lake. Bored? Not, he thought, in a hundred lifetimes. “No, Father Abbot.”
“The path of the spirit is not easy, you know.” The abbot’s look was somewhat stern. “It isn’t just a case of finding a life that’s congenial. There has to be a renunciation, sooner or later. Here at Glendalough,” he continued, “our rule is strict. We live, you might say, like a community of hermits. The way is hard. Straight is the gate. And,” he nodded slowly, “you will not escape temptations of the flesh. Nobody does. The devil,” he smiled ironically, “does not give up so easily. He places temptations in our path: sometimes they are obvious, sometimes insidious. Beware. You will have to overcome them.” He paused. “I cannot tell you what to do. Only God can do that. But I shall pray for you. And you should pray, too.”
That day and the next, he joined the monks at all the daily offices sung in the big church, and spent the rest of the time in prayer.
He tried to follow the abbot’s bidding. He prayed as he had never prayed before. He knew the proper technique. He tried to empty his mind of all other considerations, to listen only to God’s silent prompting. He asked to be shown his duty. What did God require?
Would God speak to him? For nearly two days he wondered, but no word came.
Yet how strangely God chose to reveal His will. Osgar was standing by the upper lake as the sun was dipping towards the mountains in the late afternoon of the second day. He hadn’t been praying just then, but was lost in the beauty of the place, when he had felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see the friendly face of one of the monks who had brought him there.
“So have you discovered what you want?” the older man asked.
Osgar shrugged.
“What I want is to stay here, of course,” he said, as if this was not what really mattered.
Then suddenly he realised. The thing was so simple, he had missed it. He wanted to be at Glendalough and nowhere else. He had never felt so at home in his life. This was where he was meant to be. And Caoilinn? Greatly though he loved her, he knew now, with a certainty, that he did not want to marry her. And here—he saw it with a wonderful sense of illumination—here was the wonder of the business: God in His kindness had not only sent him a sense of belonging, He had even taken away his desire for the girl he had loved. To help him on his way, that old desire had been replaced with a new desire, a passionate wish for Glendalough. He was sure. It was meant to be. He loved Caoilinn as much as he had ever done before; but that love must be the love of a brother. It had to be so. He knew he was going to have to cause her pain, but it would have been crueller by far to have married her when he could not have given her his whole heart. For some time he stood there, gazing out over the water, filled with a strange new sense of peace and understanding. That evening, he informed the abbot, who nodded quietly and made no comment.