It’s a Feria, 4th Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: “The Spiritual Path of the Magi”, today’s news from the Church: “From the Consistory: Cardinals Relegate Liturgy to the Background ”, a preview of the Sermon: “Lessons from Epiphany: The Spirit of Adoration”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop.
Saint Aelred of Rievaulx is one of the most human and tender voices of the medieval Church, a monk whose holiness was shaped as much by friendship and vulnerability as by discipline and prayer. Born in 1110 in Northumbria, he grew up in the household of a priest and was educated for service at the royal court of King David of Scotland. Aelred was intelligent, personable, and deeply sensitive. For a time he thrived in court life, yet beneath the success he felt a growing restlessness. He later wrote with striking honesty about the loneliness and inner conflict he experienced there, recognizing that ambition and affection, when not ordered to God, could leave the heart divided.
Around the age of twenty four, Aelred left the court and entered the Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx in Yorkshire. The transition was severe. Cistercian life was austere, silent, and physically demanding, and Aelred’s health was fragile. Yet he found in the monastery what he had long sought: a place where love could be purified and directed toward God. Over time, he became novice master and later abbot, guiding a rapidly growing community with unusual gentleness. Those under his care remembered him as patient, compassionate, and deeply attentive to individual souls. He believed that authority must always be exercised as service, never domination.
Aelred’s greatest legacy lies in his...
