A Winter Night at the Hill Convent

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It is snowing on a convent, and one candle is burning in the kitchen.

There is a kettle on the hob that has been about to boil for the better part of an hour. There is a very old woman in a very large chair, with a blanket over her knees and a cat on the blanket. And there is a very young woman in the doorway, in her nightdress, with her bare feet turning slowly blue, who has just said the one thing nobody should say to an abbess at midnight.

She has said: Mother, I cannot sleep.

And the old woman has opened one eye. And she has said: oh, good. Sit down.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Hello, and welcome to Saints by Candlelight, stories of saints, angels and patriarchs from the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, told for bedtime. These episodes are written by an AI and read by a synthetic voice, and they try very hard to be faithful. Tonight's story is a fiction, about a small convent that we have made up, and a pair of women who never existed, and inside it are three true stories of real saints, told as they have been told for hundreds of years. So the frame is invented, and the stories inside it are not. Get comfortable. Dim the lights. And let's begin.

Let's begin with the snow.

It had started three days before, in the afternoon, with a few flakes that nobody took seriously. By the evening it was a proper fall. By the next morning the lane to the village was gone. By the second night the wall around the kitchen garden was a soft white line with nothing on either side of it, and the bell tower had grown a hat. And now, on the third night, the convent stood alone on its hill, like a ship on a very quiet white sea, and every single sound in the world had been wrapped up in wool.

There was, in the whole of that white world, exactly one sound left, and it was the bell. Sister Eunice kept it. She was sixty, brisk, and entirely certain that the bell was the only thing standing between the convent and chaos, and she rang it at every hour of the night whether or not anyone could hear it through three feet of snow. The sisters had stopped arguing. It was, they agreed, rather comforting to be told the time by someone so very confident about it.

The convent was small. You may picture it however you like, and I would suggest a long low building of grey stone, a little chapel, a cloister that had never quite been finished, and a kitchen garden that did a great deal better than it deserved. Nine sisters lived there, and a goat. It was somewhere in the hills of northern Europe, a long time ago, and I will not tell you the century, because I would be guessing. It was the kind of place that nobody has written a history of, because nothing in it ever happened, except prayer, and bread, and the passing of the seasons, which is, if you think about it, a great deal.

The abbess was called Mother Aldith. She was well over eighty, though nobody had asked her, and she had been in charge for so long that the convent had begun to think of her as a feature of the landscape, like the hill. She was small and round and wore her veil a little crooked. She had a voice that was soft at the edges and could, when needed, stop a goat at fifty paces. And she had one great weakness, which the sisters all knew about, and which the youngest ones had learned to take advantage of. She could not resist telling a story to someone who could not sleep.

The youngest of those was a novice named Wenna.

Wenna was nineteen. She had come to the convent in the autumn, from a farm two valleys away, and she was still working out what she had done. She was good at the work. She was good at the singing, in a thin, true voice that made the older sisters stop what they were doing. She was not good at the quiet. All her life she had lived in a house full of brothers and dogs and weather, and now she lay every night in a narrow bed in a narrow cell with nothing to listen to but her own thoughts, and her thoughts, it turned out, were a very loud family.

On the third night of the snow, they had been particularly loud. She lay there until the bell rang for the middle of the night. She lay there until the candle in the corridor went out. And at some point after that she got up, because there was no use pretending any longer, and put her shawl over her nightdress and went down the cold stairs on tiptoe, to the one place in the house she knew would be warm.

That is how she came to be standing in the kitchen door, with her toes going blue, saying the thing that nobody should say.

Mother Aldith did not ask what the matter was. This was her great gift, and it is worth admiring. She had been asked, over the years, a great many things by a great many novices, and she had noticed that nine times in ten the trouble could not be put into words, and that if you asked, the novice would feel she had to find some, and would pick the wrong ones.

So she said: sit down, child. There is tea. It is not very good tea, because it is the end of the winter store, and I have been stretching it, and it is mostly hot water with an opinion. But it is hot.

Wenna sat down on the stool by the hearth. The cat looked at her with deep suspicion and went back to sleep. The abbess took the kettle, which had finally decided to boil, and poured it into two cups, and handed one over, and for a minute there was no sound in the kitchen at all except the fire and the faint ticking of the roof under the weight of the snow.

Then Wenna said, very quietly: I think I made a mistake.

And Mother Aldith said: about what?

And Wenna said: all of it. Coming here. I thought I would feel something. I thought it would be like the old stories, that I would know. And I do not. Mostly I feel cold, and I keep dropping the milk jug. And the other sisters all seem so sure, and I am not sure of anything, and I lie there and I think, what if I am just not holy? What if everyone else is made of something I am not made of?

And Mother Aldith, who had been waiting for exactly this for about two months, sipped her tea and said: ah.

She put the cup down. She said: do you know, I used to think the same thing.

Wenna looked up. She said: you did?

The abbess said: for about thirty years. And then I stopped, because I noticed that I had been wrong. I had been looking at the saints as though they were a different sort of creature, and they were not. They were people. They were people who had worked out one thing. And once I understood what it was, I felt a good deal better. Would you like to hear about it?

And Wenna, who had been hoping for a lecture, found she was relieved to be offered a story. She said: yes, please.

And the abbess said: good. Then I shall tell you three. And I shall begin, because the night is cold and the snow is deep, with a woman who was given a very small piece of land.

The first story is of Saint Brigid of Kildare, and she lived in Ireland, a long time ago, around the end of the fifth century and into the sixth. Nearly everything that is told about her comes from Lives that were written down some generations after her death. The earliest is by a monk called Cogitosus, writing about the year six hundred and fifty, and there are others, in Latin and in Irish, and they are not all in agreement. So I shall say, as I always do: this is the old story. It is not a thing the Church asks you to believe like the Creed. It is a thing that was loved.

Now, Brigid, as the old Lives tell it, wanted to found a convent. She was an abbess already, or about to be, and she had a number of young women who wished to live under her rule, and what she needed was land. And land in those days belonged to kings. So she went to the king of Leinster, who was a man of some importance and a fair amount of caution, and she asked him politely for a piece of ground on which to build.

The king looked at her. He looked at her sisters. He looked at the sky. And he said that he would give her whatever land she liked, within reason.

Brigid said she would be grateful.

And the king said: how much land do you want?

And this is the thing. Brigid said, as the story goes, that she wanted only as much as her cloak would cover.

Now you must imagine the king's face. It was a nice cloak, I dare say, but it was a cloak. It was one of those thick wool ones, with a hood, and if you spread it out on the grass it would cover roughly the area of a small tablecloth. The king, who was not a man to refuse a bargain that cost him so little, said that she could have it.

So Brigid took off her cloak. She asked four of her sisters to take hold of the corners. And they walked off in four directions.

And the cloak grew.

It stretched as they walked. The old story says that it spread out across the plain, wider and wider, until it covered land enough for a whole monastery and its fields, and that the king, who was watching, went rather pale, and said that it might be enough now. At which point, the story says, the sisters stopped, and the cloak was done.

I would like you to keep two things in mind about this story, said Mother Aldith. The first is that I do not know if it happened. Nobody does. It is a story that Irish people told about Brigid for a very long time, and it has a wonderful shape, like a good proverb.

And the second thing is what it means. Think about the cloak. It was not a large cloak. It was not a magic cloak. It was just the one that she was wearing, and she held it out, and she trusted. She did not ask for a big field and then wait for it to arrive. She asked for what she could carry, and she began. And the story is saying that when you begin with what you actually have, held out in both hands, it turns out to be more than you thought.

Wenna said: and the king?

The abbess said: well, in some tellings, he was so struck that he gave her the land and a good deal more. In some, he became a Christian. In all, he was surprised. It is a good thing for a king to be surprised once in a while. It keeps him honest.

And she sipped her tea, and the cat shifted, and the fire popped.

Wenna said, after a while: that is a nice story. But I do not have a cloak.

And Mother Aldith laughed. It was a quiet laugh, as it was the middle of the night, but it went right through the kitchen. She said: of course you do not. Nobody does. That was never the point. Brigid was holy before the cloak ever grew, and she was holy afterwards, and what she did was no different from what you do every morning when you get up, put your feet on the cold floor, and begin. But I see you are not convinced. So I shall tell you the second story, which is about being cold.

She settled back. She said: this one is about Saint Francis.

I think you know Saint Francis, she said. He was the son of a rich cloth merchant in Assisi, in Italy, who gave away everything and spent his life among the poor, and founded the Franciscans, and died in the year twelve hundred and twenty-six. Catholics love him. A great many Orthodox love him, too, and so do many people who are not either. And one of the loveliest stories about him is in a book called the Little Flowers, which was gathered after his death by those who remembered him. It is called Of Perfect Joy.

It is a very short story. It is about a winter walk.

One day, as the story goes, Francis was walking along the road with Brother Leo, who was his closest friend and his secretary. It was the bitter middle of winter. They were on their way back to the little friary where they lived, and they were wet through, and they were hungry, and the cold was so fierce that it hurt to breathe.

And as they trudged along, Francis said to Brother Leo something like this. He said: Brother Leo, if the friars were to be a great example of holiness everywhere, write that this is not perfect joy.

They walked on a bit.

He said: if a friar could give sight to the blind, and heal the lame, and drive out demons, write that this is not perfect joy.

They walked on some more.

He said: if a friar knew all the languages, and all the sciences, and all the secrets of the stars, and could preach so well that he converted the whole world, write that this is not perfect joy.

And Brother Leo, who had been going along with his head down and his hood up, and who was by this time very cold, finally lost patience. He said: Father, for the love of God, tell me, then. What is perfect joy?

Francis said: I will tell you.

He said: suppose we come to the friary, soaked with rain and frozen with cold and covered with mud and faint with hunger. And we knock at the door. And the porter comes, and says: who are you? And we say: two of your brothers. And he says: you are lying. You are two scoundrels who go around deceiving people and stealing alms. Go away.

And suppose he does not open the door. And suppose he leaves us standing out in the snow and the rain all night, with the cold, and the hunger.

If we bear all that patiently, said Francis, without being troubled and without a murmur against him, and we think humbly and charitably that the porter really knows us, and that God makes him speak against us, then, Brother Leo, write that this is perfect joy.

Mother Aldith stopped.

The fire ticked. The cat stretched. Outside, very faintly, a branch let go of some snow.

Wenna said: that is the strangest thing I have ever heard.

The abbess said: yes. It is. It has bothered people for eight hundred years. And I will tell you what I think it means, though I am an old woman and may be wrong. I think Saint Francis was saying that the joy of God does not depend on the conditions. It is not a reward for doing well. It is not a feeling you get when everything is going right. It is something under the weather, and under the mud, and under the locked door. It is what you still have when you have no other reason for it.

And that is a hard thing, Wenna. It is much harder than healing the lame. I have never managed it. I have, once or twice, managed to be only a little cross at a locked door. But I have noticed that when I try, the cold gets a good deal easier to bear.

And she added, rather dryly: you will notice that the story does not say Francis enjoyed being cold. It says he knew where the joy was.

Wenna was quiet. Then she said: so, it does not matter that I feel nothing?

Mother Aldith said: I did not say that. I said the feeling is not the foundation. You have been standing at the door of this house for three months, my dear, in the rain, knocking. And the door has opened. You are in the kitchen. You are drinking hot water with an opinion. You are not as far from the fire as you think.

The tea was cold by now. The abbess put on another small log, with the air of someone doing something slightly naughty, since there was a rule about firewood in a long winter, and she had written the rule.

She said: now I shall tell you the third.

This one is about a monk in Russia, said Mother Aldith. He is an Orthodox saint, and there are those among us who do not know him as well as we should, but he is much loved by many Catholics, too, and I would not be without him. His name was Seraphim, and he lived in a forest near the monastery of Sarov, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He died on the second of January, in the year eighteen thirty-three, and he was made a saint by the Church of Russia in nineteen hundred and three, with a great crowd, and the Tsar himself in attendance, and he is now remembered all over the Orthodox world.

Now Seraphim had a hard life. He was ill for years. He was attacked by robbers who left him badly injured. He spent a thousand days and nights on a rock in the forest, praying, with his arms raised, and he lived for years in a small cabin with a stove and a chair. And what is wonderful about him is that, at the end of all that, he was not grim. He was not stern. He was the happiest man you ever heard of.

When people came to him, and a great many did, in the last years, from all over the country, he would meet them at the door of his cabin, and greet each of them, the rich and the poor, the bishop and the beggar, in exactly the same way. He would bow to the ground, and kiss them, and say: Christ is risen, my joy.

Every one of them. Every time. In the middle of winter, and in the middle of summer, and in the middle of Lent. Christ is risen, my joy.

The sisters in the old days, said Mother Aldith, used to say that Seraphim said it so many times it was a wonder he was not hoarse. But those who actually came to him said something different. They said that when he said it, they believed it. For a moment, at least. They stood at his door, tired and worried and half in despair, and a man who had suffered a great deal said to them with a smile that the Lord was risen and that they were his joy, and it was as though a window had been opened in a stuffy room.

And I have thought, she said, for a good while, what it was that he saw. And I think it was this. He saw that the person in front of him was loved. Not might be loved, not would be loved if they improved. Was. Already. Rich or poor, clever or dull, holy or a bit of a mess. And all he had to do was say it, and the thing was true.

She was quiet a moment.

She said: you asked me whether you were made of something different from the other sisters. I do not think you are. But I think you may have been given a particular job. Perhaps you are to be the one who says it, in this house, in your thin true voice, when the rest of us have got a little hoarse.

Wenna did not say anything for a long time.

The kettle had stopped ticking. The fire had settled into a deep red glow. The cat was asleep with one paw over its nose, and the snow outside had gone from the soft whisper of earlier to a silence so complete that she could hear her own pulse.

She said, at last: Mother, may I ask something?

The abbess said: of course.

Wenna said: the three saints. Brigid with her cloak. Francis in the cold. Seraphim at the door. What was the one thing they had worked out?

And Mother Aldith smiled, because she had been hoping for the question.

She said: I will tell you. But you must promise not to be disappointed.

Wenna promised.

The abbess said: I think they worked out that the whole thing is simpler than it looks. Brigid held out what she had. Francis stayed at the door. Seraphim said a kind word. None of them, you will notice, did anything you could not do tomorrow morning. They did it for a very long time, and they did it with love, and they did it without needing to be thanked. And God, who is rather generous with that sort of thing, did the rest.

She said: there is no secret, child. There is only the next small thing, done with a whole heart. That is what a cloak is. That is what a locked door is. That is what a greeting is. And you have been doing it all along. You came down the stairs tonight, in the dark, with bare feet, and you asked for help. I do not know a holier thing than that.

And Wenna, who was nineteen and a long way from home, and had been so very tired of being sure that she was failing, put her cup down on the hearth, and cried a little, quietly, the way you do when someone has finally said it. And the abbess did not say anything. She reached out a hand from under the blanket and held on to hers. And the cat, who has no theology, and is a good judge of these things, climbed up into the novice's lap and began to purr.

It is a very late hour now.

The candle is burning low. The fire is a heap of embers, with a little curl of warmth rising off it. The snow is still falling on the roof, and the wall, and the bell tower with its hat, and on the kitchen garden, where, under the white, the first of the spring bulbs are waiting. They do not know yet that it is winter. Or perhaps they do, and are simply waiting, as bulbs do, in the dark, with their whole hearts.

In the kitchen, the old woman and the young one have stopped talking. There is nothing further that needs to be said. After a while, the abbess's head tips gently to one side, and her breathing slows, and she is asleep in her chair with her veil crooked and her hand still holding the novice's. And Wenna sits there for some time, quite still, not wanting to wake her.

Then, very carefully, she slides her hand free, and tucks the blanket up around the old woman's shoulders, and puts the last small log on the fire, and a dried herb stalk from the shelf on top, so that the kitchen will smell of summer when the abbess wakes.

And she goes back up the cold stairs, one at a time, in the dark, in her bare feet. She is not sure of anything. She is only a little less afraid of not being sure.

When she reaches her cell, she lies down on her narrow bed. And she says, softly, to nobody in particular, to the dark and to the low roof and to the snow, the words an old monk used to say at his door. Christ is risen, my joy.

And she sleeps.

In the morning, the snow will stop. Sister Eunice will ring the bell, and be, for once, quite audible. The sisters will come down to the kitchen and find their abbess asleep in her chair, smelling faintly of herbs, with a cat in her lap that was not there when she began. Nobody will wake her. They will dig out the lane instead, all nine of them, with the goat supervising, and when Mother Aldith finally opens her eyes there will be a thin blue sky over the hill, and a pot of something hot on the hob, and a young novice with a milk jug in her hands, who for the first time in three months does not drop it.

Now, a few notes for the curious, before we say goodnight.

The convent, Mother Aldith, the novice Wenna, the cat, the goat and all their conversations are our own invention. This is a fiction, in a traditional setting, and we have not claimed that any of it happened. We have tried only to put the three stories where a storyteller might.

The three stories inside it are real. The story of Brigid and the cloak is from the old Latin and Irish Lives of Saint Brigid, the earliest of which was written about the year six hundred and fifty by a monk named Cogitosus. It is a legend, and we have told it as one. The story of Perfect Joy is from the Little Flowers of Saint Francis, a collection made after his death, and it has been loved for eight hundred years, though its exact wording has changed with every translation. Saint Seraphim's greeting, Christ is risen, my joy, is well attested by those who knew him. We have told the details that way, and we have left out the stranger things that are said about him.

And a word on the tradition. Saint Brigid is kept by Catholics and Orthodox alike. Saint Francis is a Catholic saint, though much loved well beyond the Catholic Church. And Saint Seraphim is an Orthodox saint, much loved by Catholics too. Their feasts are on the first of February, the fourth of October and the second of January.

If you would like to read more, look for the Little Flowers in a good translation, and for the biographies named on the page for this episode. And if you cannot sleep tonight, and are worried that you are not made of whatever the saints are made of, I would only say what a very old abbess said to a very young novice. You are not as far from the fire as you think.

That's the story of the hill convent for tonight, and of Brigid, Francis and Seraphim. Thank you for listening to Saints by Candlelight. If you enjoyed it, share it with someone who could use a gentle story at the end of a long day.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May he lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. Goodnight, and God bless.

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