I picked up Canticle after searching the web for books on nuns, and I had finally finished Catherine of Siena, which unfortunately was a tad of a drag. However, I enjoyed Victoria Mackenzie’s For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain about both Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, one an anchoress and the other a woman with a wild faith.
There’s a hunger as Aleys seeks after God. It’s a thirst she longs to quench. She’s a bit like if Marianne from Sense and Sensibility were religious, if that’s a fair comparison. Aleys is bold and compassionate and eager to find the God of the psalter her mother had prayed from since she was a young girl.
Often I think the path to God is paved with flowers, pink poppies lining the way towards the bridegroom. But both Aleys and I find that it is not so simple.
“God is her beloved now. Show me how to find you, she prays. I will seek. Show me the way…But God sends trials, not road maps.”
That the way to God is indeed a cross.
Aleys leaves home, finds herself a Franciscan sister, and is surrounded by trouble on all sides. In the background, there are the beguines, women not beholden to the church or to the town. They are self-sufficient, monastic, and actively serving those in the community. Tending to the sick, praying them from this world into the next. This aloof set of women in a world where everyone is subject to the church. The town is wary of them, and so is Aleys.
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Aleys struggles to find her place in the beguines, as she is both like them and yet other. This otherness, I suppose, God uses to his advantage. This internal struggle of being one after God’s own heart, to find God in the midst of ordinary life, it’s human nature.
“Aleys? It’s not enough to be in love with love. You must be willing to suffer with him, too.”
The funny thing is that when you come to God, you don’t anticipate the cost, what obedience will ask of you. You say yes to God, pledging your faithfulness with no idea what the journey ahead of you requires. And sometimes what God asks of you makes anger flare up in you like a torch.
“Did she (St. Ursula) rage against God for sending an assault on the women he’d commanded her to lead? Or did Ursula still call him beloved? Or maybe that’s what makes you a saint: the ability to face the worst and pray, Thy will be done.”
God’s ways are a mystery to men and even as I was trying to explain parts of the bible to my dear friend Kate this past weekend, I found myself having to put an asterix on so many parts of scripture that are hard to wrestle with. So much war, so much death.
Though I find Aleys compelling, it is Friar Lukas who I am most like. (Unfortunately for me, Janet ruins his character and that just really sucks.)
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Friar Lukas is the leader of the Franciscan brothers, and they eschew the riches of the world and live off of charity. While Aleys is devoted, Friar Lukas is desperate. And I suppose it’s unholy desperation that undoes him. But he too longs for God.
It’s when his love for God mixes with entitlement, that he is led astray. He is the older brother in the Prodigal Son story. There is love for God but also resentment and a sense of anger at the gifts he has not been given. I actually love Henri Nouwen’s book The Prodigal Son, as it talks about the elder brother and his heart.
“She prays, Christ answers. He begs, she receives. She asks, she receives. He preaches, people turn away. He blesses with cold hands. She strokes a brow, it heals. He asks, he begs, nothing.”
Despite his best effort, Friar Lukas finds himself bested, finds God closer to a young woman than to his many years of wisdom and faithfulness. Friar Lukas, I’m sure some people will find abhorrent, but I find him real. He is still trying to find God despite feeling bereft. I can relate.
What Friar Lukas and I struggle with is accepting the mysterious nature of God. We know so very little of the work of God in the world. What’s that Piper quote—in a world where God is up to a thousand things, we may know of one or two.
Canticle ends with Aleys giving her all to the Lord, and Friar Lukas humbled by the weight of his sin.
“There is nothing between these women and their God. They simply love and are loved in return.”
If you like historical fiction, this would be a good read for you! Let me know if you have any book recommendations below.
Signing off,
Gigi
Studying Life with Gigi 