Chapter 17 Friar Lukas
Friar Lukas
On Sundays, Friar Lukas performs Mass for the beguines.
Sophia Vermeulen meets him inside the begijnhof entrance.
He’s always liked Sophia, has been glad to see her rise with the begijnhof, now nearly fifty women strong.
There are as many beguines in the begijnhof as nuns in most convents.
She runs the place with a steady hand. She is the best of her sex, practically a man.
It occurs to him that she has more beguines than he has friars.
Well, women are more inclined to religion than men.
Maybe his Aleys will recruit a hundred women to the Franciscan order. What a tribute to God that would be.
“Magistra.” Lukas bows his head to Sophia and scans the courtyard for Aleys.
He will spend some time after Mass to instruct her, perhaps try out a variant of his sermon about the coming end of times.
It’s a sunny morning, with buttercups poking through the lawn and children running around.
Several beguines are trying to corral them for church. Aleys is not among them.
“How fares my new friar?” he asks Sophia. He means it as a joke.
“Good day, Father.” She nods. “Walk with me?”
He falls in beside her. As Sophia speaks, he continues to look for Aleys. Perhaps she’s already in the church, praying. Perhaps she’s at her prie-dieu, with that little psalter of hers. Good. They will see her exemplary devotion.
“. . . want to limit our trade in English wool, prohibit us from selling . . . Father, are you listening?”
“How is Sister Aleys?”
She sighs. An exasperated tone enters her voice. “Aleys is”—she pauses—“well educated. Now, we need your help with the guild.”
“Yes, of course.” Wool is their livelihood. “But has she won over any converts?”
“Converts?” Sophia stares at him. “You’ve sent her to convert us?”
He realizes it doesn’t sound good. “No, of course not.” He’d have thought no one would complain if a few beguines set down their spindles and took up the robe.
Beguines leave the begijnhof all the time, they turn left for marriage or right for the convent.
No one seems to mind. They are free women, after all.
“I thought perhaps she would inspire others. If enough seek to join us, I’ll secure them a home of their own. ”
“Father, you are welcome to evangelize among my beguines. If you find any who would prefer Aleys’s company to ours, they are free to go. We wouldn’t hinder any woman from joining the Franciscans, if that is her calling.” She lowers her voice. “But I don’t think Aleys is winning you any converts.”
“Why not? She is brimming with faith, she is learned, she is . . .”
Sophia looks at him. The look contains a warning. “She has a calling, Lukas, I can see that. It doesn’t mean she has charisma.”
He winces. People have said the same of him.
After the service, Aleys cuts across the courtyard, trampling buttercups. Be careful with such new life, he thinks.
“Pax et bonum,” he greets her. “Peace and goodness to you, Sister, and may you spread faith where it’s needed.” Which is everywhere. “How have you been?”
He remembers the moment he first saw her, the wild desire in her eyes.
Now it seems subdued. This is good, he thinks, her passion is finding channels of obedience.
At least he thinks it’s good. He’s never been spiritual advisor to someone like this.
Usually, his work has been to whip up faith among people, not transmute it.
This is like taming a wild horse to the plow.
The girl was left on her own for too long, reading, interpreting, praying without guidance, hallucinating angels.
A feral faith, really. He will pray on it.
“Father, I know it’s Midsummer.” She’s already shaking her head. “I’ve not found many who want to become Franciscan.”
It’s as Sophia described. “Why not?”
“I’m not sure.” She looks at her hands.
“This is about a calling to serve God. Are you not presenting it correctly?”
“They already serve God. In the hospital, at deathbeds. In the school.”
“So you’ve convinced none of them? Not one?”
“It’s just that they’re happy here. Maybe I could recruit from town. If I could preach like my brothers . . .”
“Women don’t preach.”
“But that’s what Franciscans do.”
“Franciscan friars.”
“You revere Mary Magdalene. She spread Christ’s message. You said she was a model of womanhood.”
“To be venerated, not imitated.” Aleys has a quick way of turning his words. She’d make a good theologian if she were a man.
“But—”
“If you preached in public, you’d be teaching men. That’s forbidden.”
“Father, didn’t you tell me women are more likely than men to reach heaven?” Her voice rises. “Maybe men should heed us.”
“Like Adam did Eve? We’d still be in paradise if she’d kept her advice to herself.”
Aleys gives a huff. A verging-on-disobedience huff. “You know the magistra instructs us. She’s perfectly capable.”
He puts his hand out. Stop. He’s heard rumors about those meetings. He respects Sophia and doesn’t want to know more. “That’s teaching, not preaching. A woman has never given a public sermon in Brugge.”
“That’s because there’s never been a Franciscan sister here. How am I supposed to find recruits? Could I at least go door-to-door like my brothers?”
“And who would accompany you? One of the men? Sister Aleys, where did you get such notions?”
“But Saint Clare?”
“Saint Clare was enclosed with her women.”
“She wasn’t by the side of Saint Francis? Like Mary Magdalene beside Christ?”
“Of course not. Francis established a convent for her.”
“Oh.”
“The brothers supported them at first, then the town, once they realized the power of their prayers.” How could she not know this? He supposes he could have told her, but it seemed too obvious to say.
“But how will I recruit if I can’t preach?”
She has a point, but he can’t have her wandering about with his men. “You must try harder here. You can . . . impress them with your Latin. I’ll ask Sophia if you can perform the evening oratory instead of Katrijn.”
“No.” She frowns as she twists to look for Katrijn. “Please don’t. I’ll think of something.”
A burst of laughter rises from a knot of young women as a pair of toddlers chases a group of pigeons and the courtyard explodes with rising, flapping gray.
Aleys’s gaze catches on the women for a moment, and when she turns back, he glimpses longing in her face.
It strikes him, for the first time, that he could lose her to the beguines.
That she could find something here. He watches the flock disappear over the roofs.
He can’t let that happen. God sent her, he can’t lose her.
Aleys has something he needs, something he can’t quite name. He can’t let her go.
“Sister,” he says urgently, “you have a calling as a Franciscan. Take the time you need. I will pray for him to show you the way.”