to the ground, shepherding his charges into the now empty truck bed, and drove them to the shelter of St. Michael’s Cathedral in the capital city, only an hour away.
1
Brother Mike liked to fish. In his youth, the Leie River near his home in Ghent, before it became polluted beyond recognition, had provided good fishing—even offering up the occasional prize pike. But today, as for every outing over past decades, Brother Mike was far from the river of his childhood. He now baited his hook for bream in the large pond below the monastery in Central Africa.
Here, the bream were no pike. There was no thrashing, no violent fight of life and death, good and evil. But there was a good battle, nonetheless. There was the battle of being pulled in this direction and that—being dragged against one’s will. The bream would indeed fight nobly, splaying his fins against the unwanted, the feared pull of the line. The bream would not give up easily. Many had flopped off the hook right at the water’s edge.
Brother Mike frequently wondered if the Church brought its flock together as though they were caught on a line. Were they pulled against their will? Was he? The world was changing. Perhaps faith was not enough. In the olden days, even in the days of his youth, you did what was right—you did what you were told. Today, it seemed not only countries were freed—so were souls.
Brother Mike also often thought of those early White Fathers, the first venturing forth nearly a century ago in North Africa. They were pioneers who brought God’s Word to these hidden regions, many a time at such a high price to themselves, their sponsors, and even their hoped-to-be beneficiaries. They must have felt closer to God when they built churches on the hilltops around these verdant valleys of Central Africa, with their spires pointing to the stars, oftentimes silhouetted by angry tropical storms.
His own hilltop, the well-kept crest guarded by his community, was crowned by a small but elegant chapel, built nearly a hundred years ago. This sanctuary and launching pad for God’s Ways had, over the ensuing years, metamorphosed into a vibrant and diversified religious community now overseen by the Brothers of Piety, a community that included a health center, primary and secondary schools, an orphanage, a butcher shop, greengrocer, and bakery, mechanic and carpentry workshops, as well as an impressive library.
Far from the hubbub of the nearly constant goings-on of the monastery, the fishpond offered a refuge, a calm that slowly intensified like the afternoon breeze blowing across the water’s surface. Generally, Brother Mike returned to his apartment with no fish, but a serene soul. And, for Brother Mike, finding serenity was no small matter.
Brother Mike, or Michel van Leuven as he had been baptized a half a century before, had been raised by strict Flemish parents, attended strict Flemish schools, lived in a strict Flemish neighborhood, and was oh so happy to now be living in the not-so-strict heart of Africa. In spite of his solemn monastic vows of obedience and conversion to the monastic way of life, including chastity, Brother Mike felt liberated.
Brother Mike was a religious person. He was a true believer. He had studied his Catechism. He understood the aim of chastity was to integrate the powers of life and love. He understood chastity as an act linked to the virtue of temperance. He also understood chastity to be expressed in friendship and, while he was opposed to the fornication of the unmarried, he saw the expression of his friendship through love making as a very acceptable, almost sacred, deed. It was so that Brother Mike had many female friends; ladies married to their husbands or married to the Holy Spirit.
Brother Mike had come to his monastic life as a young man, barely out of his teens. He had started working for the betterment of all at the lowest rungs of the ladder. First as a kitchen helper, he had shown an aptitude for being a good organizer. Thus, he was put in charge of the pantry; maintaining the food stores to feed the not inconsequential number of mouths that accounted for the monastery’s population of brothers, students, workers, the ill, and hangers-on. He was superb. He had an analytical mind that quickly ended the haphazard way in which stocks had been kept, and put in place an efficient and easily monitored system that shed light on any pilfering that was an unavoidable byproduct of such a varied population.
Brother Mike was so successful at supervising the pantries that he was soon promoted to a position where he oversaw the movement of all the goods with which the community dealt. As a philanthropic society, the Brothers of Piety imported a large quantity of material, including medications and medical supplies, books for school, parts for the mechanic’s shop, appliances for the butcher shop and bakery, clothing for the orphans, and foodstuffs for the community itself—all duty free. On average, the monastery received a container a month. However, these containers were often not full, providing Brother Mike an opportunity to offer friendship to local businessmen who sought imported products but disliked paying the high import duties. This kindness was repaid in many forms, both in cash and in kind.
Brother Mike believed he practiced what he preached, including temperance. Thus it was that he shared his friendship with but one lady at a time. It was, moreover, divine providence that determined the depth of this friendship. At times it was purely a blessed chance encounter that flowered into something more profound, but as fleeting as the coffee blossoms on the hill. On other occasions, it was a more consummate friendship that could carry on for weeks or even months. Nevertheless, there was always an amicable ending as friendship was a blessing to be shared and not monopolized by one individual.
Brother Mike had few rules, thinking his vows were adequate to steer his life. However, whether as a survival instinct or a paternalistic sentiment, he strove not to have friendships with anyone at the monastery—no students, recovering patients, patrons, or workers. He fervently believed in separating work and socializing and his friendships were generally forged with sisters from the neighboring convent or the citizenry of the nearby provincial capital, the fortuitous congress notwithstanding.
Brother Mike could always be seen with his tattered canvas holdall slung over his shoulder. When he encountered a new friend, with an affable smile and an open demeanor, he would ask his new acquaintance to find a comfortable seat, be it in a public space, a restaurant, a grassy knoll, or an open market. He would remove from his bag a bottle of Courvoisier and two small glasses. In the blink of an eye, thanks to his clandestine import arrangements, he would be sipping fine cognac with his newly found friend.
Brother Mike was the kind of man who could easily have been elected burgomaster. But Brother Mike was someone who knew his place. He enjoyed immensely the pleasures of his position and in no way wanted to jeopardize these by being a threat, either real or perceived, to the power structure of the monastic community. He was very careful to follow the rules, at least most of them, to adhere to the prayer schedule, and to show due respect to his superiors. He was polite, respectful, disciplined, and well-kept. He was, in fact, often spoken of by the Abbot as the exemplary monk of the order.
This all meant that Brother Mike was very busy and very discreet. With his friendships and inventories to manage, he was always engrossed in one thing or another. It was often hard to find the ways to fit his formal and informal lives together, so his respites on the pond bank were frequently one of the few occasions to take stock and assess options.
Brother Mike’s current friendship with Sister Alice was coming to an expected and logical end. They had been able to carry on their liaison for several months, exceptionally long from Brother Mike’s point of view, as they were both involved in assisting some of the village clinics in the surrounding area—an accommodating spot always available when away from the curious eyes of the religious or civil society.
Sister Alice was a big-boned Walloon with equally big appetites. If the truth were known, she was more than Brother Mike would normally have chosen to take on as a partner in friendship. But she had a robust sense of humor and an appetite for cognac or any of its relatives. All in all, there was a mesh of similar life forces, but the friendship had
