Itâs 5.58. The bell clangs in the cloister. For an hour and a half I have slept the sleep of the shriven as dawn steals up on Caldey. There are more chanted psalms. âFor you my soul is thirsting,â we sing, âmy body pines for you, like a dry weary land without waterâ (Psalm 63). I note an extra monk in the stall this time, bent double with age. âHide me from the land of the wicked,â we chant, âfrom the throng of evildoersâ (Psalm 64). Presumably he misses the early shift these days. âThe Lord is King, let earth rejoiceâ (Psalm 97). We process out and I slip back upstairs. The air is cool in the cloister. What must it be like in winter here, the spaces big and unwarmed?
Cold Island is also known in Welsh as Ynys Br, after the islandâs first abbot, Pyro. Pyroâs life was not entirely devoted to devotion. He liked a drink, presumably to keep warm, given that in the sixth century the monks lived in huts and even sea caves. One night he fell into the monasteryâs well and drowned. So it says in
The Life of Samson
. Samson was the next of many saints to come to Caldey when, after the Romans had gone, Celtic Christianity took root in Wales. Later came Dyfrig, whose name is notched in ogham script into the rim of a stone slab in the islandâs priory. He sailed to Caldey each Lent for forty days of solitude. Then there was St Illtud, St Paul of Léon and St Gildas the Wise, whose idea it was to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ to enlarge the island. There were more dramatic tides back then; it is said you could walk the mile from StMargaretâs Island to the mainland when the tide was out, but when it was in, the fields which they farmed when they werenât praying would be flooded. (Even now you get letters from Caldey bearing the stamp âDelayed by rough seasâ.)
Iâve just settled down with a cup of tea when I hear the shiver of the bell in my eyrie. Saints preserve us, I think, as I trudge back through the cloister. Itâs like Groundhog Day here, but with the repetition happening
every hour
. Only this time the scene is dramatically different. A riot of colour greets my entrance. The monks are still in their white tunics, but now some are wearing a light-green stole which hangs round the neck and down past the waist. And one is enveloped in a rich bright-green chasuble, the colour of classy Christmas wrapping paper. Romeâs genius for design has struck. The colours, Teilo tells me later, vary according to occasion: green for regular days and Sundays; white for the Virginâs major feasts, Christmas and Easter; purple for mourning. Theyâve worn purple a few times in recent years as older brethren have successively given up the ghost.
Holy Mass. We are spared more psalms. The church has lured quite a crowd at this late hour (6.45 a.m.). In addition to me and the visiting priests there are three women scattered about the pews. Iâm guessing theyâre islanders. One in a woolly hat operates a dollâs-house organ parked directly behind the abbot. She accompanies us in a doleful hymn, while up front the monk in the chasuble consecrates the wine and the bread at the altar. The monks now surround him in a wide semicircle. They raise their arms, palms held aloft, as they sing. The Cistercian God is a theatre director, I think, as I am wowed by this ritualistic parade of choreographed exultation. And the props are impressive too, the white wafers as big as biscuits, the huge chalice silver and gleaming. They ingest around the altar. Two monks too weak to stand are ministered to in theirstalls. Presumably we the congregants go up to the altar and kneel. But I shanât brave that humiliation again. Oh, but two monks are heading our way. Thereâs no getting out of this. The wafer is proffered. I have no choice but to open my mouth to receive it. Itâs crumbly, tasteless. And the chalice, rim freshly wiped. The blood
Cold Island is also known in Welsh as Ynys Br, after the islandâs first abbot, Pyro. Pyroâs life was not entirely devoted to devotion. He liked a drink, presumably to keep warm, given that in the sixth century the monks lived in huts and even sea caves. One night he fell into the monasteryâs well and drowned. So it says in
The Life of Samson
. Samson was the next of many saints to come to Caldey when, after the Romans had gone, Celtic Christianity took root in Wales. Later came Dyfrig, whose name is notched in ogham script into the rim of a stone slab in the islandâs priory. He sailed to Caldey each Lent for forty days of solitude. Then there was St Illtud, St Paul of Léon and St Gildas the Wise, whose idea it was to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ to enlarge the island. There were more dramatic tides back then; it is said you could walk the mile from StMargaretâs Island to the mainland when the tide was out, but when it was in, the fields which they farmed when they werenât praying would be flooded. (Even now you get letters from Caldey bearing the stamp âDelayed by rough seasâ.)
Iâve just settled down with a cup of tea when I hear the shiver of the bell in my eyrie. Saints preserve us, I think, as I trudge back through the cloister. Itâs like Groundhog Day here, but with the repetition happening
every hour
. Only this time the scene is dramatically different. A riot of colour greets my entrance. The monks are still in their white tunics, but now some are wearing a light-green stole which hangs round the neck and down past the waist. And one is enveloped in a rich bright-green chasuble, the colour of classy Christmas wrapping paper. Romeâs genius for design has struck. The colours, Teilo tells me later, vary according to occasion: green for regular days and Sundays; white for the Virginâs major feasts, Christmas and Easter; purple for mourning. Theyâve worn purple a few times in recent years as older brethren have successively given up the ghost.
Holy Mass. We are spared more psalms. The church has lured quite a crowd at this late hour (6.45 a.m.). In addition to me and the visiting priests there are three women scattered about the pews. Iâm guessing theyâre islanders. One in a woolly hat operates a dollâs-house organ parked directly behind the abbot. She accompanies us in a doleful hymn, while up front the monk in the chasuble consecrates the wine and the bread at the altar. The monks now surround him in a wide semicircle. They raise their arms, palms held aloft, as they sing. The Cistercian God is a theatre director, I think, as I am wowed by this ritualistic parade of choreographed exultation. And the props are impressive too, the white wafers as big as biscuits, the huge chalice silver and gleaming. They ingest around the altar. Two monks too weak to stand are ministered to in theirstalls. Presumably we the congregants go up to the altar and kneel. But I shanât brave that humiliation again. Oh, but two monks are heading our way. Thereâs no getting out of this. The wafer is proffered. I have no choice but to open my mouth to receive it. Itâs crumbly, tasteless. And the chalice, rim freshly wiped. The blood
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