Conferences on Aelred of Rievaulx
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November 30, 2016We were blessed to have Marsha Dutton as our guest these three days. She shared with us from her expertise in the study of our Cistercian Father, Aelred of Rievaulx.
Marsha Dutton is the Samuel and Susan Crowl Professor of Literature at Ohio University and Executive Editor of Cistercian Publications. Her work on Aelred over the years has put her in frequent contact with Cistercian monasteries throughout the US. She shared with us the somewhat accidental/providential way in which she found herself becoming a scholar of Aelred, and the important part played in this development by intellectual exchange and friendship with Cistercian monks and nuns.
The main topic of the conferences was the theme of memory in Aelred's thought. Marsha took us through some sections of On the Soul, The Mirror of Charity and Jesus at the Age of Twelve, in order to bring out how Aelred uses memory not in an arcane way, but in a way any of us can identify with. Our memory is a place for storing images drawn from experience, images which may leap forward and grab our attention, or may become buried under distrctions and business. Significantly, memory is the place where we can find God - if we remember to look there.
More on Marsha Dutton here.