Humility is rightly compared with the morning, for as the origin of all the virtues it enables us to distinguish between day and night, between light and darkness, between virtue and vice. All those who take leave of the darkness of vice must of necessity begin with the virtue of humility in order for the growth of the virtues to be realised until the end of the day.
Today is the memorial of Saint Aelred of Rievaulx. This quote is my translation from the Dutch of an extract of a text by Saint Aelred that was read at Vigils this morning, from Aartsvader Isaak, een wijsheidsmeditatie, translated by Michel Coune OSB of Zevenkerken, Bruges.
A vow of conversation 
January 12, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Nice! Very patristic! Do you know which of Aelred’s works this came from?
January 13, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Aaron,
I’ve just looked it up. It’s a sermon that he preached for the feast of Saint Benedict and can be found in an edition given out by C.H. Talbot: Sermones inediti B. Aelredi abbatis Rievallensis, Series Scriptorum S. Ord. Cist. Vol. I, Rome 1952, pp. 71-76. I have no idea whether there is an English translation. It’s published in Dutch in a little booklet in a series from the Abbey of Zevenkerken in Belgium, and now that I’ve taken it out of the library perhaps I should read the whole thing! Aelred has always been my favourite among the Cistercian Fathers, not that I have a very extensive knowledge of any of them.
January 13, 2009 at 3:07 pm
[…] Start with humility. […]
January 14, 2009 at 3:39 pm
It looks like it may have been translated in Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘The Liturgical Sermons I’ from Cistercian Press: http://www.cistercianpublications.org/Detail.aspx?ISBN=087907258X
January 15, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Thanks, Aaron. I thought that we might have it in our library, but couldn’t find it – but in the course of looking did notice that we have the Latin mentioned above. Not that that is much help to me – languages are not my strong point! – but I can read it in Dutch for the time being.