‘Va Va Voom’ – Thierry Henry
Abelard is un hérétique’ – William of St Thierry
‘You are welcome in our home, pilgrim’ – The Benedictine Sisters of St Thierry
Saturday 14/4/2018
Distance 26.7km Total Distance from Canterbury 370.5km
Saturday morning is normally Parkrun day. Parkrun is a phenomenon – a weekly free timed run, all over UK and now Ireland and many other countries. It is organized entirely by volunteers and is a fine example of what people can do when they want to. No prizes and you compete against yourself. You can walk, you can bring the dog or a buggie or the kids. A week before I left for this walk I set off for Rathwood for the Tullow Parkrun for what would have been my 50th Parkrun. But I got a puncture on the way and missed it. C’est la vie, as they say in these parts.
Anyway I’m missing my weekly Parkrun and my weekly long run and all my runs. I monitor my running and walking with a GPS running watch. When I came to start today I discovered I had forgotten to charge it last night. The excitement of meeting Mark and Diane from NZ had upset my routine. I had less than half charge left. The watch will record about 50km fully charged depending how quickly you cover them. I had two options. I could settle in the bar for more coffee for an hour while my watch charged, though I had already had a splendid breakfast with rhubarb jam. That was very tempting. Or I could set out and hope for the best. I chose the latter and decided to walk fast, and finish before the battery ran out. So I charged along non stop at >5.5km/hour on a simple route following the Raju instructions and I made very good time to St Thierry. I was now in Champagne country as signs everywhere told me.
William of St Thierry (1085-1148) was a Benedictine monk and founded the monastery which gives the town its name. He was an eminent theologian. He condemned Peter Abelard for heresy. He was a great friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, who founded the Cistercians or Trappists as a kind of miss austere reform of the Benedictine rule. William wanted to transfer to the Cistercians but Bernard refused saying William’s responsibility was to his own monastery which was by the way huge. After Bernard’s death William became a Cistercian. Like so many other monasteries it was destroyed at the time of the Revolution. The village of Thierry sprang up around the monastery and it remains. What is there now is a monastery of Benedictine Sisters. Their chapel, remarkably, incorporates the only remaining structure of the original monastery, five arches from the chapter house.
I counted about 18 sisters in the choir. They sing the office in French in simple chants in beautiful three-part harmony, accompanied, ever so gently, by what I think was a zither or perhaps a plucked dulcimer. They welcome guests and visitors in the ancient Benedictine tradition of hospitality. The garden was full of young teenagers preparing for confirmation when I arrived.
I soon located Sister Marthe who showed me to the guest quarters which were simple and comfortable. A couple of families with half dozen children were resident too. The monastery provides meals. You can see Reims on the skyline – my destination tomorrow. You can see extensive champagne vineyards in all directions.
All the villages I passed today proclaimed they were Villes et Villages Fleuris, meaning flowery or flowered, but it means a bit more. I guess it is like ‘tidy towns’ in Ireland or ‘Best-kept villages elsewhere. So places looked very pretty of at the same time devoid of life.
The monastery gardens were both beautiful and full of life. It us a place of calm, peace and tranquility, in the very heart of a large village which throws is arms wide to embrace others. A very special place. The orchard was in full bloom promising a rich autumn harvest. There were semi-cultivated banks of flowers and flowering shrubs all over, and the grass was meadow-like, not shaven. A place of beauty.
