Penguin Island | Page 5

blessed Mael evangelized the pagans
of the inner lands. He built two hundred and eighteen chapels and
seventy-four abbeys.

Now on a certain day in the city of Vannes, when he was preaching the
Gospel, he learned that the monks of Yvern had in his absence declined
from the rule of St. Gal. Immediately, with the zeal of a hen who
gathers her brood, he repaired to his erring children. He was then
towards the end of his ninety-seventh year; his figure was bent, but his
arms were still strong, and his speech was poured forth abundantly like
winter snow in the depths of the valleys.
Abbot Budoc restored the ashen staff to St. Mael and informed him of
the unhappy state into which the Abbey had fallen. The monks were in
disagreement as to the date an which the festival of Easter ought to be
celebrated. Some held for the Roman calendar, others for the Greek
calendar, and the horrors of a chronological schism distracted the
monastery.
There also prevailed another cause of disorder. The nuns of the island
of Gad, sadly fallen from their former virtue, continually came in boats
to the coast of Yvern. The monks received them in the guesthouse and
from this there arose scandals which filled pious souls with desolation.
Having finished his faithful report, Abbot Budoc concluded in these
terms:
"Since the coming of these nuns the innocence and peace of the monks
are at an end."
"I readily believe it," answered the blessed Mael. "For woman is a
cleverly constructed snare by which we are taken even before we
suspect the trap. Alas! the delightful attraction of these creatures is
exerted with even greater force from a distance than when they are
close at hand. The less they satisfy desire the more they inspire it. This
is the reason why a poet wrote this verse to one of them:
When present I avoid thee, but when away I find thee.
Thus we see, my son, that the blandishments of carnal love have more
power over hermits and monks than over men who live in the world.
All through my life the demon of lust has tempted me in various ways,

but his strongest temptations did not come to me from meeting a
woman, however beautiful and fragrant she was. They came to me from
the image of an absent woman. Even now, though full of days and
approaching my ninety-eighth year, I am often led by the Enemy to sin
against chastity, at least in thought. At night when I am cold in my bed
and my frozen old bones rattle together with a dull sound I hear voices
reciting the second verse of the third Book of the Kings: 'Wherefore his
servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a
young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him,
and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat,' and the
devil shows me a girl in the bloom of youth who says to me: 'I am thy
Abishag; I am thy Shunamite. Make, O my lord, room for me in thy
couch.'
"Believe me," added the old man, "it is only by the special aid of
Heaven that a monk can keep his chastity in act and in intention."
Applying himself immediately to restore innocence and peace to the
monastery, he corrected the calendar according to the calculations of
chronology and astronomy and he compelled all the monks to accept
his decision; he sent the women who had declined from St. Bridget's
rule back to their convent; but far from driving them away brutally, he
caused them to be led to their boat with singing of psalms and litanies.
"Let us respect in them," he said, "the daughters of Bridget and the
betrothed of the Lord. Let us beware lest we imitate the Pharisees who
affect to despise sinners. The sin of these women and not their persons
should be abased, and they should be made ashamed of what they have
done and not of what they are, for they are all creatures of God."
And the holy man exhorted his monks to obey faithfully the rule of
their order.
"When it does not yield to the rudder," said he to them, "the ship yields
to the rock."

III. THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT MAEL
The blessed Mael had scarcely restored order in the Abbey of Yvern
before he learned that the inhabitants of the island of Hoedic, his first
catechumens and the dearest of all to his heart, had returned to
paganism, and that they were hanging crowns of flowers and fillets of
wool to the branches of the sacred fig-tree.
The boatman who brought this sad news