Has the Abbey moved to the Loire, to Provence . . . to Paris??
No (although the Sisters would not object to a “pilgrimage” in the region!) – those title words were first spoken in perpetuity by Edward III . . . at a dance!
He was leading his cousin, Joan of Kent, around the dance floor (or more likely up and down the reel) when her garter slipped down to her ankle and the assembled gentlefolk began to snigger. Edward took the garter and put it on over his own hosiery, saying, “Shame be to him who thinks evil thereupon.” Or “Evil be to him who evil thinks.”
For us in Cor Unum, we might profit by a little turn of phrase that turns us to the truth that is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. In Titus 1:15 we read this beautiful admonition:
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
On this, the next to the last day of our forty day L.U.C.I.E. Fast, we read Romans 13:14 . . .
Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Edward would have no man (or woman) think ill of Joan over a slipped garter . . . and thus was the Order of the Garter formed, a chivalrous order . . . but never so much so as one monastic heart refusing the opportunity to think evil when good may be found in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and the great privilege of knowing all men as He knows them (2 Corinthians 5:16.)
Coat of Arms of Lord Churchill,
first Duke of Marlboro
encircled by the Garter Riband
public domain
Cor Unum Abbey 