#romuald

Bon Matin 💙🙏🎈🕊

Romuald 🎶 Cow-boy

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT ROMUALD The Abbot and the Confessor of the Faith Feast Day: June 19

"Better to pray one psalm with devotion and compunction than a hundred with distraction."

Romuald embarked upon the monastic life because he witnessed his father kill someone.

He was born in Northeastern Italy in 951 to an aristocratic family. As a young man with plenty of means, Romuald had many pleasures at his disposal, and he took advantage of them all.

His father fell into a dispute with someone, and a duel was arranged. He demanded that Romuald attend and observe the event. When his father won the duel, killing his adversary, Romuald was devastated.

He was so moved by the event that he left his former lifestyle and took on penances in an attempt to make reparation for the death. He was tempted in many ways to give up this new faithfulness, but he persevered in prayer and remained ever vigilant against situations that might test his virtue.

He went so far as to move into a monastery to spend time in prayer and penance, and he decided to stay there and permanently join the community. In fact, he lived for some time in solitude as a hermit.

Years later, he was named abbot of the monastery, and went on to establish several other monasteries and a new rule of life for monks. He encapsulated part of this rule of life in a short collection of sayings, which include these words:

"Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish. The path you must follow is in the psalms—never leave it. … Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him."

He was asked by the pope to take on a very old monastery and to reform it in a stricter observance of their austere way of life. The changes he introduced angered many of the monks there, and several even tried to kill him. His adversaries slandered him with lies, but he bore it all with silent patience.

He died on this date in 1027.

Jonathan, having heard the whole story: "You made the wrong choice."

Romuald: "Sometimes I feel the same way. My life has been riddled with loss, mourning, and regret-stained misery ever since. But it was for God's love and my own well-being and Sérapion was right to free me as he did--"

Jonathan: "No, that was absolutely the wrong call too. Like, entirely."

Romuald: "She was a vampire!"

La Morte Amoureuse by Théophile Gautier (trans. Lafcadio Hearn)

This scene is honestly adorable, and made me think of how unique Clarimonde is for a vampire character from this era in that she actually has a sense of humor. 

By my count, Lord Ruthven laughs exactly three times over the course of The Vampyre: When Aubrey asks if he has any intention of marrying the woman he plans to seduce, when he’s killing Ianthe, and when he gets Aubrey to agree to The Oath(TM). It’s always ominous, malicious, or both, and it’s invariably in a situation where he’s enjoying hurting someone or having power over them. It’s never in a scenario where the audience would be laughing along with him, at something we’d find funny or endearing too. And that’s what you mostly tend to find in early literary vampires: even the more sympathetic ones (like E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Aurelia) are mostly just serious and brooding, without much by way of humor. 

By contrast, Clarimonde bursting out laughing because her sheltered dork boyfriend has no idea how fancy clothes work is... dare I say it, refreshingly human. There’s nothing malicious or malevolent in it, it doesn’t seem like she’s, idk, gloating in her power over him or something, she genuinely just seems to be giggling over him being an awkward dork. The same goes for the way she teases Romuald: It’s genuinely cute, and there’s a humanity and mutuality there that’s completely absent in a lot of early vampire/human dynamics (and later ones too - compare it to how Dracula’s Brides talk over Jonathan but never to him, for example). 

43 years ago, this guy

came to this place

to sing this

Representing this principality

While wearing this threateningly 1970′s outfit