The Monk of Heisterbach
The Monastery of Heisterbach is situated in a beautiful valley below the Petersberg. In those days, the monks spent their days praying and working. One of them often wondered about the psalm saying that "to the Lord, a thousand years are like one day", without understanding its full meaning.
One day, as he walked up and down
in the monastery's garden, deeply in though, he heard a bird's singing, a bird whose voice
he had never heard before. Amazed he followed the bird, through the gateway into the
forests, and as the bird continued singing, he went deeper and deeper into the woods.
Finally his legs could not carry him anymore, he sat down on a tree and fell asleep.
When he woke up, he hurried back to the monastery, and by the evening he arrived there. He quickly went inside to join the evening prayers .. and froze in amazement. None of the monks was familiar to him. He asked them to take him to their abbot, and he told him his name, the date of his entry into the monastery and the name of the abbot in that year. The abbot and the monks fell silent.
Finally the Abbot told him that this day was now 300 years ago. One of the monks added that he had read in old documents about a monk who once had gone into the woods and had not come back. Now the monk understood "to the Lord a thousand years are like one day". He smiled a peaceful smile, sank down and closed his eyes forever.
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