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The bishop stands watching as the two workmen cement the stones into position. Row upon row the stones rise from the cold floor of the vast church interior. But the bishop’s gaze is not so much directed towards the activity of the workmen as it is upon the woman who is gradually being lost to view behind the rising wall of stones.
The woman is dressed in a loose garment of coarsely-woven cloth, and is seated on a simple wooden stool with her hands resting calmly in her lap. Her eyes do not meet the bishop’s gaze, but instead are directed towards the flagstones on the floor, as if she already is lost to the world beyond her increasingly limited view. The workmen work on until only the far wall of stones is dimly seen in the darkness beyond, and then… nothing. The bishop affixes his seal to the masonry. At the still-young age of thirty Sister Bertken has begun her life of voluntary confinement, walled-up in a cell less than four meters square. For her it is the beginning of a life of prayer and meditation that she will follow for the rest of her days.
A small aperture in the stones which aligns with the church altar has been left so that Sister Bertken may follow the services, and another opening at the rear of the cell allows for the necessary food to be passed through to her. She is allowed neither meat nor dairy products, and her food is of the simplest fare. Her bed is a palette on the floor. She wears no shoes, and is allowed only the comparative luxury of a pelt of fur in winter to stave off the freezing cold from the flagstones beneath her naked feet.
We are in the Buur Church in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands of the 15th-century, and Sister Bertken, born Berta Jacobsdochter, is not the only recluse to have herself walled up alive in such a way. It seems that such recluses strove to emulate the examples of the recluses of former centuries who chose to live in the solitary vastness of the desert. In northern Europe there are no desert wildernesses, so solitude was sought in the hearts of the cities – and what more profound solitude is there than a small dark cell with no way out?
Sister Bertken began her voluntary seclusion in 1457, and remained within the sealed walls of her small cell until her death in 1514: a near-incomprehensible fifty-seven years of voluntary incarceration until her death at the age of eighty-seven. Apparently the local parishioners would come to her cell to seek advice, and she was always ready with a kindly word.
There is a tradition that Sister Bertken was buried beneath the floor of her cell. Perhaps this seems fitting, for even in death, how after so many decades of confinement could she return to the outside world, even for her own burial? But all traces of her cell in the church have now long disappeared, and its precise location remains unknown. The time-worn flagstones keep their secrets well; as does the mystery that we call faith.
To say that Sister Bertken’s actions were driven by simple faith is to presume that we know what ‘faith’ actually is. We think that we can discern faith by the outward actions of someone, and we call such a thing an ‘act of faith’. The term is so familiar that we tend to take it for granted that we understand it. But we do not. Not really. When it comes to such an extreme example as Sister Bertken we have arrived at the threshold of the heart’s unknown secrets, and are left to wonder.
Ick voelde in mij een vonkelkijn
Het roert so dic dat herte mijn
Daer wil ick wel op waken
Die min vermach des altemael
Een vuur daeraf te maken.
*
I felt a tiny spark within
It reached into this heart of mine
And I will guard its light
The spark that love will kindle
To a fire burning bright.
