Gabriel looked up from the hills over a great plain of wood and distant towns and nearby houses. And he could not pray, even though distant clouds brought soft rain and an extraordinary grey whiteness to the whole landscape.

That night he stared in the wood fire, flames leaping, smoke rising and listened to Bruckner’s Ave Maria on the radio and he could not pray.

Then later he went out and stared over the moonlit landscape, with a full moon.

Sometimes he had sat alive in the great dark abbey church and an extraordinary prayerfulness had come over him.

Now the whole moonlit courtyard, black shadowed, rearing up was a great abbey church and the distant star the tabernacle light and he could pray.