The black eye of the raven looked down on the abbey from the naked branches of the twisted oak. Invisible in the last minutes of the night, the bird was overlord of a sleepy world. The raven was awake to its duty while the world slept, before this dawn, and with a great shriek, the bird cried out in the cold air lingering in the sunrise.

Alphonse woke to the bird’s cry—and a gentle tapping at his door.

“The night is short,” he said. The vow of silence forbade a reply from the humble novitiate knocking. “God’s glory comes every morning,” the still-sleepy abbot said to himself, yawning as he pulled his nightshirt over his head. The old priest dressed quickly and hurried along the gravel path from his quarters to the chapel, puffing the cold air as his sandals crunched the gravel underfoot. The trip proved far easier these days. Poverty at the abbey no longer bore down on him at night, and he was happier to greet the dawn.

He put on his vestments and pushed out his chest, smiling at the sight of the beautiful new blue and gold embroidery shimmering in the mirror. He reflected on how his life had changed in the last two years. He had grown spiritually, too, when he decided that a vow of poverty didn’t require him to be poor, especially if God wanted it otherwise.

He thought about how he was trained to be frugal, which occasionally made his current prosperity difficult to accept. His experience spurred him, though, as he remembered eating the ever-thinner potato soups. Frugality had meant only that his abbey grew poorer more slowly. He didn’t think it made the order holier. Now he worked at prosperity rather than poverty. He prayed, and late in his life, he finally appreciated the virtues of politics. In this case, church politics.

Five chimes rang brightly from the brick bell tower, calling the faithful to prayer in the chapel. Alphonse looked over his charges as he strode out of the sacristy through a small wooden side door. With practiced solemnity, he climbed the circular staircase adorned with carved eagle feet that led to the dark oak pulpit. Silence descended upon the monks seated in their prayer stalls.

“This morning we will talk about the beginnings, when God made the heavens and the earth," he began in a deep, reverent voice. "The Bible speaks to us about the beginnings. In His very first words, God tells us that He, and He alone, made the heavens and the earth.”