A rnold von Randerode, archbishop of Cologne, awoke with a scream. Blood pounded against his temples, and his brow was wet with sweat. He tried to erase images from the terrible nightmare that had tormented him, but the surrounding darkness of his large bedroom overwhelmed the weak glimmer of light cast by a small oil lamp.Something was emerging from the palpitating darkness. Something threatening, hostile, and ominous was approaching from all sides to smother him in his bed. The archbishop screamed again as he rang his silver bell, its sound echoing through the night like a cry for help.
Then he listened, not daring to breathe – and listened. Nothing! Yet he sensed a giant’s hand grasping the columns and arches and vaults of his residence. The sound of his bell rang out again and again in the darkness like a cry of despair.
Finally, the door opened. A servant entered, clad in a nightshirt, his wild, white hair illuminated by his flickering candle.
“Your Grace!” the old man wheezed.
“You’re finally here!” groaned the bishop. “Come closer. Don’t just stand there. Make some more light. Light all the candles! This darkness and gloom are killing me!”
The servant climbed onto a chair with difficulty and began lighting the chandelier’s two dozen candles. It took a long time for him to complete his task, and the archbishop said nothing until the old man had finished.
“The light is good. Now I shall be all right.”
“You are sick with fever, Your Grace. Shall I call a doctor?”
“No doctor can help me now. My sickness is inside my heart, and no medicine or balm can heal it. But come here, Barthel. Sit with me here. I want to talk to you.”
“But Your Grace!”
“Don’t be so formal. Forget for a few moments that I am the bishop. Just think of me as another man.”
“Your Grace!?” Barthel exclaimed in wonder.
“It’s all right, Barthel. Here, give me your hand. Tell me, how long have you been in my service?”
“More than thirty years, Your Grace. You were still provost at Saint Andrew’s when I started. What good days those were....”
“You’re right, Barthel. Those were the best of times. Then Bishop Hugo died, and ambition crept into my heart. My family gave me no peace. I was their means to greater power. They tried to press gold into my hands, and I resisted as long as I could. But finally I opened the cathedral door with a golden key. Did you hear what I said, Barthel?!”
“You should sleep, my Lord,” stammered the servant.
“I cannot sleep. I must tell you. It tortures me to conceal it. As I said, with a golden key I opened the cathedral door. Do you know what that is called, Barthel?”
“Your Grace, I beseech you, do not force me to answer.”
“Barthel! I want you to say the word to my face!”
“The Church calls it... simony. Howev…”
“However nothing! You are right, Barthel. It’s called simony! But there was a monk, a saint the people say, Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux. He petitioned Pope Eugene, and I was called before his council. In my stubbornness I refused to attend. Pope Eugene then suspended me from exercising my episcopal functions. I was unable to consecrate and bless and my hands became powerless. I have enjoyed no peace since that day, Barthel, only fears, horrors, and afflictions. Please get me a glass of water. My lips are burning. It is a fever whose source is deep within me.”
The archbishop emptied the glass in two gulps, then heaved a sigh and continued. “God has sent His plagues to this city bereft of a bishop’s blessing. And when the people rioted against me, I clenched these hands which could not bless into fists, and struck down my own children. And God sent scourge after scourge. What happened to Cologne in the year 1148, Barthel?”
“The plague.”
“And in ‘49?”
“Half the city went up in flames.”
“And in ‘50?”
“Crop failure and famine.”
“And the people of Cologne, to whom do they attribute these disasters?”
“I do not know, Your Grace. I am seldom among the people.”
“You do know, Barthel. Tell me!” gasped the feverish bishop as he shook the old man’s shoulders. “By God, tell the truth!”
“The people, uh, they say that, uh, all our misfortune...”
“Continue!” bellowed the archbishop.
“...came from the fact that the city, uh, has a bishop… who cannot bless!” The old man tried to swallow his words, and the bishop recoiled against his pillow and groaned.
“It’s not over, Barthel. Our time of scourges has not passed. I have seen it in a dream, rushing from the mountains, swallowing the valleys – a monster against which Cologne is defenseless. A flood! Do you hear? Already it is beginning to rumble!”
“The Rhine is rising, Your Grace, but Cologne’s dams are good.”
“Where is there a dam strong enough to withstand God’s fury?!”
Just then the blaring of the flood guard’s horn sent both men running to the window for a view of the city below. Screams filled the night as the dam was indeed succumbing to the Rhine’s overwhelming force. Water had broken through and was filling the streets of the city.
After instructing Barthel to leave the palace with the rest of his staff, Archbishop Arnold von Randerode sat alone at his bedroom window, in anguish on account of his city’s suffering. The bells rang out from churches throughout Cologne, blending with the shrill cries of terror to produce a cacophony of despair.
The archbishop raised his right hand as if to make the sign of the Cross over this scene of horror. Then he let it drop as he cried out to his city, “Cologne! Here stands your bishop. He has no blessing for you!”
Then he collapsed to the floor.
* * * That same hour, a cloth merchant named Christopher raced down a dark staircase to his storage cellar on Stephan Street. Water had burst through his cellar window and was rising up the stairs. He could not open the cellar door, so he risked entering through the broken window to save his giant rolls of fine Flemish velvet, silk, and brocade. He left his lantern halfway up the stairs before wading into the water.
The ice cold water seemed to knock the air from his lungs, and red spots danced before his eyes, but he threw himself into the water in a futile attempt to save some small remnant of his stock. He was unable to drag the waterlogged rolls of cloth out the cellar window. Christopher fell into the freezing cold water several times in his effort to avoid the inevitable.
“Lost! All lost! Oh, God, Your Hand is heavy!”
Then he heard a baby’s cry and struggled out the cellar window and up the stairs to his living quarters where his wife Maria had been ready to give birth to their first child. Christopher wondered how so much could happen in one night. “Dear God, please protect my wife and new child!”
Christopher entered the room where his wife Maria was. Katherine, the midwife, gazed upon the dripping wet figure and said, “You have a son!”
Christopher felt neither the chill nor the fever racing through him. He did not feel how soaking wet he was. He saw only his newborn son. Then he knelt at his wife’s bedside and, overcome with emotion, he began to cry. His wife stroked his wet hair with her pale hand.
“All the cloth is ruined, Maria,” he said. “All is lost!”
“No, Christopher,” his wife whispered almost inaudibly. “God has blessed us. We have a child.”
* * * Archbishop Arnold awoke from unconsciousness hours later. He saw at his bedside a monk in a white tunic whose hands were folded beneath his black scapular. An almost fiery gleam blazed forth from his eyes as he stared down at the bishop. Arnold recognized him immediately.
“Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux!”
“Arnold von Randerode! Cologne has suffered many sorrows because of you. Lay down the crosier which you obtained with gold. How will you stand before the judgment seat of God?”
The bishop groaned before he responded in a voice that reflected his weakness and sorrow. “I need not lay down my crosier, Abbot Bernard. Someone is fast approaching who will seize it from me – death! Come nearer, Lord Abbot, and give me your hand. I bore enmity toward you, but now I know that you were right. Forgive me. Will you not share a comforting word to give me strength? I am terrified of my eternal judgment!”
“God does not wish the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live.” The strength of the abbot’s voice was softened by its rich and comforting resonance.
“There is much comfort in the truth. Thank you, Abbot Bernard.” Then, gripping the monk’s hand as tightly as he could, the archbishop pleaded once more, “There is still another fear which torments me. I fear for Cologne. God continues to vent His wrath upon this city. Have you no words which can console me?”
The monk uttered his prophetic response: “On account of your sins, Arnold von Randerode, God has smitten this city. On account of your repentance, He will bless it.” The abbot walked to the window, opened the shutters, and looked out over the beleaguered city. “God blesses you, Cologne! Where the arches of your burnt cathedral stare into darkness, there a new sanctuary will rise. Its towers will soar high toward the light like arms reaching up to heaven. God will bless you, Cologne! And I see something else, something much greater than the cathedral which will rise one day. God blesses you even more abundantly, Cologne, for He sends you a grace which contains the riches of heaven. This night, Cologne, God sends you a child on whose head His blessing rests. In this night of misery, Cologne, in you a saint is born!”
* * * Two weeks after the great flood, Maria returned to the Capitol church for the first time. She carried her newborn child, who had been baptized with the name of “Herman.” Maria knelt before the statue of the Little Madonna and lifted her son to the Heavenly Mother: “I bring you my child, Mother. Protect him as you protected your own Child. Preserve him in grace, O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!”
The Little Madonna certainly had her hands full as of late, aiding and comforting the people of Cologne whose misfortunes drove them to her feet. The floodwaters had receded and the dam was being repaired and fortified, but much misery still remained.
Many images of the Madonna adorned the holy city of Cologne, most of them depicting Mary in regal splendor. The statue of the Little Madonna of the Capitol church was different, however. Here Mary was not seated, but she stood and looked at her children so kindly, as if to say, “Come to me! Tell me what burdens your heart. I am your Mother. You can always come to me.”
Maria was walking home from her visit to the church when she heard the somber tolling of its bells. Word soon spread throughout the streets that the archbishop had died. Maria prayed for God’s mercy upon his soul as she pressed her child more closely to her breast.
* * * Three days later, the archbishop was buried in the church of Saint Andrew.