In 154 sonnets The Priest combines male friendship with the liturgical year tracing the rise and fall of relationship and honor. In the words of Abbot Aelred: "I found him patient with my frankness and grateful. Then I began to reveal to him the secrets of my innermost thoughts, and I found him faithful. In this way love increased between us, affection flowed the warmer and charity was strengthened, until we attained that stage at which we had but one mind and one soul, to will and not to will alike." -Abbot Aelred of Rievaulx, De spirituali amicitia, 3.124, trans. Laker