Reverend Father, my dear brethren, in yesterday night's conference we spoke about the concept of contemplation and extended it a little to various areas of the monastic life. I wanted to devote today to the most important area and stay over this idea of contemplation becomes practical. The best sense is the, in the deepest sense, is the area of prayer. It already was in the Old Testament that in this area one distinguished prayers which were right in their very nature and their very character carried by and were set in the actual, under the actual inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

[01:24]

Those were then the prayers of praise, for example. While there were others, and rabbinic teaching distinguishes these two kinds of prayers very clearly, others which were prayers in which the mind would, in the process and in the saying of these prayers, would rise from the depth to the heights of inspiration. We know that the general The definition of prayer that we are accustomed to is that prayer is the raising of the mind to God. In Greek that would be the anastasis, to new, and that would mean the resurrection of the mind. Now there immediately various shades of meaning arise.

[02:27]

You see one shade which is determined by the idea that prayer is, if it were, a kind of an effort in which we try to recollect and to raise the mind. Or prayer as a gift. Prayer is something that is and comes to the end, the cause of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon us. Now that is a very important, I think, distinction. For example, you know very well that Jewish prayer, the prayer of the synagogue, too have these, let's say, these two main categories of prayer. The one which, I say, was set on personal inspiration, and therefore is not bound in any way to certain hours, cannot be bound to certain hours, because the spirit just breathes whenever he wills.

[03:31]

And the other one, which is this rising of the mind, which therefore starts wherever man is. can begin, therefore also, at a certain set time. If you remember, for example, our vigils The vigils start, of course, first of all with the invocation, which is so characteristic for the beginning of prayer, Domine labia mea aperes, Lord open you my lips, characterizing clearly that our prayer is a gift, that it is something that is not made by us. But at the same time, too, then, if we start with the third psalm, domine quid multiplicatis unquid tribulant me.

[04:33]

Everybody knows from his own experience that if one rises at a very early hour and the day is not yet There, you know, it's a kind of a effort, you know. One may wake up and say, oh my, there we go again. And it takes some time, you know, until one, you know, until one comes to, you know. That's the reason why there's a general tendency, it seems, to put the hour of the coffee hour a little earlier, you know, to move it more into the beginning of all things. Now, you want to discuss the pros and cons of that, you know, but there is certainly wisdom behind it. There we are, at the beginning of a day, and we are there, multiplicadisunt, quam multiplicadisunt qui tribulant me.

[05:42]

Yet the morning is always the old world and the old man, and the multi, the hoi polloi, you know, who at this moment come and say, oh my, now, there we go, what's the use, or something like that, you know. All this kind of pessimism, you know, that one experiences sitting at the edge, you know, of one's bed, you know, before one enters, you know, again into the round, you know, of the hours. So, but, you know, it's a characteristic prayer, just this Psalm 3 is exactly what one character, what one defines in the Old Testament and also in present Jewish prayer as one of these prayers which start, one can say, from the zero point and then rise, you know, to the heights by the very performance of the prayer.

[06:45]

For example, the psalm is aware of that. Or when you start deep profundities, out of the deep, I cry to you, O Lord. One thing that you immediately realize, and I think which in our days of growing personalism, you know, is very, very important, you know, to keep in mind. And that is, you know, that this kind of prayer, out of the deep, I rise, I... I cry to you, O Lord, is a prayer which can be said, you know, at any time. It is true that for the, what we would call the oratio pura, it means that prayer which is in the Holy Spirit. And this oratio pura is essentially, according to its own nature, must be lived. And of course, if you read the rule, it's absolutely clear. St. Benedict has no time set, you know, for the oratio pura.

[07:47]

He doesn't say either that the oratio pura has to be every day for half an hour, or for an hour, or something like that. Why? St. Benedict says, if the impulse of the Holy Spirit is there, then enter simply into the oratory. But then we recognize, and I think that's very important, again, in following the idea of contemplation that we spoke about yesterday. Because here, what is it? The heavenly templum is the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit seizes us. And how in the form of that inner willingness, the inner urge, And then, of course, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And this gift of the Holy Spirit seizes again. And St. Benedict says, if you feel that the Holy Spirit seizes then, don't try to hold on. Because if you do it, you get two orders mixed up.

[08:52]

One is the order of the Orazio Pura, which is in the Holy Spirit, the order of the Holy Spirit. The other one is the human order, the order which starts from below, in which I raise the mind to heaven. And those are two different things. The arhatsupura is not in this way a raising of the mind to heaven, but is a being raised. It is therefore also clearly all the way through. In this arhatsupura, it's all the way through a gift of the Holy Spirit. And it has to be as if it were treated as a gift. It has to be received as a gift. Therefore, always, as Benedict says in his Rule, with this inner readiness, when this inspiration of the Holy Spirit ceases, And also, this gift is taken away. So what do you do?

[09:54]

Simply end your prayer and leave the oratory. So that in this way you are, in this act of prayer, strictly obedient to the actual inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It's a different thing in the other kind of spirit, what the Jews call the tefillah. In that kind of prayer, you are able to pray whenever and whatever time you want, because it doesn't need this disposition. It is in that way not a gift of the Holy Spirit coming from above. It finds, and you can yourself enter into it wherever you are. Out of the depth, I cry to you, O Lord, a clear indication that in order to say the sound de profundis, I don't have to wait until I'm in the mood. I would say one is always in the mood, you know.

[10:58]

In a very, very, this is true, in a very special way, because you realize right away that this category of play I'm talking of now, of which, let us say, the Psalm de Profundis is a classical example. Yet this kind of prayer, of course, still takes on, in the New Testament, a different meaning from what it was in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the psalm de profundis is said to, how can I say, in Christ. It is said in Christ. Therefore, we enter into the Word of God made flesh. the head of the church, but the one who went, and with whom, remembering what he did for us, we enter into this depth. Therefore, there is, and that is the new, let us say, the new situation of the Old Testament ever since the Incarnation, since the Word of God took on flesh even more.

[12:08]

Since the Word made flesh took on human sins and prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, there the whole burden of human misery and of human guilt was, as it were, put upon his heart. There he carried all the burden of human lowliness, let's call it that way, in himself. And therefore this prayer takes, in the perspective of the Incarnation, again a completely new and deeper meaning. It is, let us say in that way, growing out of the central mystery of the Christian life, which is the paschal mystery. This paschal mystery, which is essentially the transition, the passing, the passing through death into life. So that is the character in which, for example, the Psalm 3, with which we start vigils, evidently is a Paschal Psalm.

[13:16]

Everybody who reads it, everybody who says it, goes on through the misery caused by the multi, by the hoi polloi, into that realm of new, of blessing, of benediction. And there, what comes into view is the new generation, the people of God, reborn into the day of the Lord. So, therefore, in this way, for example, our vigils or vigils, I don't know how it is in the, but in our, in the Benedictine way, I'm accustomed to say it's absolutely clear that the vigils are and must be thought of and must be prayed as a real Pascha prayer. That means through death into resurrection. Therefore the third nocturne is always characterized by the word Alleluia, the second by the word alive.

[14:16]

So, in that way, you realize right away, because there is, in our life, there is a difficulty. There are the certain hours. And these certain hours are indicated by the sign. And there's the whole community getting together. If one always lives, let us say, in a world of contemplation which abstracts, or is tempted to abstract from the real, let us say, earthly situation of human beings here on this world, in this world and on this earth. One may even tend to say, I mean, I can't pray in this way simply at the sign of the clock, because this is here a matter of the Holy Spirit. You see, that is of course true. As soon as you enter in the order of the spiritual life into that realm in which

[15:24]

read St. Thomas, you know, in the Summa Theologica about it, about religious life, into that realm where the solitary lives under no rule but the Holy Spirit. But that is where the last, you know, the highest, that is not for St. Benedict's will, is written for the beginners. Therefore, it's essentially a paschal rule. It is not a rule for the perfect. I would simply say, in the order, in the theological order, for the perfect, there is no rule. For what the rule, what is the rule, is the Holy Spirit. ruling in a heart which really and truly has become completely the instrument or the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. The solitary, for that matter, has in that way no schedule, I mean, that he has to keep, because he lives in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

[16:27]

But with the synobites, of course, a different story. I would not say again either, and I think it's theologically not right, to say that the Cenobitical monasticism is in itself the height of perfection. It would be against the idea of St. Benedict to say so. It is therefore a beginning. And as a beginning, of course, it underlies the rules of the beginning. And what is our beginning in the Christian life is the Paschal mystery. It is this dying and rising again. And therefore, the Cenobitical life is, in theory, under the law of the Pascha, the dying and rising. And in this realm, on the background of the incarnation and of our Lord's passion and resurrection, this is, as it were, a historical thing. This is something which enters completely into time and space.

[17:34]

And because it enters into time and space, therefore it also follows a certain, if you want, material order. It has to. In that way, the cenobitical life, simply the life in a group, cannot live without a common order, in which then the life of the group really is organized. It needs organization. And what we have to do is, in all humility, accept it. And not only in humility, but because we enter into it in the spirit of the Word made flesh, in the spirit of the Lord who died for us and rose for us, it is for us a tremendous opportunity. It is for us the repetition in ourselves, the re-enactment of the death and of the resurrection of Christ. But the dying in that way, that is absolutely evident to everybody who just thinks a little about it, you know.

[18:37]

The time of dying is not being determined by us. We don't die when we are in the mood to die, that's for sure. And therefore, you see, it is also, yeah, I don't say that saying vigils is absolutely and only a death, you know, I mean, it's a resurrection too. But it is certainly in that way, it is an event, you know, which is ordered by God. And in entering into it, I follow an order which is not established by my arbitrary wishing, wishful thinking. Therefore, we should be very careful in these things, and we should remain, we should keep the true theological order of things. And therefore, that is one thing, that when I enter into this kind of prayer, let us say the Paschal Prayer, which is incarnate in what we call the Divine Office, or what St.

[19:42]

Benedict calls the Opus Dei, This Opus Dei is part of the paschal mystery of the Church, and therefore it doesn't need the inner, let us say, the inner disposition. After all, what is the disposition then of the monk for prayer? See, in this way, to my mind, Protestantism is simply out of line. You know, it has lost the Catholic continuity. And therefore it's simply something that I go to. Why? Because I'm following, I'm being put into an order, into a pattern, one can say. This pattern is clearly the pattern of the hours. Why is it a pattern of the hours? Again, that is part, you know, of the—and one must enter into that too completely and freely—it's part of the sacramental order of the inner life of the Church.

[20:48]

To this concept of contemplation, that I mentioned yesterday and the day before. This order of contemplation really culminates in the sacramental order and the sacramental life of the church. And that is, of course, true that the Cenobite has the, let us say, the mission sent by God to witness to and to live, let us say, the inner sacred serenity and joy of the sacramental life of the Church. But this sacramental life of the Church is a work of signs and symbols. It is essentially, therefore, manifest in the things of this visible creation and through the things of this visible creation. And especially, also, it is manifested through man in his earthly existence and in the order in which man lives.

[21:54]

And therefore, for us, The unceasing, let us say, prayer of the hermit, which is simply, let us say, the natural result of the specific union with the Holy Spirit which is granted to the hermit in the cenobitical life cannot be lived as such. But it has to be in a way which follows, you know, the order of creation. The cenobite simply is, in that way, in the order of creation. That is why, for example, in monasteries the hermit goes into the wilderness, but the cenobite Now, I mean, there was, and the Cistercian movement went into the wilderness, but for what purpose, you know? Into the Nordic wilderness, which is the wilderness of the forest, and every forest, you know, has a great cultural potential, which the desert doesn't have.

[22:57]

So there is a difference between desert and desert, you know. So this was a desert with then, under the hand of the monks, the work of the monks, before one knew it, One lives, you know, not exactly in paradise, but I mean in what we saw, a cultural civilization, surrounding, see? Therefore there is simply around the altar, as it were, by itself, you know, starts, you know, this radiation, which then puts, you know, the work, the capacity, capability of creation into the use of what? Really, the sacramental order of the church, the opus Dei. Because what determines the civilization and the work of the monk? You have to take care And there was bread, you know, which is the one thing, you know, in which the sacrament of our salvation is offered to us, and therefore one had to do away with the fast, and one had to grow wheat, and of course then the other element is wine.

[24:06]

And the Cistercians were the ones who succeeded putting wine into impossible regions. You know, even in Grünberg in Silesia, where one says, the Grünberg wine, you know, makes holes into the tablecloth. But then again, that is part of the penitential aspect of our life. Where it is, it is now in the Vineland completely different. Yes, there the wine in the long run became a source of temptation. This was never that way in Silesia. But you see, there it's absolutely evident, you know. And that is, we have to keep that really in mind, you know, that we our, for example, we think about our witness, you know, our witness as monks. Don't think of the terms of the witness, you know, that is only, let us say, the witness of absolute poverty, the witness of ecstasy, and so on.

[25:14]

I heard the other day, you know, that some wise monk, you know, just asked the Other his younger companions say, now look, just look at the faces of these monks during the divine office. Do you think they are praying? That's a kind of a vicious question. In many ways, you know, I mean, that's a question which is in itself, I would say, is dangerous. I would say, though, you know, that, and for the general life of the monks, you know, that we should be conscious of this, you know, that we are really living on this earth here in order to radiate the spirit of the paschal mystery. There is no doubt about it. That is the reason why, for example, in our life, you know, outside the choir certainly, for example, a smile, you know, has a very good function, has an essential function.

[26:17]

That smile is not, you know, kind of, you know, just to, I don't know what, you know, out of a certain, you know, lightness, you know, but the smile is the reflection of the Easter spirit. Light of Christ, thanks be to God. Where is this light of Christ? Yeah, in the face of the monk. The monk may have his cloudy days, yes, that of course everybody knows, you know, but that doesn't determine in itself. Even when, you see, out of the clouds and deep of these, the monk rises as soon as he understands what really is, you know, his missions. Not to run around here in the world with a sour face all the time. But it is this smile, but the smile of the risen Savior, which in that way constitutes a contact and constitutes an atmosphere in a monastery. Nothing is more beautiful than to realize, for example,

[27:19]

Why, I'll tell you then, I mean not to pat you on the shoulder, but when I came here and I met the first one right away, you know, waving with his hand, you know, well that's resurrection, you see. I said to myself right away, like Peter, it's good to be here, you know, and that's the resurrection, you see, and that is the natural fruit of the sacramentality of our life. It is good to be here, you know, therefore we are not only and always, you know, tearing our way away. ourselves away into, or in order to live in the invisible. It's good to be here. That is, therefore, one can say the translucent character of an existence that here on earth is lived in the spirit of the resurrection. And therefore, that's evident, you know, too far away.

[28:20]

But what I wanted to say is this. And therefore, in the sacramental order of prayer, one naturally follows a set order of ours. It's the only way in which here on earth we can fulfill this invitation, pray without ceasing, which is again not only typical New Testament, One which was ready is in the Old Testament. Wherever God is known as the God of love, they are also on the part of man. The only possible echo to the never-sleeping eye of our Heavenly Father is our own prayer without cease. But, I mean, in community, on that specific level, it is done in the order of the hours. And there are too, there are many things, you know, which we should really consider, because you know how strong the tendencies are, you know, either to get away from the idea of the others, you know, all together, or to kind of under the pressure of activity, you know, kind of have a morning prayer and have an evening prayer.

[29:35]

There are all these, you know, these, the great danger which comes, I think, into our monastic life by the pressure which is exerted in the name of the pastoral interests, you know, of the people. There is, to my mind, a difference between the liturgy, the parochial liturgy, as I say, for that matter, the pastoral liturgy, in a parochial environment, and the liturgy in a monastic environment. Simply that is part. There I think our enclosure, you know, absolutely makes sense. Because the meaning of our enclosure is, as we said before, what is the meaning of the contemplative life is that it takes its pattern from above. If it takes its pattern from above, what is the first concrete way in which it does so? That the order of the hours of prayer indicate and constitute the framework in which the monk lives.

[30:39]

While his work in one way or the other, is fitted into this order of prayer. So, therefore, the principle of Saint Benedict, that nothing should be preferred to the opus Dei, to the work of God, has to be taken in this context of the contemplative life. In the life in the world, for the ordinary Christian, this is simply not so. The ordinary Christian, his life is determined by what? By his office hour. It's determined by his work, because that is his status. We shouldn't deceive ourselves, you know, and we shouldn't kind of cut off or saw off the very branch on which we sit, you know. And I would be particular and happy to fall down, I mean, if that is the will of God, you know. But I mean, we shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't do things which are against, to my mind, the divinely intended order of those things in the church.

[31:47]

Therefore, to simply think, you know, that the monk, you know, should enter into the parochial life is, to my mind, is just an aberration. That's not true. The parish, what is the parish? The parish is a neighborhood. The parish community is based on neighborhood. That's the essence. Our parishes are territorial. When they are not territorial, it's a concession, maybe, to the French or the Germans or the Irish, who kind of have their own soup by themselves, you know, as long as that lasts. But the non-territorial parishes are disappearing. But the very nature of the parish And therefore, what constitutes the neighborhood? People live there. Therefore, they're living necessities. There's a factory. Now they open up, you know, near Elmira, a new candy factory, the biggest candy factory in the world.

[32:52]

There's 2,500 people working on candy from the morning to the night. Now that, you know, eventually leads to a parish. Because there are good Catholic people who come in there, you know? There will be a parish, there will be a parish of people, let us say, they live there because they work there. And therefore, their title for living there is their working there. And therefore their time, while they live there, is determined by their work. It's absolutely evident. That's why they migrated. They came into this district, you know. That's why they leave. They don't like the work anymore, something like that, you know. But for the monk it's different. The monastic community is not a neighborhood, see. But we are here, I suppose, from all different sections of the country. If I look at Mount Saviour, there is one from Arizona, there is another one from California, and that is for us, and he is really the end of the world.

[33:56]

There are people from New Hampshire, you know, there are people from New York, of course, Brooklyn, you know. So, I mean, there we are. What is it? It's therefore not the neighborliness, you know, the neighborhood. It's not a geographic principle for that matter, but it's the spirit. Why do they come together? For a certain kind and way of life. A spiritual way of life, I would say, for the contemplative way of life. To get together the two Templar. The monk doesn't enter a monastery to immediately be kind of chained into what we call the law of work. The monk enters into the monastery in order to live the fullness. I don't think any monk would enter into the monastery refusing to work. That would be, to my mind, very dangerous, you know. But sometimes... Sometimes, you know, again, if you come to a concept of a contemplative life, that is, that's too narrow, you know, too wide.

[35:04]

Sometimes, you know, you come then, could you come across contemplatives who simply think that they are just not made to work, you know. It's like this famous monk, you know, who comes into the desert, the Egyptian desert, And he's being received and said, now, dear, please, now, sit down, you see, and here we have a sailor for you, and so on, and there, kind of, and then the monk says, oh, yes, but, oh, father, when I saw that these monks here are all so busy, you know, now, what's the matter, you know, and so on, he says, now, you have time, you just sit here in your sailor, you see, and then he sits there and he begins to read, you know, one hour passes, another hour passes, Third hour passes, it gets a little easy, you know. Most of these people not eat or something. But I mean, another hour passes, nothing happens, another hour passes and nothing happens, and finally he comes out of his cell and he looks around, you know, and he finds this monk, the guest father, and he says, now father, don't you eat?

[36:15]

And he said, this monastery, everybody eats who works. Now that is the monastic approach, you know. In some way. So he learns, you know, a little. Listen, but I mean that is sometimes, you know, one cannot live as a monk, one cannot live in a dream world, you know. That's on the cenobitical stage, at least, that is not expected. And then, you see, we enter, you know, into this life, we enter into this life for spiritual purposes, and of course we do it, you know. And that is what I would call contemplative life. That means a life which in its daily living and in its structure is determined by the spirit and not by the work. That is, of course, true. Therefore, in that way, comes from the God. In that way, the monastery is the heavenly Jerusalem.

[37:15]

In that way, it descends, you know, from above. But the parish is not so. The man in the parish, he has as the pattern of his life, he has his work hours. And then he tries, if he's a good Christian, he tries to fit his prayer life into that pattern. And, but that is not the monk. And therefore, we as monks meet one another right away on a different level. And therefore also the structure of our day is such, you know, that it gives us the time, for example. Think only, you know, of the way in which, in the monastery, I'm not for big pontifical liturgy, you know, and so on. concept, you know, that some people have the fullness of the liturgy, the mitre belongs to the fullness of the liturgy, then the abbots should have mitres, you know, I mean, for the... that, I think, that is what we call, that is, that is, that's clearly, I would say, you know. Now, therefore, the liturgy of the monk, you know, is certainly not made for pomp and circumstance.

[38:24]

I would say that that is a thing which belongs into the cathedral. And why does he belong to the cathedral? Because there the diocese, with the head of the diocese, real hierarchical structure and power, you know, meets together and of course there the hearts of the faithful who live for six days under the pressure of the working atmosphere, then, you know, when it comes to the Sunday, you know, then they need that inner lift. And because they live in the parish, they live certainly on the level, you know, because they live in the law of the work. Essentially, on a material level, they need then also, let us say, the splendor, the uplifting power, for example, of a cathedral, you know. Think of a Gothic cathedral, you know, with all these verticals and verticals, and there you are immediately taken up.

[39:31]

That is the meaning of a cathedral, really. That, of course, there you need incense, and there you need music, and there you need tremendous organs, you know, and so on, to all kind of really, you know, get people and get them there where they are, let us say, on the level of their imagination. That's where they live, and in that way lift their hearts then up to heaven. But, I mean, the monastic liturgy is different. In that way, we just don't, as monks, we don't live on our imagination. But we live in that way, in a different way. We live on the level, I would say as synobites, we live on the level of the Word. Therefore, for us, in the, let us say, the solemnity of the liturgy, The special character of a feast, you know, is not conveyed, you know, by the amount of incense we consume.

[40:34]

But the liturgy for that is determined by the texts, you know. The texts carry, as it were, the character of the feast. That brings me then to a last thought, you know, that I just throw in in order to come to a conclusion of this approach, you know, to religion. And that is, of course, you can see that clearly, too, in the rule of Saint Benedict, that you see that for this For this level on which the monk lives, the level of the Word, again, what is the pattern which the contemplative order, as it were, supposes or establishes? The Word is not its invention, but the Word is revelation. and therefore it is the inspired word, it is therefore essentially for us the Psalter, which is given to us.

[41:38]

What is then really the work of the monk? It is the mind should be in conformity with this word. That is the essential sentence in the Holy Rule in which the contemplative order for the daily community prayer is established.

[41:58]

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