the stage in some ways by reminding you and reminding myself of the very basic real human experience of being restless, searching, unfulfilled. Sometimes, of course, our culture suggests that there is no way to be fulfilled. And therefore one should settle for something far less than our aspirations would suggest. So you get people who are fatalistic about the possibility of real human happiness. But we believe, we believe that the word of God, promise of God, if anything exceeds everything that we could aspire to hope for.

[01:07]

The important thing is to know how to search, to know the way not to be searching in vain, to know the signs that what is on the right path. It will not be lack of homesickness that will indicate that you can get a kind of a false sense of security, security of predestination. As a matter of fact, I think predestination is so attractive because it gives a security, but it's not a very solid security. But there is a way of knowing, a way of of being in the right place, looking for the right things. Perhaps the best word for describing this attitude is that of listening, to listen.

[02:16]

The scriptures are full of people who are listening. The psalmist, In Psalm 95, if today you hear his word, harden not your hearts. No accident that that was made the invitatory for every day, for the opening of the monastic day, if today you hear his word. Mary was one who listened. The high point, the climax of the stories about Mary in the Gospels is the Annunciation. That's the story to which the author gives the greatest amount of time, the greatest amount of detail.

[03:20]

Because that's the critical story about Mary. how she listened and therefore became mother of the Messiah, mother of the Lord. From a traditional point of view, we look upon Mary as one who was given many privileges because she was mother of God. As Bishop Sheen used to say, what would you do for your mother on Mother's Day if you were God? Well, of course, there's no limit to what you would do if you were God. But this is not the approach of scripture. The approach of scripture is not the glories and privileges of Mary. They're not opposed to that, of course. The approach of scripture is Mary is the one who heard the word, who listened to the word. Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your word.

[04:25]

Everything then flows from that. And I think the advantage of that is that we can imitate in some ways this obedience of Mary, this readiness of Mary. Perhaps not as generously as she did, but we can at least begin to imitate that. We can hardly imitate her glories and her privileges. We admire them. It's good to admire them, but it's also good to look at Mary as a model of believers. So in all three scriptures, certainly in the case of Jesus, he listens. In the military events of the ministry of Jesus, he is hearing the Father's voice, hearing what the Father says.

[05:28]

That baptism, that transfiguration, in the garden. This Word of God, the Word, Leslie Duart in one of his books says, a Word is the extension of a person into his environment. It's not just a vehicle for an idea. It's a way in which a person reaches out reaches into his environment, reaches beyond himself. And the Word of God in John's Gospel, Jesus as Word, comes from the fact that God must speak himself. The nature of God requires that he reach out, the loving nature of God. And so from all as what? From all eternity, as long as there was God, there was the Word.

[06:31]

God speaking himself, God reaching out. Then this Word was refracted in many ways, in creation, in law, in the prophets, in wisdom, and finally and perfectly in Jesus. Alexander Jones, who studied with me in Jerusalem, taught me how to make tea. Alexander Jones, who of course was responsible for the first Jerusalem Bible, wrote a little article in a book, in a yearbook of Jewish-Christian studies put out by my senior Auster writer, you may be aware of it, The Bridge. It is volume one, one of the very first. There weren't that many volumes, but Alexander Jones has an article, I think it's volume one or two, says the word is a seed. Well worth reading. One of the finest things I've ever read about the word in the Gospel of John and in its prehistory in the Old Testament.

[07:38]

But this word is not addressed exclusively or even primarily to our heads, to our minds, We tend to be very cerebral. You know, if we were to create a picture of our bodies in terms of the importance we give to things, the head would be enormous. Glory is very brain-oriented, especially those of us who are involved in education, scholarship. Strong emphasis upon thinking. reasoning, and expression, articulation of thought. That is important, of course, but the Word of God is not addressed exclusively to the mind, addressed to the whole being, and if anything, more to the heart than to the head.

[08:44]

And this becomes evident when we note that the Word of God in the Bible is essentially not a spoken word, but an acted word. It is an event. So the most important thing that I have ever learned about the scriptures is this fact. that the word revelation in the Bible is first and foremost an event. The words, thousands, hundreds of thousands of words of the Bible are meant to lead us to the event, to describe the event, to draw out the implications of the event. You recall that the shepherds in the old version, Matthew says, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this word that has happened.

[10:04]

See this event. Event and word are almost interchangeable. And then suddenly the scriptures begin to take some shape. It's not just that enormous amount of material. We begin to see what is primary, secondary in the scriptures. And it's elementary, of course, that the entire Old Testament revolves around, begins with, and is constantly dealing with the exodus, the event that established Israel as God's people. We never finish examining and dwelling upon the implications of the exodus. Everything in the Old Testament was written after the exodus, in the light of the exodus, could not have been written as it was had there been no exodus.

[11:09]

That event in which God met his people, God revealed himself to his people, what did they contribute to the event? Essentially, their need. And they cried out in their bondage. Can anyone up there help us? Scholars have pointed out that they didn't cry out Yahweh. They didn't even know the name of God. Can anyone help us? That's a reminder that To a large extent, our own primary contribution to salvation is our humility, our acknowledgement of need. Without that, there can be no salvation. If you knew that you were blind, I would make you see.

[12:14]

But since you say, we see, you remain in your blindness. Chapter 9, John's Gospel. To acknowledge one's need, to humbly admit that I cannot save myself, seems obvious but it's amazing to what extent we still try to save ourselves. Now we must contribute. because we contribute mainly by receiving the gift, by receiving the intervention of God to help and then by becoming gift to others. When Israel discovered, late in the Old Testament period,

[13:18]

that there was reward and punishment after death. This was not a new revelation that God whispered to someone first explicit in the Book of Wisdom 100 B.C. He did that already in the Psalms and Job. No, this was a conclusion drawn from putting together the goodness of God discovered in Exodus and the experience of history And concluding that the goodness of God cannot be salvaged if this life is all there is. Because too many wicked people die comfortably and too many good people die miserably. And if God is good, there's got to be something beyond this life where the goodness of God is vindicated.

[14:21]

So, all through the Old Testament, they are examining the Exodus and drawing conclusions from it. The Exodus, the moment when God revealed Himself to them to be one who is more powerful than the Pharaoh, but quite different from the Pharaoh, to be filled with Hesed and Emeth, gracious goodness and fidelity. The power of God was not the new thing that they learned about. If they had felt only the power of God, they would have simply had a change of pharaohs. No, the new thing that they learned was that with that power, with that extraordinary power There was combined this wonderful kindness, graciousness, hesed.

[15:25]

Two favorite attributes of God in Israel was hesed and emet. They were constantly amazed that God should love them, that God should choose them. And they were amazed almost as much by the fact that God should be faithful in his loving, persevering in his loving. So, over and over again in the Psalms and elsewhere, they identify God as the one who loves and is faithful. The corresponding event The new exodus, it's really not another event, it's the fulfillment of exodus, occurs of course in the passing over of Jesus. The exodus of Jesus.

[16:28]

In Luke's version of the Transfiguration, which is not, a word that is not caught in the English, he said, and they were there discussing, that is Elijah and Moses and Jesus, what a What a group to get together! And they were discussing His exodus, His passing over that was to take place soon in Jerusalem. What else would they be discussing, these men of the Old Testament? Except the heart and soul of the Old Testament. Discussing it with Jesus, who is now about to fulfill and complete and definitively present the exodus. So the entire New Testament revolves around, is centered in the exodus of Jesus, the passing over of Jesus.

[17:31]

And of course, as we know, the evangelist consciously tries to make it clear to us that No concern about historical chronology, but any other place except the dying of Jesus. Now it was the time of the Passover. That has got to be in connection with the exodus of the Old Testament. And as we know in the Church, great controversies about the date of Easter. No concern really about the date of Christmas. We have no idea when that happened. I prefer myself the 4th of July. Just as likely as 25th of December. But the tradition has always been concerned about the date of Easter. Because it's got to be in... that's the connection with the Old Testament.

[18:34]

So the Exodus event which in a way recapitulates and recalls the creation event, the first gift of God, the exodus of the new creation. And then the exodus is continued in that ritual, yearly ritual of Passover. And then on that anniversary, the exodus of Jesus, which continues then in the annual ritual of Eucharist. There is no Eucharist like the Easter Eucharist. It is unique. And every Eucharist we celebrate is an echo of the Easter Eucharist. First there was the echo every seventh day, every octave day, every Sunday, and then in between there are smaller echoes in the weekdays. But they're all echoes of the great central Mass Eucharist of Easter, which then leads into the Consummation.

[19:42]

And so we see the golden thread of salvation history from creation to consummation. Two critical nodes or points of reference of Exodus and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our task is to bring our little strand of life and history into that golden braid, to weave it into it, to make our journey gradually coincide more and more with that flow and that journey, the dying and the rising. When I was a student in Jerusalem, we went down one day to the Holy Sepulchre, And Perabel, a great scholar but a terrible teacher, Perabel took us along. He was pointing out different things and he had no sense of proportions.

[20:46]

He'd say, here's a magnificent wall dating from the 13th century and over there, there's a staircase. Just the same, like they're on the same level. Anyway, When he was there, we were wandering around a little bit, and he took us into the Greek choir. As you know, the Greeks are the central part of the Holy Sepulchre, because they were there in the beginning, before the schism. So the Latins have that big chapel attached to the side of the Holy Sepulchre. But the center, the choir in the center is the Greek Orthodox. So we were invited in there, of course, with great respect for the students of the École Biblique. And so we were wandering around there and I noticed in the middle of that choir there is a kind of a little marble column, like a holy water font. Except there's no basin in it, there's a round marble bell in it. It's the opposite of a basin. So I looked at that thing and I said, what is that?

[21:50]

And this Greek monk who was there says, nothing, nothing, ran, ran. No, nothing important. So I was more curious than ever. So I said, well, no, it must mean something. Oh, well, he says, yes, of course. He says, the simple people, not us, sophisticated ones, but the simple people believe that this is the belly button of the world. Oh, woodlands. I rubbed it and rubbed it. Imagine how much indulgence you get from touching and touching and warming yourself with the belly button of the world. And I thought, simple? No, not very simple at all. Profound, profound insight. Holy Sepulcher, the place of the dying and the rising, the place of Calvary and the tomb, are both under the same roof.

[22:51]

The Holy Sepulcher. That is where the umbilical cord between Old and New Testament is found. That's the place where the transfer of life, the transfer of salvation from Old and New Testament occurred right here. The belly button of the world. Our task is to get into that flow of life. to get into harmony with that vibration of life, the pulse of life, creation, exodus, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Eucharist. All the sacraments are clustered around the Eucharist. No question about his primacy. Baptism is for the purpose of making you eligible for the Eucharist. All the sacraments are related to it.

[23:58]

You don't understand the Eucharist, you don't understand Christian. You don't understand the death and resurrection of Jesus, you don't understand the Eucharist. And to some extent, if you don't understand the Exodus, you don't understand the death and resurrection. So if you don't have much time to study Scripture, focus on those two parts of scripture, the Exodus and the Passion narrative of Jesus. As we know, the New Testament, as Ray Brown says, the New Testament is written backwards. The first gospel was nothing but the Passion story. The most primitive gospel was a simplified and abbreviated passion story. Well, we have an example of it. In chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, verses 3 to 5, you have the shortest, the most succinct proclamation of the gospel anywhere in the New Testament.

[25:11]

And of course, as we know, Corinthians was written before any gospel. written about 55 A.D. And in this passage, Paul refers to this teaching as traditional. And I would remind you, can you imagine what it means to be a traditional teaching in 55 A.D.? 25 years after the crucifixion, already traditional. And what is it? That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised up on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. Everything in the Gospel is contained in those four statements. they decided to add the public ministry stories.

[26:20]

And why did they add those? Because they wanted to show us what led Jesus to this critical moment. What choices did he make that brought him to this end? What was the process by which he arrived? at this final moment, this essential moment. And it's very revealing to us because we all are moving toward that kind of moment. And then finally, as an afterthought, they added the infinitesimalities. And so, the word is an event, an exodus event, a resurrection event.

[27:24]

And how do we listen to this word? How do we enter into this word? How can we receive it? Well, we receive the revelation of an event by becoming part of the event. by joining experientially in the event. The Israelites understood this already, and even today in the Seder service, in the Passover service, you hear them saying, not to our forefathers alone did this happen, but to every one of us. They are declaring that there is something about this event in which God is involved that is both eternal and temporal. Since there is no time in God, and God is an actor, a participant in this event, it is in some ways a timeless event.

[28:33]

And every generation can come up to it and join in it. in this threshold between time and eternity. And so every time we approach the Eucharist, every time we come to this critic, we are approaching eternity, we are approaching that timeless frontier and entering into the exodus and resurrection event. We do it not by being physically present at the Eucharist alone, we do it by bringing the reality of our lives to it. The single most important requirement for entering into this event is personal honesty, truthfulness, the real meaning of humility.

[29:37]

Humility is to be truthful. In order to understand the implications of personal honesty and truthfulness, we have to see what the alternative is. The alternative is illusion, or self-delusion, or daydreaming. We try to escape. from the reality of our lives by replacing it with the illusion. We tend to create a world that is more comfortable, that is more acceptable, rather than deal with the reality of the world that God has given me. Now, the unfortunate thing is that The world that God has given me is a good world.

[30:41]

But unfortunately, the first thing we notice about it is not its goodness. We're much more conscious of our shortcomings than we are of our assets. When I was rector of the seminary, we had many ways of evaluating the students. One of them was peer evaluation. It's a little tricky, but it can be very, very useful. So we'd ask the students to evaluate each other. And they would turn their evaluations in to me, and I had to convince them that this was a good thing, that this would be handled in a way that would respect their rights. I told them, I said, the purpose of this is not so that I can find something to tell the bishop. The purpose of it is so that I can find something to tell you. And I would invite them to come in and I would say to them, well, what do you want? The good news or the bad news first?

[31:44]

You know, I was amazed at how ready they were to hear bad news. How prepared they were to hear negative, critical comments. And how surprised they were to find their peers saying good things about them. We are, I guess it's a fear of disappointment, but we tend to game ourselves for the worst, for what is least encouraging, least, and then only, of course. And as a matter of fact, many, many Very good things said about them. And the overall effect of this was encouragement. Occasionally you had to say, now then, I agree, you know, this is something true about you and you haven't faced this yet.

[32:51]

And you're going to have to face it. Whether you stay in the seminary or leave, you're going to have to face this fact. You know, like for example you. You tend to manipulate people. This fellow manipulates people. He's nice and friendly when he wants something, but otherwise, you know, he's a little chubby. You're not aware of this, but you have to learn if this is something true about you or not. They're all dangerous. So, we need to come to know who we are. Our strengths, our weaknesses, But what we are, who we are, the truth about ourselves. I'm convinced that when Benedict asked his monks to take the vow of stability, he was concerned primarily with this critical matter of self-knowledge.

[33:58]

I want you to stay in a community long enough to find out who you are. And if you listen in a community, they will tell you who you are. They being the abbot and your confessors. If you listen carefully, they will tell you who you are. You don't find it by looking in the mirror. You find almost nothing from looking in the mirror. If you listen to confessors, hopefully they will tell it to you in a kind way. in a diplomatic way. But if you listen, they will tell you. Don't be like the gyrovagues, who would go from monastery to monastery, and as soon as someone began to ask them questions, well, how long have you been doing this and doing that? Take off.

[35:01]

Questions are getting too embarrassing. They're probing questions. I don't want to be probed. I don't want to know the truth. I want to live in this illusion. Stay put so that you can learn the truth. And to the degree that we can be honest and truthful and have integrity to the degree that we can be in touch with our experience and find the goodness in it and acknowledge the shortcomings in it, the weakness in it, and learn how to enhance the goodness and to forgive the weakness. To that extent, we will enter into this revealing event.

[36:10]

The most real part of history is in that story that God has told among us. We must try to become real enough and honest enough and truthful enough to become part of that. to interpret our lives according to the interpretation of that story. If we can do this, we will find that more and more we will learn to wonder at the goodness of God, at the gift of God. Instead of thinking constantly about what I don't have, I will begin to see what I do have and to find an extraordinary opportunity that comes from being myself and doing what God wants me to do and not something else.

[37:23]

And so, I think one can picture the scriptures as concentric circles. On the outer circle, there is hundreds of thousands of biblical words. And I always tell my students, that's what this course is about. The outer circle. And how to learn the words, and know the words, and probe and examine the words, in Greek and Hebrew if possible, but otherwise with all the aids that are available. We get to know those words. But the real revelation is not really, not in the words. Real revelation leads us to this inner circle, the circle inside that, which is the circle of events. So the words are meant to lead us to events. Professors help you to deal with the words.

[38:31]

Spiritual directors help you to deal with the events. I can give my students examinations on the words, but not on the events. I can't ask them questions like, are you being honest? It's an unfair question. It's not a question for class. It's a question for confession, for spiritual direction. But that's the critical area, that's where you learn what the Bible is all about. Now, as much about the words as possible, but the critical area is the events. Saint Teresa, a little flower, said one time, I wish I could be a seminarian so that I could learn the scriptures in their original languages. She wanted to learn more about the words. I used to try to shame my students into studying Greek by telling them that. St. Teresa would love to have the opportunity you have. It didn't always work, but at least you have to try everything to motivate them.

[39:36]

Anyway, so that's the critical event, the critical circle. Am I entering into the advance? And then there was another circle even deeper, the very heart of this. And that's the circle of person. See, the person of Jesus is inside the event of Jesus. We try to become one with the event in a thousand different ways, and then we are put in contact with the person. That's the place of contemplation. Even spiritual directors move, stand back there. They try to lead you to that moment of contact, of meeting, of encounter. That's a place for adoration and for communion, for prayer.

[40:38]

And so we deal constantly with all these levels. And the point is to get to know scriptures, lead them to the events and then to the person of Jesus. Blessed are those who have the opportunity to understand these things, the opportunity to hear the Word.

[41:08]

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