I've been talking about some very basic things about what I consider to be the very foundation of any real progress in spirituality, and that is to be in touch with one's own reality. I really think that's the primary fruit of spiritual direction, is to find out who you are and then be able to relate your being, your reality, your gifts to God, to the reality of God. So the decisive events of my personal life will be recognized and illumined only when they're seen in relation to this this golden thread of salvation history. I think that's why it's so important to be constantly getting into the rhythm of the liturgy.

[01:09]

If we enter into the spirit of the liturgy properly, the psalms, you know, the prayers of the liturgy, we will gradually, senzim sine senzu, as they used to say, imperceptibly we begin to feel with the Holy Spirit, to feel with the direction that the Spirit is guiding the Church. You know, in that regard, I think the Psalms are so important, because you recite them constantly and they don't seem to be doing anything. But if they're recited prayerfully, They gradually change attitudes. And I sometimes refer to that as the monastic way of conversion.

[02:11]

It's not the Jesuit way. The Jesuit way is the pressure cooker. You put people in a 30-day retreat and just grind them until they're changed, you see. I think the monastic, the Benedictine way is more gradual. Benedict doesn't talk about 30-day retreats. He talks about the Latin observance, but always in a kind of undramatic, regular, daily, changing in small ways. In a crock pot, it tenderizes meat. It takes longer. But it does just as good a job, and it doesn't hiss and fume and make noise. You hardly know it's happening. And Cardinal Newman noticed that about the Benedictines. He says, you know, they come in and just quietly you see men working in the forest, and then a little hut in the chapel, and then there's a school, and first thing there's a village, and gradually, slowly, almost by osmosis,

[03:26]

They are converting the countryside. Nobody ever referred to the Benedictines as the shock troopers of the Church. No. And so, I think, you know, this is completely in harmony with our own sentiment, our own tradition. And so, you know, we try to deepen our understanding of who we are and what we can do and what we can't do. And not to fret about what we can't do. but to exploit the gifts we have, and to cherish and honor those gifts that we don't have in others, so that all together we can, the community can have the benefit of all the gifts, and eliminate that destructive competition. Now, that I can be grateful for other people's gifts, no jealousy, no envy, because I have confidence in my own gifts, and the community also helps me to recognize them.

[04:31]

I recall reading Brueggemann's book, In Man We Trust, on the wisdom literature, and he talks about David there. And he said, David, he claimed he was the first wise man, I'm sure others may disagree, but he said, David knew what God could do and what he could do, and he knew the difference. He didn't try to do what God's supposed to do, and he didn't want God to do what he was supposed to do. He calls him the trusted creature, the one who knew that God trusted him and gave him responsibility, but responsibility within the limits of his gifts, not responsibility for everything. We can discover that wisdom by knowing what we can do and knowing how important it can be.

[05:32]

And then letting the rest to God. The most significant events in our lives will turn out to be, I think, not those things which the world calls significant events, usually successes. but rather those experiences that challenge us to acknowledge our contingency, to acknowledge our creaturehood, and thereby to lead us to discover our Creator, our true strength. Now, blessed are the poor, not because they're poor. There's nothing blessed about destitution. The blessed are the poor because they have no reason not to turn to God.

[06:35]

Self-sufficiency is so impossible for them that they don't even pay attention to it. Self-sufficiency is a temptation only for the rich and the strong. The others know it's impossible. Like the child in the gospel. Jesus took a child and put it in front of him. Unless you become like this child, unless you turn around, be converted and become like this child, you cannot enter the kingdom. Same meaning as blessed are the poor. The child knows it doesn't control anything, really. And so it can turn to its parents and trust their goodness, and it can play and relax. Those who understand that their real strength comes from God can afford to relax and to play, to rejoice.

[07:50]

Now, they have their responsibilities. but only their responsibilities. We tend to want to control a lot more than we need to control. The most important opportunities of my life may therefore be not successes, but setbacks, defeats, painful separations, because they lead me to the truth of God's love and power, as well as to the truth of my weakness. And if I discover God's strength in my weakness, I am no longer weak. So these can be blessed saving events. And so I try daily to learn what the opportunity of my life is, what I am called to do and what I am not called to do.

[09:00]

And I learn to be happy and satisfied with the opportunity that God has given me. So, in my life there will be a constant movement, the classic movement from bondage to liberation, No question about it, from the biblical perspective, salvation is always liberation. Never anything but liberation. Anything that claims to be salvation that does not mean liberation is fraudulent. Sometimes we can think salvation is Civilization, for example, to be civilized, to know how to behave, to go to a finishing school, to be saved, to look like a good Christian.

[10:07]

Well, civilization is a good thing, but it's not salvation, just another form of bondage. Cardinal Newman says, you know, the gentleman sinner is still a sinner. He just uses a scalpel instead of an axe. He's more civilized in his sinfulness. And so, we move from bondage to liberation. And we are constantly finding new elements of bondage, new corners that have not been liberated. And as we discover these new forms of bondage, new fears, new anxieties, God is merciful in revealing our bondage gradually in most cases.

[11:14]

As we're findings, we put them in front of God. We ask God's grace to turn them into liberation, to free us from that fear, that guilt. It's always amazed me that one of the classic forms of bondage is guilt. And guilt almost invariably comes from religion. This shows how dangerous it is to think that religion, having religion alone is enough. No, it's got to be right religion. It's got to be a religion that liberates. And as we are liberated, we form covenant. We take responsibility for our freedom, which means we try to liberate others. There's a magnificent passage in Deuteronomy about how Israel shall live in that land of milk and honey that God will give her.

[12:24]

Of course, it's all written in hindsight. It's put in words as if it were a prophecy at the benefit of experience. When you enter that land, you shall be sure to take care of the widow and the orphan and the wayfarer. You take care of these vulnerable people. You shall not take advantage of those who are weak, of those who are less secure than you are. You shall not take advantage of them. Why not? The pagans all do it, because I found you in bondage. I found you in the same kind of vulnerable condition And I did not ridicule you and make fun of you for my position of strength and freedom. No one is more strong or free than God, and yet He did not laugh at the Israelites, as strong, free men often do.

[13:36]

But He took pity on them and gave them freedom. And as they discovered freedom from the love of God, from the care of God, they discovered also the purpose of freedom. No other purpose for freedom except to love others that they may be free. I consider that the moral imperative of the entire Old Testament, and in fact the New Testament. If, therefore, God has so loved us, should we not also love one another? So, as I said, we open ourselves to goodness, allow ourselves to be liberated by it, and then we turn that freedom into goodness to others, which will always mean some form of liberation for them. So much so that I think in the day of judgment,

[14:43]

Long before they get around to asking us about going to mass on Sunday or things like that, the question will be, did you let my people go? Did you let my people go? Did you make the people whom you knew, whom you influenced, more sure of themselves, more able to deal with their weakness, more forgiven, stronger because of you? Or did you act like a pharaoh and use your strength and your power to keep them in their place, to keep them in their bondage? I don't know if there would be any need to ask any other questions. Sometimes it's good, I think, to review our lives. to ask ourselves whether we have a liberating influence on others.

[15:49]

All of this is connected with that most important of all Christian experiences, the experience of faith. Everything depends on faith. Faith makes the difference between the child of God and an unredeemed human being. The Bible never defines faith, not even in Hebrews. Faith is a substance of things hoped for, not a definition. It's a description at best. The Bible does describe faith, but even more important, the Bible describes people who believe. It shows us believers. And from seeing how they dealt with life, we learn the dynamics of faith.

[17:06]

We learn what faith means. The classic text on faith is Romans chapter 3. I'm going to be teaching St. Paul this next semester, next Monday, as a matter of fact, because I taught it before for many years, but I got a colleague in New Testament. We have an embarrassment of riches, three people in Scripture. Not like the days when I taught the whole thing. And so I turned St. Paul over to him, but he's going on sabbatical now. back to Paul again, but give me a chance to kind of review and think through some of these things again. That wonderful text in Paul, you know, he spends those first two and a half chapters in Romans talking about the need of salvation, making sure we understand that there's nobody, not the Jews, not the Gentiles, nobody who does not need to be saved.

[18:13]

And then he deals with the critical question How can we be put in touch with salvation? How can we tap into that power that Jesus has made available to us? And his answer is faith. What is faith? We know, of course, big, big controversions, Protestants, Catholics about faith, justification through faith. Catholics and Protestants have come a lot closer in recent years as we move away from a polemic understanding of this. But I think the critical text is Romans 3.24. They are justified freely by his favor through the gift of faith. Justified. The two adverbs there, freely and by his favor,

[19:14]

it's redundant, suggests that faith is not illumination. I think the image of illumination for faith, lumen fidei, is only partially accurate. A far better image for faith is the discovery of something, an awakening to something. An awakening to what? Discovery of the radical gift quality of life. We are saved freely by His grace, by His gift, by His favor. Faith is prepared by the experience of being loved and cherished on a human level.

[20:29]

At first, this is the discovery only that there is some goodness in life, goodness perhaps in my family, but the world is still a dangerous place. This is at most an invitation to faith. Faith, I think, becomes truly operative and the gift of faith is discovered when I am able to leap beyond the awareness of limited and occasional goodness to the conviction of the radical and basic goodness which underlies all of life and which transfuses the future. It's interesting to ask ourselves about our image of the world. Is it an evil place?

[21:34]

Not created evil, but contaminated by sin? into which we try to inject some goodness with our little hypodermic needle, all the while considering it almost futile. Well, keep trying. Well, I'm not sure it's going to do any good. Pastors are constantly tempted to a sense of futility in pastoral work. work and preach and work and preach and who knows what good it does. Or is the image perhaps that the evil is only on the surface and underneath is a great reservoir of goodness? And my task is not to inject or force some little measure of goodness into that evil mass

[22:41]

My task, my challenge is to tap that reservoir, that endless reservoir which underlies all of reality. Wouldn't it be a shame if we ended our lives saying, well, I tried to inject a few drops of goodness. I'm not sure how much good it did. And we find we could have done, simply tapped what was there. I think we don't let goodness happen, that that's our biggest problem. We don't let it happen, or we want to control how it happens. And if it isn't done my way, then I'm not interested.

[23:44]

The Holy Spirit, the presence of God in the Church, more than adequate to deal with all the possible evils and difficulties. I get very disturbed when I hear leaders of the Church giving homilies that are defensive, negative, pointing out all the dangers and watch out for this and look out for that and be careful, when they're supposed to be witnessing to the resurrection. There are dangers and there are difficulties and we should talk about them. But that second, supposed to talk about the resurrection, And this power of the resurrection, to what shall we bring it to bear? Well, here are some things that we might try to apply the resurrection to. Faith addresses the imagination.

[24:54]

It helps us to imagine the victory of goodness, the victory of justice, possibility of non-violence. And by imagining it and helping others to imagine it, it becomes almost inevitable. I think Eastern Europe today is an example of the power of imagination. It's more than that, of course, but that's a big part of it. That's why tyrants always fear poets. symbol makers, because they can get to the imagination of people. The tyrant wants people to think that this is fated, that this is the only way it could be, that there is no other possibility, that we were never meant to have hope. Nobody ever really thought there could be justice or peace.

[26:02]

War is fated. The prophet, the believer says, no, there is nothing fatalistic about this. It's not predestined. That is, to stand in the, to confront, to stand in the presence of that kind of massive denial into a firm life, into a firm hope, is as courageous as martyrdom. The radical goodness of life, which then means that you start looking for manifestations of goodness. We don't see things unless we are looking for them. If I am looking for signs of evil, I will find them.

[27:05]

If I'm looking for signs of goodness, I find them. St. Teresa, a little flower. Her last illness. Suffering terribly in her early twenties. Being treated for hemorrhage of the throat or something. She had, you know, advanced stages of tuberculosis. misdiagnosed and untreated. And yet she said in one of her interviews, when I look at my life, I can only conclude that everything is gift. Everything is gift. That's faith. She was not lying. She was not saying this for her biography.

[28:08]

She wasn't saying this so that hagiographers could put something nice down. No, she was telling the truth. Humanly speaking, she had nothing to be grateful for, hardly. Humanly speaking. She had discovered that radical goodness in life in spite of these surface difficulties. All of this is through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, Paul tells us. All the gifts we find in life can be related to the central and wonderful gift of Jesus. the guarantee of the Father's constant love and fidelity. And John says in prologue, that we have seen His glory, the glory as of an only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, full of hesed and emeth.

[29:20]

I think he is saying we have seen, you know, the substance of the goodness, of the gift that God has given to us in Jesus. In him we have seen what the goodness of God can do in a human being, our brother, the goodness of God can do in the world through him. Every gift and blessing acknowledged and received with gratitude helps us to appreciate a little more the wonder of that gift which is Jesus. And so we should constantly praise and thank the Father for all his gifts in conjunction with the ultimate gift of Jesus. to grow in faith, to let faith become more and more victorious.

[30:26]

And of course, this is a lifelong project. We are constantly trying to increase our faith. We haven't finished believing yet. To let faith become victorious in life means to open myself to all the signs of goodness in life, to name them, to be grateful for them, to hold them in grateful memory. It's not sufficient just to say they're there. One has to look at them and give them a name and say thank you. And that takes time. And as we do that, we begin to see more gifts, more blessings, And that takes more time. And the next thing we know, there's hardly any time left for complaining, not to mention cursing or being angry or frustrated.

[31:37]

We choose then to let the evil go, to forgive. We choose instead to look for goodness. And we find it in ever more hidden places. At first we see it only where it is obvious. But as we become accustomed to looking for it, our eyes are opened and we begin to see goodness in subtle things, in small things. We become accustomed to finding goodness. We find it in mysterious places. We find it in the surprises of life. We find it in the uncontrollable and unplanned events of life. In other words, we find it in mystery.

[32:45]

Mystery. Mystery is a very important theological word, but it can be easily misunderstood. Mystery suggests mystery novels, or it's all a mystery to me. In other words, in its most obvious sense, it means something not understood. But mystery in a religious sense something quite different. It means something that is not comprehensible, but which is nonetheless very meaningful. Something that is simply not understood is not meaningful either. The religious mystery is something that is not comprehensible in the sense of being controllable by reason and logic but it is wonderfully meaningful.

[33:52]

Love is a pretty good example of mystery. You can read five volumes on love and not know as much about love as five minutes of loving will tell you. That's mysterious that that should be the case. All the really important things in life are mysterious. They are to be appreciated and enjoyed, not analyzed. Or if they're analyzed, that's secondary. Life itself, love, happiness, And so, as faith becomes more dominant in our lives, we become more truly believers, as it begins to change our attitude toward life, enables us to see things we hadn't seen before.

[35:03]

As that happens, we become friends of mystery. We don't say, I don't understand it, therefore it must not be good. Instead we say, I don't understand it, Maybe it's better than the things I understand. I think we don't have to live very long to realize that the best things in life are not the things that we control or understand. The best and most necessary things in life are beyond our control and to a large extent incomprehensible. to become a friend of mystery. And I think there is no Christian who dedicates himself more to being a friend of mystery than a monk.

[36:07]

This is, I think, the very heart of the monastic intuition. To rejoice in mystery, to rejoice in the life that God gives precisely when it cannot be understood. To thank God for life, especially when life doesn't make sense. And so, as faith grows stronger, we find more and more things to be grateful for. We are more able to pray, Prayer grows apace with faith. Faith discovers goodness and prayer thanks God for it. And I'm convinced that if we have problems with prayer, the difficulty is probably with our faith.

[37:12]

If we discover goodness as God wants us to, we will pray. we will have no choice but to be grateful, to thank God, to find occasions and opportunities for praising God. And so, we begin by thanking God for the obviously good things, sunshine on my picnic, vacation for students, good health after illness. You don't have to be a Christian to know those are good. But then we begin, in faith, to thank God for the ambiguous part of life, the part that could be good or bad. At first, you can hardly tell. And I think the ambiguous part of life may be as much as 80% of it.

[38:21]

But if I approach the unknown part of life expecting the worst, I will almost inevitably find the worst. But if I approach it in faith, looking for goodness in it, I will be filled with wonder at how much goodness I find there. How many things which at first sight appear to be bad, unwanted, are discovered to be a blessing if we give it a chance to be a blessing. So we give the benefit of the doubt to goodness and blessing in life. There are also about 10% of life which seems beyond redemption. 10% of life, you know, terminal illness.

[39:32]

What can you do with that? We all hope that we will have faith and resignation when that comes. But we don't really know for sure if we will. And so we always are concerned about that, at darkness. Well, they tell a story about Pope John XXIII, which I think is very appropriate here. He had been diagnosed with terminal and inoperable stomach cancer. So he knew he was dying. And he went one day to talk to some seminarians. And in the course of his little conference to them, he said, every day is a good day, a good day for living and a good day for dying. Ogni giorno è buono, vivere e morire.

[40:40]

I don't think John XXIII discovered that just that day. I think what happened was that all his life, his long life, he had become accustomed to saying, as each day dawned, echo, another good day. Looking for goodness in it, greeting it, as a gift. Thank you, Lord, for another day. What happy surprise do you have for me today?" Now, it usually pays not to look out the window or at your desk until you've said that. Because you look out the window and see the weather, look at your desk and see all that stuff, you may not want to. And even looking in the mirror doesn't help either sometimes. I think John XXIII had made that daily act of faith.

[41:53]

Thank you, Lord, for another good day. And now when that dark period began, when it didn't seem possible, he found that he had become a victim of that habit. I don't think you can learn at the last minute to say that. You have to be saying that all along. Then you become a victim of that habit of blessing every day. And when this happens to be the day when you're told medicine won't help anymore, then I think you'll be able to say, that's still a good day. Faith will conquer even that day. because faith has taken over my life. And so I become a grateful person, a grateful person.

[43:01]

It's a blessing on all people to find someone who is not complaining and griping grousing and blaming others. Oh yeah, well, some bad things happened. But overall, I've been blessed. And that's going to be the attitude that I will present to the world. Someone that's been blessed and given more than I deserve in terms of goodness. Very often when we look at life and see things that we've been accustomed to consider negative, we look at them and name them in a new way, name them as possible source of goodness, they change.

[44:09]

And I had an experience as a little boy that illustrated that. My mother took me with her one time to visit some cousin, and I was bored to death. They were talking, you know, women talk, relatives, whose cousin is this and what's this and what's that. And finally this cousin said to my mother, let's go outside, I want to show you my garden. And so I was a boy raised on a farm, and so I knew the difference between a flower and a weed. Devil's paintbrush was a weed, even though it doesn't look that bad in itself. And one of the worst weeds in the fields and in the garden was wild carrot. Can't pull it out. Root breaks off and then it comes up. Three shoots come out of that. Well, she took my mother out and showed her her flower garden.

[45:11]

And she said, As she pointed to a big, healthy wild carrot plant in her flower garden, she said to my mother, and I want you to notice in particular this wonderful example of Queen Anne's Lace. Queen Anne's Lace. Wild carrot. I learned the importance of names. A great deal of what we call weeds in life could become flowers if we would learn to be grateful for them, to look at them as if they were flowers, to give them a chance to be that. In this way we can Make our journey through the desert, through the mid-bar, through the mystery. Desert is wilderness, land of mystery.

[46:17]

Make our journey through the desert and it becomes a place of flowers. Make the desert blue. I named my book Flowers in the Desert because I wanted, above all, to talk about how one can find meaning in a life that seems many times not to have meaning. And when one finds meaning in life, it becomes like the experience of finding a flower in the desert. And I've never been to the Southwest, but they say it's almost a miracle when a little bit of rain comes, the desert just jumps into bloom. And most exquisite flowers. I think I'll tell the abbot that I'd like to make a trip to the Southwest.

[47:20]

Check out to see if that's true. What a wonderful thing it would be if we could make our world bloom. so that other people could have hope.

[47:35]

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