in detail with the members of the seminar, so if there is a certain number of repetitions, I ask their forgiveness, their patience. So we saw how Pachomius, who was a pagan, was converted at the age of 20. when he saw the charity of a group of Christians in Thebes and he made a prayer promising to Christ that if you were delivered he will serve mankind and search the will of God during all his life and he was free and he went to a village where he put himself at the service of people there already being faithful to his promise and he was baptized and he had a vision during the night of his baptism showing that the grace that he had received he had to give to other people too. He continued to live in that village for about three years

[01:02]

helping people, serving people and I think we had arrived more or less at that time when we stopped on Monday and then after three years he decided to put himself under the guidance of a spiritual father, an old man named Palamon who was a monk living outside of the village in the desert, that means a few hundred yards from the Nile, and who are the certain number of disciples under him, like the Desert Fathers of Lower Egypt. So Ptolemy went to... Pachomius went to that father, and knock at the door and of course he was received in the traditional way for the monks because when a monk goes into the desert he goes there to find solitude and pleasure and so if a disciple comes and wants to live with him that disturbs him and so he will not accept them easily he will test them before and he will accept only those who really want to live

[02:19]

a deep spiritual life and deep spiritual asceticism if the person is not really committed to something serious the solitary will not do this time with him it's what Palaman says to Pachomius go and try yourself alone because Munisa and Kuna are there I want you to try yourself first that reminds me of a story in the Hindu literature that there was a great spiritual master who every morning prayed with his hands outstretched during hours. And there was a man who came to him to ask for counsel and he will ask for counsel and the Father will never answer him, never pay any attention to him. So he did that during a whole month, every morning. and after a whole month, for the first time, the spiritual father, special master, spoke to him.

[03:25]

And that morning, the only thing he said was, how far are you ready to go? So that's the important question. If he is ready to go the whole way, he will pay attention to him. But if he is just asking for a little advice, out of curiosity, He will not do it this time again. So Parliament received by Congress in this way. And it says, here is my assistance, my form of life. I fast all the time. And usually I eat every other day. And I spend most of the night, sometimes all the night, praying. and he extends out and says, are you ready? And he says, go and try if you can do that. And Pachomius insists and finally he receives him. And then he is formed by Ptolemy. And the formation consists simply in living with him, living with him day after day, night after night, doing the same thing.

[04:30]

And there is a description here of the alliance. Both of them pursued the twice-sum asses and also took time out for prayer at the Session Prayer. Their work consisted in filling and weaving woollen bags or hair bags. And in their work, they labored not for themselves, but remembering the poor as the Apostle command. So that was a characteristic of the monk at that time. they always kept a part of what they earned from their work for the poor, apart from the church, apart from the poor, and apart from themselves. And if the old men saw during their vigil that sleep was pressing heavy on them, they both went out to the sand of the mountain. So they carried sand in baskets from place to place, forcing the body to labor so that it might stay awake for prayer. The vigil is the vigil of prayer.

[05:35]

And if they do walk during the vigil, it's in order to remain awake. And why to remain awake? The old man used to say, keep awake, Paclomius, lest Satan tempt you and harm you. For the whole life is a life of vigilance, of care, to be careful, to be As I mentioned very often in the seminar, the first most important thing for a monk is to be careless, is to be negligent, is that to pay attention to the spirit of God or to the spirit of evil, who is always trying to uproot in him one of the fruits of the spirit of God. and so there's a long description of their thesis so after a while because when somebody goes into the desert to put himself under the direction of the spiritual father it is a temporary relation not like in the Chernobyl when somebody enters the Chernobyl the chernobytic life is for life he joins a group of brothers to whom he commits himself for life but when one comes

[06:44]

When someone goes into the desert, to put himself under the spiritual direction of an elder is to be formed. And when he is formed, he goes. alone in the desert and can become a spiritual father himself eventually. It is acknowledged by others as the bearer of the spirit because nobody in the desert constitutes himself a spiritual guide or is constituted a spiritual guide by any authority. It is the disciple who acknowledges the presence of the spirit in a spiritual guide by that very fact. made up in, make up in a spiritual guidebook. So, after a while, Pachomius goes further to Crete, into the desert, into a village, abandoned village, and then there is, he has a vision, and the Spirit of God, through an angel, tells him, come here and build yourself, your monastery here, and others will come to you.

[07:50]

And it's difficult to know exactly what happened there because we have in the old Coptic, fragmentary Coptic sources a description of two visions who gave them that, gave him that order in a gradual way first time he does tell him, come here and then later on when he will be there he will say, build a monastery, a larger monastery because people will come to live with you In the Greek flag that we have here, we are using, the two visions are put into one. And so that means that it is time to leave the spiritual father. And he makes a discernment to be sure that this is from the spirit of God. And then he goes back to his spiritual father, Palamon, and Palamon acknowledged that this is from the Spirit of God, so further discernment.

[08:52]

But Palamon is very sad because, you see, he was sad because he treated Pachomius as his own child. It's beautiful to see that that very rough man, let's say he was abrupt in speech, the rough man could be capable of a very tender love for his disciple and the relation between him and his disciple, the relation of friendship, very strong. And so he goes and not only let the Thacomeus go away, but he goes with him and helps him to build himself. and they make an agreement that Pachomius would come to visit them once, and then the next time he would go and visit them, they would visit each other like that, till Palamon died. And in the narrative in Coptic of the Second Vision, But Bacchus is praying during the night.

[09:54]

He's praying and he is sad and his heart is broken because he wants to know the will of God. So it's not clear for him what is the will of God on him exactly. And an angel comes to him and the angel says, why are you sad, Bacchus? He says, I want to know the will of God. And the angel says, the will of God is that you serve mankind. And he is upset. He says, I want the will of God and you tell me to serve mankind. The angel repeats three times. The will of God is that you serve mankind in order to bring them to God. And we see in that narrative that already for the biographer or the people at that time, there was a kind of tension there. So they want to have the angel. give the answer to the type of tension that they see themselves between serving man and serving God.

[10:56]

But then he began to understand that it is called to do something for people who always come to Him. Because, as I mentioned the other day, every time our Communion goes somewhere, people come to live around Him because He is good. a community builder by charism, by nature. And so he built his own cell there and immediately people start coming to that abandoned village to make their house around there. And I'll hear the text from the copy. We cannot speak yet of what we will say a monastic community. They say brothers, that means other people, come to... The people from the surrounding villages come to live around him. And they started living a common life with him.

[12:00]

And they will form a little colony. Each one will build his own house. or use one of the houses of the village. When he saw that the brothers were reunited around him, he made a kind of regulation for them. And the regulation was that each one will make his own living, working and so on. And each one will give a part of what he earned, and so that they will take care of all their material needs in common, either for nourishment, for food, or for taking care of the foreigners, the guests, and so on. So FICO Muse will take care of the whole organization. He is the manager, and he is the one who organized the meal, the one who organized the hospitality, the one who organized work, and so on. And he is doing everything himself.

[13:04]

And he said, why? Because they were not yet grown in virtue in such a degree that they could serve each other. And also it is not yet a complete community of possession and each one has something for himself. They say because they were not yet ready to live together in the perfect community as is mentioned in the Act of the Apostle. The pre-community is always aware of the limitations of people and giving time for growth. but those people who are around him are just heathen who come to him because he is good to them and they start forming a community but it cannot be from the start a perfect community so as I mentioned this afternoon the way Pakomius arrived at the constitution of the Kainonia the monastic congregation is not by

[14:16]

bring ermites or monks together. It's just by bringing together or accepting that people will come to live with an ordinary person and he will make, after he has made them into a community, he will make of them a community of monks. By awaking them to the need for prayer, the need for assistance, the need for contact with God, the need for purity of heart, the need for purity of conscience. But it will not be easy, and it will not succeed with the first group. Because the more he was doing all the chores himself and serving them, because he had promised God to serve mankind, the more they enjoyed the situation. It was very interesting for them. and he is not demanding enough and so one day they become more and more arrogant and they treat him with contempt and so during the night he goes and prays during the whole night and he decides the next day to be a bit more demanding and he had the

[15:32]

accepted that situation for about four or five years. They were very patient for just a year or two, four or five years. And so he says, now he asked of them three things. To be faithful to the common prayer, common meal, and common work. When we make the signal for the prayer, you shall all come in time. And the same thing for for a meal. And when we go to work outside, because they work for salary outside, you will all come together. And they say, what does he have today, Pakomius, with his abrupt speech? It does not used to be like that. And if he thinks that we will do what he wants, he will wait long. And so they used to come one by one. The next day, nobody comes. And so Pakomius decides to excel all of them. This is in the end of the first group.

[16:36]

This is in the Celtic life. But this is not very defying to see that the founder has succeeded with his first group. So in the little life, which are the Defender, Boaric and Grigli, he has disappeared. They just say, they just began with the second group. And they say he receives so and so, was a very good novice, and grew in virtue and so on and so on, and then they arrive at the number of 100. And then they add the little paragraph, you see. Among the novices who came, there were a few who were not according to the will of God, and he was obliged to expel them. And then they continued the narrative. It's well done. Everything is there, but well arranged. Then the second group comes, and then he he decided to be much more demanding on them and to dedicate himself completely, not only to their material needs, but also to their spiritual needs, and following the evolution of each one very closely, and also making them serve each other.

[17:55]

So it's not only himself serving them, but the gift he has to give them is to teach them how to serve each other. So the whole organization of the monastic, the Facomian community The Kognonia is the organization of a group of brothers who are at the service of one another. Each one is a service to fulfill in the community. And this is the main characteristic. It's the love. The love for God, the love for the brother, which is expressed in a life of mutual service. And so then they can help each other in growing in virtue. And then the community grows gradually, and during that time, they have to live as Christians, so they have to practice their sacramental life, and there is no priest in the monastery, so what they do, they go to the village nearby for the Eucharist.

[18:58]

Even at the beginning, what Pachomius does is there is no priest coming to the village nearby, so he built a church first for the thesians who are there, and he takes care of their spiritual life. He reads the scripture to them and commends the scripture to them, and then there will be a priest some time. And the monks will go to that village for the Eucharist every Saturday evening and every Sunday. later on when there is a a larger number of brothers when they reach the number of about one hundred then he built a church in the monastery and from that time on the priests of the village would come to celebrate in the monastery on saturday evening but the monk would continue to go to the village on sunday morning there will always be a kind of relation between the uh... the group uh... the monastic group and the uh... the peasants around.

[19:59]

And the liturgical life of the community will be pretty much the same as what it was in all the churches of Egypt. Gradually it will become something specific, something different from the the need of a community who is becoming more and more a monastic community and have a specific orientation. So the liturgy will take a specific orientation. But they did not think of doing something different because they were different. so uh... the it took the eucharistic practice twice a week so it took exactly the same eucharistic practice in uh... all the churches in egypt there was a catechesis a cultural catechesis given to uh... the faithful on the days of faith on monday and friday so pacomius introduced those catecheses, scriptural catecheses in his community, which was not something specifically monastic.

[21:10]

It was something that belonged to the Church at this time. Then the monks retained it while the Church suppressed it. But it was an ordinary practice. And then, which was related to fasting. Fasting is always related to scripture. Fasting for the early monks was not a private, personal, athletical practice. It was a communal practice and it was a liturgical thing. It was related to the listening and the catechesis of the Scripture, the Word of God. And the same thing for the celebration of Easter. They had, within the congregation, each year all the monks of all the monasteries were gathered for the celebration of Easter, which was very important for them since all the catechumens who were monks were baptized. they said that they celebrated Easter, a celebration in fasting and the Word of God. A celebration through fasting and the Word of God.

[22:11]

And so, after a while, since there are many in the monastery, there were not huge monasteries, as Aladius says, in the Lausiacus story, it is said that there were a group of about 5,000 monks at some point in the Pagan Monasteries. I think this is an exaggeration. It seems that there were about one hundred or a bit more in each monastery. And so, Pakomius founded the second monastery himself. Then there were other abbots who had monasteries nearby who, seeing the development of the Pakomyan Monastery, saying the charism of Pakomyan and acknowledging that the Pachomius' charism was superior to theirs, asked Pachomius to take their monastery into his cognonia, into his communion, into his congregation, and so that he will introduce in their monastery the way of life that he had developed for his man.

[23:19]

I think it is beautiful to see how monasteries already existing with their own spiritual leader who has certainly his own charism, have knowledge that something better, something after has appeared, and so they want to receive that charism too. And then there are bishops who ask Bacchus to come and found a monastery in their diocese. So there are many types of foundations. After a while, there is a congregation of nine monasteries. And it continues to develop. But then, Pachomius has a certain number of disciples who have a special role to play in the congregation. One of them is Theodore, he's one of his first disciples, to whom Taurus told him he had a special love and special confidence.

[24:23]

But it seemed that Theodor at some point accepted the desire of the brother that he will be their superior after the death of Spacomius. So Spacomius put him in penance for seven years. And so when Falconeer died, he did not appoint the other as his successor, but somebody else, Petronius, who died a few days later during the same epidemic. And the next one was Osteogenes, who was another very important disciple of Falconeer. And from Arceus we have a certain number of writings, especially something called Liber Arceusi, the Book of Arceus, which is a spiritual testament to the most beautiful spiritual work that you have translated into English in that booklet that Felix made for the seminar. it's full of scripture and it is one of the books that express in the better way the Pacomian spirituality.

[25:33]

So, RCA just became superior, in general, but he did not doubt and I think Theodore had also the same charism as Pacomius. So there was an evolution and a decadence in the congregation. And the reason of the decadence were many. Probably the first one was, of course, the change that had to happen after the death of a man so important in the whole evolution as Facomius. And then it seemed that many of the elders died at the same time, during the same epidemic. And then also the congregation grew and expanded and started to be richer. And the enrichment of the congregation is shown as one of the reasons of its decadence.

[26:42]

And after these events, it happened that the brothers greatly increased in numbers. And in order to feed such a multitude, they started spreading out into fields and into many forests. And since other concerns increased, each monastery started being a bit negligent. And there is another text later on, at the later period, that expressed the same reality in a clearer way. This is because, as we have said, the monasteries eventually possessed many fields and many ships. Each monastery built its own. The monks became busy and went down with heavy preoccupation. So it's not in itself the fact of adding many things, of needing fields and ships and so on, but they become busy. It's always a temptation of monks to become busy and went down with heavy preoccupation. and the free occupations bring them to be negligent.

[27:47]

That is the first sin. So, in the day of Abbot Bacchomius, when there were few, they were conscious not to be laden with the weight of this world's material frustration. For the Lord's yoke is light, is a light one. And then there was, in the congregation, a sense of unity and uniformity. At the same time, a very strong stress on uniformity, but, on the other hand, as a counterbalance, a great concern for the individual, the individual needs. But uniformity was important, and the total sharing of everything. But then a certain Apollonius, father of the monastery of Pankhosus, wanted to buy for himself Tripophilus Commodity, despite the rule of the community.

[28:53]

And when Orsiasius reprimands him for that, he is angered. And he wants to separate this monastery from the congregation. But Orsiasius is not able to handle that situation. But he is a very humble man. And being humble, he realizes that he cannot handle the situation. So he asks Theodore to come and take over the government. And Theodore will do that for I think about five years. and then he would call back Orsiasius again. And so you see, in the history of the congregation, as much as in the history of Pachamism itself, there is a continuous growth with the comprises, success, and high points, and low points, and failures, and so on. And after the death of Theodore, during the last year of Orsiasius, it seems that the congregation has been very flourishing.

[29:56]

and Purvan, with the ordinary things that are natural for human beings. Then we don't know much about the history of the Thakamyan congregation. After that, there was a reform which is known very much by Senuti, a very special type of monastic life. It was at a time when there was the invasions, more and more invasions of barbarians, so it became a kind of military monastic life, they had to defend themselves, and then there was the invasion of the Arabs, and that, unfortunately, that cenobitic life in Upper Egypt was just swept off the map. And what has remained is just the literature. Well, there was the rule, and the rule had influenced a certain number of monasteries.

[30:59]

There were Pacomian monasteries living at that time in Lower Egypt too. And following in one of those monasteries that Saint Jerome found the rule, the text of the rule, translated into Greek, that he translated into Latin. It is the only work by Pacomius that has influenced Western monasticism. And Benedict knew it. because we have in the Rule of St. Benedict a few quotations from the Rule of St. Parcommius that we don't find either in Cassian or in the Master. So Benedict must have known directly the Rule of St. Parcommius in Athens. But unfortunately, the Rule is not something that gives a good knowledge of the Parcommian spirituality. If you want to know the Pythagorean Theory, you have to know how they lived, and if it is true or not. And we have a certain number of texts, a collection of regulations, with the account as the rule of Pythagoreans, but the collection of

[32:05]

a lot of the conditions of which some may go back as far back as I can use, but most of them probably represent a later stage at the time of first year to even later on. I think I mentioned the other day, when we think about our founders, we always we tend to think that they are the clear ideas but we see that Pachomius did not have a clear idea he just was praying to know the will of God and gradually God led him to become the founder of something he had not foreseen himself and I always find it very interesting to make a parallel between the history of Pachomius and the history of Saint Benedict as we see it in the second book of the Dialogue and I reread the dialogue the day before yesterday and I was so surprised to see more clearly than before the link, the parallel, that

[33:11]

I would like to analyze with Father de Gaulle, somebody very competent in Benedict, if there is no literary relation between Gregory and Sarkozy, because when Gregory wrote his dialogues, the life of Pachomius had been translated into Latin by Dionysius in Rome. And so equal I've had that takes quite easily. If we look through the life of Benedict rapidly, we'll see that Benedict abandoned his studies in Rome when he was still a young man studying in Rome and he goes to Athens with his nurse. I don't know if there are many students going around with their nurse today. They may be going around with somebody, but not a nurse. And then he goes to Subiaco, and he spent three years there, the three years of Tacoma, in the village of Sheniceb.

[34:19]

And then he lived as a hermit, and only the priest Romanus came to bring him bread. But then after a while, people discover him. And when the shepherds discover him, they start coming to him and living around him, so that he will teach them, and he teach them the Word of God. And then other people discover about him, and they come to him. And same phenomenon as with Pachomius. and then they are saying that people start leaving the world to come and live under his guidance. Because he is good, because he is a spiritual master, people come, first just shepherds, they don't want to become monks, they are shepherds, they remain shepherds, but they come to live nearby, because he is good. And then people want to live a kind of ascetic life under his guidance. And then there is a first attempt by the community.

[35:24]

There is the community who ask him to become their abbot. So he accepts, but he wants to reform them. And they accept to be reformed at the beginning. But when he really tries to reform them, they find it too hard and they decide that the best thing is to get rid of him, so they try to poison me. That's the radical way. I always remember when I was late at Abbott's, my dear friend, the second is there, he wrote me and he said, be sure you bless everything the brothers give you through the rain. And I did, I'm still alive. And so he goes back then to his desert to live by himself, to live by himself. And then he built twelve monasteries in the region. his relationship to people around is better and better, and people have a great confidence to him, people come to him, he has a very good interaction with all the churches around, and there is a priest, Florentine, and he creates a lot of trouble, and instead of staying in that state of war, Benedict decides to go to Monte Cassino, and there is a second beginning.

[36:49]

But what he does in Monte Cassino, first thing he does is to convert the people of the village. And then he establishes communities, community growth, and then he continues to convert people of the village around, and then he launches the village. And then the rule, according to which we live, is the fruit of that whole experience. It's not something that was given by an angel, or something that he He wrote at the beginning of his life, the fruit of the whole evolution, the groping, the first strife and the failures and so on. And then he founded other monasteries, Heracina and so on. and all oh yes there is something similar to it because every ponder about that the system and so uh... back on the earth and added sister or who came to him properly after he had found in his first military and so uh... he built a monastery for her and she found that the uh... the convent of none opened a big uh... did the same thing with the last week uh...

[37:58]

Some people have their doubts about their historical existence, but I won't give an opinion on that subject. And we could make a parallel also with the founders of CITO. The foundation of CITO was easy. First, the same growth rate. Robert, the story of Robert is It's not so parallel with the one of Benedict and Bacchus, but there is something similar. It's not the man who had discovered one day what type of monastic life he wanted. He was just dissatisfied with what he wanted, with what he had. and he was trying something else. He enters Montier-Lassault, where he becomes prior, and then he is elected abbot of Saint-Michel-du-Tonnerre. He wants to make a reform there, and he does not succeed in making the reform, so he leaves them and comes back to Montier-Lassault, and then he is prior of the priorate of Azul-en-Provence,

[39:09]

and then he is forced by the Pope to accept to be the abbot of the Hermit of Kona who had asked him for a long time to become the abbot and he transferred them to Molen but he does not succeed in making with them the reform he wants to make so he joins a group of Hermits at Aux And then he is obliged by the Pope to come back to Milan. It's a very painful life. And then while he is on a long trip in Flanders, the division is greater and greater in the community. So when he comes back, there is the foundation of Vivek with Robert, but then with some of the same root he will come Cito. And as Cito is just beginning to grow, he is called back to Mona. and then it will be another 12 years.

[40:11]

But it's not very successful, it seems. But there is no charter, there is no planned organization. It's just trying to follow, step by step, the will of God. All those people are always walking in the dark. And God is telling them step by step, just like walking in the night with a little flashlight, just in front of one step at a time. And you never see what is going on there. So, I think the same thing for our own personal journey in monastic life. And it's the same thing for the journey of our community. And just before this talk, Fr. Phythagoras, with whom I was speaking, he mentioned to me that there was a very, very good parallel to make between Pachomius and Durance. And so I will let him do it sometimes.

[41:17]

But I think what he mentioned to me is very important. This morning I was explaining how Pachomius was extremely demanding in establishing the rule, but extremely understanding in the way he applied it to individuals, and how it's not enough to read a rule to discover what was the type of life that was lived in that monastery. It's important to see a biography to see how, with what type of understanding that man applied it. And like I was mentioning, it's the same with the Ransingh, not enough to see the type of rule he established, but it's good to see how he lived it. But we could do that for any type of founder. So, after having that kind of living contact with Trichomere, how he was led by God, who found his congregation, so next time we will try to give, I would try to give a general description of the spiritual life that was lived in his monastery.

[42:32]

But I think it would have been artificial to give that description of the spiritual life without the context, especially the historical context, in which it was read.

[42:42]

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