We celebrate the Lord the sixth Sunday after Pentecost, and then on Monday, the Feast of the Princess of the Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul. Maybe between the two is a relation. As you know, I have pointed it out in other on other occasions to you that these Sundays, the fourth, fifth, and sixth Sunday after Pentecost, belong to those that group of Sundays which are in Rome, celebrate the pear and celebrate the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. So the, in order to understand the Sunday, and to be in the right mood to celebrate a Sunday, must always keep in mind that this eighth day all through the year, the Sunday, the eighth day, or the first day of the new week, that this Sunday is celebrated all through the ecclesiastical year, characterizes our day

[01:22]

and our age as the age of the Messiahs, of the messianic fullness. Christ has come, he died for us, he rose for us, he has given us the fullness of his Spirit on Pentecost, so that each one of us has, as St. John puts it in his gospel, received from his fullness. De plenitudine eius omnes nos objectus. From his fullness, all of us have received. Characteristic note of this, our Christian era, of this annulus dovidi, the year of the Lord in which we live, and of which we now count 1959.

[02:29]

The note of this year of the Lord is the fullness of divine reality, divine activity communicated to us by God with his people, with that new community, that new people that we call the church. So that must be realized, that every Sunday is that day where after the hectic six days of labor and of working, and fighting and struggling along here in this life and on this earth, this Sunday is celebrated as the day in which we take that deep breath into Christ's fullness. He is the Lord.

[03:32]

He is the head of the church. And not only morally, but ontologically, We are his members of his fullness. We have all received. Therefore, we are not only striving to reach him, but we have received him. Therefore, we are not only moving towards him, but we are moving in. And that is the fact which the Sunday brings to, not to our attention, but which the Sunday realizes in us. That is what the Sunday works in us. The Sunday is, it is still, it is a sacramentum. It is a divine operation which fills our hearts, works in our hearts, transforms our hearts, and in that way then enables us, because the Sunday is the first day of the week, that is, you know, that's the tremendous difference.

[04:49]

I've told you that so often. The Jews celebrate their Sabbath day as the end of the week, the last day of the week. That means the Jews are on their pilgrimage through this life and through the labors of this life until they reach and that they may reach the rest in God. But this rest in God then is something they are looking forward to because they live in the age of expectation. But for us, it's different. For us, the day which is Christ, the risen Savior's full presence among his church, that is for us Christians the first day of the week. Therefore, what for the Jews is the last aim and goal that one hopes, perhaps, for us it is the principle, it's the beginning.

[06:02]

We start our week with the Son. That means we start our week in the risen Savior, in his power. so that the six days which follow this Sunday are then, as it were, the realization of the grace which we have received in and through the Sunday, so that while for the Jews the work is a preparation for the rest, for us the rest is a preparation for the work, We, our work, is characterized by the fact that it is started in the power of the risen Savior. Therefore, our work through these six days is really participation in the Lordship of Christ.

[07:04]

Our work, human work, let me say, human work, Christian work, Christian work in this world is participation in the Lordship of Christ. Therefore, the purpose of our work is instaurare omnia in Christ. We store all things in Christ. Nobody can do that if it does not start in Christ. Instaurare, to restore all things in Christ, can only be a program for those who have Christ, who have received from his fullness. They then can go out and they can in that way consecrate the world. But the principle of that consecration is the same. The Sunday should not be understood by a Christian as the reward for six days of labor.

[08:14]

That would be for the Jew. For the Christian, the Sunday is the divine beginning in fullness. that God, our Heavenly Father, makes with us as members of his people in the power of the risen Savior, who has suffered for us, who has conquered for us, and his victory and his conquest, we become the instruments of that in the six days which are called the Sunday, so that These six days of our work should get character, as it were, and should be consecrated by the Sunday. That also makes it so important and so necessary that the Sunday is considered as more than just a relaxation after an exhausting time of six days of this working week.

[09:19]

If that would be the case, then the Sunday would be in fact only the servant, or let us say, a letter of this work. So that the Sunday, in the character of the Christian Sunday, And the celebration of this Christian Sunday would be determined by the labor and the pressure and the effort that the six days have on that. You see, if you consider Sunday simply as a day of relaxation, then your Sunday and the character of your Sunday is dictated by the six days of your working week. It is simply then a kind of remedy, a kind of thing that may restore your strength so that you can go on for another six days.

[10:22]

And then again, thank God, go into the car, drive countryside, get relaxed, or sit in front of a television or whatever. And in that way, you see, the Sunday is really under the influence and receives its character, one would say its kind of diabolic consecration, its distortion. It's not a consecration. It's distortion from the curse of the six days of work. In reality, the six days of work should be consecrated by the power of the Sunday. The Christian Sunday is not consecrated a vacuum in not doing anything. But the Christian Sunday is a source. It's a wellspring, a wellspring of spiritual power. On this Sunday, something happens. What happens? The participation of the entire people of God in the death and the resurrection of Christ, which we celebrate in the Sunday Mass.

[11:30]

That is the reason why the center of the Sunday is the man. Again, that cannot be only a kind of a nuisance. a kind of a duty that a Christian has to fulfill. He doesn't really know now why. Perhaps the clergy want to keep them in line, you know, and remind them that they still exist, you know, and that at least one Sunday they have to go and sit down in front of a pulpit. One never knows what one hears from that pulpit. Sometimes nothing. Or the exhortation for a collection, and that is not too cheerful a prospect either. So in that way, see, the Sunday loses its character. What we have to be, and that is so important also, we have to get interiorly set and tuned. to the true Christian character of the Sunday as the constant repetition of the Easter throughout the year of the Lord's Resurrection.

[12:41]

And that is so evident, you know, if you are in that mood, you understand your Sunday that way, then you also can sing that beautiful intro tomorrow out of a full heart, and you can say then really, the Lord... Dominus. Who is that? That's the risen Kyrios. Dominus. That's the one we call Kyrios. God have mercy. That is the one whom the priest means when he says to the people, the Lord be with you. It's an Easter greeting. The risen Christ be with you. The bishop says the words of the Easter Christ himself. Peace be to you. The priest who represents the risen Savior says, the Lord be with you. So Dominoes, he is fortitudo plavis. He is the strength of his people. That we as Christians, we say that in the Bible.

[13:44]

Fullness of that glorious conviction of our faith, which is faith in the resurrection. As St. Paul says, if your faith is not faith in the risen Christ, it's empty. It has no power. Faith is for us that way in which we gain contact with the plenitude of Christi, with the fullness of Christ. And the fullness of Christ is the risen Savior, the one who ascended and who was seated at the right hand of his Father and from there gave us the Spirit. That is Christ the Lord and that is fullness. From him then streams rivers of living water who are full. And there we can drink, as we will see later, He is therefore the Lord in the strength of his people.

[14:48]

And his people, of course, that is the ecclesia, that is the church. The church which, that's the beauty also which we are reminded of when we celebrate on Monday the feast of St. Peter and of St. Paul. That is that ecclesia which is built on the rock. The ecclesia that is built on the rock Petrus and the function and importance of Petrus as the prince of the apostle and as the stone upon which the church is built is the close, intimate connection of St. Peter and of the other apostles with the resurrection. Their essential mission is to be witnesses of the resurrection. Therefore, there are twelve. Twelve is that plenitudo, is fullness shared. That is the meaning of twelve in Holy Scripture.

[15:51]

It's divide, fullness, shared. From his fullness we have received. Therefore, Christ, the first, does a act, creative act, in which the Lord builds his church, is to call the twelve. And of course, again, you see there that old Christian principle that I told you so often. Every beginning in the name of Christ is and has in itself perfection. We start in the order of the kingdom of God, in the order and hierarchy of perfection. The beginning is a perfect one. That's in baptism. That's why we are put into this Christian life through a sacrament. That means an opus operatum, a work which is filled, divinely filled with God's creative power and therefore not depending on any kind of human means, human attitudes, human moods and emotions, anything like that.

[17:10]

Saturn is above that. It's a beginning in the power of the resurrection, in the one who has conquered. So that is, therefore, here, the wonderful expression of that basic Christian faith, our Sunday faith. The Lord is the strength of his people. And as I am repeating it, We say that on a Sunday because that is the day in which all Catholics come together in the church around the altar. Therefore, on a Sunday, the Lord reveals himself as the strength of his people, not only as the strength of the individual believer, but as the strength of his people. Thank God, and we all realize that, those things go into the little manifestations of life that are never passed unnoticed.

[18:12]

If today we ask and we listen, you know, to the reactions of people and what is their reaction to the Catholic Church and won't think that It's very alive, you know, with Protestants and others. It's this thing, yes, the Catholics go to church on Sunday. There they see that procession of the cars, you know, into the parking spaces, you know, and then one pass after the other, you know, a flood of cars coming on and leaving, another one coming in, you see, go, go, go. Isn't that what it's today, you know? And the Protestants opened, all of you are saying, that is... You see, they realize they are something in spite of all the efforts which the sexualist civilization always makes to push the church out of the public eye. Here one sees, at least one cannot hear it with bells because they have been toned down, hardly silenced.

[19:21]

But one sees it at least in those gatherings that come together. And there it's evident the parish church is on a Sunday really the center of an ecclesia, of a people. And that's the beauty of it. And we as Catholics, we should be proud of it. We shouldn't say, oh, why now I have to go to church with Katie and Brady, you know. It's all very distracting. I come to church and they are saying, Mrs. So-and-so, you know, sitting, and I see now what their burden of newest hat is, and so on, and so on. Later on, I go to the communion rail, and there I have no peace because all people are stumbling over my feet, you know, just them, and I receive the Savior, and so on. It's all a great nuisance. I prefer to go on a quiet day, on a weekday. Now, that would be bad. No, that's not the meaning. It's on a Sunday.

[20:24]

The meaning is to feel, to realize that we are really and truly members of God's people and that the Lord is the strength of his people. How beautifully that is manifested in all the communion. and the protector of the salvation of his anointed. See now, the protector of the salvation of his anointed. God is the protector of the salvation of his anointed. Who is the anointed? It's the church. Why is the church the anointed? Because all is the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Therefore the anointed one is first of all the risen Savior. But then all those who have received from his fullness are the anointed.

[21:24]

Therefore here, the whole people of God, the whole church, the parish, that congregation which is gathered together around an altar, is here God's anointed. It is God's anointed. That's the beauty of it. Because it's a holy church. It's not just a gathering, you know, of people who find together in some common desire for salvation or something like that, you know, with a common dream that one calls faith. And, of course, that has no reality or something like that. No, no. The ecclesia, the people of God, is filled with the divine reality. We live after Pentecost. We don't live before Pentecost. And Pentecost has changed the face of the earth. It really has. The Spirit fills this earth. And we are part of that. And therefore we are God's anointed.

[22:27]

Therefore then we say, see, out of that assurance that salvation is with us, that we are God's anointed, that we have received of his fullness, out of that assurance then we say, Save, O Lord, thy people, and bless thy inheritance, and rule them forever. See, that's the beauty of the kingdom of God. That fullness which we have received from Christ, the Lord, the head, the risen saviour, that fullness has nothing to do with complacency. Nothing. This idea that, all right, if we have it, if we have everything, then let's sit down and take it easy. That's complacency.

[23:28]

Many Catholics have that idea. Well, we have the faith, you know. So we are all taken care of. And then have no feeling of responsibility for those who have not. And even get maybe a completely, although the church is always fighting against that, a completely wrong feeling of their own assurance of their salvation. No. No. This fullness, this our taking part in Christ's fullness, for us does not mean we have it, therefore let's sit down, twist, twiddle our thumbs. That's not our situation here, no. Because we are always and participate in this fullness only as long as actually God rules over us. But if we sit down in complacency, the actual rule of God is not there, hence it is.

[24:35]

We begin with Christ, we receive something from Christ, and then we would say goodbye, now I'm all taken care of, and now I can do all of my own. That's, of course, absolutely wrong. In the sphere of the Holy Spirit, in that whole realm of the kingdom of God, nothing becomes automatic. Nothing that is simply can be taken for granted. Absolutely not. The sphere of the Holy Spirit is a personal one. It's not a mechanical one. It's not an automatism, the church and faith and all these things. It is a constant inner personal participation with my whole heart, my whole will, my whole intellect, with all my gifts. of my entire nature. And therefore, also right away, we say this, you know, God is the protector of the salvation of his anointed.

[25:40]

And right away we cry, Savior, Lord, thy people. That is not a contradiction. That's absolutely logical. That people that is full of God, that really cries, Julia Eleison, Lord, have mercy. But people that would not be fooled, the indifferent ones, may not feel, you see, that they have to cry, and the power of the kingdom has reigned. The actual rule of God is not there. But in the kingdom of God, of course, there is more joy over ones thinner who cries, Lord, mercy, than over ninety-nine just ones who think they don't need salvation. Therefore, these two will have to be kept together. Kyrie eleison. You are the risen Savior.

[26:42]

I believe it from the bottom of my heart. Save me. Take care of me. Protect my salvation, thy people, and bless thy inheritance. See, bless thy inheritance. Again, such a wonderful, wonderful term, you know. Inheritance. That in itself, you know, is something which is so beautiful that we are the heirs of the kingdom. You see, that expresses the fact that our connection with God, our Heavenly Father, is not simply one of longing, is not simply one of an empty hope. The air in the house is in a different position. The heir looks forward to that time in which he actually enters into his inheritance.

[27:43]

Therefore, the heir has an assurance. And that is the beautiful way in which the gospel and in which the liturgy and the Psalms and so on describe our situation here as Christians, certainly. We, through Christ, we have received from his fullness. Through the sacraments, through baptism, through the Holy Eucharist, we have received from his fullness. In confirmation, the fullness of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit have been called down upon us by the bishops. Why by the bishop? To make it more emphatic that the presence of the risen Savior fills the grown-up mature Christian with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. So in that way, we are not only looking forward to something, but we are in a relation to the Father as truly his children.

[28:52]

We are his children. And therefore, as children, we are his heirs. That means that the future blessedness, that complete sharing of the divine life, that we will be ours in the beatific vision and in the communion of saints in heaven, that is already now, as far as it is with God, assured to. There is an assurance there. We have, as those who are reborn in Christ, and as those who grow up into the fullness of confirmation, and as those who have taken part of his body and his blood, we are children, we are his brethren, we are in Christ the sons of our Heavenly Father. We are omnipresence. And still we are looking forward to the full manifestation of our glory that is then at the end of time.

[30:00]

That is at the resurrection of the flesh. Then we enter into our inheritance. But nevertheless then our inheritance is something that is already of us. Already here on earth it is ours. So and bless thy inheritance and rule them forever, so that this rule is established. It's an eternal thing. With eternal love I have loved you, and therefore I rebuild your wall, Jerusalem, as it is said so beautifully by Jeremias in the 31st chapter of his prophecy. So then this... God of all power and might, the Deus Virtuto, who is manifest to us, that is the collect, the text of the collect, the God of all power and might, that means the one who raised Christ from the dead, who are the giver of all good things.

[31:08]

We invoke him as the giver of all good things. Cuius est totum quod es va. Implant in our hearts the love of thy name. Increase in us true religion. Nourish us with all goodness. And by thy mercy, keep us in the same. That again, you know, is a real Sunday prayer. That's a prayer of absolute fullness. Full faith. God of all power. Deus virtuos. Because the resurrection of Christ is a manifestation of the all-engrossing saving power of the Father, who are the giver of all good things. Everything descends from above, from the Father of lights, and from him we receive.

[32:11]

That is our basic position. We receive. In baptism, in the sacraments, we receive the gifts of God, of the God of all power. And he then implants in our hearts the love of his name. The love of his name, the name, of course, of God, that is his essence. The love of his name, the name of God is his essence, manifest, that is his name. Name means the inner secret of God made manifest. Where is the secret of the Father made manifest? In Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man. He was made man and we have seen his glory. Who sees the Father, who sees me, sees the Father.

[33:12]

So the love for the name of God is a concrete Sunday love for the risen Savior. The love of his name is concrete in that action of St. Thomas the Apostle, who on the octave day, on the first octave day, on the first Sunday after the Resurrection, put his hand into Christ's open side and said, my God and my Lord. See, that is loving God. My God and my Lord. And to say that with your hand in Christ's open heart. That is loving God. The love of God's name. Therefore, increase in us true religion, and nourish us with all goodness, and by thy mercy keep us in your name, because you love us from all eternity and forever.

[34:26]

And then comes in the epistle to Paul, who speaks to us, and he speaks to us then of the first and basic principle Experience which draws the Christian into the risen power of Christ, and that is baptism. And baptism is our conversion. That is our death with Christ, our dying to sin, and our rising with him. That is a conversion from the world to God. From sin to conversion. Conversion. Baptism is the sacrament of conversion. An absolute new beginning in the fullness of Christ's love for me, who died for me. And in that way, no greater love can anyone have than who puts down and lays down his life for his friends.

[35:33]

in that great love, which is love unto the end. In this love, we make a new beginning, or let us better say, a new beginning is made with us in baptism. And that mystery of baptism is then described in Thomas, in the epistle to Thomas. It is that inner dying and rising with Christ. We are immersed in death. And we rise, and we receive the new garment, and we are anointed, and we get the burning candle in our hands, and there we are as those who are risen with him in the newness of life. And that, therefore, must be then the constantly renewed beginning of our Christian life.

[36:37]

On a Sunday, you know that on a Sunday, we always have the special service, the special ceremony that at the beginning of Mass, the priest first goes round and sprinkles the whole congregation. and as a symbol, as a symbolic renewal of one's baptism. And in that way, it also should be understood. The Sunday as the first day also leads us always back, as it were, to that source of our life as Christians, to our baptism. And in that way, we are reminded of Asperges me domini visopo et mundi. You sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be cleansed. And I am being cleansed. That is that inner renewal of baptism on Sunday.

[37:39]

And then out of that comes fullness of life. And that is then shown to us in the Gospel. There we go with him into the desert. We leave this world in the sacrament of conversion in baptism. We go with Christ into the desert. And there, as O.C. says, and there he brought them into the desert in order to speak to their heart. In order to speak to their heart. And that is what happened to the Israelite people. They crossed the Red Sea, went into the desert. Tomorrow we do the same. Sunday is another Pascha. And in the Epistle, we cross the Red Sea, and then we go with him into the desert, and we find ourselves gathered around him, and there he feeds us.

[38:41]

He feeds us with the heavenly food. that divine food that is absolute abundance. The rest, you know, are gathered together in a whole series of baskets, seven I think of them, again a figure of completion. So it's that from his fullness we have all received in that gospel of truth. And that is, of course, in itself is a symbol of the Holy Inquiry. That is the paschal meal. There we see the new covenant. And this new covenant is a new one because it is made not in the blood of animals, that means a mere signal, but it is made in the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, of his fullness we have all received. In him we move.

[39:42]

He is the source. He is the head. He rules us. Out of him we live. And that is expressed in the gospel of tomorrow. And then in the offertory is then that half-fetched restless mails. Perfect thou my goings in thy path. See, that's the given. Because the offertory is then the fruit of of what we have heard. We were sitting down while we heard from the mouth of St. Paul the message of our baptism. In reverence and in the faith of the resurrection we stood up When we heard from the mouth of our Lord, the fullness that he gives his heavenly food, with which he strengthens his people, his congregation, makes them all walk in the same food, in his body and in his blood.

[40:51]

And then out of that, you see, comes then perfected restlessness. now perfect made my goal is in thy path bring that to the perfect end because the altar is now the symbol of those six days that follow the Sunday and where we go to the altar where we bring our gifts there we make out of the fullness that we have received in the through the word of Christ we come now and we bring The host as the symbol of our life. The full and unreserved willingness to cooperate with the will of God in our life. And we put that host on the path. And while we do that we sing this beautiful song. Bring my goings in thy path to the end. Let my footsteps be stable. Let my footsteps be stable.

[41:55]

That is the wonderful thing. And that's, again, the difference between Christian footsteps and, let's say, Jewish footsteps. Jewish footsteps, that is climbing in that way. That is running towards a goal. out of all of one's own strength. But the footsteps of the Christian, they are simply put your foot there where your Lord has put it first. As Saint Paul says it so beautifully, he has prepared his work for us so that we walk in his footsteps. That is what we call the imitation of Christ. You must always think of it in this way, and we, of course, in northern countries, have that beautiful example of high snow, especially here at Mount Saviour. Now, these piles of snow, and then, you see, comes the first one who comes, you know, at vigils, goes from the monastery to the chapel here, and he puts his footsteps in.

[43:05]

The next one will inevitably put his footsteps into the same place. And that is the way walking in the footsteps. And our footsteps are stable. Why? Because Christ has walked the way first. Because he says, I am the way. But thank God he doesn't only say, I am the way. He also says, I am the night. That's the important thing. So in Christ's power, we walk in his footsteps, and we put our foot there where he put it first, and where we have put it in him. Our Lord made the footsteps on the cross, and also the resurrection. Therefore, we imitate Christ following his footsteps, and his footsteps are the sacraments again. And therefore our life as Christians and our imitation of Christ is living the spirit and power of the sacraments.

[44:11]

That is what makes our Christian footsteps stable. And then incline thy ear and hear my words and shall fork thy wonderful verses. You who saves those who trust You see, those things go together, sacraments and trust. Walking in Christ's footsteps because he goes first and in the sacraments we follow. And then we come to the end in communion. See, that is another procession. But that procession of communion has a different character. The arbitrary possession, you know, that is that really following Christ, consecrating the six days of work that we have to live here in this world. But then Holy Communion, that is then altering eternity here on earth. And therefore, there I say, That is in English this way.

[45:14]

I will go around. You see? In the offertory it is, perfect thou my goings in thy path. At the communion, where we receive him, where the full sharing becomes reality, there we say, I will go around. I will dance around, as the Hebrew word says. and offer up in his tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation. I will sing and recite a song to the Lord. Holy Communion then is really anticipation and realization of the communion of saints, of the kingdom of God in our hearts.

[46:11]

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