How difficult and arduous the task he has undertaken, of ruling souls and adapting himself to many dispositions. One he must humor, another rebuke, another persuade, according to each one's disposition and understanding, and thus adapt and accommodate himself to all in such a way that ye may not only suffer no loss in the sheep committed to you, but may even rejoice in the increase of a good one. Lord, help mercy upon us. Thanks be to God. We spoke yesterday about the motivation from the word, the contemplatio, that means that action which binds together the two templa, the one section which is in the heavenly world to the one which corresponds to the section in the lower world.

[01:20]

your attention just briefly to the fact that there is a widespread common idea which really is underlying what we can say the entire symbolic language of the Near East, the Near Eastern civilization and which also therefore finds its expression in the idea of the Roman Haruspices and the idea of the priestess we saw there also in the Magi coming from the east the observation of what is going on in the upper world so that from there we may gain insight into the happenings in the lower world. That is contemplatio. And this contemplatio is then in the most perfect way realized in the Word of God made flesh because it is

[02:28]

the word of God which is the higher world and to which corresponds this universe which is the image created by the world in in number and in weight and in measure so that these two correspond one another in the deepest way so that the knowledge of the world the heavenly world is the key to the knowledge also of the lower world now from there you can all see the idea of the incarnation as we have it most beautifully in the Gospel of Saint John, the great contemplative among the Apostles, who has grasped most deeply this mystery of the Christ, the Word of God made flesh, as the perfect contemplative.

[03:34]

Now, let us still follow this same idea a little higher. You know that the incarnation of the Word of God is, one can say, the second phase, but that it is preceded by the first phase, which was in the beginning. That means before the beginning. Before the beginning of history and of this time, the Word was with God. Or, as we could also translate the Greek, text was toward God. The Word was toward God. So that this facing of the Father and of the Son That is, say, the origin of contemplation, the Father bringing forth the Word in the act which we call theologically generation, to distinguish it from any creation and to characterize this

[04:54]

production as the most perfect production because we know from the contemplating this world and the various kinds of productions which take place here that the generatio, generation is the most perfect of all We call it origo viventis ex substantia vivente in similitudine naturae, the origin of the living being from the substance of the living being in the likeness of the same nature. That is, we call, philosophically is the most perfect kind of production. And therefore this is taken as a guide for us to any trade as far as our weak human intellect is capable of doing so, the mystery of the proceeding possession of the word from the Father, the Son.

[06:12]

Now we can, the faith teaches us that father and son are the way of facing one another. The son is the absolutely perfect image of the father. In similitudine nature, origo viventis a substantia vivente, that means that in the father, the divine substance is communicated from our eternity to the Son not in any partial way which is not possible but in a total way so that Father and Son are united in the one divine substance of nature and this perfect vis-à-vis, facing one another, then we can say is the real beginning of contemplation. We speak especially in Christianity of contemplation.

[07:20]

Why? Because Christianity is the messianic age. Messianic age means the communication of the divine life to mankind. and this divine communication of divine life to mankind that is in its purest form realized in the contemplation. Our Christian contemplation has its home in that inner divine contemplation in which the Father and the Son, facing one another in this perfect way, take then also pleasure in one another, the supreme pleasure which we call the Holy Spirit. The difference between the Holy Spirit and the Son is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, from the Father and from the Son, while the Son proceeds only from the Father.

[08:26]

The Father is the Principium, the Son is the Principiatum, of this principium and the holy ghost is proceeding from both is the link that sigh in that divine love which the two embrace one another so we can see that in a way in which we also see here in this world where we speak, for example, from two-dimensional pictures, for example, and the adding of the third dimension, which we call the depth, in which we can see all over creation. There is a doubling, and this doubling is the introduction of profundity of death, or as we call it also, of intimacy.

[09:27]

The Holy Spirit is the dimension of intimacy between the Father and the Son, made possible in our human way of speaking by the vis-à-vis, the facing of one another of the Father and of the Son. We see that already as they indicate it in some way in the human face. We all, we have two eyes, but the fact that we have two eyes gives us the possibility to see things in their depth, in their dimension. The third dimension to us is opened to us by the fact that we have two eyes. just as we have in that way two years, to all these senses in which we perceive things, let us say, in their objectivity. In their third dimension, those senses are doubled, while other senses, as for example the sense of touch, which is the simple experience, the simple closeness, the simple with one another, does not have this doubleness, but only what we call these senses which receive or perceive the distance or the objectivity.

[10:53]

where the object, let us say, is immediately thrown at us, that doubleness does not exist. So what I want to say is only that this doubleness opens us to the third dimension. And we can see that too in the world of emanation, where that principle is even in a more perfect way. brought home to us. We know that, for example, the history of salvation is divided into a double thing, the Old Testament and the New Testament. And this duality of the Old Testament and the New Testament, why is that given to us? That by passing from one to the other, we may see, perceive the depth. The Old Testament and the New Testament give us, seen together and used in their vis-a-vis, opens us that dimension of the divine depth.

[12:06]

Even, one can say, kindles in us in a very special way the fire of love. As St Augustine tells us so beautifully, and I have told you in the past so often, they are together of the visible and the invisible, or let us say of the material and the spiritual, or what the Old Testament calls the earth and the heavens. This duality of the visible and the invisible or of the material and the spiritual enables us just through passing one from one to the other to perceive the third dimension of love. That, as I told you before, St. Augustine considers as one of the great and wise things in the divine pedagogic the wisdom in which we are led through the signal through the signs to the invisible realities and that in the very transition of our knowledge from one to the other from the bodily thing to the spiritual thing

[13:27]

our love is killed or think for example think of the literary composition of holy scripture writings of the old testament for example so often we have their repetitions dualities we have the books of the kings and we have the early formula which really are parallel in their contents, still not the same. Two eyes which open us a new dimension. Or take the Psalms. The Psalms, as you know, are based on the principle of repetition. The principle of repetition is by no means, let us say, the mechanical, saying the same thing twice exactly the same way, no? you will always perceive certain variations.

[14:31]

The beauty of the Psalms does not consist in this, that we repeat the same thing with the same words. But the beauty of the Psalms consists in this, that we say the same thing, say the same invisible divine truth in two human ways. But just these two human ways are like the two eyes. that open to us a new dimension. It's like father and son facing one another, but by that, you know, giving room, as it were, in our human way of talking about these things, to the dimension of love. So we say everything at least twice. Not exactly the same. Whereas two eyes are never exactly the same. You look at the two halves of a human face, of a human body, right and left, are never mechanically the same.

[15:36]

They are always slightly different in that way expressing that infinite divine fullness of being which in a special way is shown also in the human body created in the image and likeness of God. So, in that way we have this beautiful principle of the Father and the Son to light it in the unity of the Holy Spirit. So the life of the Holy Trinity is really the home of all contemplation. In our Christian contemplation of those who are built as living stones into the temple, that Christian contemplation is in a mysterious way. an imitation, an image of this highest divine contemplation as we can see there also so beautifully in the icon which you have right here in this library that beautiful icon which is really in many ways to me at least the very essence of the contemplative life that this

[16:54]

This highly gifted, you know, patron, holy man, Andrew Rubloff, has given to us, you know, that divine conversation, which, well, maybe we speak about that another time. I feel the glory of the Lord, the glory of the Lord, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[17:26]

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