Beautiful day, this is Sunland Bay flowers orchard. I think this is the best year for our orchard as far as I can see. And maybe that's also a beautiful symbol of the life, the inner life of our community. I can see that from the, and I wanted to thank you for the loving understanding and grateful reaction to that day of recollection that we had yesterday. You realize that I tried there to do what is said today in the rule of the abbot, I have not concealed your justice. We are not here to conceal God's justice, but to make it evident so that the earth may be filled on a day like this, but the truth of God and the splendor of His mercy are so wonderful.

[01:20]

If we take a day like this and this morning as I hear the attendance at vigils was good and then the mass that we sang this morning together filled with life in a real spirited way and all these things that we share with one another they make the substance of our life. What else do we have? The fact that we don't take on any kind of ordinary work simply forces us, and I think all members of the community see that more and more, forces us to seek first the kingdom of God. It's so strange how man tries to escape it and how he puts second things first in order to create a kind of a

[02:25]

veil or a fork in which he then in some way, you know, can do what he would like best. But with us, as somebody said also in answer to this day of recollection, we in our kind of life, we just, God forces us to become saints and to take it completely seriously. There are the three things that we should never forget. I wanted to say that just in the kind of little conclusion to yesterday's day of recollection. We must learn also in the observance of the rule to love what our Holy Father St. Benedict loved. Love what he loved. Amare quod amavit. That is the first. That is the first. We love what he loved. And then when we ask ourselves what did he love, then we see that at the end of the prologue that he institutes the school of the divine service.

[03:41]

And if there is something maybe strict in the beginning, there is some angustiae, some narrowness that the individual experiences, what is it for that later with that unspeakable sweetness of love we may run the ways of the divine consciousness? Commandments always taken there in the New Testament sense, not in the Old Testament sense. There's participation, the life of the gloriously reigning Christ, the abbreviated Ragnar, who lives and reigns. And that is what we are called, that is what Saint Benedict has in mind for us, one with the unspeakable sweetness of love, the broad road of divine commandments. That means that wonderful way that our Lord shows to us when He ascends to heaven.

[04:46]

Descending and ascending. And when we ask ourselves what are the elements here in our monastic life that that Saint Benedict wants already realized here among us, that is joy, that sacred and holy joy, which flows from me and which constantly the certainty and the wounds of the sacramental presence of Christ, of His saving action among us, that Holy Mass always pours out over us as this morning we celebrate the death and the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord. We are mindful of that. That is a source of joy.

[05:48]

There is the risen Savior with us in one way. And joy is always the answer to the salvation present, to goodness present, divine goodness present. That's joy. And then the other one is love. Love is the mutual charity of Christ urges us on. That is the mutual... brotherly relation. I think it is naturally, it is true that the monk leaves the world, but in entering and following St. Benedict's spirit and his way of thinking, I think that in that way, I think we are different from the trappists, that what our community life is not as it were a kind of more or less unwilling concession to human weakness, and it is not lived in a way which essentially wants to preserve

[07:08]

in the community, the individual monk as a hermit, more or less. It is therefore not in that way, let's say, the constitutive element of our community life, solitude. One could not say that. We enter the monastery, the monk enters the monastery, he enters into the joy of the heavenly Jerusalem. to that wedding feast. that is being celebrated by the Lamb with His bride in Jerusalem. And the monastery in that way is an anticipation of the heavenly Jerusalem. And I think just now in these days we realize that turning towards one another in that way in which the Apostle already saw the early Christians, turning towards one another, is a tremendous source of inner happiness.

[08:12]

So that community life in that way is, or say, as living for one another, living together, and living together as hearts, living together as members of the same body, not simply individuals that are kind of through the iron bond of discipline are kind of kept together. You know, from within is the bond of perfection. It's the Holy Spirit that keeps us together and that works from within. So it's joy and it's charmity. And then a third thing is discipline. But discipline in the sense of a holy order that has to be preserved always. Order has to be preserved. Wherever there is a body, there must be order. And the members must be related in such a way that the organism is able to work.

[09:21]

Therefore, there's the head, there are the feet, and there are the hands, and there's all these various instruments through which the organism lives. That are the members of the plastic community. I think these three things, we keep them in mind. That is, when we live, we live them, the joy of the sacramental presence of Christ saving action among us. That constant feast is the reason why we celebrate Holy Mass every day. It's the kind of real center and source of our life. and then the eternal charity in that sin, of course, of being drawn to one another in the Holy Spirit, being edified by one another, one as the psalm, the other one in admonition, the other one a word of consolation, and so on, in all this way, all these various ways, also facing in truth our limitations.

[10:37]

also our feelings, and then this holy state order of life. Because without that, as we know that from past experiences, there is an atmosphere of uneasiness and turning so easily into disgust. So let us keep that. I think then we really love what St. Benedict loved.

[11:10]

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