That strikes me. It strikes me, of course, very much, for example, in the concrete context in which we live, first, of world history. You know very well that things in the world are more critical and more wobbly, so to speak, as they have ever been. We are reminded of that here in our own country. The present, for example, is just the election of a new president. It's for us a challenge. It's for us, in some way, it's a demand which is made to us and to us as monks to think about the future of our country. then there is the world history in the sense in which I just touched upon it, the Council, the future of the Church.

[01:06]

These great efforts that the popes of our days are making, that the Church as a whole is making, to be heard and to open the way for a new future for Christianity. Then politically, the tremendous struggle between the West and the communistic world. And the constant progress which we see is being made and the losing of one position or the other that we are facing. Some way, our situation is very close, very similar to that of St. Augustine. And St. Augustine wrote his big book, on the city of God, in which he tried at facing the downfall of the Roman Empire. That was, of course, the world in those days.

[02:11]

Facing it, you know, then concentrating his thoughts, you know, on the big designs of God. That is so important. I think that is also important for us here. For example, in this move into a new building. Look at it in this context and see it. That is a new step in our history. Of course, then, right away, that many ideas, you know, were to our heads, you know, made that, you know, what would we call this, you know, how will this function, how will that function, how much will it cost, you know, who made it, all this kind of thing, you see. And all, you see, all these things that they will do, they will lose, you see, because he has a wonderful way then to mix up the whole thing. And to make us forget, you know, the tremendous benefit, make us forget the gift, you know, which is given to us.

[03:18]

And then we say, oh my goodness, it's too good, you see. Not only to be true, but even to be lived. You understand what I mean? And there too, much as I understand it, you know, still, you know, there are Things, you know, which could really completely blur the picture. And take that, the character, you know, of God's gift, you know, take it away. Poil it. So it's important that we interiorly make that, you know, decision here to accept. There is, for that reason, you know, I was just reading, I want to read it to you now, words of John XXIII, which he wrote in 1962, when he made a retreat, you know, already Pope.

[04:29]

One beautiful word, you know, which I just added, because I think that it is so wise on the part of Saint Benedict to put these three things together, I mean to put one's hope in God, to attribute to God and not to sell whatever good one sees in oneself, but to recognize always that the evil is one's own doing and to impute it to oneself. I think that those things belong together, because that last kind of allergy towards us, ourselves, is the only one that opens a future to us which would be really and truly God's future, and not our own future. You see? That's the decision which this world here puts before us. Everyone finds himself in that, either. He is kind of involved and locked in himself.

[05:33]

And then concerning the future, he will inevitably project himself into the future. He is and his own future. And he is his only future. All there is this inner, complete inner freedom which we attribute to God and not to ourselves, whatever good one sees in oneself. If one doesn't do it, you see, then our future is that good what we see in ourselves, and that we want for our own future. But to recognize always that the evil is one's own doing and to impute it to oneself. Then the future comes to it from the hands of God. And then it comes to it as a salvation, not as a continuation of the present. John XXIII has this beautiful word there, which is inspired by his scripture.

[06:41]

Concerning, you see, in this context, Meritum meum miseratio Domini. My only merit is God's mercy, the Lord's mercy. Meritum meum miseratio Domini. But concerning this specifically, this word, you know, to put one's hope in God, He reflects on that at the beginning, at this moment, it is really the moment of ecumenical council. And therefore I tell you this because you see here, in John XXIII, you know, one of God's poor ones, a man who absolutely made it a principle not to think high of himself,

[07:48]

and who didn't really also, in a natural way, didn't possess any kind of great intellectual brilliancy. Nothing, nothing of the kind, absolutely nothing. And he became the instrument against everybody's expectation to start, as it were, what he called window openings. He was a new era. Now he writes in this Giornale dell'Anima, He writes, the first sentence is, of his meditation is, and that fits so well into this whole context, Christus heri et hodie, ipse et in saecula. Christ yesterday, Christ today, and the same in all the ages. And then you're reflecting about that. He continues, and he writes this in his little giornade.

[08:50]

I must make it my, not to make prophecies, nor to give assurances for the future, is the rule of conduct derived from a tranquil and firm spirit. It is sufficient to take care of the present. It is not good to waste imagination and anxiety in trying to construct the future. The vicar of Christ knows what Christ expects of him. It is necessary only for him to see the next steps ahead and to have the Lord's counsel and have him inspire the project.

[09:57]

The basic rule of conduct for the Pope should be this, to be content with his present situation. and not to trouble himself about the future, but rather expecting it from the hand of the Lord, far beyond our calculations or human machinations. And so he, the pope, should be on his guard not to speak about the future with any force, assurance, or facility. The experience, he continues, of these first three years of my service as pope, a service which I accepted tremens et temens, trembling and in fear, in pure obedience to the will of God,

[11:08]

has manifested to me through the voice of the Sacred College United in Conclave. This experience of these first three years is witness to the faithful adherence of my whole spirit to this guiding principle. the various initiatives, it says, which characterize the first phase of my service, they have all come from absolute, quiet, loving, and I would like to say, silent inspiration of the Lord to his poor servant, who without any merit of his own besides perhaps this of not discussing but simply seconding and obeying, was able to succeed in being a not useless instrument of honor to Christ and of edification for many souls.

[12:26]

And then he enumerates the first contacts with the great and the humble. A visit of charity here and there. Mildness and humility of approach combined with clarity of ideas and with fervent encouragement. The Lenten visits to newly founded parishes. The celebration of the synod. the attitude as father of the whole of Christianity, creating cardinals, consecrating bishops of every race and color. And now the vast movement of the Ecumenical Council, exceeding all expectations in proportion and importance.

[13:37]

All this confirms the rightness of the principle to wait for and then to express, with faith, with modesty, with fervent trust, the good inspirations of the grace of Jesus, who presides over the government of the world and leads it to the highest aims of creation, of redemption, of final and eternal glorification of the souls and of the nations. I say that you understand why I tell you these things, because these are things of core history. These are our days. We have seen it. We have seen it. And to my mind, it's a sign of God, you know, for us, especially for us as monks.

[14:41]

I feel in reading these very simple, absolute simple remarks here in this book again and again, I find that the Holy Father had a deeply molastic spirit. He gives here on the Italian edition of page 330, he has here, he calls one paragraph, he calls it, a count of great graces given to one who has little esteem for himself, but receives the good inspiration and applies them in humility and trust. And then he speaks about the first grace that this man has received.

[15:45]

To accept in all simplicity the honor and the burden of the pontificate. with a great joy in the heart to be able to say that nothing has been done in order to direct things in this way. There was no attempt on my part to direct the attention on my person. And I was very satisfied when, in the course of the variations of the Conclave, the possibilities that had arisen were again disappearing from my horizon and were concentrating on other people, persons,

[17:00]

which also I, and in my estimation, were most worthy and venerable. Then he says the second grace that was given to the one who has little esteem of himself, but receives the good inspirations and applies them in humility and confidence. And that is this. to make known as simple and immediate in their execution, of immediate execution, some ideas, not complex in any way, even very simple, but of great importance and with a great view into responsibility, with great responsibility in view of the future, and with immediate success.

[18:14]

Gather together the good inspirations of the Lord, simpliciter et confidenter. without having thought of it before, to bring out in the first encounter with my Secretary of State on the 20th of January in 1959 the word Ecumenical Council. Diocesan Synod reorganization of the Codex of Canon Law. And this happened against all my own imagination and my own suppositions.

[19:20]

The first who was surprised by this, my suggestion, was I myself, without anybody having me given any indication about it before. And to say that everything then came to me in such a natural in such an immediate way and in a continuous development. After three years of preparation, certainly laborious, but also happy and quiet, there we are at the foot of the holy mountain. May the Lord uphold us and may He lead all this to a good end.

[20:30]

So I think that is one of the greatest fruits, you know, of to put one's hope in God in all simplicity and confidence. And I think we as monks facing a future In that same spirit, you know, we can be sure that the Lord who has begun a good work with us will all bring it to the end in the day of Christ Jesus. Amen. thoughts about last week's book, this morning at Mass, about who bled the day of judgment. I had in mind to refer to that beautiful post-communion of the Mass of St.

[21:40]

Luke, where said that now we have received from the altar the Holy Mysteries of that in which we may can be sure and that is a sure word of our Lord Jesus Christ who loved us unto the end, who sealed his love for us by his death and his resurrection. In that way, filling, as I say, all the abyss of our human lostness through his death and leading us then into the glorious hope of his resurrection. Christ in us, our hope of glory. But Saint Benedict then, in the Holy Rule, he continues and he still adds then three instruments there.

[22:50]

And the first instrument is to fear hell. Second, to desire eternal life with all spiritual longing. and the third then to have death before one's eyes daily. So it is clear that with that we enter into another realm. It is clear that the idea of judgment contains necessarily that of punishment or reward and maybe concerning the first concerning the idea of punishment and of hell the devil may try to kind of

[23:51]

intervene and muddle up things and in some way maybe whisper in our ears, oh, this is a kind of little gadget to scare children or maybe also, yes, now how can hell and God's eternal love, they combined and so on, they are some difference. Things like that may come into our mind. Let us remember that Saint Benedict at the beginning of the rule in Apollo, with all possible seriousness, calls upon us, and says that first of all, whatever good work thou undertakest, ask him with most innocent prayer to perfect it, so that he who has deigned to count us among his sons may never be provoked by our evil conduct.

[25:03]

for we must always so serve him with the gifts which he has given us that he may never as an angry father disinherit his children nor yet as a dread lord be driven by our sins to cast into everlasting punishment the wicked servants who would not follow him to glory. So, I mean, it is necessary in thinking of hell not to miss the point, right? by escaping into the theoretical, philosophical thought about what hell really is, or how eternal punishment can be reconciled with God's love.

[26:09]

Those thoughts may be in their place where theology is concerned, or so else, is science, but we realize immediately that in the context of the monastic life, of the rule of Saint Benedict, those are speculative but not really existential thoughts. if we reflect on the idea of eternal punishment. I think it is important for us with our whole heart and interiorly to accept it. because it is humbling us as men. It puts before us, takes away, I may say, our self-complacency. and takes away from our relation to God maybe a wrong kind of closeness or may even say kind of chumminess, something on that line, and takes away the seriousness from it.

[27:30]

And therefore, I think it is very important for us that we accept, submit, as it were, to this idea of eternal punishment. It reduces us to our size, but at the same time also it really extols the holiness and the majesty of God. And not only this, but also the seriousness of our offense, the critical character of our relation to God. There is one word that St. Paul said, I think it's in Philippians 12, the end, where he has said, and God is not mocked. That is the great danger.

[28:33]

We as human beings with our frailty and in our way of conceiving also sometimes God as a loving Father, it might lose, as it were, something of the majesty. We might be induced to mock God, not to take Him really, vitally serious. So it's the seriousness also of our offense. And I think there, too, in our days, general direction of of thinking is in a different both in a different direction crime sin more and more explained you know the line of sickness of character of the limitations of

[29:35]

Nature, therefore, also punishment in our days is not understood any more as the satisfaction, as it were, of the restoration, for example, of the majesty of order. but it is merely thought of in a merely homocentric, man-centric way as a means to help or to cure the evildoer. And the idea really of punishment is, to a great extent, is abandoned. It seems to me it's the reason why the death sentence, you know, too, is to such a great extent either eliminated. as simply beyond the scope, let us say, of the law, which does not, as it were, vindicate justice, but kind of protect justice and protect the people in that way.

[30:48]

Ernst then also tries to cure the evildoers. Of course, in itself, not something that has its place. Only there is another aspect, and that is simply the fin of God's glory. the offense of the holiness and purity of God, who are the image of God here on earth. So I would say that the idea of punishment and of hell is in our days a very wholesome and a very necessary one to make us conscious of the majesty and the infinite dignity and also of the strict separation between good and evil. because that seems to me is another tendency which is so characteristic of other times, that in the end good and evil are kind of just relative, you know, and again lose their absoluteness and lose the character of sacredness.

[32:11]

And of course we know that Judgment, the whole idea of judgment, is that of separation. Separate my cause from an unholy people. That is, I think, also one of the reasons why, for example, today one doesn't understand or accept, you know, the idea of excommunication of a sinner. says that's an arbitrary act of a haughty church bureaucracy, simply lust for power or something like that, which is an absolute erroneous interpretation. But excommunication has a double purpose. It's just so characteristic. It has a healing purpose. because it wants to show, you know, that here, through man, through his own thought, has deprived himself of the means of the glory of the hill and the healing power of the Christian community of the church and body of Christ in which he lives.

[33:33]

But at the same time also it makes clear that there is an indescribable limit or border line, dividing line, between sin and virtue and holiness. So I think that is important for us to realize that. And it seems to me always that the idea of hell stands there, you know, clearly to point that out. the nature of hell and questions that are connected with it. I think that is, for the moment, when we consider this, I say in an existential context, that is not the important thing. The important thing is to accept interiority fact and to penetrate into its inner meaning, that it is the glorification of the holiness of God.

[34:44]

And there is simply also there, just hell makes that clear, the immense importance of human choice. of that decision that man has to take, and where really his glory lies in this. It is there the sovereign glory of our free will which stands, as it were, between these two. as it is so often in such solemn terms proclaimed by Holy Scripture, as in Deuteronomy, that's in the 30th chapter, see, I have set before you this day life and good and death and evil. I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you.

[35:46]

that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live, that you may love the Lord your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave unto him, for he is your life, and he is the strength of your days. That is the choice which we face, and which should not in any way be kind of muddled over. That's a clear decision there that we are faced with. and all kinds of, which is so characteristic in our modern thought is, for example, the idea of reincarnation, you know, in all the nice salons, you know, that people from the ethical society, you know, will discuss, you know, that errors are quite on the lines of the morality, you know,

[37:09]

of the human level and so on, of educated people, and that the reincarnation is a much more satisfactory solution, which is, of course, it means the destruction of the unity and the whole value, one can say, of the human person in its uniqueness, continuity, wholeness, you know, totality. That simply is not a phenomenon that has been, at least until now, certified by any real experience. No, I mean, I could start with me, that I have been a lion, you know. Some kind of brute, thirsty animal, you see, all that kind. I don't know.

[38:12]

I think I'm just sore, you know. And if as long as I don't know, so what is it of no use? What I know is that I have gone, you know, here. sometime long ago and that's where I'm facing the end and that is the span of my life and this is my responsibility. And that, of course, gives, that makes, you know, of course, the man as God's image and his life real history. As soon as you take that away and you start, you know, the whole role of incarnations, you know, in which you are plant at one time or monthly at another time, you know, and so on, then, you see, the entire, what we call the The real personal ethical value is simply destroyed. So therefore, in that way, this seems to me is of great importance.

[39:19]

Fire and water are before you. Stretch out your hand to what you prefer. Before man are life and death. then what he chooses will be given to him. That is with all power, close to the power of the Old Testament, that is expressed as one of the central, I'd say, dogmas of the Old Testament is this, the freedom, the unrepeatable freedom, and earn replaceable dignity of the human person, freedom. That is one of, to my mind, one of the great things, you know, that now that word stands for, you know, that the Holy Father in that way associates himself when he consecrates modicum. That is one of the essential positions of the list.

[40:26]

Therefore, The idea of hell is, of course, is for us of great value. Of course, we must avoid the idea, and I think in all these things, to think about the last things is a good way of purifying our thinking and our soul. We must avoid the idea, of course, that hell is a kind of torture chamber. invented by God to revenge himself and to gloat for all eternity over the cries of the damned. That is simply not God. Hell is God's answer to the one who does not want to follow him to glory.

[41:29]

That is, one can say in some way, the temper, really, of human freedom, the tremendous power and importance of human freedom. So the thought of kill, yes, is a realization of God's glory and holiness and purity and of that separatedness of sin and of divine life. of what man would be without God or in opposition to God, that he would then not be his true self, that he would not be resting in himself, that he could not rejoice, but that he will be caught in the self-devouring bitterness of hatred. in loneliness, hating himself, and surrounded by a world of hatred.

[42:31]

Then to desire eternal life with all spiritual longing. Now there we must again, you know, right away take the whole, I can say the whole depth of this sin. One can do as one can consider hell as a torture chamber and then miss again, you know, the whole nature and depth and majesty of it. So one can, of course, also miss the point in thinking about eternal life. One may think about eternal life as, for example, Mohammedanism does to a great extent as a marvelous place where simply one gets all those things that one has always longed for and one never could get it here on this earth and simply gets it in tremendous abundance.

[43:36]

And therefore, Saint Benedict adds here, with all spiritual longing, Spiritual longing, that means not simply also thinking about eternal life as a reward or as a recompense, saying to oneself, now I give up things here on earth in order to get something infinitely better in heaven. That would not be exactly spiritual longing. But spiritual longing is supernatural. is part of our life of grace, and that is a life of love. Therefore, to desire eternal life is to desire to be with God, to desire to praise God, to be incorporated part of his kingdom, and to see God, as we say, as he is in himself.

[44:38]

So it is in that way it is not so much that first of all the idea of our personal satisfaction and happiness, especially not, of course, in terms of our own human earthly wishes and desires, just to be out of this veil of tears, not to be exposed anymore to all the pressure of life. what people like to think about in our days. Paradise or heaven is not, in that way, eternal recreation. But it is, you know, to see God as he is in himself. So then it's the important thing, most always. I mean, thinking in that relation is so important, you know, that in scholastic theology, the idea that this is really the fulfillment of man's long to see God as he is in himself, therefore the absolute transcendence of self.

[45:55]

And therefore also then to understand, you know, the spiritual longing of eternal life. That is a wonderful exercise, too, and very important for our monastic contemplative life. You remember that some people are leery of eternal life. because they are afraid they cannot, what is called, work for God. because there is nobody to take care of, there is no poor, no sick, no distress, no death, you know, therefore no comforting can be done, you know, no educating, all these things and activities just stop. Charity activities in that way, nursing and what not, all that is in the eternal life, you know,

[47:00]

Not there, that was one of the things that also St. Augustine thought so strongly about and opened him to one of the access to the whole idea of Mary, of that happiness of sitting at the feet of the Lord, the real true character of the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem as that city of which the Lamb is the Lamb, and God is the light of it. That is the important thing. So, in that way, and then from this idea of eternal life as the absolute God, everything in everything, or all in all, God, all in all, that as the decisive form of the eternal life.

[48:02]

And then from that meditation, then we turn again here into our life. And then we look at it again. We look at our monastic life. And then we discover and see there and we love again all these vestiges of the heavenly Jerusalem. that are here and characterized our life as monks. And then again, we appreciate the fact that in our life as monks, there are so many activities which, if rightly executed and followed, also spiritually, prepare us for a given, a real preparation for the heaven. Then the next one is to think to keep depth daily before one's eyes.

[49:03]

That's then the last, to keep depth daily before one's eyes. Now, we read and we think about a principle like that, to keep depth daily before one's eyes. Again, I call your attention to it, there are different degrees, different levels. on which you can do it. If you keep death daily before one's eyes, you can consider death in that connection, for example, simply as the physical event which now puts an end to our earthly existence. And then one can, considering it from there, you see, as the end of our earthly life, One can then emphasize, for example, the element of uncertainty of the moment of death. And then, from there, derive the necessity to be ready at any moment, and therefore to see to it that one is in a state of grace, therefore

[50:18]

keep in the state of grace out of fear of certain death. That one layer of, I wouldn't say, towards the only one. There are many other layers and many other functions which this keeping death daily before one's eyes cannot fulfill and should fulfill in our monastic life. There is, for example, the thought of death in its various aspects. Keeping death before one's eyes is not only the end of our lives, not only the day of private judgment, But it is naturally for us. It brings to mind this to be, as Holy Scripture says, the Old Testament so beautifully, to be reunited to one's people. to be reunited to one's people.

[51:21]

We try, as in the old tradition in monastic life, therefore, to make the cemetery part of the whole structure, of the layout of the monastery, to take the deceased into and part of the enclosure. That is, of course, for us, a tremendously important thought, that death, which is on the natural side, is that moment where I can say that man has to go through all alone, that he really faces as an individual. but still and therefore also fears. This is the thing that the most decisive way enters into his life, cuts the thread of life. But at the same time, we come to another higher idea as soon as we realize that this deadness,

[52:29]

especially in the monastic life, is a thing which we in our deepest reality don't face alone. We face it with, together with, and even within the context of the community. Yes, every Christian faces it too in the context of the ecclesia. and not only the ecclesia here on earth, but also of all the saints. The intercession, the beautiful picture of the deesis, which is the picture of judgment. One can say in some way that this whole idea of keeping death daily before one's eyes in a very beautiful way is fulfilled in the presentation of the Eastern Church of the Diocese, where Christ is enthroned as the Judge with the Book of Life in his hand.

[53:31]

And then Our Lady on one side interceding for the members of the New Covenant and St. John the Baptist on the other side interceding for the members of the Old Covenant. It is for us a tremendously consoling thought that death as judgment is the introducing into the company not only of the angels, but of the saints. So then there is with death, always connected also, we have death before our eyes, always the thought of sin. Because it is as through one man death has come into the world, so also through a man resurrection from the dead comes. As all die in Adam, so all shall live again in Christ.

[54:37]

The idea of death and the necessity of death reminds us that we are sons of Adam, that we are dust, and that we shall return unto dust. It reminds of the fact that this is not simply a physical, a biological fact, but that this is a spiritual event. And that this spiritual event has for us taken on a new character because we, children of Adam, are however reborn in Christ. And therefore we shall also die in Christ. And therefore, this, the idea of death, brings to us the idea and the remembrance of our disobedience, because it was disobedience to which death entered into the life of man. and therefore brings to us at the same time also the idea of our obedience, that through the way of obedience, the labor of obedience, we return to the one whom we have left in the sloth of disobedience.

[55:57]

So that in the light of obedience, death to us appears then in a new way, for the obedient man, especially also for the obedient monk. Death is his going home to the Father, because that is the essence of Christ's death. Christ died in opposition to Adam as the obedient son, the obedient son, obedient unto death. And therefore, God gave him a new name. the name Kyrios. And so also for us, and especially for us as monks. And that is the great blessing of the vow of obedience. The vow of obedience, the fulfillment of the vow of obedience for us is a constant daily preparation for death. So at the end of such a life, then, death is the home going to the Father, just as it is for Christ as the Son.

[57:11]

So this whole idea of keeping death daily before one's eyes has these several layers, especially this, you know, that in our monastic life, through the especially through the vow of obedience, we have anticipated death. In other words, through that, death is for us not something that simply happens to us as an accident, regrettable accident, but it is something which is a real action. It is a pascha. It's a passing. There's not something that simply overcomes us as a destiny, as it does with the pagans who have no home, but to us it is by our participation in the pascha of Christ.

[58:17]

Through obedience, through all the various mortifications and crosses that come our way, it is a preparation for us and makes death, one can say, a life-giving action. That is so beautifully expressed in the Mass in which we should read from time to time to prepare ourselves for death, the Mass for the grace of a happy death, which starts in the intro by saying, Enlighten my eyes that I never sleep in death, lest any time my enemies say I have prevailed against him. And how can that be, that we face death with open eyes, and that death is for us an opening of our eyes into our association, our unity with Christ.

[59:22]

None of us rather liveth to himself, and no man dies to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, But whether we die, we die unto the Lord. And therefore, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and rose again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Thank you, Lord, these thy gifts have received from thy Father, the Christ our Lord. Amen.

[60:05]

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