in connection with the conferences that Father Luke Caulfield gave to us the other day. I promised we would talk a little about the maturity and the monk, the mature monk. We may start in doing that first by trying to explain the meaning of maturity, the general meaning of maturity, as originally a biological concept, which then, however, is transferred also to man as anima rationale. as a reasonable being endowed with a mind, so that then we also speak of mental maturity.

[01:05]

And then let us tonight, maybe still in the second part, touch upon the supernatural maturity, the maturity of the Christian. And those two parts probably will be enough for tonight. Let us start then with the general meaning of maturity as a biological concept. It seems to me it involves two things. Maturity is reached then when the process, what we call growth, augmentatio, has come to a standstill. Maturity is reached then when the organism has reached its full self-realization.

[02:07]

The potentiality of the seed has been all those who study scholastic philosophy or have studied it will know what I mean, has been reduced into act. Therefore, maturity means, first of all, the perfection of the grown-up, of its inner form. But that is not all. Maturity, then, not only the inner perfection of the organism, but as all perfection, it manifests itself in abundance. So it is maturity connected with the capacity to reproduce, or what we call fertility.

[03:10]

So these two things, perfection, inner perfection, and fertility, mark maturity as a biological concept. Then, when we apply it now to man as an animal rational, as a reasonable animal, then we speak not only of biological, but also of mental maturity, but a mental maturity which is based on and is in harmony with the biological maturity. Because man as anima rationale is not divided into two unrelated parts, a body and a soul, but is one substance. The reasonable animal, the spiritual soul, informs the body and constitutes with it one substance.

[04:18]

And therefore we really speak of mental maturity in man only then when and as far as it is in harmony with this biological maturity. If we see, for example, certain mental or spiritual faculties developed in a way which is out of proportion to the biological maturity, we speak of a child as being, how is it, precocious? Precocious. Precocious. Precocious. So, therefore, the mental maturity in man is based and is in harmony with the biological maturity. Now, in what does it consist? This mental maturity also takes on, one can say, shows the essential features of biological maturity.

[05:32]

First of all, we would consider a human being mature in a human mental way when it has reached a certain degree of self-realization. in the development and history of every human being, we see he comes to a point where he ceases to be a disciple, where he ceases to exist only by learning, where he ceases just to act by imitating others, but where he has found, as it were, his own law, his own self, and that is maturity. Just as in the biological way, maturity is reached there, where the process of augmentation, of augmentation, of growth, has come to the full realization of the initial potentiality of the seed,

[06:49]

So also in the spiritual or in the mental field, that human being is mature, that, as we say, has found itself, that has the centre of gravity in itself, is not existing on approval, but has reached a certain mental independence the realization of its own value and correspondingly a certain freedom and superiority of action, a personal depth and an emotional stability which is based on this personal depth. together with the self-realization, the perfection, in other words, of the inner personal form, we find at the same time in the way of acting of the mature person the special form of competence or mastery.

[08:06]

Maturity is connected with competence, or we may say mastery. The one who has found himself is also and loathes it and has his own actions in his power. And, as for example, he is able to mentally stand on his own feet and act on his own. Let us say in the field of intellectual development, the field of the scholar, the scholar then has reached maturity when from the learning he proceeds to the research or in the crafts from the apprentice to the master. So it's with maturity is given that competence and mastery of action also a certain facility of action.

[09:13]

All that what we comprehend in the Latin word of virtus. Pax in virtute, as he said the other day. That makes the mature man, as far as self-realization, finding of his own inner form, his inner form of being as his form of acting is concerned. But that is not all. This, the maturity, the mental maturity, seems to me consists also in the special conditions of a human being which is composed of many complex, different faculties, sections, regions of life, intellectual, voluntative, emotional,

[10:15]

practical, theoretical, all these things, all these fields are found in the human person. The maturity is reached when the inner variety and richness of the human person has found a unification. The unification of the inner man is an expression of maturity. This unification of the inner man is, in a general way that is the same for every human being, consists in the ordering or organizing or coordination of the various faculties. especially the coordination or relation of the theoretical and the practical faculties, theory and practice.

[11:23]

It is a sign of immaturity when theory and practice are not related to one another. The mature man combines ideal and action. Hence that, in a more specific way, is realized in the interrelation, effective interrelation, of intellect and will and appetites, expressed in the ordering and control of these various faculties under the leadership of the intellect as the most universal and therefore most mature. Wisdom in a mature man is the leader which determines the last goal of his actions and coordinates the other activities and faculties of man to work together for the reaching of this last goal.

[12:35]

Prudence, besides wisdom, is needed in a mature man as the rudder which keeps the even course, the straight course, by choosing the right means for the last goal which wisdom has determined. Stability, consistency, and fortitude in execution, all these characterize the mature personality as far as the harmony and unification of the inner man under the leadership of wisdom is concerned. That is, in a general way, the unification of the inner man. In the individual way, maturity is reached in a relative, not in an absolute way, but in a relative way according to the predominant character of the human individual.

[13:42]

When I speak of wisdom as the leader, I speak of the human being as anima rationale. But in the concrete individual, this general order takes a more individual realization. according, for example, to various temperaments, according to the different character and endowment of nature. In, for example, a choleric temperament the maturity may be reached in the concrete form of, let us say, the soldier, the accomplished soldier. In a woman, the coordination of the inner man may be reached in the accomplished function as a mother. Motherhood may be, as for example, in a woman, become the center of gravity, the guiding dominant form.

[14:50]

Or in the scholar, it is the intellect, say, the mathematical intellect or the historical interest or whatever it may be in the artist, the aesthetical feeling. And so maturity in the individual consists in this, that the many possibilities of the young boy or girl, of the young one, that's always the great The great problem of youth is that there are so many possibilities and not yet one predominant necessity. It is the character of maturity and of the mature person to have crystallized more and more into one concrete predominant character.

[15:53]

and an activity which corresponds to it. So that is the unification of the inner man as a sign of maturity. But it doesn't stay there. The human person, the anima rationale, is also necessarily, through its rationality, nationalitas, also anima sociale. Therefore the integration, as Dr Caulfield mentioned again and again, the integration of the individual person into the surroundings is another aspect, an important aspect. of maturity. And I would consider that integration under three different aspects. One, the integration into the reality in a general way, the reality of things, the reality of the world.

[17:01]

Then integration in a more specific way into the social world, social relation. and then in the end, as a kind of appendix, integration into time. The integration into reality, into the world of reality, is the mature man is distinguished from the youth in this way that the daydreaming has ceased under the leadership of truth, the person has reached what we call maturity of judgment. That maturity of judgment forms an essential part of the maturity of the human person because this maturity of judgment secures the right contact and the right adjustment to the reality.

[18:07]

as Dr. Caulfield said, with both feet standing on the ground. That is achieved in man through the maturity of judgment. This maturity of judgment enables the mature man, with a certain ease and with a certain readiness, for example, to subordinate the unimportant to the important, It's a characteristic, it seems to me, of the child not to be able to distinguish and to subordinate the important and to the unimportant to the important. But that it either considers all things of equal importance, that, for example, the child is in that way easily distracted. A child may cry from the bottom of

[19:08]

his heart, and one may just, you know, let loose a little mouse, you know, that drives itself, the whole attention is gone, and there is something else, and whoops, the whole picture has changed, and the tears, while they are still lingering on the cheeks, you know, they are already replaced by, surrounded by a smile. So that is one, you see. I mean, there is that all things, you know, that occur in that way also of importance, the distinction and especially subordination. Therefore, it's so difficult for the child, for example, to convince the child that now it has to eat, you see. Maybe if the hunger, you know, involves that, there's another question. But otherwise, you know, the playing around or the running away from the table and doing something else and playing for a moment, then maybe come back and put another spoon into the mouth, you know, or something.

[20:18]

All that, you see, this chaotic... an unorganised relation to the external, to the outside world, for completely always self-centred in that way. Also, too important and constitutive, I would say, for the mature man with maturity of judgement is the ease with which he is able to abandon the impossible for the possible. Also that belongs certainly to that integration with reality. Some people have a terrible time to distinguish between the possible and the impossible. And so many people get completely fascinated by the impossible. Then there is a third, you know, category which belongs to the maturity of the person.

[21:21]

All that, you know, is just kind of tentatively said, you know. I mean, I say that with a kind of authoritative air, but I mean there are simply only the ex, you know, development of thoughts, you know, that came to me in the course of the day. The subordinating of the the subordinating of the intrinsic or objective value to the personal appeal. The immature person is, in his actions, driven by the approval, as Dr Caulfield mentioned that. Therefore, it reacts also to the personal appeal, that, let us say, what flatters, that what is in some way personally sympathetic, or that what one likes, that one does.

[22:27]

or the people one likes with those one deals, personarum accessio, as St. Benedict calls it in his rule. Instead of that, it is the characteristic of a mature person to be able to subordinate the personal appeal the personal appeal to the intrinsic value of the thing or of the person with which one deals. And finally, the maturity, the mature person shows a certain ability and readiness to wait and to work on the long-range perspective. It's that elasticity and the perseverance not to give up the long-range program, but at the same time to be able to wait and to be elastic in the pursuing of your ends.

[23:42]

So these things would refer to the integration of the mature personality to the surroundings, to the things, projects and so on, and persons one deals with. But then there is also necessary, or part of maturity, the integration in social relations, It is to say that the mature person in that way is adjusted, as we say, socially adjusted. There is, for example, as characteristic of the maturity, the ability to meet the other as other, open oneself to the other person as other. and in that way be able to enter, for example, into a real dialogue.

[24:47]

It is the characteristic of the immature person not to be able to conduct any dialogue as it's, for example, so visible today in any conversation. The people are getting rarer and rarer who instead you know, limiting conversation to a matter of entertaining others by stories, you know, that's a kind of an easy way of conversation. For example, receive, understand and reciprocate an argument. That kind of entering into a dialogue with the other, understanding the other, answering the other, is therefore, I say, the meeting of the other as other is an integral part of mental maturity.

[25:50]

Then also, secondly, the taking on of social responsibility. the sense of duty, the realization of the necessity of service, of taking on a function within a whole, and with responsibility to the whole, is characteristic of the mature person. The child, the teenager, are unable to do so. But there is connected another one, Characteristic in that is the capability of thinking in terms of the whole, thinking in terms of the whole. And with increasing and growing maturity, this whole is being extended from the family to the community, from the community to the people, from the people to mankind.

[26:56]

That is also, it seems to me, part of that integration of the mature, mentally mature person as against individualism, which is the inability to feel with the other or for the other, the inability of meeting social obligations, living up to them, obligations to parents, obligations to family, obligations to children, and so on. And then in the end, the last form of integration, if the mature person seems to me, is the integration in time. It is a characteristic note of the mentally mature person until live in a reasonable continuity with the past through memory as against forgetfulness.

[28:08]

But of course that memory is the same time as a, let us say, practical working memory. as a memory which leads to what we call and makes itself fruitful in man through what we call learning by experience. That growth where the present moment and the present decision, for example, grows out of the experiences of the past from which one learns. That is a sign of a mature person. And finally, the continuity into the future. The mature person does not live in the moment and for the moment, but the mature person is what we would call a provider. The providencia, or what in English is called foresight, is part of that continuity.

[29:17]

in which the mature person is integrated not only with the past through the experience but also to the future with foresight, the sign of an immature person, undeveloped person in that way, if it is constantly caught by surprise, as we say. So the looking forward, foresight, In doing the present, already be prepared for the future, also is a part of that fullness of maturity. So if that would be the maturity, the mentally mature person, as far as its own perfection or the realization of its own inner form, in its relation to the milieu is concerned, we still have to speak about the fertility or self-reproduction organically, but transferred then to the mental maturity.

[30:32]

Mental maturity also shows clearly these signs, the ability, to say, self-reproduction, fertility, or abundance. The abundance mentally is the ability to share one's mental riches with others. And that is done in different ways. First, there is the most evident sign of mental maturity, the most but is the sharing of truth. A person is mentally mature when he is able not only to learn for himself, but also to teach others. That is a sign of maturity. Therefore, the maturity of the teacher and teaching and fatherhood

[31:35]

was always, as long as mankind exists, were always related to one another. The biological fatherhood was, since the first days of the Bible, connected with the mental readiness and ability of the teacher. Then there is the other abundance and the sharing and fertility of which consists in the sharing of goals. Make others participate in your goals. And that is the maturity of the leader. If one man is able to impart or to direct other people, into the same goal, then what we call a leader. A leader, therefore, is that personality which not only is able to share truth, but also is able to share ends, is finality, as it were.

[32:45]

And then comes, in the end, the abundance in relation to things, and that is the abundance of the maker or of the administrator. That is another sign of the part of the mature person, the mature person as maker of things, to say the artificer, or as the administrator of things. In all this, that may be a last word then, if we look back on it, this maturity is reached in man as a reasonable animal, only as the end of a process, and of a process which, especially as far as mental maturity is concerned, is the fruit of a certain labor. No mental maturity without labor.

[33:51]

where that labour, that growing up against resistance, is not given, when, for example, the circumstances in which a human person grows up are too easy, then mental immaturity may easily be one of the consequences of such a situation. So the prize of maturity is labour. As Goethe says already, I mean, concerning the development of natural man, the mystery, the secret of maturity is the eternal stirb und werde, die and become, dying and becoming, or becoming through dying. But that I only, you know, indicate as, because that is then, let us say, the decisive point which we have to develop.

[34:58]

We apply now these ideas and compare them to the maturity of the monk. Now, in concerning the relation to the maturity of the monk, we have to consider, first of all, that the monk is and wants to be the perfect full Christian. And therefore, we have to look at the maturity of the monk in the light of Christian maturity. One thing is right away is evident when we and maybe puzzles us as soon as we approach the problem of the maturity of the monk. Evidently, with the monk, as with every Christian, a new factor enters the field. It's not only anymore the biological factor, it is not only anymore a mental factor which is based on and substantially united to the material, organic,

[36:15]

biological maturity, as in man considering his philosophical nature. But here a new factor enters the field, and that is the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the Spirit, which is the characteristic of Christianity. Christianity is essentially, from the moment on in which it enters into the world, is, as I say, spiritual maturity. It's spiritual fullness. It enters this world as spiritual fullness. That, you see, is visible. You know, we see that right away. The Holy Spirit, when you consider the rule, right away you meet it there in St. Benedict himself. That is, it seems that as soon as we enter the field of spiritual values and realities, spiritual in distinction to mental, as we said before, the spiritual, that means the Holy Spirit,

[37:33]

There, it seems, there is an element which often seems to upset the biological pattern, seems to be independent of the biological pattern. On the Feast of St. Benedict, we celebrate our Holy Father with these words, qui ab ipso puritiae sue tempere, cor gerens senile, etatem moribus transiens, nulli animum voluptati dedit. St. Benedict, who, from the first time of his childhood, already possessed the heart of a grown-up, of a mature, cogerens senile, of a mature man, etate moribus transiens, He transcended his biological age by his, or let us say, his morals.

[38:37]

Or when you read the third chapter in the Rule of Saint Benedict, where he speaks about the Concilium, the Council of the Brethren, and then says that the Holy Spirit very often reveals exactly to the younger one what is better, and that therefore, in his monastic council, not only the signores, according to the age, should sit, as that was the course, let us say, in the Roman Senate, from which probably the name Senate, you know, it is derived, Senate, the Collegium Seniorum. So, therefore, that is broken through in the monastic. The monastic community is not a Senate, but there everybody is gathered together

[39:49]

also those who have been just, let us say, called by the Holy Spirit, although there may be 20 or 18 or so. So, because the fullness of the Spirit has brought them into the monastery, and the monastery is the community which lives in the fullness of the Spirit, and therefore, does not take into consideration the biological age. So that is, on the one side, seems that the Holy Spirit transcends the maturity of the spirit, transcends the biological defect of the age, your immaturity. But then we have on the other side, we have the, or shall we say the opposite? No, it isn't exactly the opposite. But we have the fact that the monk, in virtue of the same Holy Spirit, in the virtue of the same Holy Spirit, the monk may grow old biologically, and still in the spirit he is young.

[41:10]

notwithstanding the development of his body, he remains a disciple, he remains a child of his spiritual father, he remains in that basic relation in which the child is to his spiritual father, the relation of obedience. In that way, the monk, so to speak, never comes biologically or mentally, in that way, into his own. But the Holy Spirit puts him into a different relation. As Saint Ambrose said, I think it wasn't so long ago, faith, that means the whole world of the supernatural, does not know any age. so that always we as Christians in general always remain young, we remain children, as reborn in the new life of the resurrection.

[42:17]

The monk vows even the conversio morum, which certainly means that he for his entire life should always always grow and grow and grow in God, and that the constant repeated admonition to him is, now I begin, now today when you hear his word, don't harden your heart. so through the gift of the Holy Spirit, biological immaturity may be transcended by spiritual maturity. And in a similar way, the biological maturity may be accompanied constantly and does not interfere with, let's say, the youth of the Spirit.

[43:20]

Now, if Oh, I think this is time. We can continue.

[43:27]

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