Because I already knew something of Monsignor. As you know, Don Gregory is a good friend of my monastery. He used to come quite often to make his retreat. I had exchanged some letters with Father Basil. So I am very grateful to the Lord that I got this occasion, this opportunity to come to visit you and to spend these few days with you. Amen. Thank you very much for your hospitality and your kindness. Now I am asked to tell you a few words about Bacchomius, of course. Now, poor Don Lillet, I guess he has heard about two or three times what I am going to say. You may be considered as dispensed from the job. Well, Today, all the monks are busy with renovating their office, divine office, and they're trying to create a new monastic liturgy.

[01:10]

So one can be puzzled when he hears that somebody wants today to study the liturgy of the monks of the fourth century. What is the relevance for us? Now, as you know, in the conciliar constitution about liturgy, there is a number which says that no change in liturgy in any point should be made before theological, historical, and pastoral changes. uh study be made about this uh this uh subject on this point so it is only one of the several several uh studies necessary for the renewal of the monastic liturgy that i wanted to to do very little part of the work which has to be done now why i i chose pachomius Well, I wanted first to study the place of the liturgy in monastic life in general.

[02:13]

It was much too general. So I was given the advice to take first a historical point of view, the place of liturgy in the monastic tradition. And then I thought of the early monastic tradition, and I saw after a few months of working that it was much too broad. And I... I get down to the Egyptian monasticism, and then I saw that the Pacomian monasticism was a field broad enough for a thesis. So why I chose Pacomius? For different reasons. Because first, the Pacomian spirituality is very rich. And one of its characteristics, very important, is that this monastic spirituality, neither in its formation nor in its expression, literary expression, has been influenced by the Hellenistic philosophy.

[03:14]

about how the monastic literature you find from the lower Egypt and even from Syria is very influenced by the whole complex of Hellenistic thought and philosophy. That's not a bad thing at all because it was a good way of expressing But it is always difficult to distinguish what is the expression and the philosophical elements of the expression and the substance. And the whole Pacomian spirituality is expressed in very simple biblical terms, biblical conceptions, so it is more easy to see what is the essential. And then Pacomius was interesting for me also, because we have in the Pacomian monasticism one very pure expression of the synoptical form of life. In Lower Egypt, we have a kind of mixed form of life, semi-anachoretical.

[04:21]

Now, since our monasticism in the Western Church for the moment is mainly synoptical, I thought it was better to take one historical expression of this tradition. And then one other reason why I took Pacomius was because I thought the source material was more simple, less confused. If you take the apostate material, you get into the textual problems, which are absolutely no solution possible. But as a matter of fact, sources were much less simple than I thought. And I had to spend months and months and months trying to determine the value of each source before I could get to my liturgical work. And it was very interesting for me, at least. I don't know if it is for the reader. It's very dry. Now, when I came to the liturgical part of my work, the title was The Place of Liturgy in Pacomian Monasticism, what I was interested in was not precisely the little practice, how many sounds here, how many bows, but the theological place in their spirituality, in their life.

[05:40]

That's the reason why I had to study first their conception of monastic life. And it appeared to me that The basic element of their spirituality is the national community, what they call the . The old monastic spirituality is centered on this idea People get together to communicate, to commune in their whole search for God, in their whole ascetical, liturgical life. This element of kainonia, community, is the key to interpret all the other elements of their life, the organization of work as well as the organization of liturgy. Now for liturgy, it's not very easy to give a summary, because I studied different points separately. Because what I wanted to do was not to reconstruct the liturgy, but simply to explain which elements we find in the sources

[06:45]

about their liturgical practice and to study each one of these elements and to explain what the source tell us. But there are a lot of things the source don't tell us. So we don't have to try to reconstruct it, but just to give a description. So I studied the place of baptism in their life, the Eucharist. And the divine office, of course, and penance, and funeral rites, and a few other things. The celebration of Easter, which is extremely important for them. Now, the part I like, I prefer, surely is the part on baptism. Baptism has a very great importance in Pacomian monasticism. First, many of the disciples of Pacomius came to the monastery as pagan, or as catechum, and they came directly from paganism, and they entered at the same time both in the Christian community and in the monastic community, which was one thing for them.

[07:54]

And they made their period of catechumenate inside the monastery. They were instructed at the same time to the Christian life and to this peculiar form of Christian life, which is the monastic life. And after their period of formation, they were baptized. But as you know, the... During the time of Pacomius, there were nine monasteries which Pacomius founded. And every year at the time of Easter, all the monks from all the monasteries came together in this central monastery of Pabu, and where they celebrated together during two weeks, the Pascha. The Pascha is the holy week. And the Saturday night is the conclusion of Pascha, which begins the celebration of the resurrection, which continues during one week. And then there is the Pentecost. The Pentecost is the 50 days in which we celebrate the resurrection. At that time, as you know, the Pentecost is not a feast of the Holy Spirit.

[08:59]

It is simply the 50 days in which we celebrate Pascha. And then later on, it became the tradition, the feast of the Holy Spirit is the fifth day. And during the celebration of the Pascha, the passage of the Lord, in the fast, in the Holy Scripture, the last day, in the Holy Saturday, is the celebration of the Resurrection, of which the main elements are the baptism of the catechumens and the celebration of the Eucharist. And there you see, by baptism, baptism is not only a kind of material rite, in which we pour water on the head, the man has become Christian. Baptism is the integration of a man in the Christian community and in a real concrete local community. By baptism, the postulant is integrated into the church by its and through its integration into the local monastic community, which is considered as a local church.

[10:05]

So that's the reason why baptism has so great importance in their spirituality. At that time, there is no vow. There is a kind of promise of living according to the rules of the monastery when they enter, but no vows as we understand today. That's the reason why the whole monastic life is considered by Pacomius as the application, the implementation of the promises of baptism. Nothing else. And the monk wants to fulfill all the precepts of the Lord and the whole accent, the whole stress is put on this totality, on this absoluteness of the faithfulness to the commandments of God. So about baptism, I think it is the most important element for the Eucharist. As for any other liturgical elements of their life, the monks had no special practice.

[11:11]

different from the one of the other Christians of their time. Liturgy had in their place the same place as it should have in any Christian life. So for the external practice, it simply conformed to the practice of their church. So since the practice in Egypt at that time was to celebrate the Eucharist on Saturday night and Sunday morning, they simply accepted this practice in the monastery. At the beginning, they were very related to the local church, the local village. They used to go to celebrate the Eucharist with the peasants there. And then when the monasteries closed, had a greater number of monks. They built a church inside the monastery and began celebrating in the monastery, but it was still the clergy from the town, the village, which came to the monastery as long as there were not priests in the monastery for a few times.

[12:14]

And then for the divine office, At that time, it is a little anachronistic to speak of divine office or liturgical prayer as distinct from the private prayer. We should speak of the common prayer. And we cannot separate, if we want to know what meaning, which meaning they give to this common prayer, we cannot separate this study from the study of their whole life of prayer. The precept of New Testament they wanted to fulfill first was the precept of praying continuously, praying without sin. And all of the monks did that. And there were many ways of trying to do that, to pray without It's easy, if the word is English. It's easy. It's easy. And for the Pakomian monks, it was something very, very natural, very simple.

[13:22]

It consists on praying during the whole day while doing other things, while walking, while walking, doing any other occupation of the normal life, but to accompany these occupations with prayer. And the prayer par excellence was the recitation of the Holy Scripture. Monks, when they came to the monastery, had to learn by heart many passages of the Holy Scripture. And they were supposed to recite them by heart during the whole day continuously. It was their form of prayer, and to have a silent prayer between these recitations. So when they got together for the meetings of prayer in the morning and evening. They had only two meetings of prayer. Well, they simply continued to do what they had done during the whole day. They work in the common room or a little work to make baskets or something like that.

[14:24]

At the same time, one of them went to the and recited by heart one of the passages he knew, a few of them, and then when he had finished to recite it, everybody rose from their seat, because they were sublime, and prostrated themselves on the floor and prayed in silence. And then they stood up and recited together the prayer of the Lord. And then they sat down and heard another reading. And the whole of this was composed only of that. Readings, not reading, recitations by heart, silent prayer, and the recitation of the Passover. It was extremely rudimentary and simple. And so, as you see, there is no special prayer. It is not a new prayer they do at that moment. And the whole stress is the fact that they have to come at least twice a day to communicate in prayer.

[15:32]

The whole stress is in the communion in prayer. It's not a special prayer we do there in the name of the Church, an official prayer, but I would say the ecclesial character, to take a modern word, comes from the fact that it is a communion in prayer. We put in common at that moment the prior, which is one element of our life, as in the rest of the day we put in common all the other elements of our life. I think there is there the base for a beautiful theology of the canonosis, common prior. And then for the other aspects of liturgical life, There is the meeting at Easter, as I told you. And then the reading of Scripture has a great importance also. The reading of Scripture is considered as an element of the common life and something which creates the community as it creates the people of God.

[16:33]

A beautiful text of Theodorus on that. That is why the superior... superior of the monastery, or the superior of each house, because they were divided in houses, had to make many times during the week the catechesis, which was nothing else than the explanation of the word of God, of the gospel. And these catechesis are those made by the superior of the HRs are related to fasting because fasting is considered in the Holy Church as a liturgical practice and a common practice. And the explanation of the Word of God on Wednesday and Friday is strictly related to fasting in these two days. So fasting is a liturgical practice, is a kind of sacramental manifestation of our penance. Now that brings us to penance. Even there, there is a strong notion of community.

[17:37]

There is a consciousness of solidarity in sin as well as in good. When somebody has made a sin, a grave sin, then the whole community is to some extent guilty, and the whole community has to make reparation and to pray the Lord. And there is another aspect, is that when somebody has sinned against the Lord, worthy of speaking to the Lord. He can no more raise his hand and pray to the Lord. But he knows that he can receive metaneia, the grace of conversion, only from God. But he's no more worthy of praying to God. It's a very bad situation. So he comes to his brothers and asks them to pray for him. The accusation of sins is not a kind of humiliation. It can be, but it is not the purpose. It is not to humiliate himself that somebody come to accuse himself, but simply to tell the brothers that he has made a sin, that he is no more worthy of the grace of God, and that they should pray for him and with him to acquire for him from God this grace of conversion of the heart, which will make him again a friend of God.

[19:00]

And I think that's very schematically the most important elements of the liturgical life. There was also the funeral rites, but I don't think it will interest you that much. And even there, there is a notion of communion between the members of the kalyana even after death. they consider that they remain members of the same klinenia after death. And there is a beautiful paragraph, the history, where there is a kind of vision, and the angel explains, well, even if the angel did not come, that did not come, it's that important, it is the doctrine the hagiographer wants to give us, that it is said that when Pacomius died, died, he received from St. Paul how the members of the congregation who had died before him, all the members, the disciples of Pacomius who died before him, were, so to speak, gathered together by St.

[20:12]

Paul, who kept them and gave them to Pacomius when he arrived in heaven and then received his community he had formed. So the continuation of the bonds of the communion, even in heaven after that, Well, as a general view, conclusion of this study, I think we can admire and try to imitate as much as possible two characteristics of the Pacamian attitude. First, it is that they did not try to create a liturgy absolutely distinct from the liturgy of the whole church. Of course, because they were in a special situation as monks, their liturgy took immediately a special character, very... We can say monastic.

[21:15]

But for the celebration of the Eucharist, celebration of baptism, of penance, of the event of catechesis, they simply integrated into their life the elements of the common liturgy of the church and gave it simply a special character. And the second. Lessons, I think, the lessons of equilibrium, of balance. There is absolutely no tension at that time between private prayer and common prayer, between external manifestation, worship and contemplation. All these elements are very well integrated. the liturgical practice, the liturgical prayer is simply a moment of communal expression of the personal prayer which continues at that communal celebration as well as it continues during the whole day.

[22:16]

Now I have only to thank you again for your hospitality. Goodbye. So that was nice. I wish, you know, if we have, for example, a meeting, we can see, I think we all agree to that, you know, how important it is and how much we learn through contact like this. And I wonder if one couldn't do that sometime. And Father, you know, maybe just as we get together for Chan, maybe we could get together also on monastic life, in that way, sometime. And David, you could organize that. And have a meeting, you know, of people of various altars for these things.

[23:20]

In any case, thank you so much. You're simple. Our help is in the name of the Lord. May the Lord bless us and keep us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life. Amen. Amen. Achievement that we buy in the Holocaust. Let's see here. The Feast of St. Basil comes together with the birthday of the American flag. It focuses on the audacity that mentions American politics.

[24:26]

It's certainly occasions it's put before us in an impressive manner. There is even a greater achievement of divine providence to put together the Avatar of Natsuniri at the hour of the Basil's birthday feast, because it has opened new dimensions of singing in the monastic ladder. and it shows immediately what wonderful gift really is it for us. We have seen in you, as it was expressed this morning, such a beautiful way, the difference between rejection and renunciation. Rejection is directed towards somebody else.

[25:33]

It's directed towards oneself and in some way it's suicide. But rejection is, of course, it has its place there where the devil and his children are concerned. But renunciation is really, that is what concerns us, that only oneself can renounce in that way. It's so absolutely true that renouncement is and can be done only in the power of that love that doesn't seek perception. And that was certainly the meaning, really, as I've seen of you. We attempted to sit here, but I don't know if you understand. Again, a tremendous thing. We had this Abbot Ponson who talked very much, but this dimension was not touched. And maybe that is the ancient dimension, the monastic dimension.

[26:46]

And then we can see that this last dimension is a deeply, absolutely human dimension, like God. The Holy Spirit really has to do with the heart and core of man. God's image and likeness, and that is, I think, what we see in you so much, and this visit in that way has been a tremendous blessing to us, and has opened really new perspectives for us, freed from that kind of rejection and inferiority complexes and all this kind of thing. of giving real hope and astound you. Not as knowledge hope, but a humble hope. And all these things we have to find out in our growing and living from day to day.

[27:49]

But certainly it's a wonderful way we are on the way. And you have greatly intended us to put our eyes and hearts into the right direction. I would like to say one thing this morning that's very much to remind. that on the day that you were elected, they said to me, oh, I'm sure of this, I really feel very much alone, that loneliness might be the cross of the Abbot Kynan's position. I wanted to assure you that he may have a special, again through divine providence, a completely special position, significantly our superior's chair. You are really fond to us.

[28:52]

And here you are at home. This is not just one of the many avenues that are firmly relevant to imposing congregations, you know, but here you are, you have a little orphan. And here is your home. And I think we all should be alert. No, but no reservations. So that we look back to your second parousia, glowing, glowing. A hundred seconds. With great hope. We meet together, truly, on an even deeper level. and we have penetrated through all kinds of little layers that you have indicated to yourself when you spoke to us and the veil that we have taken away and there we are in our own poverty and it's awful now.

[30:07]

And you can't see we need you. People need you. And therefore we have the right to call you our Father. And we do it, you know, in our love and gratitude. So if you have a lot of them that we have, there's something to look at now, maybe to communicate. I would like to say a little word, of course. I couldn't help but feel this morning during the homily really quite humble. My mother always told me to take words of praise like perfume, they were to be sniffed at but never swallowed. I was thinking during the homily that perhaps my farewell should be a Neapolitan one.

[31:13]

And I'll explain that. The Neapolitans, when one leaves, he has a little expression. He says it's supposed to be a good omen to augur well for those. And it is, may all your children be male. It is rather providential. It's the Feast of St. Basil, one of the great monastic patrons. It was my father's name. It was the name I wanted in religion, was unable to get because I couldn't shoot Father Basil in order to get it. And Father Basil had been one of my great inspirations, one of the reasons for my vocation, so I couldn't very well do away with him to have the name. I suppose the reason why Basil is so important for us is that he's the great Cenobite, the great vindicator of the Cenobitic way of life.

[32:15]

And if you read the reasons why the Cenobitic life is so preferred by Basil, it consists in the exchange among confreres, the fact that we have spiritual guides among our brethren, and the possibility of sharing each other's contemplata, which the hermit does not have. It would be a shame that if we were Cenobites and didn't share each other's ideas, thoughts, contemplata. It's easier, you know, to give than to receive, though. We all like to give. It makes us feel good. We get a kind of natural joy out of being able to give. It's much harder in community to receive. because receiving makes us dependent on others. It sort of creates a kind of obligation when we take something from somebody else.

[33:19]

And so most of us shy away from receiving because we feel we'll lose a little bit of our independence. And so we have to, in community, to be true Cenobites, receive as well as give. And receiving requires an enormous amount of humility. because we have to open up to take in and realize that we do have needs, that we need others, we need their ideas. There used to be in my little hometown a barber shop, and that barber shop had a sign in the window, we need your head to run our business. That's true in a monastery of Cenobites, you know. Every one of us is needed in order to complement, to make the whole. I wouldn't want to leave with the impression that one group, the intellectuals or the non-intellectuals or the contemplatives, because of where are those that spend more time or have more time for reading versus those who

[34:32]

perhaps spend more time in manual labor, whatever it might be, I wouldn't want to give the impression that any one group is really more important than the other. It's the fact that all of these come together and give what they have to offer that makes the monastic life so rich. In my own community, which perhaps because of the schoolwork, as more people engaged in what you would call intellectual endeavor. But still, those that contribute the most are not necessarily those who are the brightest. One can't weigh any of this. Even those that come out often with the most profound statements are those that simply look at life from pure common sense and not too much lucubrations. So one never knows the contribution that you're making, what you're giving to the community, and one shouldn't even worry about it.

[35:35]

Just give, just be, and just receive, and in this way you will grow, and all your children will be male. I am looking forward to next summer, to be back. I really am, without any fears. In fact, I'm probably will come alone and not worry about bringing anybody with me to make the visitation if it's all right with you. I sort of felt after this one that to have somebody else sitting there impedes a bit the personal contact. So if it's all right with you, I'll just make it myself. And I will take a longer time because I realize that there's a need to spend probably about two weeks to do it right. And I sensed that at Weston, since there were fewer, I was able to keep the routine in its totality. This gave me a much better idea of the life they're living. Here I cheated a bit because the day was a little strenuous.

[36:37]

And I would like, when I make the visitation next summer, to be able to live the life a little more fully. I think one can judge a little better the whole that way and take a little more time. Again, many thanks. I feel at home very much so. I have no fears about that. I would like to ask you to say a few little prayers for some of my... A few words, you know, to what we spoke about yesterday. And he said to me, all right, be frank. Deo gratia. That is the marvelous thing. And I'm so glad we're doing this without the advice of psychological experts. We do it in the Holy Spirit, you know. That is the thing, for heaven's sake. So we may make some mistakes, and also I, I must confess, I feel just in the mood, you know.

[37:45]

I mean, but you are in for a picnic, you know. Absolutely. Because I think this is a very decisive moment in our whole development, and I think one has to speak with great frankness. Don't get the impression that I am a gin, you know. Father Elias and his plans or studies or anything like that. Absolutely not. I feel completely free, even very eager to have them, but I feel a great responsibility towards the community that we do this absolutely knowing into what we get, what we get into, clear picture of the future, because that has been missing in the past. I know that very well. Here and there is one other term. because of lack of frankness. And we just have to break through this and we have to get beyond it and we have to do it now. So when we invited Father Hugh here, we said now, let the chips fall where they may fall, but be absolutely free, feel absolutely free to do and to say what you think should be said.

[39:03]

Now, unfortunately, and of course, I mean, Heather Hughes' own prudential judgment, you know, at the time was such, you know, that we let it, it's not so, okay, Heather's secret, and we let it, we had to respect that, you know, but, On the whole, it was just, to my mind, a masterpiece of evasion, the point of evasion. And that should not happen again. At least we should do what we can to avoid any situations like that, and then later on make decisions in the fog, more or less, decisions which then maybe in the end nobody is satisfied. But I wanted to call your attention to one thing, and that is this, that you feel, that you see so clearly. For example, now in the case of Father Martin, who had to, certainly simply through this incident yesterday and the day before yesterday, simply had to go and rather bask very much in this tour as guest master and so on.

[40:13]

come into a situation in which then he's simply forced to be absent from the community. And I hope for one thing, and that's also for the future, that the community realises that the superior is not absolutely an angel who can just do everything, but that he is a human being like everybody else, and that he has his limitations, and that he absolutely has to get the time also to be able to think by himself. And you have certain times and hours in the day. You could see the Albert Pyle, who in that way is a marvel of prudence and of complete self-possession. And he says, yes, I have these many hours from nine to one, from four to seven, schluss, that's it. The rest of the time, I absolutely need for myself, and otherwise I cannot function.

[41:20]

And the same is true It is true.

[41:23]

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