And you must be kind to them that send you out to their music theatre, but she and them must have a child. rather it's being meditated on the mystery of creation and of sin. Now I want to go on to consider the mystery of death and resurrection, which, as you know, is really the central mystery of our lives, and the central mystery, I would say, of the whole Biblical revelation. And in following up this

[01:02]

theme, I think it's good for us to keep our minds on the Bible. If we always should be trying to understand this hidden mystery in the Bible. You know, when our Lord was speaking to the disciples at Emmaus, that one that you've seen after the resurrection, he reproved them because they did not know that the Son of Man hath to suffer and be glorified. And then he began to expound to them all the scriptures beginning with Moses the prophet, showing how they spoke of him. And I always feel that that is what we are all seeking. If we could have heard that discourse then we should have had the key to the Scriptures. But I think in a very real sense that key was given to the Church. That the Apostles and after them the Fathers had this insight into the mystery of the Scriptures.

[02:07]

They could see Christ hidden. And it is really very hidden. After all, if you were to pick out any text of the Old Testament which really clearly indicates the resurrection, I think you'll be rather baffled. It's a very, very hidden mystery, and yet I'm sure it is present from beginning to end. Incidentally, the same can be said of Our Lady. If you want to pick out texts referring explicitly to Her, I rather doubt that you will find anything beyond Isaiah chapter 7. But if you want to inquire into the mystery of Mary, You can begin with Genesis, the story of Eve, and you can go on to the Apocalypse, you can go to Jerusalem and you'll find Jesus present everywhere. So all these great mysteries are hidden, and we have to seek them out in the light of Christ. Now this mystery of death and resurrection, I think we can see very very clearly indicated.

[03:10]

First of all, We look at the biblical history, and don't let us forget these early stories of Genesis, although we don't take on a strict history. and we now have a limited existence, as the Ephesians and the Hebrew people gradually formed in the course of many centuries, but we can quite clearly discern in them the work of divine revelation, the mystery of God's dealing with men. Well, as you know, we have this story of the creation and the fall. And I did mention, I should have done yesterday, a very important aspect of the fall, and that is the place of the serpent, and what one may call the demonic path. We were trying to think of the mystery of sin in ourselves, its hidden depth of sin, but I should really have said that when we really go into these depths,

[04:18]

realize these hidden forces are still in our nature, we cannot but be conscious of these daemonic powers. Actually, you know, many psychologists, though they wouldn't have to use the same phrase, are quite aware that there are forces in our nature which are really daemonic. They're certainly not simply forces of our own personal being. They go beyond it. And I mentioned Hitler and the forces which he let loose, which I think a Dulles person could see, were clearly demonic forces. And we should be conscious that we're living today in a world where these demonic forces are present. They are not yet present, unfortunately, in quite the same way as we are accustomed. If you are in Africa, and even now still in some parts of India, you are conscious of demonic powers.

[05:23]

There are witch doctors and magicians who clearly have certain and allow it's width, harmonic paths, and do very remarkable things sometimes. But you know in the school tape letters, which I think most of you have read, I think CS Lewis really did something very valuable there, by showing us how the devil and the demons are really working in our life but in a way which we don't discern. As he pointed out, the greatest triumph of the devil is to get people to believe that he doesn't exist. Do you remember that story of the man who went into the British Museum and he was reading some book or other just out of general interest and he suddenly found his conscience struck and he began to meditate on sin and the realities of his life and this was the first time he'd done it for a long time and then the time came

[06:33]

for lunch. And the thought occurred to him that he ought to go and have his lunch, and then he thought, well this is very interesting, perhaps I ought to go on thinking this out. And then the thought came, oh it's much better to go and have some lunch first, and then you'll be able to think it out more clearly afterwards. And these were the various suggestions of the devil. And so he went out, and as soon as he got outside the British Museum and he saw the fascism of people and nice going on generally, he began to think, well, now it's an extraordinary thing that I should have those ideas in my mind. Now I'm, this was just a kind of disease, and now I'm getting back to real life again. And very soon after all that meditation brought out his mind. Well, I think that's a very good example, you see, of this action of ego. It's this circus of life.

[07:35]

All the buses and things going by us all the time, which, well, they're buses, they're off the coast of London, you see. Buses are the principal feature. So, any surface pattern of life impresses us, and we think this is real, this is real life. And then these thoughts of sin, and of death, and the after-death, these things are hidden, and they very easily seem to us just fantasies. So that is how evil is working continually. It creates this illusion and prevents us being behind the illusion. So we should recognize that there are these demonic powers in nature, in ourselves, and working in human life. And we can't really see the modern world as it is, unless we're prepared to see beneath the surface these terrifying forces which are at work there.

[08:44]

When you consider simply, for instance, the number of people in America or in most countries of Europe in mental hospitals, you see what a terrible crisis of the human spirit it is. I mean, I think that is one of the most painful and difficult of all trials which affects mankind, and yet we know it's increasing day by day, and it shows the tremendous forces underneath which create a kind of lack of balance in human nature and so people lose the balance of their minds. So we have to see this pattern of sin and evil and the forces of evil dominating the world. And that is the biblical view of life, isn't it? After the fall we see Cain and Abel, we see passion let loose and a man murdering his brother.

[09:47]

And then we are allowed to see the forces of evil prevailing over the world. All of it, one can say, is due to man's endeavour to be independent of God. The rival gives us the figure of the Tower of Babel, which is very significant in that way. I think it's intended to signify this attempt to build up a civilization without the assistance of God. I think she took this Tower of Babel, which is probably as vigorous as we know in ancient Babylonian towers, as typical of this Babylonian civilization, which was building this tower up to heaven, where man could dominate the world, and that surely is an exact figure of what the world has been doing, or has been doing very clearly in our own time, this attempt to build up a world of independence of God.

[10:55]

And you make wonderful, and the difficulty is that you have wonderful success when you set about it. I mean, Robinson has really produced prodigious works. and has advanced mankind in innumerable ways. And yet, because it is building independence of God to a large extent, it always brings with it, for every new discovery which brings new life, venison and so on, brings with it also a heart of destruction. So that we have this terrible the words of tension in our life today, that with all the new forces leading to a better life for mankind, we are at the same time building up destructive forces which leave us all in fear of entering the end of the world. Well I think that surely is really a working out of this biblical view of life.

[11:57]

that man has these wonderful powers given him by God and he uses them without reference to God. Inevitably he puts himself in the hands of evil forces which can bring about his destruction. And therefore the story of the flood is very very significant at that early stage of the Bible. God looked upon the world that he created and the whole evil was triumphing over the whole world and it repented him that he had made the world. It's all very of course, but it does give us a very striking view of this domination of sin and the destruction which falls upon sin. And I think we want to keep that in mind. We're living in a world where we're making these great advances in science and technology, we're building up a great civilization, and I think we must keep the balance very careful.

[12:58]

It is the work of God in all this, without any question. But there is also this flaw in all human work. There is this failure to depend upon God and therefore we let in the forces of evil into everything we do and there is terrible frustration in all human endeavors. Those of you who have lived long enough lived through two world wars, will know the sense one gets that whenever you begin to advance towards any state of peace or prosperity or a better life, something comes along and destroys it. And I think we have to face the fact that that is the condition under which we live. These forces of evil are present in ourselves, as we were saying yesterday, in mankind and in the universe, and they are allowed to prevail, never finally of course, but to a large extent.

[14:00]

And therefore we live under this dominion of evil and with this fear of destruction, a destruction which will inevitably come. And so the Bible gives us this sense of sin dominating the world, of God's wrath and His judgment. And that we see going through all the Old Testament. And I think we should take that seriously, this sense of man's sin and of God's judgment. And then with that, of course, goes this mystery of redemption. That in all these judgments of God, there is a saving grace emerging. In the flood, we have the story of Noah and his family. and a wonderful symbolic story of how the human race is saved, and with the human race the animal creation, because God is concerned with the whole creation, and a new beginning is laid.

[15:03]

You're always having this Death and destruction and then ultimately a new beginning. Death and resurrection. And the first indication of this mystery is surely there in Duryodhana, this mystery of death and resurrection. Actually it was from the New Testament, it was very conscious of it, you know that reference to the flood in the first epistle of St. Peter, where he says that Noah and seven others were saved with him in the ark, which was the height of baptism, that through these waters which destroy a new life comes to birth. and resurrection. The waters are a sign of death, and they're also a sign of new life. And incidentally, I don't know whether those who had Father Dernier low will know the significance of the number eight. It's very interesting that he says he had seven others with him, bathed in the waters of the flood, and there's no doubt that eight is this mysterious number which signifies resurrection.

[16:09]

seven days the world was made and it was closed for the seventh day. But our Lord rose on the eighth day. calculated. That's to say, it's the new day of eternity. The seven days represent the week of time, and then comes Sunday, the eighth day of the resurrection and the new life. And therefore, the eighth day and the number eight was always held to signify the resurrection, and that is why many baptisteries in the ancient churches were octagonal in form. And the early church was very solemn. So as I was saying, the flood is just a symbol of death and resurrection. And then again, the great themes of the New Testament, the Exodus. And there again we have the same mystery. And then, for the Israelites, the dominion of sin, of evil, enslaved in Egypt.

[17:19]

Egypt, of course, represents this world with the demonic powers which rule over it. And God saves Israel from Egypt taking them through the waters of the Red Sea where fadowing of his hosts are drowned. Same as death and destruction comes from Egypt and through the waters the Israelites pass to the new life. I'm sure all these themes are familiar to you, but I just want to recall them, because I think it's so important that we should always have these references in our lives. Ever since I read these books of Fr. Daniel Liew, who is my sort of guru, Theology of the Old Testament shall give, really. These themes have always been in the background of my mind. And in our liturgy, as I was mentioning with Syrian liturgy, these Old Testament themes are constantly present. And it does show how the early church lived. from these mysteries. If you know any of the ancient churches with their decorations, I remember St.

[18:23]

Mary Major, I think it is in Rome, where you have a wonderful series of frescoes in which all these mysteries of the Old Testament are set round without any explanation because the early Christians were instructed in their catechesis in these mysteries of the Old Testament. It was through them, through their symbolism, that they would learn to understand Baptism and the Eucharist and the Sanctification of the Cross. So, Mary and the flood, the Exodus, the passage through the Red Sea, these are symbols of death and resurrection. And then we come to the supreme symbol in the Old Testament, really the key to the understanding of the whole, and that is the exile in Babylon. That is really the turning point. May I just recall the background to it, because I think it's so wonderfully significant.

[19:25]

You remember that God promises to Abraham that he will have this land, his inheritance, and his people shall be of the sand of the sea, and they shall settle in this land and prosper there. And then he promises that he gets the law under Moses, and he makes a covenant, and he swears that the covenant shall never be broken, and he leads the people into the promised land under Joshua, and he gives St. David for our king, and he established his kingdom and his rule over the surrounding people, and then Solomon is given to build the temple. And so you see this great sort of work of God being built up The people settle in the land, they gospel there and multiply, they have the door established, the beast in its beginnings, they have this firm covenant with God in which they trust, they are devoted to their king, and they are able to worship God in his temple.

[20:27]

And it seems that all the promises of God have been fulfilled. And then immediately after Solomon, you know, the kingdom is divided, Rehoboam and Jeroboam, and dissolved upon Israel from that moment. And it gradually leads up to the crisis, Babylonian exile, and all God's promises seem to fail. The people are driven out of the land, they are exiled from the land. Instead of multiplying and prospering, they are cut down and reduced to a remnant. Instead of having the law, which has been promised them forever, they are deprived of the very part of practice, the law. Instead of having David for their king, their king is taken into exile and is eventually beheaded and the kingship falls altogether. And finally, the tent the very sort of heart of their religion, where a lonely worship God, where God had come to dwell in this cloud of glory, signifying His presence, the temple is destroyed and all its treasures taken away.

[21:35]

You see complete destruction. of all and apparently of all the promises of God. And then in the midst of this exile, in the midst of all this death, suffering, the great hope arises of the restoration. And this is really the whole mystery of Christianity begins to occur. And when our Lord spoke of the mystery of his resurrection. There is no doubt that it was this that he had in mind. As you know, the suffering servant of Isaiah is the figure which he took as a type of himself and which he followed out almost in detail. so that in the midst of all this death and destruction the prophets arise to say that the people will once more be restored to their land, once more they will prosper and be numerous, once more they will have the law established and the covenant and they will have a king like David and there should be a new temple which will be greater than the temple of Sodom.

[22:38]

So all that has been destroyed is going to rise again. And, of course, the coming of Christ was a fulfillment of all these prophecies, not, again, in the literal sense, in which even the prophets had expected them, but in an infinitely more marvelous sense, so that there was revealed a great mystery of death and resurrection. And, of course, it was the refusal of the Jews to accept the death and resurrection which Christ brought. which caused them to reject Him. They could not conceive that this law and this temple were not to endure forever in that form. Again, it's this mysterious law that everything that takes shape and is given a form in this world has to die and to rise again. And it's a problem that we'll see again. I think it's one of the great laws of life that we have to learn. So there is this pattern of the death and resurrection.

[23:43]

And notice how the idea of the Messiah in the Old Testament is gradually transformed. In the Exodus, the Egyptians are all hushed. They have the wonderful song of Deborah, their horses and their sheriffs have been grounded with fear. Where are we to show the strength of this right hand? And so you get in the early books of the Bible this idea of God, Yahweh, the triumphant hero who leads the chosen batch. And only through the history of the exile, the sufferings that they endured then, did they begin to understand that victory over sin and over evil was not going to come through this Messiah triumphing over his enemies, but actually through the Messiah, the suffering servant accepting death and resurrection. So that, then I think we have the clear pattern of death and resurrection in the Old Testament leading to endurance.

[24:43]

And that I always see as, as I say, the real inner meaning of the Old Testament. When we begin to read it in that light, and when we read the Psalms in that light particularly, then I think it has the deepest meaning for us. Well now, there is a background that sin and death can't go in the world and we can only win through to the resurrection to the new life through death. Well now we were considering yesterday that the powers which rule over us these powers of evil are found principally in pride and concubines like to look on it, and that they are rooted in self-love. Now I think that is the key to this mystery of sin, that it consists in self-love. We were created for the love of God, to be centered in God, and through sin we have fallen into self-love, so we are centered in ourselves.

[25:52]

What we all experience in our lives that without our deliberate will we are in fact centered in ourselves. And that is why sin goes so deep into our nature. It penetrates the uttermost depths. And it penetrates everything. Because really self-love enters into everything we do. And as I'm sure you realize, it enters into all our most holy desires and aspirations. It's the most difficult thing, and as I said, we have to be becoming more and more conscious of it as we go on, to penetrate this force of self-love which observes all our best intentions. We rarely think that we are simply desiring to serve God, to give our life for Him, but as psychologists tell us, these conscious aspirations which we have are very frequently, if not always, actually the expression of the undercurrents of thought and feeling of which we are not aware, and which we have to become aware of.

[27:00]

And it's certainly true in our religious aspirations, as you know, the difficulty of life is that so frequently people who are desperately religious and who give out to this excellent views and ideas about God and church and so on, are in fact governed by quite other principles underneath, and their lives don't correspond to their thoughts and their aspirations. And that's what we find in ourselves. We had, by God's grace, we had aspirations and desires for holiness, but there's something hidden in our nature which is always perverting our desires, and I think we ought to become conscious of them. in our own lives. I mean, when we give ourselves, we try to give ourselves to God in our life, we come with all sorts of good intentions, and with notions and purposes, and very often God helps us, and we can make considerable progress, and we think we're getting nearer to God.

[28:08]

But I think we'll find there always comes a time in our lives when we begin to discover the flaws in our nature. As I said, we begin to get into the purgative way, we begin to realize where our faults lie. And that is the real test of our vocation. I'm told that for many people this tends to come now some years after solemn confession. I was speaking to a novice master recently, and he said it's one of the difficulties they find. People will go through their official and sinful confession and make their solemn vows, and then some years, three or four years after making solemn vows, they begin to come out against the difficulties of their nature, and very often that causes some instability. So I think we should Beware of that. We should be conscious that there are forces in our nature which are hidden, and which gradually come to the surface, which may seriously disturb us.

[29:10]

But we shouldn't be disturbed by that. We should realize that there is this imperfection in all our best motives and ideals. When we think we're being perfectly generous and unselfish, we're really got deep hidden selfish motives underneath, and only very very slowly do these faults appear in our nature. And when they do, it isn't an occasion for giving up one's vocation or anything, it's simply an occasion for self-knowledge, really for maturity. to become aware of the real world in which we are living in. And this I think for all us religious and perhaps for all Christians and Catholics is of tremendous importance and perhaps what people in the world outside complain of in us that we should be prepared for this kind of maturity, this becoming aware of the ambivalence, the what shall I call it, the black and the white in everything in the religious life, in the church and in everything.

[30:21]

You know, many Catholics think they've got to defend the church at every point when it's attacked, and they build up a kind of ideal notion of the church which has very little relation to reality, and then when communists and people come along and attack it, Very often on perfectly true grounds, real faults in the church, as they've seen, the Catholic feels he must defend it at all costs and he won't face the evil in the church. I think his job and the Council and the whole movement of modern times is helping us to see that, to reach a certain maturity, to be able to face the evil in the church. all the horrors of the Inquisition and the Crusades and the religious wars and very many forms of evil which are always there in the church and we have to defend them, not simply move over and defend it always. And so it is in our religious life. When we find that there are incurable motives in us, and you know Freud said that he thought all religion was simply a sublimation of a repressed sexuality, that you don't express your sexual desires in a normal way, you repress them into the unconscious and they come up in the form of the love of God.

[31:41]

But of course, it has a character. So, not that there is a grain of truth in it, you know, I mean, in the love of God. We repress desires, we can't satisfy ourselves on one level, and we transpose these feelings onto God. There are many sort of emotional states of love for God, which are quite mysterious, and which one can quite easily learn to see through. And so we must detect what is wrong in our attitude to God, in our attitude to the religious life, in our attitude to the Church. And to be able to recognize the evil of it all is maturity, you see. That is really learning to know oneself and the world in which one is living, to recognize the evil that is in it and not to be overcome by it. And then that's what we ought to learn. In this awareness of sin, we become aware of this root of self-love in our nature, which actually enters into everything and pervades our whole nature.

[32:53]

You know, the Protestants speak, I think, of the total corruption of human nature. I don't know exactly what they mean by that, it's probably heretical, but I think there is a certain truth in it, in this sense that self-love does enter into all our thoughts and feelings and aspirations, and we must learn to take that self-love, and that is why our redemption, our salvation, has to go so deep into our nature. It's got to penetrate this ultimate root of self-love and to transform that. And until that has happened, until our love has been transformed, we are not delivered. We may be freed from the guilt of sin, but still the force of sin is still working in us and destroying us. So that is the first thing, and the second thing is this, that we realize that because we are self-centered and this self-love is at the root of our being, we cannot possibly save ourselves.

[34:05]

And the more we struggle to serve, the worse we become entangled in our own selves. And that is, of course, a kind of pride, when we see all the evil in ourselves, and we want to get rid of it, and we think we can do it by ourselves. And so we impose laws on ourselves, we try to control our lower nature laws, and all the time we're simply strengthening ourselves in this this pride, this independence, you see, and that becomes the greatest obstacle to our whole spiritual progress, this thinking we can manage our lives for ourselves. We no doubt could say, with the help of God, we put that in as a sort of to save our faces, but in fact we're trying to save ourselves. And I think this rooted idea of one's own, it's this art of affection which we have in ourselves, and we want to be perfect, but we want that affection really to come from ourselves.

[35:12]

We think it depends on ourselves, and so we become more and more in the crisp grip of ourselves, and actually in the grip of demons, because we feel that pride when we close on ourselves that we become conflict deciding to the devil and to the forces of evil. So there we are, swung between these two elements. Self love and sensuality on the one side, and then trying to correct it this force of pride, of independence, of self-satisfaction on the other. And that is our human state between those two. And only when we realize that we can't save ourselves, that we've got to be saved by something or somebody, completely outside ourselves, that our real salvation begins. It's that recognition, that is repentance, that recognition of our nothingness, of our need, which draws God into us.

[36:13]

Or rather, as I was saying yesterday, the very recognition that we need God is the first section of God's grace in us, and it means, I wish, our hearts would be loath to receive Him. So that is the debt which we all have to die. This self, this self-love, this pride, this self-complacency which is rooted in our necks, that has died. And all our lives as Christians and all our lives as monks is a continual dying. And I think if we keep that before our minds continually, it can be of very great help, because sometimes, you know, we speak of the cross and so on in our lives, but we're a little vague as to where it is and what it is, but surely it is essentially this death to self-life, then to what of the self? or the chest of our souls, in the sense of this self which has grown up from a princess of self-love.

[37:15]

That is what has to take place. And that, of course, is the initial mystery of baptism. When we go under the waters, or at least we should go under the waters, or it's just that one day we may be immersed in a world of baptism again. Because it is so deeply symbolic. Paul says, you who are baptised in Christ were baptised into his debt. We go down into the waters and we die to this world which is under the dominion of evil, to this self which is under the dominion of evil. and rise again to this new life in Christ. That is our initial death and resurrection. And our Christian life is a continual renewal of our baptism, a sign of death to this self and a continual rebirth in Christ. And when we make our monastic protection, as you know, we are simply renewing our baptism, we are making our final efforts

[38:16]

towards hopeful deaths for ourselves, and therefore a spiritual resurrection in Christ. And of course, it never actually ends. Right from the beginning to the end, we've always got to be dying through this principle of self-love in ourselves, and always to be rising again through the grace of God to the life of Christ coming into us. So there is the passion of our life to share thy patience with the sufferings of Christ, that we may be worthy of his kingdom." And therefore our whole life as monks is really a sharing in the cross of Christ, but it's always the cross and the resurrection, and I do think that's very important. In past times there's been a tendency to emphasize the cross, And almost to exclude the resurrection, as you know in theology, the theology of the redemption has seen it for a large sense and sometimes they believe almost completely that the redemption was accomplished on the cross.

[39:25]

But nowadays theologians are seeing that the real New Testament doctrine is that the redemption was not accomplished on the cross alone, but the resurrection. the resurrection from the dead. It's only completed by the resurrection, and we can never separate death and resurrection. And that, of course, is the pattern of the lair, the mercy, the mystery of death and resurrection, just as masochism is. So that in all our lives we must never separate death and resurrection, and interestingly and not the separation even to the extent, you know, that at the actual moment of death, the moment we surrender ourselves, the new life comes in. The very death itself is the beginning of resurrection. I think that is very important. So that we begin the initial mystery of baptism, we have to continue it all through our lives. And as I say, our dedication of months is our dedication to a continual death and resurrection until the actual moment of final death and resurrection.

[40:34]

And death for months should surely be simply the final stage of the life which he's been living all along. If we've been dying daily, As the poem says, then a pattern which I like is lived. So, baptism, monastic profession, and then this continual dying infant life. I think we will find in our monastic life that if we give ourselves to God, we have no reason, you know, to impose particular crosses on ourselves. I think that's also dangerous very often. People think that you've got to be crucifying yourself, but I've always found that if you simply try to live out your life under the rule, in total obedience to God, you get the most extreme crucifixion which you could possibly imagine.

[41:42]

Not the kind which you want or expect. I think you always find, you come to a monastery with various ideas of of what kind of trials you are going to have, but always the one you get is just the one you did not expect. And God always finds exactly where our real weakness lies, which we are not conscious of, and there are the cross-curls. So that I know our life as Benedictines may seem to an outsider not too uncomfortable and it's got There are certain amenities in it, and it has many opportunities in it. But I'm sure you all discover, as anyone does, when you've lived it for a few years, that within this Kaun Exteria, there are all the means of crucifixion which are required for our human nature. There is a wonderful mystery of grace in that. the sufferings are apportioned to us according to our capacity, if we make the surrender.

[42:45]

So in our very life, in our obedience to the rule, in the apparently sinful task which we are given to do, we find the mystery of the cross, we find death, And we should, always at the same time, find resurrection. That is the real joy of a monastic community, and the real joy of a Christian, isn't it? This capacity to rise from suffering, to die into life, is the only way I can express it. that in the moment of self-surrender, through pain, through suffering, through frustrations of this life, we find this new life in Christ. That, I'd like to suggest, is the mystery of death and resurrection revealed to us in the Scripture, the basic pattern of the Scriptures and of God's revelation and of the redemption in Christ. That mystery is begun in us in baptism, and the Eucharist, the Mass, is the continual

[43:54]

renewal of the mystery in our midst, so that day by day we can enter more deeply into that death, into that resurrection. And then our monastic life is the actual circus in which this mystery is accomplished for us. And as I say, all the myths of this Christian mystery are present in the monastery. We've not got to look outside, we've not got to passion, anything particularly for ourselves. Simply the surrender to God in our lives brings with it death, brings with it resurrection. And so in our monastic life we find the fulfillment of this Christian mystery in us. And then let us add that as the This self-love goes to the root of our being and affects all our nature. So this new life in Christ goes to the root of our being and affects everything in our nature.

[44:59]

It affects our whole body and our whole soul. We mustn't think of anything outside Christ. And, you know, in the monastic life, we have our rituals, we process from this faith to that, we have our customs, the way we hold our hands and so on. But all these things are a kind of necessity of the body and surely they should be an expression of this Christ's life in us, and people do feel it, I mean, when you first come to a monastery, you are impressed with this atmosphere of grace, if you like, and surely that is something the modern world has lost. People are all, everything is done for your convenience, for your pleasure, and it's very effective in that way, but it just lacks grace. grace in both senses actually. But in the monastery surely we do find that grace, we find the grace of God penetrating the body and giving it the beauty which should belong to it, the actions of the body.

[46:09]

And so all our light. Our whole being has to be penetrated by this grace, and that is our task, really, to let grace penetrate deeper and deeper, not to be satisfied with grace on a certain level, but to allow it to take possession of our whole being, so that this root of self-love is gradually eliminated by the force of Christ's life coming into us and making the love of Christ really the dominating force, the guiding power of our lives and taking possession of our whole beings. And that ultimately, of course, this life of Christ will so penetrate our bodies that they will be raised up for a new life, and we must never lose sight of that final resurrection. We go from death into life, step by step there, but we're moving towards a day when grace will also penetrate in our whole being, and the whole body will be raised up to this new life in the resurrection.

[47:19]

And I think for us as monks, that should be constantly before our eyes. And Benedict says, let us seek death constantly before our eyes, but let us also seek the resurrection. constantly before our eyes. We're living in this space of time between the first and the second coming of Christ. We're living in a world which has wonderful powers and forces in it, which is nevertheless doomed to destruction. We must keep that perspective. How ever great the world is, and however great are the tasks to be lifted, it's yet doomed to destruction. People are dying every day. And we have this, which I think is very symbolic, you know, this threat of destruction. People find it very terrible that we should be afraid of the destruction of the world, but it is really the way in which the Church has grown up from the beginning. You know, the early Christians quite definitely expected the end of the world at any time. And you read St. Justin Martyr, and he tells the Romans quite clearly that in a few years the whole world is going to be burnt by fire.

[48:25]

And that expectation went on century after century, and fundamentally it is true, isn't it? I mean, as Peter said, one day in his life, a thousand years in his life, about a day. And the world is under this sentence of destruction, as we know in the blood. As when our Lord came and said, the kingdom of God is at hand. It's always at hand that destruction is coming. And we are those who've been invited by God, as Luria was, to know that that destruction is coming and to know that the new life has also come and will be revealed finally. after the destruction. So we're living in this new light of the resurrection, it's already begun in us, and we're looking forward to its completion in the world to come, and beyond all our experience of this world and are taking part in the work of this world, which we have to do, surely as monks we should continually have in mind this eschaton, this wind which we are moving, this new life of the resurrection, so that we are living always in the hoof-metal film of this death which we die now, and this new life which we have now will

[49:49]

It is moving always to its final completion.

[49:58]

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