Our help is in the name of the Lord. Amen. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Rule of our Holy Father Benedict, chapter 49, on the observance of Lent. Although the light of a monk ought to be held above it at all times, the character of a Lenten observance Yet, since few have the virtue for that, we therefore urge that during the actual days of Lent the brethren keep their lives most pure, and at the same time wash away during these holy days all the negligences of other times. And this will be worthily done if we restrain ourselves from all vices and give ourselves up to prayer with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart, and to abstinence.

[01:02]

During these days, therefore, let us increase somewhat the usual burden of our service, as by private prayers and by abstinence in food and drink. Thus every one of his own will may offer God, with joy of the Holy Spirit, something above the measure required of him. From his body, that is, he may withhold some food, drink, sleep, talking, and jesting, and with the joy of spiritual desire he may look forward to Holy Easter. Let each one, however, suggest to his abbot what it is he wants to offer. and let it be done with His blessing and approval. For anything done without the permission of the Spiritual Father will be imputed to presumption and vainglory and will merit no reward. Therefore, let everything not be done with the evidence of approval.

[02:05]

On the days of Lent, from morning until the end of the third hour, let them apply themselves to their reading. and from then until the end of the tenth hour let them do the work assigned them. And in these days of Lent they shall each receive a book from the library which they shall read straight through from the beginning. These books are to be given out at the beginning of Lent. But certainly one or two of the seniors should be deputed to go about the monastery that the hours from the brethren are occupied in reading, and see that there be no lazy brother who spends his time in idleness or gossip, and does not apply himself to the reading, so that he is not only unprofitable to himself, but also distracts others. If such a one be found, which God forbid, let him be corrected once and a second time. If he does not amend, let him undergo the punishment of the rule in such a way that the rest may take warning.

[03:14]

Moreover, one brother shall not associate with another at unseasonable hours. Dear brothers, the beginning of the Lenten season is really a beginning, and we should rejoice. We should not enter into it in a spirit of depression, but in a spirit of elation. The union meant an elephant. Fasting lifts up the spirit and that is the intention of the church, that's the character of any kind of mortification, compunction, all these things in the light of the cross

[04:32]

in the resurrection, that means in the light of the Pascha, they are not separated, never separated from the joy. I was very glad when reading the various good works that are being offered during this latent season. I saw that several of you wanted to dedicate this period of Lent and the works that you do and also your prayers to the special intention of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for the spiritual and material goods which God has given us and is giving us during this time. I think that is really one of the themes that we should have clearly in mind during this Lenten season.

[05:33]

And especially because, as we all know, this time now imposes many burdens on us. We see in the world so many things which provoke and have the effect to sadden our hearts. The war, in this country the struggle for integration, that great problems, social problems, and problems of poverty, of living, of the slums, of the big cities, and all these things, between which we are in a constant contact, and they certainly

[06:38]

remind us of the precariousness and the misery of the human existence. Then we see so many things in the church. It's sometimes like the dawn of the gods, it seems. It's coming over us. It is a process of confusion to say the least, you know, of the minds. So many things are called into doubt. So many things are being criticized, torn down to pieces. We know in the bottom of our heart, in the depths of our faith, we know that here too the end, the flute of all these birth pangs will be the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God in the end.

[08:06]

Still, the very process sometimes makes us forget the last meaning, because we see in the meantime so much sorrow, so much destruction, so much disintegration of order, of community, the growing uprootedness of people, the lack of stability, a life which is more and more in flux and is therefore then, that's the great temptation then for human beings in such circumstances that expediency in last analysis, it becomes the only law. And we see the effects of that in the church, among the faithful, we see it among the clergy, we see it in the religious life,

[09:24]

We see it among our sailors, in our community, the struggles that we constantly have to go through, crises that develop of a personal kind and also of a community kind. Just today I received a letter from The abbot of Laac, whom you know now so well, who writes me that in the one year of 1966, seven Ptolemy professors left the monastery. It's a thing which just is unheard of. It's completely Now, we are not here to just lament, you know. Also, we are not in a position to, let us say, offer any plans and ideas or great global strategy, how-tos.

[10:35]

meet the challenges on a bigger scale. This, at the moment, is not our theme. But at the moment, at this time of the beginning of the Lenten season, we simply take all these things, we don't try to abstract from them, We don't want to put our heads into the sand like the ostrich and do as if nothing was happening. That is not the way in which God wants us to live. He wants us to live as living stones in a living organism, the mystical body of Christ. and that as the heart of humanity.

[11:39]

So therefore we have to participate and to share these anxieties and these confusions, the sorrows that result from them. But we must do it, and I think that's very important, in a positive way. Really, if we would give room to depression and if we would give room to anxiety and then kind of let the foundations of our life and our peace kind of lose, permit them to lose their caring strength, We would do that, we would be pushed into isolation. And the one thing that certainly is necessary in these days is to meet the situation together as a group.

[12:51]

And there I would really commend to all of us that we deliberately In this Lenten season, sing the litany of God's mercies. Make it a special point of consideration that we see, first of all, the evident blessings which are there and we really rejoice in them. that we don't allow the gray and gray to cover everything. It would be really in that way we would cut ourselves off from the presence of God who has promised and has solemnly declared and especially tomorrow does that again when the Psalm 90 comes to the

[13:57]

to the fore, that he will be with us, that he is with us in distress, and that he will let us see his salvation. And so we should deliberately, I say, in the life of the community as well as also in our own individual life, sing the litany of God's mercy. Really thank God because it enlarges the heart. It really in that way makes us participate in the spirit of the resurrection. And we should really meet the Lenten season and everything that it entails, the line of mortification and so on, we should meet it really in that spirit of the resurrection.

[15:00]

The ashes that we have received on Ash Wednesday, they are nothing but the bridge between two resurrections. They are, as it were, the result, you know, of the palms of victory that we received last Easter, and in that way they are a promise of the song of palms that we shall receive this Easter. So the ashes, as I say, the dust, you know, is the bridge between glory and glory, virtue and virtue, power and power. As such, of course, it is true that it is and entails in all of us and asks, you know, the spirit of humility and the realization of our nothingness. We should feel and realize, you know, that before God we are ashes.

[16:04]

But in the Christian context, there is nothing to be afraid of this. Because this is a liberation, this is a cure, and a cure which goes to the very center of our life. That is the reason why this passage through death into life is the totality of the resurrection which is as it were prefigured in the totality of death. That is the divine economy and that is the reason why our faith rejoices. In that spirit we listen then to more to the epistle in which St. Paul describes just this, this mystery of that what is really the victory that conquers the world.

[17:11]

It's our faith and this faith is the faith in Christ's victory. It's the faith in the law that can never die. That is stronger than death. Now if we from there you know proceed and ask ourselves in a more concrete way what for us as a community we could do during this Lenten season. Then again, it seems to me that our very existence depends on the degree in which we are able to give room to charity, give room to the Holy Spirit. And that would be the other Just as in our prayer, our inner, deep inner attitude, we give thanks to God in this time into which he has placed us, so also in considering the work we are engaged

[18:36]

Let the law of these days be charity, and really nothing but charity. All modifications are intended, have the intention to give room to charity. It's interesting, I have been reading in these days the various prefaces and prayers that the Sacramentarium Leoniano, so a document of the fourth or early fifth century, gives us of Roman prayers and the old Roman liturgy. And one would be tempted to to do a little essay or something on the theology of Lent, the theology of fasting, in this beautiful document of the spirit of the early Roman church.

[19:49]

It is evident that one of the meanings of fasting is that in that way we remind ourselves or guard ourselves against this kind of false security. And insolence, which is so easily accompanied, accompanies it so easily. And this kind of human boasting which is one of such a great danger for us. And we know that the more the apparatus grows in which we live, the more the technical means surround us with a certain security and comfort.

[20:59]

The greater is also then the danger of this, how can one call it, this boldness, but in the wrong sense, you know, that in which man then thinks, because that is simply the inclination of our heart. that he has de facto solved, you know, the problems of sickness and of poverty and of all these things that humankind has been suffering from all through the course of history. And that is then the result. The result is we don't need, let us say, a god up there, you know, the, to invoke, let us say, a power which is beyond ourselves.

[22:04]

That's a great danger and we see so many people, for example, forgetting the whole art and the spirit of prayer, just because everything seems to go and find a solution simply through the human technical genius. So then that is certainly a great danger for us and we should in that way too consider our fasting as a confession, let us say, as a public acknowledgement of our poverty and of our limitations. But as I say that this acknowledgement of poverty and limitation that should at most be in the Christian cannot be, let's put it that way, the last word.

[23:16]

But it has to be just the removing of the obstacles to love, to let charity circulate. We know that, that there is certainly also a danger that way among us, not only from the part of the technical world, you know, but also on the part of the intellectual world too. The intellectual world, while in the technical world, let us say, human work and human effort is taking nowadays dimensions which seem to be put us on the road of solving the greatest problems of the human life. Just the other day I say that because I wait till one is outside and here and there something falls into one's hands.

[24:23]

But there was a whole long article, I forgot now where it was, but on the how people will live 50 years from now. And I think it's a good question to ask oneself that. And of course the prospects are terrific in every direction. One reads these things, you know, I mean one of our big problems at the moment is, you know, that we gets the oil and solves the problem of heating in winters and months like this, you know, maybe in 10 years from now, atomic energy will give us means, you know, which will boil down the whole problem to the most simple terms. But in many other ways, you know, too, of course.

[25:25]

For example, the tremendous enlarging of the numbers of people. Of course, there may always be a tremendous catastrophe. We don't know that. But I mean looking forward, the multiplication of the human race into billions and billions of people, the enormous growing possibilities of feeding these billions, absolutely new possibilities of which haven't up to now, you know, are just kind of being begun, you know. But all these problems, of course, in the technical world concerning work, are parallel necessarily in the intellectual world.

[26:27]

The mind, you know, in some way keeps pace, you know, it has to go together. The work and the mind, of course, also reaches out into new dimensions. The production, you know, of books is enormous. And, of course, every book is a is a challenge, you know, and many things are said, you know, today, which again, you know, break down barriers in so many directions. So that there too, you know, this spirit, let us say, of a general elan, you know, may kind of sweep us off our feet. And that, of course, too, in some ways produces and has its problems in our human relations.

[27:37]

So we should, you know, I think during this Lenten season, we should do everything possible and it would be good if, for example, tomorrow we could get together and speak about it and see in which ways, you know, that could be done during this Lenten season. I think that they are, for example, as far as charity is concerned, I think there is a tremendous field, you know, still, and a field we know we have to use greatest patience and great humility and really kind of constantly, let's say, reborn charity that encourages us to make always everywhere new beginnings and to get over the tendency of a kind of pessimistic withdrawal, which also may be such a danger for us in these days.

[28:52]

in little meetings or meetings of various kinds, simply then we enter into that, what we call the other day, you know, that communion of frankness. And I think in that way many, much progress can be made. And this is the time for it. This is the time. Lenten season puts us in that way as far as the pride of life is concerned. It puts us simply into a lower gear. That's good. That's good for us. But we must make use of it. in the line of depression, but in the line of edification. That is the important thing.

[29:55]

Then we will also as far as, for example, the minds, the mental meeting of the difficulties and problems of the monastic life. spiritual life, all are concerned with, especially the monastic life. I think that also in that direction we should deliberately try, we could make some special effort in this Lenten season to For example, to make, you know, the problems that are solved in such a successful way. It was started, you know, by Father Martin, of course, you know, with the problem, for example, of the law and the spirit, you know. So, to extend it, maybe, get the whole community into it and distribute the work.

[31:00]

among ourselves and then in various, you know, fields, various areas which are there and which simply we don't need clarification to give to the community a clearer orientation. We've seen that that is, of course, as long as the community lives, that will always be necessary. You never come to the point where everything is clear because every new generation brings new problems and brings new tendencies and therefore then also a revision has to take place again and again and so on. So here too there is the area of worship which is such an important vital part of our entire monastic life. And we know very well that there are certain problems, problems to say of spontaneity and form, let's say.

[32:10]

Things that have to be tackled in some way, but in common for the community as a whole. And then there is the the area of the monastic structure, for example, the structure of the life, the whole meaning of authority, obedience and so on, and community. So there is a great field there which I think we should, the best I think way to do it would be because it's impossible for us to, let's say, to go as a whole from one thing to the other. We could plow, you know, for ages to one thing, let us say, worship for the whole. Lenten season couldn't come to an end.

[33:15]

I think somehow the work would have to be distributed and then, you know, a kind of sharing, a kind of meeting, of clarification that has to set in, in these various areas of our life. So the, but in these two fields, you know, first the actual, let us say, the personal relations, difficulties and obstacles that are there, you know, to err, to err, to err, see, and then, and then the, to say certain, how can I say, theoretical questions of doctrine, you know, concerning our life. And I was very glad that, for example, also for the reading, there are quite a few of the reading caches.

[34:26]

reading the Philokalia, or reading Sophronius, the Undistorted Image, and then reading Workman, or the History of the Monastic Life, and so on, things that all contribute We must find ways in which we can really and truly share the fruits of this reading. Because reading, for that matter, too, is not simply and only a community affair, but again, it is to be formed by charity, and it has to be downed into the edification of the whole community. Then there is the other field which I wanted to recommend still tonight and that is the great field of intercession.

[35:32]

I think that as far as the of the monastic life is concerned, as far as the reality of personal relations is concerned, that has to be solved in, say, in meetings of groups and so on. But we have at our disposal, as sons of God, the tremendous field of prayer, of the prayer of intercession. And I think that prayer of intercession should also take, in this Lenten season, should take a special dimension. I'm sure that you all are interiorly set for that, you know, that you make the spirit of the Church your own, the intercessory prayers that we say on Good Friday and which show, manifest the

[36:37]

Tremendous, infinite range of the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ dying for us on the cross for all men. That there that we take in what has to be taken in, what has to be carried by us. The world outside, the church, Then also in our own community, our own community, there are those of us who are here, not only those, but also those who are outside and need special assistance.

[37:31]

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