Our help is in the name of the Lord. Amen. 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 month ought to hell about 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 affairs and by abstinence in food and drink. Thus everyone of his own will may offer God, with joy of the Holy Spirit, something about 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 vain glory, and will merit no reward. Therefore, let everything be done with the Advent's approval.

[02:05]

On 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 beside 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 at the hours when 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.

[03:15]

Moreover, one brother shall not associate with another an unseasonable office. Dear brothers, the beginning of the Lenten season is really a beginning. And we should, we jobs 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 and the resurrection, that means in the light of the Pascha, they are not separated, never separated from the joy.

[04:42]

I was very glad when reading the various good works that were being offered during this Lenten 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. And especially because, as we all know, this time now imposes

[05:44]

many burdens on us. We see in the world so many things which provoke and have the effect, you know, to sadden our hearts. The war, in this country, the struggle for integration the great problems social problems and problems of poverty of living the slums of the big cities and all these things which we are in a constant contact and they certainly 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 this coming over us it is a process of of confusion to say the least you know of

[07:13]

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 and the depth of our faith we know that here too the ends, the fruit of all these birth pangs will be the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God in the end still the very process sometimes makes us forget the last meaning because we see in the meantime so much so much destruction so much disintegration of order of community the growing uprootedness of

[08:37]

people, the lack of stability, the 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 is and 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, we see it among ourselves, in our community, the struggles that we constantly have to go through crises that develop of a personal kind, not of a community kind.

[09:44]

Just today I received a letter from the abbot of love, whom you know now so well, who writes me that in the one year of 1966, seven solemnly professed to have lived in the monastery. It's a thing which is just unheard of, you know, completely. Now, we are not here to just lament, you know. Also, we are not in a position, you know, to, let us say, offer any plans and ideas for the right global strategy, how to meet the challenges on a bigger scale. That is, at the moment, is not our theme.

[10:47]

But at the moment, at this time of the beginning of the Lenten season, we simply take all these things, we 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. This 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. So therefore we have to participate and to share these anxieties and these confusions, the sorrows that result from them.

[11:54]

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. And there I would really recommend to all persons that we deliberately, in this Lenten season, sing the litany of God's mercies.

[13:14]

Make it a special point of consideration that we see first of all, the evident blessings which are there, that we really rejoice in them, that we don't allow the gray and gray, you know, 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 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

[14:20]

of the community as well as also in our own individual life seeing 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 all entails, the line of mortification and so on, we should meet it really in that spirit of the resurrection. 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 there are promise of the song of palms that we shall receive this Easter.

[15:30]

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 that asks, you know, the spirit of humility and the realization of our nothings. We should feel and realize, you know, that before God we are ashes. 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.

[16:32]

It's 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, that what is really the victory that conquers the world? 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 proceed and ask ourselves in a more concrete way,

[17:39]

what for us as a community we could do during this 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 point Just as in our prayer, in 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 in, let us Let the law of these days be charity, and really nothing but charity.

[18:48]

All mortifications are intended, 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 do a little essay or something on the theology of Lent and this theology of fasting in this beautiful document of the spirit of the early Roman Church.

[19:50]

Now there it is evident that one of the meanings of fasting is that in that way we remind ourselves, 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 you know surround us with a certain security and comfort

[21:00]

the greater is also then the danger of this, how can I 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, or something, or we don't need the to invoke, let's 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 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 in 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, the technical world, let us say human work and human effort takes, is taking nowadays dimensions which seem to be put us on the road, you know, of solving the greatest problems of the human life. Just the other day I said that because I

[24:18]

Very generally one is outside and here and there something falls into one's hands. But there was a whole long article, I forgot now where it was, but on the how people will live now, 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 get the oil and solve the problem of heating in winters and months like this, you know. Maybe in ten years from now, atomic energy will give us means, you know, which are... boil down the whole problem to the most simple terms.

[25:18]

So, but in many other ways, you know, too, of course. For example, the tremendous, you know, enlarging of the also, the certainly, I mean, 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 feeding 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 paralleled necessarily in the intellectual world the mind you know in some way keeps pace you know it has to go together

[26:36]

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 challenge you know many things are said you know today which 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, belong, you know, may kind of sweep us off our feet. And that, of course, too is, in some ways, produces and has its problems in our human relations.

[27:38]

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's a tremendous field, you know, still at the field we know we have to use greatest patience and great... humility and really kind of constantly 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

[28:49]

such a danger for us in these days 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 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 not line of depression, but in the line of edification.

[29:53]

That is the important thing. Then we will also advise, for example, the minds, the mental meeting of the difficulties and problems of the monastic life, the spiritual life, the whole are concerned, especially the monastic life. I think that also in that direction we should deliberately try, we couldn't make some special effort in this Lenten season to, for example, to make, you know, the problems that so in such a successful way were started, you know, by Father Martin, of course, you know, 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 among ourselves and then in various, you know, fields, various areas which are there,

[31:10]

and with simply no need, no clarification, to give to the community a clearer orientation. See, that is, of course, as long as the community lives, that will always be necessary. We will 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 so also here too there is the area of worship which is such an important vital part of our entire monastic life that we know very well that there are certain Problems, problem to say of spontaneity and fall, let's say.

[32:13]

Things that have to be tackled in some way, but in common for the community as a whole. Then there is 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 the best way to do it would be because it's impossible for us 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 Latin season. It 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, a kind 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 the actual let us say the personal relations difficulties and obstacles that are there you know to err to err to err err say that and then to say certain theoretical questions of doctrine concerning our life. I was very glad that for example also for the reading there are quite a few of the reading Kershyn or reading the Philokalia

[34:31]

reading Sophronius, the undistorted image and then reading Workman on the history of the monastic life and so on things that all contribute in this and then 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 formed, has to be formed by charity and it has to redound into the edification of the whole community. Then there is the other field, you know, which I wanted to recommend, you know, still tonight, and that is the great field of intercession.

[35:32]

I think, you know, that as far as the theory of the monastic life is concerned, as far as the reality of personal relations is concerned, that have to be solved, say, in meetings of groups and so on. But we have at our disposal, as sons of God, the tremendous field of prayer and 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 intercessory prayers that we say on Good Friday and which show, manifest, the tremendous, infinite range of the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, died for us on the cross, for all men, that we take in what has to be taken in, what has to be carried by us.

[36:58]

The world outside, the church then also in our own community our own community there are there are those who are those of us who are here not only those but also those who are outside and and needs

[37:31]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.13