Okay, we're recording? Okay, I don't know if Rene is coming or not. And I saw Augustine, he said he's not coming, but he's going to Italy this weekend anyway so it doesn't really matter. Okay, this particular period we're going to treat the triple good. And so, as you can see by your outlines, next time then we'll dig into the history and that may run anywhere between two and four periods. Beginning today, also, we are going to invite oblates who are here to come to my classes at the invitation of Michael. So don't be... Some weeks we could have a huge crowd, couldn't we?

[01:15]

I'm not doing too bad here. Okay, so chapter four then of the Life of the Five Brothers by Bruno Boniface begins this way. As a means of realizing his desire to become a monk, Otto, that is the emperor, conceived the following project. He would choose some of the more fervent brothers and send them to Poland. And there they would build a monastery in Christian territory, but near an area where pagans dwell, secluded and surrounded by woods. This would offer a three-fold advantage, the community life, which is what novices want, want in the sense of need, golden solitude for those who are mature and who thirst for

[02:17]

the living God, and the preaching of the gospel to the pagans for those who long to be freed from this life in order to be with Christ, id est, martyrdom. Again, in chapter seven then, these three ways are mentioned by Bruno when referring to Otto's premature death. He longed to do better, and God's mercy strengthened his feeble will in kindling in him an ardent desire for the three highest goods, any one of which is sufficient unto salvation, the monastic habit, that is community life or synovium, the solitary life or hermitage or medical life, and martyrdom. What's most important to realize right from the beginning is that this whole business

[03:19]

about the triple good, although it becomes Romualdian, part of the Romuald world, it's not Romuald's. This is not his idea. It's something he somewhat reluctantly goes along with, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. The idea is certainly Bruno's for various reasons, and also Otto's. Again, for his own reasons. It is something that Romuald agrees to. This is very clear and pointed out strongly by these three scholars, Giovanni Tabacco, who is one of the leading, if not the leading Romuald scholar in Italy. Leclerc, Jean Leclerc, and our own Roberto Forniciari, who did one of his dissertations

[04:35]

for that licentiate he did on the triple good, on Bruno Boniface. This is really important to remember, that this idea, this triple idea, is Brunonian and Ottonian, not Romualdian. It becomes part of the Romuald world. It becomes Romualdian in that sense, but it's not Romuald's. When looking at this third one, when we look at this Evangelium Pagodorum Martyrium phase of the triple good, keep in mind constantly that it's Bruno's and it's Otto's. It's not Romuald's. What I would like to do first, if any of you have read, again, that article in Cistercian Studies on Primitive Romualdian Commodity Spirituality, this is going to be a review

[05:36]

for you, for the most part. So if you've read that article, if you haven't, you'll be getting it in the book. So once you get the book, it will all be a review. Don Anselmo Giovanni, our former Parageneral, who's still living, what is he now, ninety two, ninety three? He published a book on Commodity's Aramidical Spirituality called Aramal. This is the title, Aramal, in 1945. So just right at the end of the Great War. And he takes this triple good, the synobium, the aramal, and evangelization or martyrdom

[06:38]

or mission, and he says that according to the principles of Commodity Spirituality, if one looks at these three elements, one sees that the synobium is really the place of formation. It is the place of discipline and training, certainly of hospitality, and it's also the place where the infirmary is put. It's a place for the infirmary. So the young and the old and active hospitality in between. The aramal, or the hermitage, is a place for contemplative joy. It's a place for mortification, for suffering, and for a stronger liturgical accent, where the monks can enter the liturgy more contemplatively in an organized, conscious way. And the relationship between these two, according to Donenzel, is to be seen in terms of John

[07:49]

Cashin. That is, one leads to the other. You start off in the synobium, in community life, and when you're ready, if you get ready, then you can move up into the hermitage lifestyle. That's one, only remember now, this is only one way of looking at hermitage synobium. Actually, nowadays, both hermitage and synobium are places of formation. Both are places of hospitality. The synobium at Kamaldoli certainly offers more hospitality than the hermitage. It's just a bigger place. It can sleep 200 people in their guest house, and they have huge groups that go there. But the hermitage also has ongoing hospitality, year-round. The postulancy is that the hermitage has been for quite a few years.

[08:52]

The third phase, or the third component of the triple good, that is evangelization or mission, Donenzel sees in a number of ways. First of all, he sees, well, I ask you, what are the various ways one can look at, in our own lives, the third component of the triple good? How do we live this? Or how can we live this as Kamaldolis? Or how have Kamaldolis lived it during the centuries? I mean, we only have martyrs in that first Romualdian phase, so certainly martyrdom was one way. But there are other ways. In a way, hospitality could be a part of our image and mission. As far as evangelization goes, certainly. But that would go with all three phases. Very good. Very good. That's one of Donenzel's primary points. If you're going to be a recluse,

[10:04]

and how does that fit in then? How? How does that become evangelization or martyrdom? What color of martyrdom? White. White martyrdom. And where do we get white martyrdom from? Yeah, exactly. And the life of Antony, to be precise. Right. And so, Donenzel says, if you become a recluse, you're living martyrdom. About, I guess, five, six years ago, when Alessandro was here, he gave one talk on this. And, you know, a caution, as does Robert quite often, against, the way Robert says, this third folk is not just having tea with the Anglicans in the parlor. It's something really extraordinary. It's a grace of God.

[11:08]

So, and I'm pretty sure Alessandro gave the example of the drinkers. Being, maybe not as they're facing martyrdom, but being totally ripped out of one's own culture and placed somewhere else. It would be more on this side. Yeah. Or not so much even that. Just this. Yeah. It's like, it's something, it's something extraordinary. That's why I'm not sure hospitality is just, is, would be quite it. It's a way of touching upon it sort of peripherally. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not the germ of what we're talking about. However, Don Anselmo says that if one does live a strong apostolate of preaching, for instance, or a missionary approach to his work, it fits into this.

[12:10]

And of course, B. Griffiths did that too, by his life as well as by his writings. Oh, you're just, you were stretching. Oh, okay. And historically, certainly, we've had many, many bishops and some cardinals, archbishops, who had to live, basically were forced to live a very active church life outside of the communion of Kamaldoli, outside of their own community, and that's seen also strongly in this. We don't have that much in recent years, but that also would fit into that. And of course, then one, nowadays, one can look at the triple good, vis-a-vis my own life as a Kamaldolese, and find the elements and integrate them, you know.

[13:10]

Like I live all three elements in my life, each one of us. That's another elaboration. But the old stronghold of the triple good, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about cenobitic life, or medical life, and then this uneasy, nebulous third phase of the triple good, at least for us in this day and age. It's not clear at all how that fits in. Except, again, in an interiorization or an elaboration in that sense. Okay, we'll look at each one then. Cenobium. Anselmo sees the cenobium as the place where one is able to live out one's conversatio morum, one's vow of conversatio.

[14:13]

So in the elbow-to-elbow life of community, where one rubs shoulders constantly, one learns how to live the grace of community. And how to incorporate within one's own conscious existence the life of Christ. And the whole paschal significance of Christian life and Christian community life. Remember that Romuald was not in any sense out to start another order, or even another congregation. He had no intention of doing that whatsoever. He died a benedictine of Polinari and Classe of Ravenna. He didn't die a Kamaldolese. He had just founded Kamaldolese shortly before he died.

[15:17]

And there was no Kamaldolese congregation. And there was no Romualdian congregation. It was a movement within the monastic world at that time, which he gave inspiration to and helped form and reform and found and re-found for monastics to live a new inspired monastic existence, but particularly an aramidical existence. It's wrong to think of what ended up at Kamaldolese, Hermitage and Zenobia, you know, it's very nice. You have both of them there. Those who want to live, who are called to live a more aramidical existence can go up the mountain and live that. You have people going up, back and forth over the years and whatnot.

[16:17]

As being typical of either the Romualdian world or the later Kamaldolese centuries. It just never was. It was for Kamaldolese, but with very few exceptions, did you ever have both the Hermitage and the Zenobia together outside of Kamaldolese. Can you remember a couple instances in the Romualdian world where it happened? Perio, where they were at the point when this whole business of the triple good and the mission to the east came up to the proposal of Emperor Otto. There we have a Hermitage and Zenobia.

[17:20]

Also, a few years later, about eight years later, you had the situation also in the marshes near Ravenna at a place called Biforco. We again had a double setup. Neither one of these worked out. You end up with Kamaldolese working out, but the two in the Romualdian, Perio was a disaster, an utter disaster for a number of reasons. This whole triple good thing, this whole mission to the east just tore apart Perio. If you remember your life of Romuald, or the life of the five brothers, or both, Perio is where it's all decided and where Bruno is languishing because he's getting malaria and can't stand all this solitude in the swamps and whatnot, and why can't we get off our butts

[18:24]

and go and evangelize the world? Instead of just shedding our blood here in malaria, why don't we shed it for Christ in an active way? Bruno was gung-ho on the whole martyrdom thing and trying to convince Benedict of that, and eventually he did. Romuald wanted Benedict. Remember that at Perio you had this idea, let's have two abbots, one a more spiritual abbot and one an abbot who can take care of the... who can be an administrator. And this again was Otto's idea. Otto was heavily involved in this Perio establishment. And Romuald wanted Benedict to be the abbot on Imara at Perio. In the end, he decided just to let all the monks decide

[19:28]

for themselves whether or not they wanted to go on this mission to Poland. And Benedict decided he was going to go to Poland, and so Perio basically fell apart. The five brothers took off for Poland. Romuald sort of threw up his hands and said enough and went off to Istria and started his own foundations over there and Perio just sort of fell apart. All right. Tobacco writes this. It remains true in every case that Romuald does not propose creating a unique Eremo-Chenobyo institution. Romuald wants an autonomous hermitage

[20:30]

every time he is offered the opportunity to actualize it. But it is also true that when a Cenobium is born spontaneously from the hermitage, Romuald allows that to happen, but he overturns the normal practice of placing the hermits under a superior of the Cenobites or among the Cenobites. He makes a hermit in charge. Why does he do this? And what is his emphasis? Again, just echoing past lectures, Romuald is really concerned with the Eremitical life, of reviving the Eremitical life, giving it some standard to live by and an ecclesiastical standing so that they're just not off living in the wilds, so that they end up having their own novitiate and their own ecclesiastical standing and authority and won't be hassled by anyone. And so if one looks at his own work,

[21:34]

he will found a Cenobium or particularly reform or reestablish a Cenobium if he's asked to, but his main emphasis is founding hermitages wherever he can effect that. The more reputable scholars, and particularly what I mean is those outside the Kamaldolese family, in this instance, only because the polemics were so strong between hermits and Cenobites for such a long time, the more reputable scholars hold that the Cenobium, seen as the first level of Romualdian monasticism, that is, you start out in the Cenobium and then you move up, if you get to the point, you can move up into the clouds of the hermit existence,

[22:41]

that is the way of John Cassius' thinking, anyway, and the Desert Fathers, that idea is an elaboration of Bruno Boniface, again. Bruno Boniface, that's his elaboration. In other words, the idea that the Cenobium has to be preliminary to living an hermitical existence is basically from Bruno Boniface, and it's more tied to his own religiosity, his being a German, his coming from an empire that had huge royal abbeys, Cenobitic abbeys, and very few hermits at all, and those were either tied to the big royal abbeys of the empire, or they were often living in bands or solitary existence in the woods.

[23:46]

Aquatonica. The idea for the periocenobium suggested by Otto sprang from his own desire to take off the crown, and to become a Romualdian monk, and then to go off on a mission to the East himself. Perio basically came around because he was so frustrated because it wasn't quite time for him to take the crown off and to do what he wanted to do, and so he effected this double monastery at Perio in order to at least get the two of the three components of the triple good,

[24:53]

which is his and Bruno's idea, underway. And indeed, the third component gets underway too, but the third component basically undermines this whole business, and Perio just dissolves and becomes a disaster. One also has to remember, when looking at Romuald's hesitation about this whole business of the Cenobium and Eremon together and this whole mission to the East idea, if one asks the question, well, why would Romuald even get involved in that? Why did he let it happen? You can tell by the way he reacts in the primary sources that he allows it to happen, but he's somewhat reluctant about it,

[25:55]

and he doesn't go on it himself, notice. Not in the beginning, not in the mission to Poland, not in the first mission. So why would you think he allows it to happen? Partially because of his friendship and support of God. That's the primary reason. Right, because he's hoping that Otto will indeed... He wants him to take off the crown. Now, Otto's only 20 years old. He wants him to take the crown off, he wants him to become a monk. Romuald, as Romuald mentioned in yesterday's homily, he really did want the whole world to be hermits, or at least monastics, you know? He thought there was no better way to expect the second coming, I guess. I don't know. He was really gung-ho on monasticism.

[26:57]

And he wanted nothing more for Otto than to see him become a monk. And if that meant going off to the mission to the East, well, at least he'd be going as a monk. Okay, what other reason? What other reason would he want a mission to Poland to happen? Now, this is another biggie reason. It's a biggie. It's also for Peter Damian. You find it in the writings constantly. Why would Romuald also let missionary expression come into the hermitical life? Why would he be open to that? Same reason that Peter Damian would come off again and again and again. More the other part of the third good.

[27:59]

More this. Why? Why? If you spread the gospel, what do you do? Again, Peter Damian, Peter Damian, over and over again. You save the soul. And they're very big on that. And Romuald wanted nothing more than to save Otto's soul. And he saw the salvation coming through the monastic habit for Otto and getting rid of all of that worldliness that came along with running an empire. And certainly all the warfare that he had to get involved with. Because basically at this time, if you're an emperor, you spend your life as emperor fighting off other people or making alliances or fighting other reluctant opponents who are caught in other alliances and get dragged into a conflict over land or money or a marriage or whatever.

[29:03]

And so Otto's brief life as an emperor was typical of what it was like. And Romuald saw that. He saw Otto as a shining possibility for monasticism who really wanted to be a monk and caught in the vice of politics. And saw all of his energy being dissipated in these vain, empty conflicts over and over and over again. That's what they talked about. You know, you read where Romuald and Otto spent all-nighters. They were on the campfire. Well, this is what Otto's going through. Here I am doing this. I have to do this. How do I keep my mind on Christ? How do I center my mind? Because he wants to be a monk. He's just captivated with Romuald.

[30:04]

And he's captivated in the movement that Romuald has started. And indeed, the emperor himself, Otto III, is part of the Romualdian movement and promotes as much as he can, builds a number of places for Romuald, this Romualdian reform movement. Yeah? Certainly, this is more speculation than a question. Certainly, the Romualdians are not the only monastic missionaries. But is there also some of this direct connection with the desert that the response to the gospel is to become a monk? You know, like Anthony hears the gospel and immediately becomes a monk. So for them to evangelize, also they're evangelizing as monks. They're evangelizing by setting up hermitages, by setting up monasteries. So there's the direct response, bring the gospel, become a monk.

[31:07]

Bring the gospel, bring a hermitage. Bring the gospel, bring a monastery. Right. Which is more pronounced in the East, it seems to me, than in the West. Well, it was Romuald's hope for letting this whole Poland thing to take place. At least they were founding a synovium, a hermitage there, and then there would be more. And that's what he means by saving souls. He doesn't mean going out and baptizing. He means setting up monasteries, as many as he can, and get them in habits. That's saving souls in that sense. It's very, sort of a rare air that, there's aria rara, or something like that, there's rarefied air that Romuald breathes. He's just so fired up by the whole thing, you know, and that's what he means by saving souls. Yeah. The whole world is a monastery for him. Okay.

[32:08]

Hermitage. Let's look at the second. Donan Salmo, in his work, remember, again, in 1945, points out that the hermitage is ordered to the contemplative life. Well, that's obvious. He sees the synovium-hermitage combination as the constitutional fulcrum, or way-to-be, the basis, the balance, for all of Kamaldali's monasticism. In my opinion, and in others', this is stretching it a bit, because, again, other than Kamaldali itself, all of our houses, and at different points in history, we have hundreds and hundreds of monasteries and hermitages at any given time. They're either one or the other. They're not a fulcrum combination of the two,

[33:09]

as Kamaldali, for our history, you know. Now, to say it's the mainstay, if one means by that sort of there's the mother house, there's the symbol, there's a living and ongoing relationship there, and an ideal being lived out, and if that's, you know, influencing all of Kamaldali's monasticism through its symbology or whatever, well, then fine, I understand that, you know. But to say that this is the way it should be certainly didn't flesh out in history. If you want to say this is the ideal, and it'd be great if all of our foundations could do this, well, yeah, I have no problem with that either,

[34:11]

but it just didn't happen in history. And so I look at it more as this is an ideal for Kamaldali's monasticism, not necessarily for Romualdian monasticism, but for what became Kamaldali's monasticism and the spirituality. Then I have no problem with that. Romuald's own preference, once again, is for the aramidical, without denying the importance of the cenobitical life or the benefits thereof, his focus is on the aramidical life. Even to the point of... I mean, he gave in at one point to Otto when Otto made him the abbot of Klose, the abbot of his own monastery. He made him abbot, and he lasted for just a little bit over a year,

[35:13]

and couldn't stand it anymore. Because the monks didn't want to be reformed, they didn't want to live the rigor that Romuald evidently wanted to impose upon or inspire into the monastic life at Klose. So he threw down his abbatial staff and took off his mitre or whatever, in the court, in the imperial court, which was on the road at that time, and said, basta, enough of this, I'm going to make more foundations, I'm not going to live this kind of thing. He himself really could only live the hermit life. Time and time again, we find him, even when he makes foundations,

[36:17]

he just gets it started, then what does he do? He malls himself up in a little cell nearby, and he sort of becomes this hermit in the tower nearby, and an ideal for them to have near. Or maybe even, look at it this way, sort of an avas animaru, but he's living sort of a reclusive existence, and in some instances, we know from The Life of Peter Damian, he lived years at a time as a total recluse, they didn't see him for a number of years, just after he'd get something started, and he'd live as a recluse. Even after this, when Perio fell, and he went off to Istria, St. Michael Alemo, and got that started there, he built, got the monastery built, and then off he was, he was a recluse there too. It just happens over and over and over again

[37:19]

during his long life, that his real strength, thank God for Ramana's strength, was the hermitical charism that he had. And whereas he didn't deny the validity of Sinopia, he founded many of them, or reformed many of them. Again, he's coming from his own heart, in his own strong fervor to get something established, to protect hermits, and to get them together and under a superior and a rule, and let them be just like Sinopitical monasteries in the sense that they too can have their own novices and their novitiates and make foundations and whatnot and not have to live off them without any support or any standing. He wanted an equal standing for the hermits of his day. Okay, the third component, evangelization or martyrdom.

[38:22]

This is from the life of the five brothers. During the long hours Benedict and I spent together, this is Bruno Boniface, it was my privilege to enjoy his friendship and to hear him call me my brother. I kept suggesting that he set out for Poland to preach the gospel, and I declared myself ready to do the same. Persuaded by my words, Benedict began to thirst for martyrdom. And the idea of leaving for Poland gave him another reason for not wanting to be abbot. Unquote. Persuaded by my words, Benedict began to thirst for martyrdom. And the idea of leaving for Poland gave him another reason for not wanting to be abbot. Forniciari explains why in his, this is our Roberto, who's now doing a doctorate in church history. Church history. In fact, he's going to be doing a dissertation

[39:24]

on that whole murky business of the cenobitic congregation being suppressed in 1935. So if he can get into the Vatican archives and whatnot and find everything that's supposed to be there, hopefully this will be great for our history. But it's all been undercovers since 35. Anyway, he explains why Romuald responds positively but unenthusiastically to the request for hermits to go to Poland. First of all, in terms of hoping, as Cyprian pointed out, hoping that indeed Otto was going to go through with his plan and live long enough to go through with his plan. He died shortly thereafter. And become a monk and take himself off to Poland

[40:25]

and found monasteries and hermitages and whatnot and evangelized that way. By getting all kinds of Poles into monasteries and hermitages. There's still another side to this, even besides saving souls. Saving souls and pleasing Otto or hoping that Otto's plans are going to work out. And that is, that is, how to... Romuald at this time, at this point in the movement,

[41:29]

is finding the politics, if one wants to use that word, of the formation of the Romualdian ethos and the Romualdian world almost becoming too much for him to handle himself. He's already letting a lot of this develop. And he's sort of bemusedly watching, you know, this whole Perio thing build up and whatnot. Another side of Romuald's decision to reluctantly allow the mission to Poland to take place probably comes from this realization that the Romualdian ethos is branching out in different ways. And Romuald isn't the kind of person who wants to come down and squelch everything. He's just not part of this personality. If a situation comes around like that,

[42:35]

where he's supposed to do something like that, he would rather scurry the other way and found another monastery or found another hermitage or go off on a trip or whatever. He really tends to avoid confrontational... He doesn't always avoid confrontations because we have, just from the primary sources, we know that almost whenever he runs into an abbot, that is, a cenobitical abbot, there's fireworks. We know that he got into it thick with the abbots of Mount Amiata, Biforco, Orvieto, Citria, and Waldecastro. All five abbots, all five of those places at any one given time, at least, there are major conflicts between Romuald and the abbot,

[43:37]

whom he placed in charge in some of the cases, at least. But other than that, you don't see him really getting into conflictual situations very often. He's too busy exercising his charism, doing what he needs to do. And so another way of looking at this whole mission to the East, and this would be sort of a bracketed one, is that it's obvious at this time that he's just letting whatever happened, happen, because it's sort of like out of control at this point. Not in the sense of out of his control, but he just doesn't have a feel for where this is going. And so just trusting that it's going to be right, he lets it happen. He does that reluctantly. OK.

[44:38]

Put in parentheses now that we're talking about the whole Martyrium, Evangelium, Paganorum phase, or component, the triple good, that if you know much about Bruno Boniface, OK, what do we know about Bruno Boniface? Well, we know that he came from the imperial court, that he had strong ties, that he decided to be a monk, and first became a monk after being a chaplain to the imperial court at a community in Rome called St. Alexis and... Sergius? Boniface. Alexis and Boniface. It's there that he discovers his real hero. Now, in a certain sense, Romuld himself later becomes

[45:46]

a sort of hero for Bruno Boniface. But Bruno Boniface's first major hero is St. Adalbert. St. Adalbert of Prague, who, like Bruno Boniface in the end, is named Missioner to the East, is given the pallium by the Pope, ad agentes, just... Your mission is to preach to the people eastward. That's your... The whole... Anywhere from here on in, you know, through Russia. That was Adalbert's area. Of course, at that time, they were all fierce, really, rather fierce tribes of people. Adalbert makes it to Poland. He's martyred in Poland. That whole area is given by the Pope his name, the St. Adalbert province of the church. And he becomes a hero for so many.

[46:49]

Remember now, this is a monk. Adalbert is a monk. Bruno Boniface, who takes the name Boniface, but if you know anything about St. Boniface, you're going to see some similarities there as well. Boniface is an English monk who goes off and becomes a missionary to the, at that time, unchurched tribes of German, German lands, let's call it, and is martyred by one of the tribes, the Phrygians, over an issue of a tree, an oak tree. What did he do? He cut it down, I think. It's something to do with... They worshipped the oak tree, and so Boniface cut it down and said, this is the wrong thing to be worshipping, and then they cut him down. And he became, again, this is another man who has the pallium from the pope. There's a really strong mirror here with Bruno Boniface.

[47:51]

The pope just gives him free, you know, access to mutate all those peoples to the northwest and have your way, your archbishop to them, da, da, da, da. So his heroes are Boniface and Adalbert, and his very strong motives to be martyred him, and it comes through strongly in the life of the five brothers, in Bruno's own, you know, his own writings, in his own ambition. One would almost say, and some of the scholars do say, that Bruno is obsessed with martyrdom, and he certainly wouldn't be the first

[48:54]

to make a strong death wish. True, it's enlightened by the light of Christ and the hope for being a beacon of evangelization in the process and mirroring the blood of Christ in his own life and all of those motives, but obsessed nonetheless. This is certainly alluded to by these three scholars, by Tabacco, by Leclerc. Leclerc is very clear about this. And although he's touched by the Romaldian world, enough to follow Ronald around for a while and be part of it, he never really reconciles himself to what's really germane to the Romaldian movement. He's not a hermit.

[49:55]

He's a strong man of action, and that certainly proves true in his own life. And probably had a very strong ego as well. I mean that in a good sense. Krokowski, a Polish fellow who wrote at least two articles, if not three, on Bruno Boniface and the mission of the Five Brothers, we have at least one of them in our library, writes this. Bruno remains, however, always tied to Germany, always tied to the empire. And one cannot forget that. He never really leaves Germany. Even when he sets off finally for the mission, he ends up years, spending years back in Germany,

[50:59]

gathering more disciples and money, and this and that, and ends up with a pallium, and agentes, and whatnot. But I mean, he's back there, and even founds a monastery. He founds a monastery back in the German empire before going off on the mission, where his brothers in the community have long been martyred and dead in Poland. He finally gathers 18 Germans to go with him off on his own mission to the east, and we know that he was beheaded in the end, with the 18, in the year 1009. But we know that during the four years that preceded that, they went around Hungary and through Russia, the Kiev section of Russia,

[51:59]

Prussia, and probably, although we don't know this for sure, parts of Scandinavia as well, doing Evangelium Paganorum for four years. And probably, in a number of instances, at least courting martyrdom. But it didn't happen until 1009. Now, of course, when the word gets to Romul about Bruno Boniface being martyred, Romul finally gets the fire. I've got to go to the east. Let's go again. And so Romul, again, gathers disciples around himself, and off they go. And you know the history, huh? There were 24 others that went with him. And that, in the end, he just couldn't get past the border. Whatever reasons, for whatever reasons, he just couldn't get there. And so he let every monk decide whether he wanted to go on or come back to Italy.

[53:03]

And some went, and others came back. But he, because of this mysterious illness he had, never could get past the borders and couldn't get on the road. He saw this as a sign of God in the matter. Others, particularly our own confers, who were scholars of Romul, questioned the psychological implications of this mysterious illness that attacks Romul on the border of Hungary and suggest strongly that it's probably that Romul just could not reconcile with this. Even though he got all the way to the point of crossing into Hungary, just could not do it, because he had to go back and do what? Well, what did he do when he left?

[54:09]

He went to Orvieto. He went to Orvieto and quickly made three foundations. He founded three more monasteries within the passage of one year's time. This is what's the thing. He needs to found monasteries, reform ones that already exist, and save souls through the monastic manner of life. Quote. On the way back, Romul converted a number of Germans, among them a high-ranking nobleman, a relative of Duke Adelbern, who became a monk and persevered in that holy state until his death. Romul reached Orvieto and retired to the monastery he had built there. Just as he had not gone on mission for superficial motives, so he did not return with a sense of failure. In his heart, he had already undergone martyrdom

[55:12]

and had accomplished his mission of saving souls by bringing people to the monastic life. Unquote. Saving souls by bringing people to the monastic life. That's chapter 39 of the life of Romul. While he was at Orvieto, where he had founded an abbey, word reached Romul that his disciple, the blessed Boniface, had received martyrdom. From that time on... Now, he was at Orvieto before he went on the trip and then goes back to Orvieto afterwards. But before he went off for... So within a year's time... I'm getting things mixed up. Within a year's time of... the first Orvieto experience and getting to the borders of Hungary, what does he do? He founds three monasteries. While he's getting ready to go on this crusade. When he comes back, he goes to Orvieto and that's when he gets in an argument with the abbot

[56:13]

that he set up there at Orvieto. That's how it works. So he gets mad at the abbot of Orvieto on the way back and then he goes off in another direction and founds more. And the three that he founds at that time are the Synobium at Valdikastro, a monastery near the river Esino that would be St. Elena. Did you go there? Yeah, I went there too. It's a rather nice place. And a monastery or a hermitage in the province of Askoly. I'm not remembering what this one is. So as if he doesn't have enough to do getting a crusade ready, he's founding, and these are in different places in Italy. Within a year's time, he's doing this. Oh, here's another abbot he fought with, Klose, he fought with the abbot of Klose as well.

[57:14]

Anyway, even though we have the triple good and even though we can, even today, take its implications and interiorize it and see our own congregation and our own Khmelnytskyi family in terms of these three elements, please don't forget that this is not Romulus' contribution to the Romulian movement. This is Bruno's and this is Otto's and that Romulus goes along with it and becomes part of the Romulian world and is elaborated by others throughout the centuries for the Khmelnytskyi's world. And I'm not saying anything about validity or, you know, of course it's valid. It's part of our history.

[58:18]

But remember that it's not Romulus. It's Romulian, but it's not Romulus. Okay, we'll open it up. Any questions or discussions? Or refutations?

[58:40]

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