You. day until death, we shall then share by patience in the sufferings of Christ, that we may deserve to be partakers also of his kingdom."

[01:54]

Now, it's evident that here in this concluding paragraph of the prologue there are two things which are established. One is that the school of the law of service is really a school. It's not a static matter, but it's a dynamic matter. The monk starts his life every day all over again as a disciple. He learns. Therefore, it is the inner law is that of progress, not of attaining a certain status and then staying on that, but it is a constant inner progress to greater love, to that inner freedom and enlargement of the house in which we run in the way of God's commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love.

[02:58]

Abandoning his rule, persevering in his teaching in the monastery, that's the other element, that is the element of stability. These two things we must clearly see. stability of the monastery is not a static stability, a kind of a static observance of reaching a certain level, let's say a certain You know, the dynamic element of converting, starting the conversion every day all over, you can say every moment.

[04:23]

in the monastic life is the hermetic life that has been the tradition from the very beginnings of the whole monastic movement. There is the real, let us say, that status of perfection as Saint Benedict one can say, is self-sufficient in the spiritual way of of that fullness with others who come to the anchorite maybe because we see the life of Saint Benedict.

[06:06]

After a while people come and they want to participate in his teaching because they realize he is in that way also then has children, you know, he has that, the ploy man and the Holy Spirit is shared with. So the, but without of course disturbing the essence of the solitary life. We can talk about that another time. But the other thing which Saint Benedict always of course emphasizes here is the is that danger of the parvo nobitius. He has experienced that in himself and that was the general thing in the monastic life that simply people who enter into this conversio or conversatio because it is absolute surrender to God want to make right away the jump into the last end and therefore they are

[07:27]

the cenobitic life comes in, not again as an absolute, which in every way is opposed or excludes the hermetical life. This is impossible. It cannot be interpreted all that way. Some people do it, but then they say, but he kind of adapts himself and he says some nice words about the hermits, but in reality he just chokes them out the window. That is his interpretation of many, but of course it's impossible, it's not true, because the estimation of the hermit goes of course together with the other estimation of the common life.

[08:32]

the rule. For St. Benedict, the rule is the beginning, not the end. So, in that way, the synobitical state is not an absolute as a form of life, but it's necessary as a stage in the general formation of a dynamic, constant progress to greater perfection. mind because in itself the community life also has its dangers and of course has its dangers to degenerate into a certain routine where the members of this group with their vow of stability which they understand as remaining in this stage all the time but of course that's not the right interpretation of it Stability means that inner perseverance in the basic monastic propositum, in the vow, that's of course necessary.

[09:42]

There must be stability and also stability in this way in the congregation and under the abbot so that they don't run from one place to the other. A fact which also may even take place if one lives in the same congregation. The essential thing, of course, is that this inner, the community life, must be a constant inner, and have a tendency to progressing, and not a hindrance for the individual to, let us say, get stuck on some kind of mediocrity, where he isn't too much out of the common, you know, let us say, routine, and where, on the other hand, he also doesn't make any special effort to, let us say, to lift, you know, his entire level, you know, beyond it.

[10:48]

You know, that is not the right attitude. We should keep this window, so to speak, open towards the aramidical life, in order to remind ourselves always that there is a goal which is beyond also the, as I say, level of the community life which necessarily, as St. Benedict explains it here, because it's meant for many, it must kind of gather the various persons and people on a certain, in a certain golden where many people are together, a certain rule, a certain golden middle has to be established. But beyond that is, further along, the medical life in which the Holy Spirit himself is as he conceived it, for that specific stage of the Cynobitical life.

[12:13]

So, let us just keep that in mind, and let us also, as I have asked you before so often for the future, pray that the Holy Spirit may give us that, you know, this great gift of evocation, as will always be. Of course, it's an extraordinary thing, it's completely in the hands of God, It will not become the rule for everybody, no, but still that the Lord may lead one or the other of us also into that. consultation and so on.

[13:10]

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