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Contemplation
March, 1959
This talk focuses on the contemplative life, using the death scene of Socrates in Plato's "Phaedo" to explore the philosophical and spiritual concept of life as a continuous death, essential for understanding the contemplative mind. Passages from St. Augustine's reflections on spiritual transformation further illustrate the transition from reliance on sensory perceptions to spiritual insights. The discussion intertwines the Platonic idea of recollection with Christian monasticism, exemplified by St. Augustine's integration of Platonic and Christian thought.
Referenced Texts and Works:
- "Phaedo" by Plato:
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Serves as the primary text explaining the contemplative life through Socrates's reflections on the soul's immortality and its liberation from the body's transient nature.
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Confessions of St. Augustine:
- Illustrates the spiritual journey from the sensory to the divine, echoing Platonic themes while incorporating Christian theology, particularly the pursuit of immutable truth beyond physical experience.
Conceptual Influences and References:
- Monasticism:
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The talk discusses how Platonic ideas influenced Christian monastic practices, emphasizing the soul’s detachment from the physical world for spiritual renewal.
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Integration of Platonic and Christian Thought:
- Highlights how St. Augustine's works synthesize Platonic philosophy with Christian doctrine, deepening the understanding of spiritual wisdom and the practice of contemplation.
AI Suggested Title: Soul's Journey: A Contemplative Awakening
He talks about the contemplative life. He is willing to read to you some passages of the because it's the death hour of Socrates and Plato uses the scene of Socrates looking forward to death to explain the contemplative life and to explain it as a continuous death really in this document is of such great importance because it is really the power of birth of that idea of the recollection of the mind the withdrawing from the
[01:24]
multitude of sense impressions to enter reflect through a process of reflection on the own soul and they'll find the unchangeable and the simple and the true life that is considered that Plato considers the quintessence of the philosophical or contemplative mind, contemplative life. I'll read to you some first days. The problem is in Phaedo. Must we not, said Socrates, ask ourselves some question? What is that which, as we imagine, is liable to be scattered away and about which we fear. Is the answer to an objection that one of the group who are discussing this question are making in one refers to the old idea that the souls after their death still hover around the tombs
[02:44]
but then, after a while, they are simply blown away by the wind, disappear, scattered. In the end, Socrates says, what is that which, as we imagine, is liable to be scattered away and about which we fear? All those who have not found, say, the real stability in life of the soul are, of course, without protection thrown into the chaos of the corruptible, and that causes fear in man, fear of corruption, fear of death. What is that which as we imagine life is scattered away, about which we fear? And what again is that about which we have no fear? And then we may proceed to inquire whether that which suffers dispersion is or is not of the nature of the soul.
[03:52]
Our hopes and fears as to our own souls will turn upon that. Then he answers, now the compound or composite may be supposed to be naturally capable of being dissolved in like manner as of being compounded. But that which is uncompounded, and that only must be, if anything is, indissoluble. So what is composite, or of many parts, that is liable also to be scattered. What is simple, that is indissoluble. Yes, that is what I should imagine, said Ceves. So Curtis continues, and the uncompounded may be assumed to be the same and unchanging, whereas the compound is always changing and never the same.
[04:54]
Is it not so? That is also, I think. Then now let us return to the previous discussion. Socrates says, is that idea or essence which in the dialectical process we define as essence or true existence, whether essence of equality or beauty or anything else, are these essences, I say, liable at times to some degree of change? Why are they each of them always what they are, having the same simple, self-existent and unchanging forms, and not admitting of variation at all, or in any way, or at any time? They must be always the same, Socrates replied Cephas. And what would you say of the many beautiful, whether men, or horses, or garments, or any other things which may be called equal or beautiful? Are they all unchanging in the same way, or are they the reverse?
[05:57]
May they not rather be described as almost always changing and hardly ever the same, either with themselves or with another? Therefore the ideas, simple and eternal, the things, always changing. The latter, replied Cephas, they are always in a state of change. And these you can touch and see and perceive with the senses, Socrates says, but the unchanging things you can only perceive with the mind. Are they invisible? Are they not seen? That is very true, he said. Well, then, he added, let us suppose that there are two sorts of existences, one seen, the other unseen. The seen is the changing. And the unseen is the unchanging. Yes, Cephas says. And further, is not one part of us body and the rest of us soul, to be sure?
[06:59]
And to which class may we say that the body is more alike in the king? Clearly to the seen, or what can doubt that? And is the soul seen or not seen? Not by man, Socrates says. And by seen and not seen is meant by us that which is not visible to the eye of man. Yes, to the eye of man. And what do we say of the soul? Is that seen or not seen? Not seen. Unseen then? Yes. Then the soul is more like to the unseen and the body to the seen. That is most certain separate. Then were we not saying long ago that the soul, when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense, were we not saying that the soul, too, is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable and wanders and is confused, the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?
[08:08]
Very true. But when returning into herself, she reflects. Then she passes into the realm of purity and eternity and immortality and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives when she is by herself and is not led or hindered. Then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging, is herself unchanging. And this state of the soul, isn't it called wisdom? That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied. And in which class is the soul more really alike in the kin, as far as may be inferred from this argument, as well as from the preceding one? I think, Socrates, that in the opinion of everyone who follows the argument, the soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable.
[09:09]
Even the most stupid person will not deny that. And the body is more like the changing? Yes. So we have a simple thought there explained, expressed. What is eternal? the unchanging. What is unchanging? What is not composed? The simple. Then there are two things, the ideas, which are unchanging and simple. They are the things, the visible things, which are changing manifold divided. To these two classes of things, two classes of faculties respond in the body. The one are the senses, which are ordered to and in proportion to the changeable. There is the immortal soul which is ordained to the essences of the things, to the unchangeable.
[10:10]
When, therefore, There are two things in man, the body with the changed senses, order to the changeable, itself changeable. There's the soul in proportion to the ideas, unchangeable and spiritual. then the soul is in the body using the body the soul is being dragged into the manifold into the multitude of sense impressions therefore the soul in order to be truly herself has to recollect has to withdraw to a certain degree from this multitude and rest in herself, then in herself the reality of the ideas will appear to the soul. Now, I'll just give you another little description in which Plato, the voice of Socrates, describes the state of that soul which, by nature divine, is still dragged into the changeable.
[11:21]
Reflects he, Socrates says, is not the conclusion of the whole matter this. that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine and immortal and intelligible and uniform and indissoluble and unchangeable, and the body is in the very likeness of the human and mortal and unintelligible and multiform and dissoluble and changeable, can this, my dear Siebes, be denied? No, indeed. Daniel goes on, and are we to suppose that the soul which is invisible, in passing to the true Hades, which like her is invisible and pure and noble, and away to the good and wise God, with her, if God will, my own soul is also soon to go, because he looks forward to his drinking the poison. That the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, can we then say that soul could be blown away and perishes immediately on quitting the body, as the many say?
[12:30]
That can never be, my dear Simeon. The truth, rather, is that the soul, which is pure and departing, goes after her no bodily thing. having never voluntarily had connection with the body which she is ever avoiding, herself gathered into herself. For such abstraction has been the study of her life. And what does this mean but that she has been a true disciple of philosophy and has practiced how to die easily, And is not philosophy the practice of death? Certainly a secret, sir. There we are at the design moment in which philosophy, a practice of death. That is a sentence which had greatest influence later also on monasticism. And one sees, of course, that a whole civilization which is penetrated by these thoughts and this way of thinking of
[13:34]
Plato and that is what the antiquity was into which our Lord entered, because in a very concrete way was prepared to understand. I mean in their own categories, the same in the categories of that Greek civilization also, death of the laws on the cross, which is divine wisdom, dying, and we may be redeemed. So the Platonists themselves certainly did not have this doctrine, but it was evidently that in some way they were preparing the way for it. The beautiful thing later then is to see, and I hope we do that later on, to see how a man like St. Augustine, who was himself in so many ways so similar to Plato, then trained in and soaked in Christian experience, combines the two, the way of Plato with the wisdom of the New Testament, compares and combines the two.
[14:54]
So Plato explains here the philosophy as a way of recollection, as a way of salvation, as a way for the soul to freedom, but through death. He continuously, for example, says the following, but he who is a philosopher or lover of learning and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods. And this is the reason, Simeon and Silas, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and endure and refuse to give themselves up to them, not because they fear poverty or the ruin of their families, like the lovers of money and the world in general, nor like the lovers of power and honor because they dread the dishonor of disgrace and evil deeds.
[16:00]
No, and therefore they who have a care of their souls and do not merely live in the fashions of the body say farewell to all this. They will not walk in the grace of the blood. And when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, They feel that they ought not to resist her influence, and to her they incline, and whither she leads, they follow her. I will tell you, Socrates says, the lovers of knowledge are conscious that their souls, when philosophy receives them, are simply fastened and glued to their bodies in the beginning. That means every soul who enters into philosophy has to go through a novitiate, in which that first state in which they find themselves fastened and glued to the bodies has to be overcome. And he says, then, in that initial state, the soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in its own nature.
[17:11]
She is wallowing in the maya of all ignorance, and philosophy, seeing the terrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led to conspire in her own captivity. For the lovers of knowledge are aware that this was the original state of the soul and when she was in this state, philosophy received and gently counseled her and wanted to release her pointing out to her that the are is full of deceit, and also deeply ill and other senses, and persuading her to retire from them in all but the necessary use of them, and to be gathered up and collected into herself, and to trust only to herself and her own intuitions of absolute existence, and mistrust that which comes to her through others, subject to vicissitudes.
[18:13]
Philosophy shows her that this is visible and tangible, but that what she sees in her own nature is intellectual and immutable. And the soul of the true philosopher thinks that she ought not to resist this deliverance, and therefore abstains from pleasures and desires and pains and fears as far as she is able. reflecting that when a man has great joys or sorrows or fears or desires, he suffers from them, not the sort of evil which might be anticipated, as, for example, the loss of health or property which he has sacrificed to his lusts, but he has suffered an evil greater far, which is the greatest and worst of all evils, and one of which he never thinks. And what is that, Socrates, said Cephas, Why it is this? When the feeling of pleasure or pain in the soul is most intense, all of us naturally suppose that the object of this intense feeling is then plainest and truest.
[19:26]
But this is not the case. This is the state in which the soul is most enthralled by the body. How is that? Why? Because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the body and engrosses her and makes her believe that to be true which the body affirms to be true. And from agreeing with the body and having the same delights she is obliged to have the same habits and ways and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always saturated with the body, so that she soon sinks into another body and there germinates and grows and has therefore no part in the communion of the divine and of the pure and of the simple.
[20:35]
That certainly is a wonderful description, and that shows the whole basic decision, and that has to be renewed every time in the contemplative life. That is that step into, let's say, the more rarefied atmosphere that I tried to describe to you before, and that everybody goes through, especially in the beginnings of the monastic life. He is, he cannot avoid, the soul is still fastened to the body. And through this close connection between soul and body, Man is inclined to take that as reality which the body makes or imposes upon the soul as the most closest and as the most acute reality, the more impressionable,
[21:41]
That way a soul is, the more also the soul is inclined to take the various, if not only the sense impressions as you can see here, but also the passions, the fear, the desires, the lusts of the body, the feelings of sorrow and of pain as the most the clearest and surest reality. And that is of course the region from which we have to withdraw. The conversion or the leaving of the world and the entering into a monastery And the living in an enclosure means just that, that we do the step from these, let us say, most evident sense realities of the physical world to the other realities of the spiritual life.
[22:47]
But that first appears as a death, and is a death. because the other reality, the spiritual reality, is not yet really seen in its intensity and in its greater reality. The soul is not yet accustomed to that. And the whole education of a monk, and also in the novitiate, consists in this, that he more and more is able to make the step from the emotions to the real spiritual joy. Everybody who enters into a monastery feels that vacuum around him, realizes that the emotions which carried him in the world cannot carry him anymore in the monastery, and therefore he has to die in that way. But then death is the sure way
[23:51]
to a deeper experience, which is the experience that Saint Benedict sums up in the one word which is peace. But of course that peace, that is peace in Christ who died for us, died in his human bodily nature, And then, through his resurrection, gives us the spirit, the spirit of the risen Christ, the spirit who is the instrument of Christ's risen life. And that comes to us through the celebration of the sacred mysteries of the sacrament. And that is the role which to us the liturgy plays in our life for the purification of our soul, for the loosening of that relation, that being veiled and fastened to the body.
[24:52]
I do truly am lost for me knowing they don't believe. Will you grace me, show me the way to help me? meeting with the architects will be continued after tours of the same people. Last time I spoke about the end of the life, I read to you some passages from the dialogue by the the last conversation that Socrates had with his friends and which ended in Socrates taking the cup of poison and dying according to the flesh. Now today I want to call your attention to a great Christian
[26:01]
shows, how shall we say, the rich and free philometer of Socrates. It has a similar scene. That's what I wanted to call your attention to. It's St. Augustine. And it's St. Augustine, then, in the last conversation he had with his mother on the day when she died. We go through just some leaps. I'll read something so that at least you get a sketchy idea of St. Augustine's development in this matter. He felt and he lived through that drama of leaving the sense beauty and of discovering the spiritual beauty. Yet it begins with this manhood.
[27:12]
Now my evil, sinful youth was over, and I had come on into young manhood. But the older in years, the baser was my vanity, in that I could not conceive any other kind of substance than what these eyes are accustomed to see. I did not indeed, oh God, think of you under the figure of a human body. Oh, the moment I began to know anything of philosophy, I had rejected that idea. Yet I rejoice to find the same rejection in the faith of our spiritual mother, your Catholic Church. As a man, though so poor a man, I set myself to think of you as the supreme and sole and true God, and with all my heart I believed you incorruptible and inviolable and immutable. For though I did not see whence or how, yet I saw with utter certainty that what can be corrupted is lower than what cannot be corrupted.
[28:24]
There you find the basic ideas again of VEDO which I just have spoken of before. that the inviolable is beyond question better than the viable, and that what can't suffer no change is better than what can be changed. See, it's exactly the same. Duality of ideas, corruption and change, the incorruptible and the unchangeable. My heart cried out passionately against all my imaginings, I tried with this one truth to beat away all that circling host of uncleannesses from the eyes of my mind. But they were scarce gone for the space of a single glance, and they came again, clothes packed upon me, pressed upon my gaze.
[29:26]
and so clouded it that though I did not even then think of you under the shape of a human body, yet I could not but think of you as some corporal substance occupying all space, whether infused in the world or else diffused through infinite space beyond the world. Yet even at this I thought of you as incorruptible and inviolable and immutable, and I still saw those as better than corruptible and immutable. But whatever I tried to see as not in space seemed to me to be nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a void. For if a body were taken out of its place, and the place remained without anybody, whether of earth or water or air or sky, it would still be an empty place, a space occupied in emptiness.
[30:36]
Thus I was so gross of mind, not seeing even myself clearly, that whatever was not extended in space, either diffused or massed together, or swollen out, or having some such qualities, or at least capable of having them, I thought must be nothing whatsoever. My mind was in search of such images as the forms what I was accustomed to see. And I did not realize that the mental act by which I thought these images was not itself a bodily image, yet it could not have formed them unless it were something, not evil, something great. I conceived of you, life of my life, as mighty everywhere and throughout infinite space,
[31:44]
piercing through the whole glass of the world, and spread measureless and limitless every way beyond the world, so that the earth should have you, and the sky should have you, and all things should have you, and they should be bounded in you, but you nowhere bounded. For as the body of the air which is above the earth does not hinder the sun's light from passing through it, and that life penetrates it, yet does not break it or cut it, but feels it wholly, so I thought that the body, not only of the sky and air and sea, but of the earth, also was penetrable by you, and easily to be pierced in all its parts, great and small, for the receiving of your presence, while your secret inspiration governed inwardly and outwardly all the things you have created. So there is that struggle, that jump from the visible and true and firm and real looking things into that abyss of the mental spiritual reality.
[33:00]
which, through the senses, of course, is nothing. That's the death, the philosophical death, which Socrates speaks in Phaedo. But, of course, he progresses and laid on, and I marvel to find that at last I loved you, yet not some phantom instead of you. Yet I did not stably enjoy my God, but was ravished to you by your beauty, yet soon was torn away from you again by my own weight, and fell again with torment to lower things. Counter-habit was that weight. Yet the memory of you remained with me, and I know without doubt that it was you to whom I should cleave, for I was not yet such as could cleave to you. For the corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presses down the mind that muses upon many things.
[34:09]
I was altogether certain that your invisible things are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made. So too are your everlasting power and your good Godhead. I was now studying the ground of my admiration for the beauty of bodies, whether celestial or of earth, and at what authority I might rightly judge of things mutable and say, this ought to be so and that not so, inquiring then what was the source of my judgment. That's now the metronome. When I did so judge, I had discovered the immutable and true eternity of truth above my changing mind. Thus by stages I pass from bodies to the soul, which uses the body for its perceiving, and from this to the soul's inner power, to which the body's senses present external things, as indeed the beasts are able,
[35:21]
And from there I passed on to the reasoning power to which is referred for judgment what is received from the body's senses. This too realized that it was mutable in me and rose to its own understanding as to turn inside what we call conversion. It withdrew my thought from its habitual way abstracting from the confused crows of phantasms, that it might find what light suffused it when with utter certainty it cried out that the immutable was to be preferred to the mutable, and how it had come to know the immutable itself. For if it had not come to some knowledge of the immutable, it could not have known it as certainly preferable to the mutable. Thus, in the thrust of a trembling glance, my mind arrived at that which is.
[36:30]
Then, indeed, I saw clearly your invisible things, which are understood by the things that are made. But I lacked the strength to hold my gaze fixed, and my weakness was beaten back again, so that I returned to my old habits, bearing nothing with me but a memory of delight and a desire as for something of which I had caught the fragrance, but which I had not yet the strength to eat. So there again, that's the ascent from the visible to the invisible. Then comes, at the end, the realisation. There it is. When the day was approaching on which my mother was to depart this life, the day that you knew, though we did not, it came about, as I believe, by your secret arrangement.
[37:35]
that she and I stood alone, leaning in a window, which looked inwards to the garden within the house where we were staying, a little cloister, at Ostia on the Tyre. For there we were away from everybody, resting for the sea voyage from the weariness of our long journey by land. I came from England. There we talked together, she and I alone, in deep joy. In forgetting the things that were behind, in looking forward to those that were before, we were discussing in the presence of truth, which you are, what the eternal life of the saints could be like, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man. But with the mouth of our heart, be panted for the high waters of your fountain, the fountain of the life which is with you.
[38:37]
And being sprinkled from that fountain, according to our capacity, we might in some sense meditate upon some greater matter. And our conversation hath brought us to this point. Any pleasure whatsoever of the bodily senses, in any brightness whatsoever of corporal light, seem to us not worthy of comparison with the pleasure of that eternal light, not worthy even of mention. Rising as our love flamed upward towards that selfsame, we passed in the view the various levels of bodily things up to the heavens themselves, when sun and moon and stars shine upon this earth. In higher still we saw, thinking in our minds and speaking and marveling at your works, And so we came to our own souls and went beyond them to come at last to that region of richness unending where you feed Israel forever with the food of truth.
[39:41]
Yet their life is that wisdom by which all things are made, both the things that have been and the things that are yet to be. But this wisdom itself is not made. It is as it has ever been, and so it shall be forever Indeed, has ever been, and shall be forever, have no place in it, but it simply is, for it is eternal. Whereas to have been, and to be going to be, are not eternal. And while we were thus talking of his wisdom and panting for it, with all the effort of our heart, we did for one instant attain to touch it. Then sighing and leaving the first fruits of our spirit bound to it, we return to the sound of our own tongue, in which a world has both beginning and ending. For what is life to you, O Lord, who abides in himself forever, yet grows not all old and makes all things new?
[40:52]
So be said, if to any man the tumult of the flesh grew silent, silent the images of earth and sea and air, and if the heavens grew silent, and the very soul grew silent to herself, and by not thinking of self mounted beyond self, if all dreams and imagined visions grew silent, and every tongue and every sign and whatsoever is transient. For indeed if any man could hear them, he could hear them saying with one voice, We did not make ourselves, but he made us who abides forever. But if having uttered this and so set us to listening to him who made them, they all grew silent, and in their silence he alone spoke to us, not by them, but by himself, so that we should hear his word, not by any tongue of flesh, nor the voice of an angel, nor the sound of thunder, nor in the darkness of the path, but that we should hear himself, whom in all these things we love, should hear himself, and not them, just as we too have but now reached forth
[42:19]
and in a flash of the mind attained to touch the eternal wisdom which abides over all. And if this could continue, and all other visions so different be quite taken away, and this one should so ravish and absorb and wrap the goholder in inward joys that his life should eternally be such as that one moment of understanding for which we had been sighing. Would not this be, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord? But when shall it be? Shall it be when we shall all rise again, and shall not all be changed? Such thoughts I uttered, though not in that order and in those actual words. But you know, Lord, that on that day When we talked of these things, the world with all its delights seemed cheap to us in comparison with what we talked.
[43:24]
And my mother said, son, for my own part, I no longer find joy in anything in this world. What I am still to do here and why I am here, I know not, now that I no longer hope for anything from this world. One thing there was for which I desire to remain still a little longer in this life, that I should see you, a Catholic Christian, before I die. This God has granted me in superabundance, in that I now see you, his servant, through the contempt of all worldly happiness. What then have I to do? I was reading yesterday this beautiful meeting between Saint Augustine and his mother asleep, rising to the heights of contemplation. I was thinking that today would be the day where we would continue that in the meeting between St.
[44:49]
Benedict and his sister Scholastica, but the time is not sufficient today, so let us just stay with this very thought, and you may think about it yourself, how this rising above the sense reality to the spiritual realities and then to that act of touching as it were the divine majesty seems to be always kind of embedded in or framed by such by one can say the most tender the most what is most beautiful also in human relations we found the bonds and the atmosphere and the spirit of friendship in these last hours where Socrates surrounded by his disciples prepares for death and leads them up to the immortal to that what cannot die
[46:08]
the love between the master and the disciple the response that he receives from his disciples the most beautiful form of human friendship and then in Saint Augustine at his mother the love of the son the only one for his mother and the love of the mother for her son and again that's the framework for that rising together to that beautiful immortal fountain and leave the first fruits of their minds that they may be fit for our eternity of the pastures of Israel. And today we have that meeting of brother and sister, both, as the liturgy says, one in mind.
[47:13]
and so meeting again there and rising together to that same height that St. Augustine and his mother experienced I only wanted to point that out leave it to yourself and also to think about this contemplation and the deepest sense of the word that appears in these three meetings, and of course behind these three meetings is really then always the Last Supper of our Lord and His disciples as the archetype of all this. How the rising to the fountains is not a destruction of the what is best and beautiful most beautiful in human nature but that even the most noble aspirations of human love aspire to that last human in the spirit that is reached only through that contemplation of
[48:29]
So, but as I say today, there isn't much time. It seems that the show of Tuesday is a type of a lottery, you know. The domestic life is, I would say, we have a little vacation. And so if I suggest one great other reason, two of our joy today because coming just at the right time is Father Master's return from the hospital. It adds to our festive mood as far as the weather leaves it. We can see that the spiritual stars, you know, shining again on our bleak, otherwise bleak horizon. And really shining, Father Master, you certainly gained, you know. Yes. refrigerio in hospitalio. It's a great joy.
[49:31]
then I suggest that we have tears right now, otherwise, you know, there would be another kind of turmoil that may serve the general spirit of relaxation if we cackle tears right now. If necessary, a rehearsal over there as it's so close to candle-ness and the ceremony is so similar after tears. We go down to the crypt in the same way, that is seniors first, eventually, therefore leaving the stalls at the upper ends, the ends toward the Blessed Sacral Daughter.
[50:45]
And then when we get down to the crypt, Reverend Father's side, going around to the left as one faces the statue, the other side to the right, and forming in the two lines either side of the Chapel of the Queen of Martyrs. We bow when we reach our places individually. Then we face the altar when the celebrant is singing the prayers. We face one another when we are singing And after I've given Reverend Father the ashes and he's given the ashes to me and to the deacon, the acolyte, and the thoroughfare, then the two lines come together just as you did on Candlemas Day and go up and the first pair kneel immediately. I think it would be well if they just slightly lowered their heads because the ashes are put on top of the head. And then when they both received ashes, they rise, step aside, and bow profoundly to the altar as the next pair kneels and so on.
[51:51]
The pairs follow one another. As soon as you've received the ashes, go around to your places in the line. And the singing will have started. try and arrange it to start as soon as I go to give Reverend Father his ashes and therefore have your, of course take your graduals down with you, have them ready and take up the singing and continue it as you're going to receive your ashes and on the way back. And after that first antiphon, which we practice, then we sing the responsory and when all is over, there's a concluding prayer, and then the celebrant goes to the sacristy this time. There's no procession following it immediately, that's part of it. The celebrant goes to the sacristy to put on the chasuble, and then the two lines go again, as we did on Candlemas, to stand either side of the statue, the most junior nearest the steps.
[53:00]
and there's the reverse order in which we usually stand at Stazio. And then the characters will go up to the landing, and when the celebrant comes up, then we go upstairs singing the intro. And as always, when we're singing, we both go up, both sides go up the same step of the stairs to the left and into the choir. And then there's nothing unusual about the mass except that we kneel, including the celebrant and deacon and acolyte, kneel at the end of the tract at that last various adieu by notes. And I think that really covers it. Thank you.
[53:50]
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