Father Claeser, the orchard. Father Luke, the shop and the guests. Father Francis, the chores. Father Boniface, the housekeeping. Brother Lawrence, the chores for the end of the laundry. Brother Thomas, the shop. Brother Christopher, the office. Brother Joseph, the work on the fences. Brother Jerome, the chores. Brother Gabriel, first kitchener. Brother Daniel B. Sharp, Brother Stephen II Kitchener, Brother Saltzman, the guest house cleaning, and Brother Henning the cleaning at St. Peter's and St. Joseph's, Frank the making of baskets, and Kurt to help Father Placid and Tom Kelly the grass cutting around St. Peter's and St. Joseph's. One of the encouraging and inspiring, edifying things at Leicester Priory was the way in which the Divine Office was performed and one thing that

[01:18]

I liked very much was the vigils were really set in a very sedate pace and great quiet and peacefulness. I think that's a tremendously important thing if we speak about contemplation, the contemplative life. I think we have to start in the inner logic of things with the divine office where the whole community is gathered together and as St. Benedict explains it, the whole The meaning of it is really that here is the divine reality, the Holy Spirit that Christ has promised to the two or three that are gathered together in his name. And there this divine reality is really and truly present.

[02:22]

Divide office, or opus divinum, as he calls it, is not so much something that we persolve, and that we have, as far as I'm concerned, unfortunately see that so often in our days. I have to get it in. It's one of many other obligations, and one that is very often considered as a waste of time. I have to get it in. But that is, of course, for us, they are, I would say, they are really the words, contemplative life and contemplation has a meaning, great meaning, decisive meaning for us that the opus divinum, as St. Benedict calls it also and uses the word, assistibus, that opus divinum assistibus, we assist, we don't resolve, we don't, that matter, we don't give that as our own gift to God, but we assist at the opus Dei,

[03:37]

That means that there is a divine reality, there is God, there is the Holy Spirit, and there is his presence. He is, as Benedict says, he is present everywhere, but in a special way he is present in the oratory. Yet then again, in a more special way, he is present when the ecclesia, the little community of the monasteries, gather together. All this, going to the oratory, gathering together around the altar, has only one meaning, and that is seeking the presence of God, entering into the presence of God, meeting, getting in contact with that reality. And therefore, Saint Benedict wants to avoid anything, because he knows the machinations of the devil, He wants to avoid anything that could interfere with going to that source of living water, entering into contact with the divinity.

[04:50]

Therefore, the oratory should be used only and exclusively for the things that concern prayer. time would come that we can transport the St Jerome thing back to a side place. We used to do that when the heating would stop. We would transport it to that little annex there. It would be a great help because really we don't have any, in our present setting, don't have any place where the individual can quietly pray. The chapel, as it is now, is also always exposed to all kinds of disturbances, and the greatest disturbance is certainly that of St.

[05:54]

Jerome's chest. So if that could occasionally disappear, that would be a great relief. at its complete harmony with the holy rules. But then the other thing is that in the performance itself, that also everything is done so that actually this act in itself is filled with the divine presence. and of course there we get easily into that slothfulness and we rattle it down and race through it and evidently the element of the timo domini the fear of the Lord is in danger to be lost and if that is lost then the very

[06:58]

the basic thing in our life, contemplative life, is gone. It's lacking. Therefore, I insist on a moderate tempo, and there are some dear conference in the community who have a tendency, not out of bad will at all, but to rush too much without realizing it sometimes, and should be very careful. I'm very I'm very grateful to Father Gregory's untiring efforts to make that divine office a living performance, not to let it be wasted in some... half-intentive or unattentive sloppiness, but really make it a living thing that is so necessary. And also the understanding, of course, that is a very difficult thing, but it helps already in the very understanding, especially those who have difficulty with Latin,

[08:08]

if at least the choir on each side, the choir settles down and every individual settles down that they now want to pronounce, you know, at least give the words their space that they need, if every individual were to meet it. And that is already a tremendous help in also the understanding, if it's too fast, the whole thing is just, everybody is just kind of intentional, do I make it or don't I? And of course the ments is really, the ments is out of the picture, I'm absolutely sure. So there was also the, you know, Trinity Sunday, and that inviolatory was what I probably wasn't clear that I wanted, you know, but didn't mean that in the least as a criticism of the counter.

[09:18]

But the choir, really, of course, it's one of the most wicked inviolatories that we have in the whole Ecclesiastical here, especially for Anglo-Saxon tongues, if somebody says, Deum verum unum in Trinitate, Trinitate minunicate, before you know it, Deum verum unum Trinitate, Trinitate minunicate, from the hell, the big, this, gong, long, bomb, bellish, choir, before you know it. It was a chaos, you know, there. There was no... no unity in singing it, because once they're done, these UM syllables, you know, are swallowed up and impossible to keep a choir together. Of course, that's a pity, because some men are much... depends on the invitatory for the whole success there is there we meet there is that act of meeting the divine presence but if if the deus remus unis in trinitate is met with and so on and so on then it's of course difficult to believe in what is going on and therefore that's an

[10:36]

tremendous obligation of every individual to help brother there through the community prayer to find the presence of god the obligation that's the reason why people come to the monastery and if the result is then that the common prayer is something that stifles the personal devotion and is just a wet blanket on any kind of real exaltatio corris, then it really has missed its meaning. And the whole talk about contemplative life, to my mind, is sheer nonsense. It's nonsense here. It begins. And if it doesn't succeed there, then one cannot build anything else. Why? As some people then do, they race through the whole business, get through with it as soon as possible. That is then the contribution attitude, the soul attitude towards the divine.

[11:43]

and then as soon as possible get into some corner where I then really can pour out my heart to God. That dichotomy, that's exactly the thing that is essentially contrary to that concept of contemplation that we have tried to grasp better in these last conferences during this last month here so there's always new ourselves in that effort to follow the counter and respect the tremendous effort that he puts into it and to cooperate with it that we all every division may Meet God in the Opus Dei, which is God's work, and not our work. Chapter 4, verse 8, from Werner Leiber. speaks about the activity of the monk as the other half or the other aspect of his life, one being the Opus Dei, the service, immediate service of God, and the other one the work, then he

[13:29]

starts from the principle the idleness is the enemy of the soul of the principle therefore from which he starts to see by the way is espiritual he sees the work of the monk under the aspect of what we could call today the ascetical aspect the work of the monk has to serve his soul it's one of the requirements which ensure the health of the soul this spiritual life in fact one can say But susitas inimicais animae, anima there is the entire human person in the wholeness of the spiritual and the bodily part, anima.

[14:39]

So the idleness is an enemy of the soul. That principle, of course, was not in any way first discovered by Saint Benedict, but traditional one which goes through the entire history of early monasticism you read already in the Egyptian sentences of the Egyptian fathers that the busy monk they say is besieged by one devil the idle one is under the attack of innumerable evil spirits and that is so very true man is created by God in order to serve that is the whole structure of man is made like that his body shows it the human hand is the most

[15:52]

perfect instrument for work that has been created and man created with these hands have been put as we read in the second chapter of Genesis into the garden that was planted by God in order as we say in our English translations in order to dress it and to keep it to dress it and to keep it now the Hebrew word which is used there for dressing has always been the terrible disadvantage of all these translations is the word Aboda and Aboda means work Yah I would say means really service it's the same root and the same word which we also have in the

[16:56]

In the term Ebbet. And Ebbet means servant. And you remember that Ebbet is the title for the Messiah. For our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the servant. So that man created in order to serve. And in order to keep it. That means in order to protect it. That are the two, one can say, priestly functions, which are related both, really, to the sanctuary. That means to that templum, to that miniature world, in which God's kingdom is present among us. And that, of course, is the meaning of the garden planted by God. It is the image of the kingdom, the divine kingdom, which descends, which is a gift of God's grace over and above.

[18:03]

nature and so also the Levites and the priests in the sanctuary have these functions the Levite is the one who has the order that means the service to dress the sanctuary to take care of the oil in the seven-branch candlestick and all these various things. They replace the threads and so on. While the priest's function is to keep, to protect, to protect, but to protect in a positive way to keep out bad influences and to in that way take care of the divinely arranged and wanted development expansion of the life so these two functions are there in Genesis as the two basic functions of man

[19:18]

They characterized him as the priest. Therefore, the one who translated, he was put into the garden of Eden, the garden, to minister and to protect, to save. So, therefore, the work, this ministry belongs to the very essence of man. As you can see, the idleness is the deviation from the service. The one who is idle is not a servant anymore. He simply lives, is thrown back on himself. He lives for himself. And that means, of course, he lives without purpose. Without vocation, without a call, idleness is that no man's land into which man inevitably glides when he does not want to listen to the voice of his heavenly Father who says, listen, my son, to the precepts of your well-meaning Father.

[20:37]

So therefore, in that way, the work is really part of the very divinely instituted nature of man. Man as the divine image, one can say, man as the image of the Word of God and of the Son of God. He is called to this Buddha and to this service. You can see that also right away how clear St. Benedict is about this point, because then he continues, and therefore the monk should be occupied at certain times with work and at certain times with reading, Lectio, these two things, the mind and the body, both should be put into service. And of course it is absolutely necessary for that too that this service is an ordered one at certain times.

[21:47]

Check these temporals at certain times. And that is of course what our whole rule intends to do. It is balance. which is corresponding to the very nature of man as God's image and likeness, as the representative of the Son of God, another Son of God made flesh here in this world, is that his service is an order from CERTIS TEMPORIUS. and therefore the balance of which we speak as the praise of the rule, having, say, been instituted, the right balance, Between the mind and the body, certainly does not mean that one class in the monastery, as I said before, is busy with Lectio, and the other part of the monastery busy with manual labor. That would not solve the problem.

[22:50]

It's a question of the individual personality. It's used to tell us, inimica est anime. and that personality is one whole and therefore everyone has to be fully in the service with his mind and with his body and check these temporibus at certain times and that is another point I think that's one of the most difficult points to establish We have made some efforts, but I can still see that also areas, individuals in the community don't see that at all, that for the perfection of that service, there also belongs that doing things at certain times, not just when it gets into your head. to do this or that, to read this or read that, or to work this or work that, but chaktis tempos.

[23:54]

It's an order time. The time is the, let us say, the law, the divine framework, which makes, which we fill, which we fill in the spirit of obedience. that obedience is bound to that divine law which comes to us at certain hours and therefore the many veils that rings off in the monastery some people get nervous about them but it's an essential part of the monastic life it's the voice of the divine Lord who calls His servants. It reminds us that we are servants and that our life is a ministry. Therefore always to answer it with the yes and amen, a cheerful yes and amen of the Son.

[25:00]

I would recommend, you know, to all to do that today too, for example, on a day like this which is one of those days which stand between spring and summer as a real picture of paradise of that garden into which a man was put and if we look around here also and especially as Monks, let us rejoice, let us not go through the clearness and the beauty of this light and of this sky and of this nature and of this earth, of this garden, just with our eyes closed and our minds just kind of... trotting along, you know, in some kind of bent way, but erect and with that glad and cheerful response of the child who sings in the mercies of God.

[26:08]

In that way, It really serves. It's the meaning of a Buddha. Not so true that to be grateful to God to have been put into the garden in order to serve it and in order to save it. That is the meaning of our existence, our activity as well. This weekend, the obelisks of Fortchester and Elvira go to have a quiet weekend here, a retreat, and so I ask you all to hear them. I think an important point for those people who are exposed to all the restlessness that is outside.

[27:12]

The rest and the recollection in the silence is important. So I would strongly urge you not to associate with them unnecessarily. A friendly greeting, as always. and to make them feel at home because this is their family. But any kind of associating for any length of time, sitting down, on the lawn or chatting together that is completely out of order and should not be done. We have to respect the intentions of those who come, especially of these souls who are connected with us in a special way. They should receive the opportunity to pray with us and that especially during Mass and to help them also to sing with us all that is fine and if we go out of our way to allow them to do that that is certainly a good thing and also they should receive the edification the spiritual food and that is taken care of by the

[28:35]

conferences they receive or the reading during meal, but then also all humanitas may show to them and everybody who helps. If he sees that there is on a weekend like this a special strain, stress on those who are entrusted with the care of the guest, like Father Luke, Then I ask all to offer their services as they see the opportunity to help with the dishes, to help to bring things, get things ready here in the parlor for the ladies, things like that. That also is good, but I warn against an arbitrary and simply chatty sitting or walking together. That is destructive.

[29:36]

Anybody who does that is before God responsible for the real damage and harm it causes to all the souls.

[29:45]

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