People were then chosen to practice the Beatitudes, to sing them on Sunday, so that people should be prompt about ending work at 4.30, and work will begin for all right after chapter. And Father Tom will post a notice later in the day about where the singing practice will be held. But it would be well if people could stop work sharply at 4.30 sharp, and go to the practice as soon as possible. Today it is D-Day for me. Detachment Day. And I really swept several times this morning. I hope I didn't prevent the tears from speaking. But so, before I leave, I want first to thank you for The good examples you gave me, you gave me the retreat, I gave you words, gave you examples.

[01:10]

And then, for your patience in hearing me, my speaking so difficultly, so long, but mostly the Reverend Father had given me permission to prolong the talks. And then, Secondly, to ask your prayers, not for me, I'm glad you mentioned me this morning in the Mass, but first for my community and my abbot. You know, each monastery has its problem and we have ours. And you are a wonderful abbot, extremely kind, real friend for each of us and so on. But I wish to pray for him. The predecessor was already a saint. Tom Vinandi, who we know, who is proud to become a hermit. He's now a hermit in Martinique. He's so happy. But now, I would like to remember, too, I think, Fr. Adam, as you know, Fr. Henri de Saint-Marie, who was 25 years prior in Saint-Jérôme.

[02:15]

He did extremely good. So pray for him and for our whole community. And also, pray for St. Bernard. That means the work I have to do for the edition, which is difficult. I think now it's on the good way, but you know it's always a great responsibility in front of the Church to do this difficult work, to do it well. And so I sincerely hope you will help me. Now, to conclude this retreat, do I have a special message or a special warning to convey? I'm just a visitor, I'm not a visitator. So I have not to interfere in the affairs of the monastery. But as you have been so kind, so frank, so sincere, speaking with me so intimately, perhaps I may draw some conclusions which you already know, just to emphasize things we are already convinced.

[03:20]

And I think that could consist in two points. First, what I could call conventual humility. That means first being aware of your responsibility, the responsibility of Monseigneur in the monasticism of today. It means of the significance of this house, not only of the personal vocation of each one, which has to be realized as in all the monasteries of the world and all religious houses, but also of the significance. Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor. The charity of Christ, which Christ has for the Church, has put you together to do something specific in the Church, you know. The monastery is a sign in the monastical.

[04:25]

And just two days ago, I got a letter from Thomas Merton, and he said, please give my cordial good wishes to Don Damasus and the community of Mount Savior. I hear nothing but good about them and Western. Surely they are a light to American monasticism, and I must add, to the world monasticism. I will send to Don Damasus some mimeographed things in token of friendship and in union of treasure. I don't treat you that to flatter you. I didn't come for that. But when St. Benedict says that the pilgrim monk has to have something to say, it is not always unpleasant thing. So, as St. Bernard says somewhere also, sometimes You see, I'm being sort of scholar, I'm often used that when I begin to lecture, they introduce me, they flatter me and so on.

[05:29]

Saint Barnard says we must be able to accept praises to please people who give them. So we say please. But it's true that you are a sign and Merton says you are a light. But that increases your responsibility of conventual humility. Not only personal humility, but conventual humility. You are not, and you must not be, or become, so to speak, a shao monastery. Not one to show yourself, your life, neither to people outside, going out, to explain them what to do, nor to guests or visitors coming to see you, nor by any sort of publicity, publication, and so on. You must remain in this conventual humility which will be manifested by the fact that you will expand the less possible, according to what we said on monastic economy, which is, I think, the good track of the rule of Saint Benedict and authentic monastic tradition.

[06:41]

So, not to show yourself, but just to be what you are. To be or not to be, that's the question. Not to show or not to show, to say or not to say, just to exist. Consensual humility. And this is not an approach I address you. You have it. But just to conceal, you have to keep it. And you have to understand it as an essential element of monastic life, and therefore of this monastic life that we want to live in a more simple way. You know how often the recent popes Insisted, and Pope John often also, on this idea of umbratilis vita, shaded life, hidden life. That's monastic life. Saint Bernard has a strong formula, he said, Labor et latebri solent onestari vita monastica.

[07:46]

Labor means manual labor. And latebri, the fact of being hidden. That's the real nobility of monastic life. And that's according to the real basis of monastic life, often emphasized by people like Peter the Venerable and so on, and so on. Monastic life is not an honorable state in the church, glorious way of life, it's a humble life. [...] Monastic life is not an honorable state in Shaded life. Umbratilis. That does not mean a sad life. Life only in obscurity. That means life in the light of Christ. The umbra mortis. It's not the death.

[08:48]

It is just the similitude of mortis. And the Father of the Church also explains this Verse 4 of Psalm 22. So Christ went down in the hell, in the similitudo, in the umbra mortis, but he was the risen Christ. The second part expresses the element of resurrection. That's the glorious, the luminous shadow of Christ in which we are to live. Beginning I spoke of the mystery of the cross. But you see, this cross also was a tree and gave some shadow. And we have to live in the shadow of the cross of Christ. And so, to share, as St. Dominic says at the end of the polo, also in the glorification of Christ. That's a real shaded life. A luminous shadow. Exactly as when the angel said to Mary, Virtus obum altissimi, obum braviti.

[09:54]

that was a shadow which was a source of security. Not a darkness, but a luminous shadow. That's monastic life, a shadow to partake in the mystery of the resurrection of Christ through the cross. That's the real fundamental basis of this conventual humility. And the consequence is, of course, all the definitions I try to give of the monk, because we have to live this Vitaam Vyatilis, this hidden life, because we are just sinners. We are solitaries, we are exiles, we are unlaborers, we are silent men, we are poor. Plangentis non docentis, says St. John. That was the ascetical aspect of this little message to conclude. Conventual humility.

[10:56]

And now there is the aspect of communion, which must always be the complement of this aspect of solitude. Solitude in common, solitude in community, solitude in communion, solitude in union. Friendship in solitude, we say. Friendship among solitaries. And this leads us to the second lesson, perhaps, we could draw from this retreat, namely, unity in diversity. I think that perhaps a more specific problem for your community than for others. If you have strong personalities. And I think that comes from the fact that your superior has a strong personality.

[11:57]

And we often notice that the monastery becomes more or less the image of the superior. The superior has a strong personality and therefore he respects your personality. And even he stimulates your personality. He helps you to be yourself. And that's quite according to the rule when Saint Benedict says that the hermit has to adapt himself, and therefore to respect the other, and to help them to become always more themselves, honoring souls and adapting himself to a variety of character. When he must talk, another story, another person, according to each one's character and understanding. So there is not a uniformity in monastic life. No pattern. Everybody must be himself. Become what God wants him to be.

[13:01]

Accomplish his vocation. Very much adjust and adapt himself to all. but may even enjoy it in the increase of a good flood. Increase does not mean only and probably not primarily increase in number, but increase in value, in personal riches of each of us. So the superior has not to destroy, to extinguish the personalities, but to develop them, and he does. I remember some days in a monastery, a confederate of mine was saying to a monk of this monastery that he admired that there was in this monastery, in a certain monastery, a couple of very intelligent people. He said, oh, professor, because they were so intelligent. And then they also answered, You know, in a monastery, it's sufficient that the abbot be intelligent.

[14:05]

And that was quite wrong. The more intelligent all are, the better it is, you see, for the real spiritual value, personal development of all the members of the community. But, because this has its dangers, and its risks, and its sufferings, You must always maintain that the higher is the reality, the greater is the risk. You've heard already the story of Father de Lubac, one day speaking of doctrinal movements, told me the story of the boy to whom his father had given as a token a little box with pencils, you know, to write in colors and to paint. We call that pencil colors in French, I don't know how to say. And on the box it was written, colors without danger. So probably no stain on the clothes, no poison, they put it in the box.

[15:09]

And so the boy began, tried, but they didn't paint. Hopefully nice, but... So he went to the father, he said, Father, I would like to pray on a tent. Please give me colors with danger. So, everything of course has its danger. So, this richness of personality in a community in which everybody having a strong personality thinks much, has many ideas, sees problems. That is its danger, you know? So, that's not a reason to suppress the danger in suppressing the personality, but to see exactly in what may consist your particular ascetic in such a community. Where everyone thinks and has ideas, it's more difficult. More difficult for the superior to govern, more difficult for each inferior to obey, and more difficult for the community to be united.

[16:18]

Difficult but possible. Difficulties are made to be overgone. And that's why we have to, and you have to, cultivate unity in diversity. And the result must be and is, but you must understand it and accept the sacrifice in Christ, a richer unit, a higher unit. And how particularly to maintain that? Always the same two principles, detachment and charity. Detachment. It's always the idea. Detachment according to what Saint Benedict says in the chapter 72 of the Good Zeal. No one following what he considers useful for himself, but rather what benefits another. That's a golden rule. Always projecting ourselves in the others, in the community, in a higher unit.

[17:27]

renouncing, each one renouncing the full realization of one's ideas, even good ideas, to find the ideas, the good ideas which fit to the community. So we have to renounce even to good words, also to good ideas sometimes. Because if everybody has many good ideas, probably they will not coincide. It is possible to realize all the good ideas, so we have to renounce some of them to have the common good idea of monastic life we may live, you see? And that implies an extremely deep renunciation. When ancient authors spoke of the martyrdom of the monks, that was not literature. That's a very martyrdom, very humble, very small, but very deep. There is a question somewhere in Pope Benedict XIV, who told martyrium cenobitale durio, durius sit, quam martyrium sanguis.

[18:43]

I don't remember exactly the formula I gave, but it's obvious for him that it's sometimes more difficult to be... to live, you see, in the celibatic life, in this continuous, daily, humble renouncement, you see, that to finish immediately, gloriously, in martyrdom, you see. We have not a choice and we may hope that martyrdom will be given to us, but in the meantime we have this small, continuous, monastic martyrdom. No one following what he considers useful for himself, but rather what benefits others. Detachment. And then charity. And here we have the rule also at the end of this chapter. Tender the charity of brotherhood chastely.

[19:44]

Caste amare. That is I think in Latin Caritatem paramitatis, casto amoric impendi. Well, I think in the new critical edition, caste impendi. Caste has nothing to see with chastity. It is a word, a biblical way, a patristic way of saying well, you see. Caste. Mayabot, who is an excellent philologist, gave us a wonderful lecture on that. Long philological explanation, I don't remember. But just remember that it's a patristic way of saying, as we have theories, that thymor castus, you know, which is the impurity of thought. So there is, we have to practice charity perfectly. Love thy abbot with a sincere and humble charity, and I must testify you do. Refer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to life everlasting.

[20:53]

That's eschatological charity. This good zeal, this charity is the beginning of what will be the good zeal in the eternal life. Our monastic charity, as everything monastic we do, is an anticipation of God, of the charity which is in God, which consists exactly in this mystery of unity in diversity. we have seen. I hope you meditate often on the Trinity of Rublev, which is so quite explicit. Speech, person, defense at one day or another. In God there is a dependency. Sometimes when that's important to justify our obedience and to explain sometimes to a space we don't want to have a God in order not to defend upon us. But when you explain then even in God you see there is a dependence. Each one consists in a relation to the other.

[21:57]

He looks at those opposite. The mere fact of existing because another exists. That's a real dependence. That's not superiority. But one person cannot be, cannot exist, if not loving, knowing and loving, being related to. That's what theologians call relationes. Relationes sunt oppositorum. Relation supports a certain opposition. which is not necessarily a contradiction, of course not opposition in the bad one meaning of the word, but a certain opposition. Each person consists in being related and in some way opposite to the other. And that's what is cynic, you see. And that was this union of charity in diversity. Each one being different, you see, different colors, but the same, you see, communicate, just sharing, sharing the love and knowledge in the unity, owing to diversity.

[23:03]

He said, speaking of him, the more there is diversity, the more there may be unity. And that's why the more there are developed personalities in a community, the more there must and may be unity, but a higher unity. And of course, more difficult. But unity only founded in God. We have to rejoin in God. To rejoin above each other. We can't establish a real unity at the level of human agreement. We have to find our unity in God. And that's why we have to renounce. Because we have to find our unity in Christ. Prefer nothing whatever to Christ. That's the only way. Go to the perfect charity. It may bring us all together to life everlasting. And this charity, this unity in diversity exists.

[24:14]

I noticed it and I must say when I answered to Fr. Merton, I told him that this exists. And so, you have to thank God for that. You have to cultivate it. And sometimes when it's difficult, maybe heroic some days, just to renounce, just to agree with others, apart of each one's idea, it's good to remember all this theological value of sharing the unity of Trinity. the way of being obedient to each other, as Saint Benedict says in one chapter, all the brothers have to be obedient to each other. As in the Trinity, each person is obedient as far as it is dependent from the other person. That's perfect unity in charity, in renouncement. As always, we shall find in the same time suffering, the renouncement, and joy in the charity. Fr. Gregory gave me as a souvenir this little image with a motto of Léon Blois.

[25:21]

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. And that could be the conclusion, joy. And that's what I just wrote in the guest book, Gaudium Domini est fortitudin nostre. Our strength is the joy of the Lord.

[25:39]

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