I've been pointing out all the different schemes, so we'll see as we go on. The second scheme, the second chapter I want to treat in some detail because it tells you the structure of the family nation, things that you have to know. Some of the other ones we'll skip through a bit more quickly. Last time we did some groundwork, we talked about the Vatican II documents which dictated the renewal and which are the basis for the renewal, and then the abbreviations and so on. And then we talked about the first scheme which is a preface, a prologue to the Constitutions. That's where we start. So today let's take up scheme two on page three, the spiritual nature and juridical structure of the Canales congregation. Now you'll notice that we've got three or four schemes in here, really three, which

[01:01]

refer to structure. This number two is on the nature and structure, starting from sort of the first principles, also historically. Then number four is specifically on the structure of the local community, and number five is specifically on the structure of the congregation, okay, in more detail. So it branches off from two, which is for the whole congregation, and the community both, and giving the spiritual theological ground to four and five, one for the community and one for the congregation. You'll see what I mean by that as we go on. Now, each one of these articles has to be given attention, and these articles, a terrific amount of attention was given to them, in a way. I mean, they were argued over and debated and discussed, and back and forth, because there are all kinds of pivotal issues that are hidden in these little paragraphs here. You'll see some examples as we go through. Even the first one, even the title of the congregation, well, it's not the first one,

[02:06]

it's the second one. The Camalbles monks professed the rule of all we've ought to venerate for their own declarations and constitutions. Okay, we've seen that, and we've seen the difference between declarations and constitutions. But now notice, strangely, in these new constitutions, the distinction has disappeared, at least temporarily. Right? We don't have constitutions here, as in Appendix 3 we did before. Then that business of abbreviations for declarations and constitutions, when the article is taken and modified, when the article is just adopted, carried on from the earlier text, and when it's completely new, that indication. Number two. The congregation is named Congregazione Camalbalese del Ordine di San Benedetto, Camalbi's Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict. Now, note, there's a history to this, in fact, there's a very complex history to this, ever since 1113, and I don't know all the ins and outs of it. But the previous title of the congregation was Congregazione Cenobitarum Eremitarum Camalbalensia

[03:14]

OSP, the Congregation of Cenobite Hermit Camalbalese, which is a kind of compromise when the Cenobitical Congregation was united with the Hermit Congregation. Before that you had two congregations, before 1935 you had the Hermits of Tuscany, who were the, I suppose, the most ancient, most venerable trunk or current of the Camalbese tradition. And then you had the Cenobites, who, I don't know whether they were a senator in these last times, they were a senator in Rome and then in Sassicorato, which is north part of Camalbi. Probably around, I think, maybe Florence. Then you have them put together and you have a composite title, which is really difficult to understand. Often in the printing it would be called, not Cenobite Hermit Congregation, which would signify that there are two different kinds of monks right there in the same structure,

[04:18]

but it would be called Monk Hermit Congregation, because monastery and monk were taken as being synonyms for Cenobium and Cenobite, okay? But in a more historical appreciation of those terms, that's not what monk means, it doesn't mean Cenobite, it means anybody, whether Hermit or Cenobite, right? So that ambiguity has been dealt with in the last edition. So for a while we had a rather strange title. In the printing, in Italian, you have something like this. This is the 1957 constitution, the Italian edition, and then this white one here in English is the English translation, more or less accurately the same. And now that's subsequent to that renewal of Cenobites and Hermits. This is entitled Manici Eremiti Camaltilesi, and that was the more frequent title, but the official title was Congregatio Cenobitarum Eremitarum Camaltilesi, which were two mutually

[05:21]

exclusive words, whereas Monk Hermit can be taken as two words about the same individual, two specifications of the same life, even though they didn't originally come to appear in these constitutions. So there was a bit of confusion there. Were the Hermits of Testimony centered at Camaltile? Yes. See, Camaltile is the ancient and venerated peak of the congregation and was always the center of the Testimonies. But they had the Cenobium at Camaltile. Yeah, they had the Cenobium at Camaltile, which would sort of vary, I think. Sometimes it would be a full-fledged Cenobium, and sometimes it would be reduced to a guest house, a sort of gatehouse for the Hermitage, depending on the relationship between the two. In general, I don't think it was a full-scale Cenobium during those...

[06:28]

Very often it was very much during those centuries. I think it was kept in servitude. What if they become a pretty lively place, as you can imagine? If you do all of the material things down there for the Hermitage, and to keep together various other houses as well, and the local farmers, and the vineyards and things that you own, that's going to be quite a lively place, more so than the Hermitage. And perhaps therefore it becomes in some way more powerful than the Hermitage. It was bound to in some way. So the tension was always there. Number three. It consists of Hermitages and of Monasteries, never getting the fundamental structure. And this, of course, is unique to the Canobiles. You have the Carthusians, who have only Hermitages. They call them charter houses, but they're also semi-hermetical. They don't have a Cenobium alongside them, except for the Monasteries. The Hermitage is the characteristic element of the congregation, and as such gives a spiritual

[07:35]

orientation to all of its members. Now, this one too was argued over, back and forth and back and forth. You find that it's a good deal stronger in the Older Declaration, number four, where the Hermitage in which they live, completely segregated from the world, is considered as the specific element. Let's see. Let's see what this says in the Italian. I think characteristic was... See, that word. That word was the delicate point. Now, for specific has been substituted characteristic. Now, that may seem like a small change, but see, specific has the risk of saying that you're not fully a Canobile unless you're a Hermit. You get the idea? So the reason why characteristic was put in, characteristico, instead of specifico, was

[08:37]

to avoid that possible interpretation. In other words, giving the Cenobium and the Cenobite full right to existence within the congregation, which was still not clear in the Constitutions of 57, because the Cenobitic element had come in, was sort of gaining its status, but didn't yet have it fully. Number four. In both the Hermitage and the Monastery, the contemplative life is attended to above all else. It's interesting to look at the earlier articles here, because there's a lot of history that comes out when you do. If you look at the Declaration No. 1 earlier, in the Hermitage, one attends solely to contemplation. In the Cenobium, you do something else. That's the basic idea. In the Cenobium, it sounds just like caching. In the Cenobium, you're doing the active life.

[09:37]

In the Hermitage, you're four feet off the ground, and nothing but contemplation. One attends solely to contemplation. You see, it's the Mary and Martha parallel. The trouble is that people are not made like that. People are not made like that. The Hermits are going to have their own human doings and needs, and the Cenobites might just say a prayer, or have a good thought. They might even get as far as the prayer of simplicity, after thirty words or so. So really, you've got two ways of life, and you can't just put one clearly on top of the other. That's the problem. That's the old, ancient problem. That attempt to systematize, and to say that the Hermetic life is strictly superior to the Cenobitic life.

[10:37]

Of course, you'll find people who say that the Cenobitic life is simply superior to the Hermetic life, that Hermits are nuts, or that they're selfish, or, you know, all of those things. Hmm? Just ask St. Basil. Just ask St. Basil, yeah. He just didn't like the Hermetic life, period. And he had a lot of good reasons, being a theologian. Okay, so they give these other things in the Old Declaration that you do in the monastery to keep yourself occupied while waiting. They had individual rooms at Kamaldi for a long while, unlike the Trappists, okay? If you look at the monastery of Kamaldi, I don't see evidence that they ever had a dormitory there. Maybe that was always a Kamaldi's variant. But on the Benedictine thing, you know, St. Benedict really changed Western monasticism

[11:44]

when he instituted the dormitories rather than the private rooms, because then you have a really sharp difference between a Cenobitism, which is always together, and an Hermetism, and then a solitary life, where you're alone. See, it polarizes it. Whereas in the East, I think that the private room, or the cell was there, even in the Cenobitism. It wasn't that much of a difference between the two extremes. And you see the extreme of it in the Trappists before Vatican II, in the dormitory, when they're opposed to each other. Okay, therefore let each one engaged in it. Now, notice how these things are very, these articles are very carefully put together, and now they begin to be a kind of list of theological elements. In which you'll see the monastic tradition coming in, but also very strongly Vatican II. In other words, the references, you can tell it from the references, and you can recognize

[12:44]

it also in the things that are mentioned. And this is sharply different from the tone of the earlier declarations. We won't examine the differences, because it would take too much time. But it's clear if you read the two. And one of the chief differences, I think, is that there's been an attempt at completeness here, a theological completeness, whereas there wasn't in the earlier constitutions. In the earlier constitutions, what you wanted to say was what was special, what was special to what you're doing. And so you tended to say less about things like the Eucharist. Or you didn't establish your priorities, and you weren't concerned with establishing the structure of the monastic life in a theological sense, or in a biblical sense. Whereas the Council and the new constitutions do that. See, a lot of things could be left out in the earlier constitutions and just taken for granted, but they're not taken for granted in the new constitutions. And rightly so, because it's dangerous to take them for granted. If you start taking them for granted, and therefore you leave them out of the constitutions, they begin to lose importance.

[13:45]

They begin to drop in importance. And you focus all your attention on that specific thing, on that special monastic thing you're doing. But maybe the special monastic thing, in a sense, at a certain point, isn't the most important thing. And that's a risky thing to say, because it is in a way, and it is sometimes, and sometimes it isn't. So, I mean, fraternal charity is a good example. Just the emphasis on charity. And the emphasis on the centrality of the Eucharist, things like that. And the emphasis on the Word of God. Those are put very strongly in the new constitutions, and rightly so. It's when monks forget about those things, and do their special thing too much, and too exclusively, they begin to forget. It's like you lose your ground, you lose your places. The three things I was thinking of was, first of all, fraternal charity. Okay? The sense of community, and the sense of love among your brethren. Which, in the paramedical constitutions, can come to be a kind of subordinate element.

[14:46]

It's there just to make it better, or to make it more Christian or something, but it's not a placeholder. And then, the Eucharist, the centrality of the Eucharist. And then the Word of God, okay? Not just the idea of reading, but spiritual reading, in the sense of reading good books, reading good spiritual stuff, reading even the Fathers, or reading the monastic tradition. No, reading the Word of God. And the place which that plays in nourishing your life. That comes out strongly in these articles we're going to get into. And those priorities are extremely important, because those, somehow, it's even that structure that feeds us, you see? We're fed with the truth the way the truth really is, and not the way we do it in our particular place, you know, according to our particular way of life. The truth is there before our particular way of life is there. And it's that that feeds us. Okay, so now there's this kind of list of elements. In both hermitage and monastery, you've got these things.

[15:49]

But he's engaging in his daily work. And then there's a reference ceded to the theology of work. You can imagine what that line is in 2 Thessalonians 3. He who doesn't work doesn't eat, I'll bet you that's it. We went through it. And then the Holy Rule, the chapter on manual labor. And then Gaudium et Spes. Gaudium et Spes is a Vatican II document on the Church and the world, which points to the positivity of human effort, you know? Whereas oftentimes it's been conceived, well that stuff is secular activity. You know, those people, people working in the world, whatever they're doing, that's secular, that's profane. And somehow monks are doing something better all the time. It's the Martha Mary thing that intensified because Martha there isn't necessarily in the context of faith. And it's almost that sometimes in the Church human activity has been considered, and as if it was law. And that goes back a long way.

[16:50]

Whereas Vatican II and Gaudium et Spes is a positive recognition of human activity. Yeah, Gaudium et Spes is the document on Church and modern world. I put about four of those Abbott editions of this over on the shelf there, okay, in the library, when you go in. And there's one of these flannery ones. And look it up, in the front you've got a table of contents, and it will say That's the one that they argued over the longest, I think, of the Council. Was that one on the Church and modern world? I don't know. Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the Modern World. Okay. And here it starts on page 903. It would be different in the other edition. In the practice of Christian mortification, notice every word is carefully tailored and balanced in there. Not just mortification, but Christian mortification. And fervent prayer. That's to correct a certain notion of asceticism that may have been wrong before.

[17:52]

Open his heart to the attentive hearing and to the meditation of the divine word. Now notice how it sort of expands into a lyrical thing there. In that citation of Dei Verum. Now that's the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Scripture, on the Word of God. And that's Emanuele, the general of the Vatican. They included a big chunk of that because they figured it was basic, whereas some of the other elements they skipped over more quickly. However, they get back to them later on. Where is the Word of God? Well, it comes back in certain places. This is where it's being inserted into the foundation. Intimately united to Christ in the Eucharistic mystery. And then there's a chunk of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which we usually abbreviate SC, which is the document on the liturgy, which is the first kind of basic document of the Vatican II. It may be surprising that the document on the liturgy came out before the one on the church, but that was seen to be most urgent.

[18:55]

And Romangentium, which is the one on the church. The two are complementary. Font and apex of the worship of the church, and of the font and apex of the whole Christian life. See how they're trying to lay the foundation here, theologically, of what's going on. Font and apex is pretty strong, isn't it? It's the ground of the Christian life, and then it's the peak expression of the Christian life. It almost would seem to leave nothing in between. Sometimes you get liturgists who behave as if the liturgy were the whole of life, and that's a mistake. The Vatican II constitutions deliberately correct that mistake. Because it has such theological power, they give it also that existential power, not realizing the other levels of the liturgy in which your life itself has to become liturgy. That whole area in between. Because the liturgy that we celebrate in churches by no means is the most important

[19:59]

part of our life, is it? In one part it is. In one way it is. But it's really our life that matters. It's really the way we relate to one another. It's the way we are, simply, that matters. What transformation has taken place in us, to what extent we're Christians, that's what matters. The monk must strive to grow in him, in Christ, realizing in himself daily the paschal mystery. Okay, now this is somehow the key to the whole thing. The paschal mystery, which is the archetype also of the life of the monk, the death and the rebirth, the dying and the arising again. So, they want to plant that right in the foundation as the central piece, central stone. The more he accomplishes in himself this divine mystery, the more it will become its authentic witness. So the good that he can do by his witness depends on how far it happens in him. Okay, so much for the basic theological elements which are true either in the hermitage or

[21:02]

in the monastery. Now, Article 5 begins to discriminate. And it does that on the basis of, once again, the passage of scripture, finding the diversity of vocations in 1 Corinthians, in St. Paul's words, a variety of gifts but ones in the spirit. Now, notice what's happening here, under the surface. That is, the cenobitical vocation is gaining a right to existence, to full existence, also in the camellia spring, okay? In other words, it's a gift which presumably could be a permanent gift. Called to fulfill it in the hermitage or monastery, it doesn't say anything about time, whereas the earlier constitution would say, oh, all right, you can do that for a while, but then when you're finished with that kid stuff, you'll be ready for the real thing. It doesn't say that. Oh, I see. It was under the constitutions of 1957, under these, which had just come out the year before.

[22:08]

In fact, that was a time of great sort of tension, a lot of movement in the congregation at that time. How does the congregation consist of? Okay, it would be the general chapter, and the general chapter, we'll get to that later in Scheme 5 and here on the regime of the congregation, but it consists of the general superiors, which was prior general, he has two assistants, and those two are elected by the chapter each six years, every six years there's a chapter, plus the superiors of the local communities, of commandery of this community and each of the other communities. Now there are delegates also that are elected by a number of the communities and sent. Now these people all get together there. They hash these things out, and determined by vote. I think you went to it a month ago? No, well, that was last year. It was a little over a year ago. In November, we had our general chapter. The last one was in 1975.

[23:08]

So this, the one before is when we did these new constitutions, and they were finally presented. Approved ad experimentum. Now they're approved. Okay, now there are two separate sections, one on the monastery and the other on the hermitage. The one on the monastery first, this means the Synodium. The monk united to and charitably as well. See, these are the principal dimensions. Charity, and then unity with the brethren. Obedience. Rule and tradition. Works out his own vocation. Now that leaves it deliberately open as to whether his vocation is to be completed, whether he's to live the whole course of it in the Synodium, or move on to the Monastery. And then in the next little paragraph there, you begin to see the two possibilities. Simplicity, now simplicity is a word which is nearly synonymous with poverty, but not

[24:10]

quite. It's broader than poverty. And also sometimes not quite so bright. Solitude and austerity. Now, the reason why is so that the center of ethical life may not only do its own work, but prepare people for the hermitage, if they should be called upon. Because those are qualities, especially more characteristic of the hermitage than of the monastery. Not only to realize the sanctification of its members, but also to foster their growth towards the right path. Now there it suggests also that they may be a little stunted if they stay in the monastery, I suppose. Just a little bit of shadow is shed on them. Therefore, each professed should aspire to the hermitage. And you can imagine how much perspiration and some blood was shed over these words. Each professed should aspire to the hermitage as to an eminent grade of his profession.

[25:15]

Because it doesn't say that the hermitage is the only realization of the profession. Or absolutely the highest. It's an eminent grade. We'll settle for that. All in favor say aye. Aye. [...] One should aspire and may pass to the hermitage as provided by the Constitution. And then later on there are ways in which you can pass. Okay, now the hermitage, number 7, number 16, lies between the cenobitic and the accurate equation, while it retains the better elements of both. There's another possibility too, if you want to imagine. It furnishes a wise balance of solitude and calm and light. That comes from a blessed poet, Winston Manning, who wrote beautifully about the hermitage. The hermitage, which is a curious fusion, it's a curious balance. The Commandant's hermitage contains within itself, sort of, those two poles which are not only solitude and community, but also in a sense the universal monastic tradition

[26:20]

and the characteristically Christian monastic tradition. Those two come together there too. It's a very interesting way that even the person and the community come together there in a sense, for freedom and community, freedom and collectivity. It's a very rich fusion, that kernel of those two things. And it's amazing the way it grows out simply in the life of St. Martin, his first disciple, his work. There's a lot of potentiality in it, and of course a very rich tradition too. And a lot of tension. It's got just that tension built in. But the tension is, in a way, an opportune tension. Some congregations have a tension between, say, contemplative life and active life, and inevitably they get pulled over on the active side and lose the contemplative roots. Here both of them are within the contemplative realm, you see, of religious life. So it gives it a certain power there.

[27:20]

Even with this structure, you can go active. Okay, now the elements for the hermit, and how the hermitage and the life of the hermitage differs from that of the synod. Still united to his brethren, still under the yoke of obedience. And then, of course, St. Peter's dame is very strong. In fact, you can't have a valid hermit life without obedience. But the point is that the obedience is not as continual. You know, somebody's not always active. You may not go out to work and come and everything. But that readiness for obedience, I put it in the Latin expression. The obedience of the heart, you're always ready. Remember that hermit Mark that was a calligrapher, that was in a cell, he was making... I remember, I was in an old woman's car. The driver called me. He'd help keep pressure in the car. That was in one of the great prophecies. I forget what the prophecy was. No, this is in a desert prophecy.

[28:23]

He didn't complete the letter. Now, devotes himself in solitary repose. That's the notion of hesychia deliberately put in there. And I think the word in Italian would probably equate to to arrive at purity of heart, the phrase from Cassian which is characteristic of the whole Gnostic tradition. And to intimate union of God, which Christianizes it. Mortification, prayer, intensified in this case. So that's supposed to be different. Then there's a paragraph on the recluse. Now, the recluse had had eleven articles in the earlier constitution. And here there's only one. Which also means something. Represents a very high development of the monastic idea. Now, notice it doesn't say the highest realization of the monastic idea.

[29:31]

And that's still in there. Because all of these superiority or priority things that can be put in like that have a very bad sting in their tail afterwards. Potentially. Because then people identify a certain state of life with a certain quality of sanctity. And that's murderous. But nevertheless, there is supposed to be a correspondence between the state of life and the interior condition, isn't there? There's supposed to be, but there's no guarantee that there will be. ... [...] That's right. That's articles 12 through 22. Let's see if we can find some examples of that. ...

[30:37]

... [...] for the recluses. A recluse is a hermit who is all alone. He just stays in the cell and doesn't come out. So he doesn't come down to church with the other hermits. We have one now that's fellow dresser. And they're supposed to do at least an hour of manual labor. The reason for that is the wealth group. The tenor of the present constitution is not nearly as encouraging to reclusion as were the earlier constitutions. It's deliberately given a much smaller place than the total of the constitution. It's more flexible.

[31:46]

Also something else that's missing is permanent reclusion. You see there used to be, is it in this section? Permission to grant perpetual reclusion or reclusion for several years is reserved to the general chapter. We only have a general chapter every six years. And imagine giving perpetual reclusion, being given perpetual reclusion by the general chapter, that means you've got a stone wall around you that defends you from the local superior and from the community in a sense. It gives you an autonomy. It's like exemption, the So we can't call you out. And that's been discontinued. Yeah, that was too sad. You can put him back in.

[32:50]

They don't go into the question of what do you do with a perpetual reclusion if he comes out. Well, in the old days, you know, they used to wall the men, especially the women, and And they had a funeral service. There have been a number of saints too. It's become a saint or die. That's right. In fact, in a couple of the books that were written by Don Anselmo, he puts two things alongside one another. There's a third level. The first level is Sanoban, the second level is Hermitage. The third level, what's it going to be? Reclusion or that Evangelium Paganorum, or preaching the gospel to the pagans, you know, like Bruno Bonaparte and

[34:08]

so on, which is equivalent to modernism. So that was the third level, and sort of the theory of Don Anselmo. And there's some, in that book, Lermont, that treat us on the Hermitage level. And that's reasonable. Yes, but the trouble with it, it's very difficult if you set it up that way. Because naturally, we were always reaching for the top, and probably nobody is ready for it, and nobody thinks that they should be. It's a problem. They wouldn't want to really live it the way, with the severity of the demand. But nowadays, you see, a person could get away with a lot less austerity of life, because nobody would expect them to do that, and be living kind of a mediocre life at the highest level, theoretically, on a level of reclusion or something like that. That's the risk. That's part of the risk. And there are a lot of risks to that. It may not sound so dangerous, just to be open-minded and so on, but in the religious life, it tends to be tricky.

[35:15]

Yes, for sure. No, there would be that way of thinking. In fact, here, some years ago, that tended to be the way of thinking, and I deliberately tried to discourage it. Because you get a lot of people straining and striving to become recluses, who never should be recluses in their whole life, okay? And they're beating their head against that door, wanting to be something that they're not meant to be, which is very ruinous. Also, because if you have the aspiration to be a recluse, then certain other things become almost unimportant. One of them is your brother, and then a certain number of other little items. Work. Work, I mean, what work? Who, me? I'm a recluse. So, that kind of thing. So, immediately, a person starts pruning himself and greening himself for reclusion, even in the early years, by just forgetting about those things, or sort of, in his heart of hearts, he's

[36:32]

already beyond them, in a sense. He figures, I don't need those things. And he only deals with them as long as he actually has to. That's the kind of thing you've got. It's very difficult to help a person in that position. Because he's no longer open, you see, he's no longer open, because he's got that ideal, or he identifies with that. Yes. Yes. That's right. That sister Nazarene, she's still there. And that's in the Rome convent of nuns, which is a synovium, okay? That's a community. They're not hermits. And she is a recluse. And she's been a recluse, twenty-five years now. No, she does receive communion. She has a little window. And she comes down, and she's given communion to that. A little window, right in the choir there, so she can watch the mass.

[37:32]

She's at the liturgy. I think every day. But nobody can see her. It's like, you consider yourself to be the offerer of the sacrament of the Eucharist. You don't have to know the Eucharist. Oh, I see. Well, that's the kind of theory that people can have. And there's, certainly there's a truth in it, to the extent that we're meant to be the Eucharist. We're meant to be the offering, and we're meant to be also the food in a certain way. But that doesn't substitute the Eucharist. It fulfills it. It doesn't take the place of the Eucharist. It's its realization. That's what the Eucharist is supposed to produce in us. It's a completion in us. Now, it may mean that at a certain point, if that process is really going on deeply and fully, the person doesn't need the Eucharist so often. But if they abstain from the Eucharist completely because of that, I think they're really in error. I think it's really a big mistake. Yes, I think that's very close to the immunification of initiation.

[38:37]

And you just can't do that in Christianity. It's just not authentic anymore. Because of the theology of Christianity, that we are the body of Christ, you don't get beyond that. You don't get beyond being the body of Christ. You don't get beyond nourishing yourself in the Word of God, even though for brief times you may not need it. I think we probably should come back to what you were saying. We don't get there, no. I hope that the person that's here at the present has not completely expanded into the That's right. That's one of the reasons why hermits have often wanted to be priests, is so that they could continue to have the Eucharist after they were in solitude. Ordinarily, that's provided for anyway, but if you're a priest, then you can provide for yourself, in a sense, without somebody else coming.

[39:47]

I think that one of the main differences between Christianity and Judaism, which transcends its religion, is that we're united with God as members of the Church, that Christ has only one bride, the Church. Individuals are not the same. That's right. Your union with Christ can only be the union of the Church with Christ. Which doesn't mean that we always have to have the same kind of mediation of the Church, that we don't have an individual immediate union. Even our immediate union is an ecclesial union. Historically, how many recluses have there been? For this I'd have to refer you to historical work that's been done. Somebody wrote a paper on reclusion in the Canal de Lis, and you can find it from there.

[40:51]

But I can only say this, I think. There's never been a preponderance, and there's not supposed to be a preponderance. If you find a preponderance of recluses, that is, actually a majority of recluses, something's gone wrong, I'm sure. Simply because life doesn't work that way. It's just like if most of the people in a certain town were monks, you would begin to suspect maybe someone who wasn't working. Even a very holy place. There's a kind of pyramid, and it turns out that there is a pyramid. You may have a lot of monks, and then you have some hermits, and then you have a very few recluses. But what happens is, for all kinds of reasons, people get that idea of reclusion, that very clear, distinct and absolute image of solitude, of reclusion in their minds, and they can't shake it, they won't give it up. They identify with that very easily. Why? Because what we identify with is really our pure interiority, our pure self, our pure

[41:56]

subjectivity, and that's the perfect sort of framework for it, I think. And also, it's a sign of something that's in every one of us. See, that's the image, it's a symbol of solitude, and it's in every one of us. But if we identify with a symbol, absolutely. Anyway. For instance, we haven't had a lot of recluses at Kamaldoli recently. We've had about four recluses here, I think, twenty-three or twenty-four years now. Father Joseph having been the longest as a recluse. Some of the older ones. At Kamaldoli, they had one recluse a few years ago, and it was not a happy case. It was not too fruitful. And about twenty years ago, or thirty years ago, they had two holy recluses at Kamaldoli at about the same time. This was after the Second World War.

[42:58]

One of them was a German and the other was Italian. They were both named Geronimo, which means Geronimo. They both had a reputation for some time. Extraordinary. One of them lived there. One of them went on fire. And that's like living in New Jersey when you're on fire. That wasn't his sole crime. He was too embarrassed. And I think that both of them had had careers outside before they came to the hermitage. So they didn't grow up through the Kamaldoli's life and then go into reclusion, but they came from outside. They were probably in the hermitages, what they call open hermits for a while anyway, before they went into reclusion. Otherwise they wouldn't have left them. I'm not sure. That's right.

[44:04]

That's right. Although when somebody comes in who's more mature, you know, somebody comes in who's 45, 50 years old, who has proven himself in some other sphere. One of these was, I think, an army officer. And the other had been a rather high official in Rome. So they've proven themselves in another career. You know the authenticity, basically, of their spiritual life. You know they're mature people. And sometimes they'll clear the way for them to get into something like that rather quickly. Father Madati is another example of a man that founded this place. He was a recluse over at Kamaldoli for a number of years. I guess maybe three or four years, something like that. Father Thomas may not know. But he had already had a very fruitful career outside. And then, you know, a big official in the church and the Jesuits. A person like that's already passed a lot of his tests. But the test of reclusion is something else. The test of solitude is something else.

[45:05]

Okay. Part two. Part two now gets to more juridical elements. Part one has laid the basic structural foundation and tried to lay the basic theological foundation. Part two goes on with juridical elements. The first one being the sui iuris community, which is the fundamental elements. This is a very carefully structured scheme. Note the import of this article in view of the earlier history of the congregation. The central authority plays a subsidiary role in its regard. That's a strong statement, isn't it? Really putting the local community number one in top place and making the central authority, putting it in second place. However, you know, this corresponds to Benedictine history where the individual abbey is primary and the confederations in general didn't grow until way, way after

[46:11]

when it was a question of reforming abbeys and trying to sort of straighten them out from above. So the push would sometimes come from Rome to reform them and therefore to subject them to another abbey and perhaps create a confederation. A lot of that happened, a congregation, a lot of that happened around the time of the Counter-Reformation in the 16th century. Following the Saint Eucharist, it defends the autonomy of each community. It's been put even stronger here. It not only doesn't infringe the autonomy of the individual community but defends it as one of its roles. Offers fraternal aid, conserves unity of regime, obviously. Now the central authority, what is that? It's the prior general and his visitors, basically. Nine. Now the juridical nature of the monastic community but first something about its theology.

[47:11]

United, first of all. Our sense of church, even just instinctively, you know, when we say the word church, we would think of the universal church, wouldn't we? Not only that but we would think of the official church which means the hierarchy or the clergy. What does the church say? What does the church think, wouldn't we? We think of the universal church and the official church at the same time. Now here it's reintroducing the element of the local church. This is parallel to the decentralization that you see in number eight there where you move from the preponderance of the central authority to the preponderance of the local community. You see the relationship there? It's parallel in Vatican II to the movement from a very vertical sense of the church to collegiality in which the College of Bishops begins once again to play a significant role in the direction of the church. You talk of local church here in the sense of diocese?

[48:13]

Diocese and even more specific than the diocese, but basically it's the diocese. The local church is conceived of under the leadership of the bishop, so it's the diocese. The bishop is the center of the local church, that's the idea. In which lives and manifests itself the mystery of the church and they refer to that Eucharistic document. So the mystery of the whole church realizes itself in the individual church, in the local church where people really know one another, that's the idea, where they live together, there's an existential bond between them. Not only a juridical link or not only a spiritual link, but a real living bond between them. That's the key. It's the return sort of to the small scale or family or familiar or existential level, level of experience rather than other relations. It's an important principle. Even though we can always debate these things, what I'm trying to point out is what has happened, is the historical change.

[49:15]

There are always two sides to these issues, obviously. It's a matter of balancing off centralization with the sense of local reality, rather than just submerging one, suppressing one in favor of the other, obviously. But for a long while the church was very vertical. By means of profession, that means making the vows. It doesn't say which profession. He unites himself spiritually to his brother in such a way as to form a family, which he also acquires upon stability. And then it goes on to define stability. Stability acquired with simple profession. Remember we have two professions. The first is what we call simple or temporary profession, which you make at the end of your novitiate, ordinarily for three years at first. The second is solemn or permanent profession, which is made as early as after those first three years, and it may be as late as after nine years. But this stability is created with simple profession,

[50:23]

with the first or temporary profession, first, temporary, and simple are all synonyms. Creates a bond with the community, and also binds the monk to the permanent exercise of the monastic life. You may immediately note a kind of built-in contradiction there. Temporary profession binds you to the permanent exercise of the monastic life. How do you solve that? Well, the contradiction is already built into the notion of a temporary profession. If you read the theology of monastic profession or of the vows, a vow is really intended to devour poverty, chastity, obedience, in themselves are not the point. The point is a total devotion or total gift of yourself to God. Now, how can you make a total gift of yourself to God for a limited time? Can you do that? It's debatable. Maybe you can. But at least the vow, in the juridical way, can you give a total gift of yourself for a limited time? The contradiction is already built into that notion. See, temporary vows don't go way back to the beginning of the Church.

[51:26]

They only came up, I think, about the beginning of the century. About the time of the first Code of Canon Law, 1918 or so. The idea being that a lot of people were leaving religious life, and they bore upon them the stigma, the burden of having left and abandoned their vows, you see, permanent vows, solemn vows, of having just about abandoned God. So the idea is to lighten that burden. If people are going to leave, why not give them more of a chance to make sure that they have the vocation, and then an opportunity of pulling back before they make that total commitment, that solemn commitment, with less of a shadow of it. Before that, you just had to be a bishop and then solemnly a bishop, and that was mighty quick. And now it's been extended even longer. You just answered it, but you've always had to be a bishop. That's right. And the postulancy? No, the postulancy, not under that name, it doesn't go back too far. The postulancy might be a week.

[52:27]

If you read the Rule of Saint Benedict, for instance, the idea you get is this. The person comes and they knock on the door of the monastery, and then he's systematically thrown out and abused for a week. And he pounds on the door, and they throw him a crumb of bread, crust or something, and slam the door in his face. And this goes on for a week. That's the postulancy. This is universal in monastic Buddhism. In Zen Buddhism, we don't even do it intentionally anymore, it just comes second nature to us. It just happens. In Zen Buddhism, they put you in a room, and they scowl at you, and just make you meditate for 48 hours or something like that. So that's grown now into the postulancy, which is a whole year of expectation before a person really enters into the life of Zen Buddhism. Then the novitiate, which is intended to be an intensive formation time

[53:28]

of a year, up to two years, depending on the order. And then the last, okay? So in the time of Saint Benedict, you had just that week or so before you really entered, you'd be in a guest house, something like that. Then you have the novitiate for a year. And then you make your profession, and that's it. No more professions. Under the juridical aspect, stability confers on the individual members and on the entire community rights and duties according to the Constitution. Then those rights and duties are to be specified as you go on. Okay, now, the next section from 11 to 17 is concerned with transfers. I don't think that we need to go into that now. If there are any questions about it, we can. That's a detailed question. It's all worked out and articulated. The point is that the transfer usually comes from the monk himself.

[54:31]

Usually, it's for his motives, his reasons, his good that he's moved from one community to another. And his basic commitment is to the community, not just to the congregation, not just to the order. And so it's not like in some congregations where the central authority can just take you out of one community and put you in another. Just move you around. Some congregations are thoroughly centralized in that way so that you don't really have an attachment to an individual community. Now, monasticism is radically different from that basis of Benedictine monasticism in that what you belong to is the individual community. It's your life there that counts. It's not what you do. See, the reason why people transfer is often because if you do a particular thing, it's like an army. Somebody who's a specialist in history, put him over there where he's needed. It's not that way in monasticism at all. Being comes before function. And being relates to local community, to life with others, particular others, in a particular context.

[55:34]

So the preference is always to keep the person attached to his community or profession. And if you read the Rules of Independence, of course, that's the idea, right? You stay in the monastery until death. Unless you have a paramedical corps. Okay, part three. The sui iuris community is the basic type of community. That's a community in the full sense. Sui iuris means autonomous or in its own right. And then there are the minimum requirements. You have to have six solemnly professed monks. That's a pretty high requirement, isn't it? Remembering how long it takes to get people into solemn profession. That's asking quite a lot. The full regular observance, that means that they have to be able to do everything that the monastery should do and ordinarily does. If you can't have the choir office sometimes because everybody's busy somewhere, or if some of the monks are chronically sick,

[56:40]

or if there's one or another thing wrong, so it's not really a monastery. The people are working. Say the monks are working outside, okay? Say they've got jobs somewhere and they come back in, and so you have to live life in a very erratic way. It couldn't be a sui iuris. There has to be a solid corps of monks who are able to live the thing the way it's set up, and to live it genuinely in the house, not out somewhere else, before it can be a sui iuris community. That's to protect the basic nature, basic identity of the monastery community. Which is not to say you can't have other kinds of community where people can work outside, and so on. But, if you do it, it's got to be something else. It's not going to be a sui iuris community. When you started thinking of making a sui iuris, you were talking about a dependent community? Yes. Which is different from obviously the dependent monastery. That's right. We're going to get to that. The dependent community follows on the sui iuris community. And generally, of course, you expect them to be smaller.

[57:41]

A sui iuris synovium can be quite large. The biggest one I know of is St. John's, of course. They've got 200 members, something like that. Getsemani has about 100. An average, a large average community is 70 or 80. A smaller, a more moderate average synovium community might be 30, 35, something like that. Hermitages tend to be smaller. In fact, you can say you never have a big hermitage. Maximum would be 20, 25, something like that. And when did you decide that you wanted to make a sui iuris community? About the time... So we didn't elect our own choir for the first time until 1969. So that was when we really were given the rights of sui iuris. Up until then, we had an appointed choir. So I guess that would mark the time. But we had our own novitiate right from the start. One reason being the different cultures. You couldn't really send people over here to make a novitiate. Economic autonomy.

[58:44]

They can't be supported by the central authorities. The central authorities don't have any money. Decree of erection. That means just the go-ahead from the general chapter. In the first lecture. I remember when that was given to us. And then the sui iuris communities have these rights. You can make profession for that community. If you're a dependent house, you can't make profession for that house. That's an important feature. So you don't, in the deepest sense, or in the safest sense, belong to that house. Let's see. An example would be San Gregorio in Rome. Suppose somebody wanted to live in San Gregorio in Rome. Wanted to make his profession for that. He couldn't do it because it's a dependent house. He'd have to make his profession economically and ask to be sent there. Their own novitiate and studentate. Okay, that was very important for us. Election of their prior.

[59:45]

That's a critical thing because from that moment they can become sort of self-operating in an internal sense. Delegates to the general chapter. The faculty to open new houses, to reproduce themselves. And then their own customs. That's extremely important too. That business of conform to the spirit of the congregation. Okay, but approved by the prior general of his council. That's never happened as far as I know. That is, the houses have not submitted books of customs for approval. And they probably won't do it. But what happens is you have a visitation. And if there are any customs that are seriously out of whack with the spirit of the congregation, or the common sense, then they'll be corrected at that time. And then it goes on with the dependent houses. Two kinds. Those that depend from an autonomous community and those that depend directly from the general and his council. Now there are a lot of technicalities in here which we won't go into because they're not important to us now. Recently they came up with a subtle variation of the semi-dependent house.

[60:46]

How does it go in Italian? It's beautiful. Semi-dependence. And they've got ascending ones and descending ones. You see, a descending one is one that's collapsing, basically. In other words, it's a suiurus house, an autonomous house, which is sort of at its last gasp, you know, so it's on its way down. And you have this subtle title in order for it to keep some of its rights. Whereas the ascending semi-dependent house is a young community which needs encouragement and therefore it should be given more autonomy, you see, before it has a right to it. You get the idea? For instance, O. B. Griffiths might be considered ascending because he hasn't got enough religious there for the suiurus house, you see, but they want to give it an encouragement, so they give it some of these rights like they're on a bishop, things like that. That'll appear in the new constitution. More will, yes.

[61:48]

The residences, then the houses formally suiurus, that becomes the descending semi-dependent. And then, whether it would be better if they'd be closed at a certain point. This has happened throughout monastic tradition. Not necessarily something to lament too much. Because a house can get to a point, people can carry on just out of loyalty and sometimes out of a kind of stubbornness. You find this a lot. Montevallana has quite a number of religious there, but they're all old, you see, they're all... I don't think they've got anybody under 60. Maybe one of the brothers. And yet they keep up a vigorous observance, but they're wearing themselves out, largely, just keeping up the work that has to be done, you see, as they're aging. Without Nambuva coming in. That's still old. It's still suiurus. It's still in existence. That's right. Well, the novitiate theoretically is still in existence, but there aren't any novices,

[62:52]

because the age gap gets too big. You can't take novices anymore on a practical level. And you're afraid to deal with it. The outlook for Bhagavan is not right. Unless they send a group of younger monks from Kamalvali to start a new direction, a new orientation. But they can't do that now, because the other monks would be offended. It's very, very difficult. The prior was very sad about that. Before he died, he was very concerned about that. So they send his help. It's very hard for them. Also, they don't want to send young monks from Kamalvali into something that's not encouraging for them. How did they come up with the idea of sending monks from Kamalvali? Well, it's complicated. Part of it is that union of the Cenobites with the Hermans back in 35. Now, the Cenobites tended to radiate out into certain places

[63:55]

at the margin of the congregation. The ones from the old Cenobite congregation. It would sound like they took over. They didn't take over. In fact, they were sort of swung out to the margin. And a lot of them settled at Pontapallana. Okay? Maybe they belonged to the Cenobite congregation before. I don't remember. But a lot of them settled there. And they became the core of that community. Okay? Which is really, what would you call it, a vestige or a remnant of a congregation or a community which was already dead, practically speaking. And the Cenobitical movement, strangely enough, came up inside the old medical congregation. You see, they'd come out of it. It's a very subtle kind of thing that happened. So, then, they were the ones who had most difficulty accepting the renewal. Okay? Accepting the Vatican II renewal, because they stayed with the old ways

[64:59]

which they were used to. The aging meant preventing. And so, instead of forcing a lot of things on them, they more or less left them alone. And so, the people who had that point of view gradually gravitated to Pontapallana. Okay? They tended to be older monks, and gradually got further and further from the influx of vocation, and so on, to the point that when a vocation would come to Pontapallana, they'd send them to Camaldoli for formation. Okay? There's a group of young people, a good teaching group. But then, after they'd been there for a while, they wouldn't want to go back to Pontapallana. So, that's the kind of sort of pathetic situation that comes about. That's right. That too. Even without wanting to do that, that would be part of their education. Sure. They can't get away from that. They can't be objected to.

[66:00]

Particularly since at Camaldoli, you see, they're pushing against the older observance at Camaldoli. Okay? And in pushing against that, they also push against what Pontapallana is still doing, that is in a formation of sorts, even harder for them to go back to. So, I don't know what the future holds. The general has been encouraging the smaller communities out on what they call the market, the marshes, which is that Adriatic part of the congregation, to get together to collaborate more to support them. At Camaldoli? Yes, there is now. There was a kind of a tension where they pulled apart in the past sometimes. That's no longer true because the hermitage is now part of the one life that's going on at Camaldoli. Now, the hermitage has been changed in order to bring them into the cycle of life,

[67:03]

but it's pretty much one. You don't have any sort of diehard people who are against the central thrust of Camaldoli anymore. The hermitage and monastery are integrated to such an extent that the formation is divided between the two. The novices will be up at the hermitage part of the time and down at the monastery part of the time. And you're likely to have a novice master up in the hermitage who is forming them also for the monastery. They're much more one community than two communities now. In the past it's been different. The residence is just a place... One person can be living in a place and they call that a residence. So that's something which doesn't have the subsistence, the consistency even, to be called an independent house. And it may be only temporary. New foundations, how those come about. Okay, that's enough for scheme two.

[68:06]

Next time we'll go on with the following schemes. Perhaps not in so much detail. You can look through them and if you have any questions about them, dig them out and then bring them up next time. We might get through three and four and perhaps part of five next time. Well, if they kept them they'd probably go away anyway. It depends on where their younger fellows are. Yeah. That's right. It's like when the country people send their kids to the city. Send them off to college. Yeah.

[69:10]

Yeah. Where did they go? And not come back?

[69:29]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ