Warren was the affections and emotions which is really the goal that Warren was lost. And we listen to St. Augustine to do with him those steps which lead us, which in some way channel, transform the energies of love so that they can be put to a divine service. And we see that in the example of St. Augustine, who describes with such force and such depth the true character of lust as another form of clearness. The whirlpool of lust, as he says. It's love for love's sake, lust for lust's sake.

[01:04]

Lust in itself has no personal object, has no constant visibility. It turns from object to object. Lust may be stuck in the subject itself, but we speak of masturbation. Order or lust may go to a female, to a male, to even animals. Everything for that matter that lives and is able to react to the senses in a sensual way can be object of that lust. That is in some way also chose, shall we call it, the redeeming feature of this problem of adolescence that it really does not touch the deepest inner center of the human person.

[02:06]

St. Augustine sums up this description of the world full of lust in which he moved in a sixteenth year by saying that in all of it who guard a mist hung between my eyes and the brightness of your truth. And my iniquity had come forth as it were from fatness. Again, one of those sentences which, in a marvelous way, characterize this stage of the human struggle. But then we come to another, and that is the one I wanted now to go into this evening, time at least, with you.

[03:08]

This then, Sennacherib, as you know from the description of the second book of his Confessions, He mentions, speaking first about these sensual aberrations, he then mentions also, and that sounds like a culmination of it all, the famous theft of papers in a neighbour's garden. Today we are inclined to consider that as evil, to make so much out of so little. Why such tremendous concentration and such repentance about this event of a youth stealing pears in a neighbor's garden?

[04:13]

But one just has to look at the analysis and the role which this event plays in St. Augustine's memory and how he sees it and interprets it later on in the time of wisdom and maturity as another step, as another event in the whole economy of salvation of his life. Why did he do this nonsense? And he analyzes. And then he comes to the bottom. And he says, it was simply the sheer thrill to trespass your home. Just to taste that taste of omnipotence that I would act against you unpunished. So it was really what he would then analyze and consider as doing sin for sin's sake, doing the evil for evil's sake.

[05:24]

And that, of course, really has then the taste of the Satanic. It, to him, as a wise man, came back on this turbulent target of his youth. And therein he draws from that the conclusion that a soul which has arrived at that stage to trespass the law of God, just for three of trespasses, is a caricature. He makes himself a caricature, an imitation. of divine omnipotence. And that indeed is the essence of all sin. But if we are capable of that, that is then St. Augustine's next conclusion, then it can only be the grace

[06:25]

and the mercy of God, which takes us, snatches us out of the holter's snare, into which evidently we have fallen. The Diocese, that beautiful canticle of Diocese Gili, which he closes in the second book of his Confessions, which are mainly What shall I render unto the Lord, that I can recall these things, and yet not be afraid? I shall love thee, Lord, and shall give thanks to thee, and confess thy name, because thou hast forgiven me such great sins and evil deeds. I know that it is only by thy grace and mercy that thou hast melted away the eyes of my sins.

[07:32]

And the evil I have not done, that also I know is by thy grace. For what might I not have done seeing that I loved evil solely because it was evil. I confess that thou hast forgiven all alike the sins I committed of my own motion, the sins I would have committed but for thy grace. Would any man then, considering his own weakness, dare to attribute his chastity or his innocence to his own power, at so lovely death, as if he did not need the same mercy as those who return to thee after sin? If any man has heard thy voice and followed it and done none of the things he finds me here recalling and confessing,

[08:40]

Still he must not scorn me, for I am healed by the same doctor who preserves him from falling into sickness, or at least into such weak sickness. But let him love thee even more, seeing me rescued out of such sickness of sin, and himself saved from falling into such sickness of sin by oneself saved. So this notion that he, in this experience, he failed in paper to sin for the sake of sin, for the thrill that he would get out of trespassing against the Lord's law, he has done, he has seen it to be a fist of fallen nature, of fallen nature. Only the grace of God is able to rescue him. So that is then the great conclusion, so to speak, out of this experience of his adolescence.

[09:52]

And that is what I would also recommend, just to close this chapter, in the course of this retreat, recommend to all of us. The remembrance of past sins are used and are a stepping stone to ascend to the true loveliness of God, to the true pleasure of the spiritual life. What one has tasted in past was nothingness. And it was bitterness. And from there, that can rise to the new experience, the loveliness of God, of the delights, pleasures of the spiritual life.

[10:58]

And that one should do, one should do that systematically, yes, deliberately. Because, as I told you, we face from time to time that crisis of reality. In our own monastic life, or shall we call it the crisis of artificiality, the problem of the gap which virginity, the life of celibacy, naturally leaves in us. That gap is filled in reality, in abundant reality, with the spiritual pleasure of the love of God. But we as poor human beings cannot possibly simply try to construct the love for the spiritual things.

[11:59]

Construct it. We have to experience it. experiences of the background of the opposite, the baseness of the lower instinct, the futility of lust, the whirlpool of lust. The realization of that as St. Benedict's death is looming at the gate of lust. So for that reason, you may remember the past. And then the other words, to give thanks, the experience of God's grace. What St. Augustine has done, realizes that only the mercy of God was able to melt the ice of his sins. Thanksgiving, but there is then no thanksgiving without humility.

[13:04]

So the remembrance of past sins should keep us humble. What a wonderful cure of arrogance that only Pharisees give us. Maybe the experiences of our own past. How ridiculous, how bad, how evil it would be, for example, if we who have been forgiven so much if then we would at the next moment turn around and jump at the throats of the world who trespasses against us. So this, dealing in two measures, receiving with an open hand the mercy of God and hitting the other world with the fist of our impatience, of our contempt, brought back by consistency. There is then no peace.

[14:08]

But you know, the spirit of peace blooms, as it were, over the abyss of chaos. And that is what happens when in the spirit will remember, go back into past years, years of battle or years of sin. Then, out of that, develops again Homoparchus, a man of God's peace, who, because he knows that he himself is a guest at God's table, and also invites the others to be guests at his own table. So, Another one, to keep repentance. Repentance, repentance is the beginning of a new life. The tears we shed over past sins, they are the melting of the ice about our heart.

[15:17]

But they are liberation. They open up a new horizon, a new life. Repentance and the spirit of repentance makes us eager, keeps us eager for mortifications, mortifications of the body and the heart. Remember how St. Augustine concludes, clues, closes this paragraph that my iniquity had come from, as it were, from fatness. There is the superbia carnis, the prize of the flesh, of the well-taken care of flesh. We should be ready to serve the sentence of divine justice to anticipate not only for us, but also for others.

[16:18]

That is the root, the zeal of mortification. That is one of the motives, the main motive for our conversion, that one conversion of mortals. It does take those little rules of this experience of the past, and then they are really like the shaking and the quiet, the cloud of God's glory that hangs over the abyss of our feebleness and poverty. And then we go to the other chapter then, just started somewhere, I hope you are patient. St. Augustine's experience of friendship, of the friend who dies where under his hand, and his reaction, and the role which this experience plays then in his life.

[17:25]

We have seen the role and the economy of that period, the turbulence of adolescence. Now let us go one step further into the realm of affections and see him here and listen to him describing that other conversion which took place when death shattered that friendship. So that is in full Book of the Confessions. And I just again, just read to you some of it. During the period in which I first began to teach, this is in the fourth book of the Confessions, in which I first began to teach in the town of my brother, I found a very dear friend who was pursuing similar studies.

[18:29]

He was about my own age, and was not coming as I was to the very flowery time of your manhood. He had indeed grown up with me as a child. We had gone to school together, played together. Neither in those earlier days, he anticipates now the development, nor indeed in the later time of which I now speak, was he a friend in the truest meaning of friendship. For there is no true friendship unless you wearied it with weak souls and pleaded together through that charity which is shed in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us. Now that is the whole theme of this, one can say, symphony that he now developed. There is no true friendship if you do not weld the hearts together in that spirit which is shed in our hearts, in that chapter it's shed in our hearts through the spirit that you give to us.

[19:49]

That is the whole thing. Therefore it's not against friendship. It's only a rising of that, to say, imitation, that human friendship that he had later with this friend, into the other one, a friendship in God, loving in God, the affection towards the friend in God, without God, and in God. So that is therefore also what again interests us, when we think about channeling the energies of love, transforming. So he describes it, also his own bad influence that he had on his friend, in that he destroyed his faith. and so got him over to the heresy which himself moved at that time, the heresy of the Mount Keynes.

[20:58]

And then suddenly comes the death of this friend and says, you took this man from the life of her, and he had completely scarcely a year in a friendship that had grown sweeter to me than all the sweetness of the life I knew. And he described then the death of his friend and had come to himself for a short time and he had been baptized without his Lord St. Augustine knowing it. And then he came after baptism again, a certain flaring up of vitality. a sick friend, recognized St. Augustine. St. Augustine started to mock about his baptism and how pious a Christian he had suddenly become without knowing it himself.

[22:03]

And then he was shocked and scared by the reaction certainly from this friend who rebukes him for this sarcastic attitude and certainly takes the part of Christ. But then after that he relapsed, has a relapse and he dies. And then St. Augustine describes it and I do that again just to to bring you into the field to know your will so well of the affections. My heart was black with grief. Whatever I looked upon had the air of death. My native place was a prison house, and my home a strange unhappiness. The things we had done together became sheer torment without it. My eyes were at least looking for him, but he was not there.

[23:08]

I hated all places because he was not in them. They could not say to me, he will come soon, as they would in his life when he was absent. I became a great enigma to myself. And I was forever asking my soul why it was sad and why it disquieted me so soon. And my soul knew not what to answer me. If I said to myself, trust in God, that my soul did not obey, naturally, because the man whom she had loved and lost was nobler and more real. Then he imagined a deity in whom I was bidding her trust. I had no delight but in tears, for tears had taken the place my friend had held in the love of my heart.

[24:14]

And then he goes on, I was wretched, and every soul is wretched that is bound in a condition of mortal death. It is tormented to lose them, and in their loss becomes aware of the wretchedness which in reality it had even before it lost them. Such was I at that time, and I wept most bitterly, and in that bitterness found my only regrets. I wondered that other mortals should live when he was dead, whom I had loved as if he would never die. That is the key. That is the affection. That is the friendship with outcome. Whom I had loved as if he would never die.

[25:18]

And I now give still more that he should be dead, and I his other self living still. Rightly has a friend been called the heart of my soul. For I thought my soul and his soul as one soul in two bodies. And my life was a horror to me because I would not live that. And it may be that I fear to die, lest thereby he should die holy, whom I had loved so deeply. And after describing this status in such a masterful way again, then he makes the conclusion, O madness that knows not how to love men as men! O foolish man to bear the lot of man so rebelliously!

[26:22]

I had both the madness and the folly. I raged and sighed and wept and was in torment, unable to rest, unable to think. I bore my soul all broken and bleeding and loathed to be borne by me, and I could find nowhere to set it down to rest. Not in shady groves, nor in mirth and music, nor in curfew gardens, nor in former backwoods, nor in the delights of the bed, not in books, nor in poetry could it find peace. I hated all things, hated the very light itself. And all that was not, he was faithful and merciful, save only my tears. For in them alone did I find a different, delicate peace. When my soul came over weeping, it was still crushed under the great burden of misery, which only by you, Lord, could be lightened and lifted.

[27:36]

This I knew. but I had neither the will nor the strength. And what made it more impossible was that when I thought of you, it was not out of something firm and solid, for my God was not yet you, but the error and vain fantasy I had. And when I tried to rest my throat upon that faint fantasy, it fell as through emptiness and was once more heavy upon me. And I remained to myself a place of unhappiness in which I could not abide, yet from which I could not depart. For where was my heart to flee for refuge from my heart? Whither was I to fly from my sin?

[28:39]

To what place should I not follow my sin? Yet leaves my native place I did. He left Tarkas. Then he describes again, since there's other full words, that first grief, which he has described, had pierced so easily and so deep only because I had spilled out my soul upon the sand in loving a mortal man as if he were never to die. And then the comfort he finds with friends begins to heal this wound. All kinds of things rejoice my soul in their company. To talk and laugh and to each other kindnesses, read pleasant books together, pass for lightest gisting, to talk of the deepest things back again, deeper without manker, as a man might differ with himself,

[29:52]

and when most rarely dissension arose, find our normal agreement all the sweeter. Teach each other, or learn from each other, be impatient for the return of the action, and welcome them with joy at our homecoming. These and such like things proceeding from our hearts, as we gave affection and received it back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and a thousand other pleasing ways, came into flames. which fused our very souls and of many made us one. Now that you get such a masterly description of human friendship, you have to understand the positive, beautiful aspect of human friendship. And still, this is what men value in France, and value so much that their conscience judges them guilty if they do not meet friendship with friendship, expecting nothing from their friend save such evidences of his affection.

[31:02]

This is the root of our grief when a friend dies, the blackness of our sorrow, and the steeping of our heart in tears for the joy that has stirred to bitterness, and the feeling as though we were dead because he is dead. Blessed is the man that loves his real God, and his friend in thee, and his enemy for thee. For he alone loses no one that is dear to him, if all are dear in God, who is never lost. And who is that God? but our God, the God who made heaven and earth, who fills them, because it is by filling them with himself that he has made them.

[32:04]

No man loses me unless he goes from me. And in going from thee, where does he go or where does he flee? Say, from me to thee. From God we're pleased to God. For where shall he not find thy law to fit his actions? Thy law is truth and truth is thou. So convert us, O God of hosts, and show us thy grace and we shall be saved. Now he explains what it means to love things in God And I put that before him because I'm sure that you all know the phrase, but that is not enough. We can say, yes, I should love a friend in God. I should love beautiful things in God.

[33:09]

But what is that? What does that mean? And that again, I would ask you and invite you, urge you to think that over. in the day and in the time of this retreat. But let us follow the guidance of St. Augustine Steele for a short while. Wherever the soul of man turns, unless towards God, it cleaves to soul. Even though the things outside God and outside itself to which it cleaves may be things of beauty. For these lovely things would be nothing at all unless they were from him. They arise and set. In their rising they begin to be. And they grow towards perfection. And once come to perfection, they grow old and they die.

[34:10]

Not all grow old, but all die. Therefore, when their lives intend toward being, the more haste they make toward fullness of being, the more haste they make toward ceasing to be. That is their law. You have given them to be parts of a whole. They are not all existing at once, but in their departures and successions, constitute the whole of which they are. Our fleshly sense is slow because it is fleshly sense, and that is the limit of its speed. It can do what it was made to do, but it has no power to hold things transient as they run their course from their due beginning to their due end.

[35:14]

For in the world by which they are created, they hear their Lord from this point and not beyond that. You'll be not foolish, my soul, nor let the ear of your heart be deafened with the clamor of your heart. For listen, the word himself calls to you to return, and with him is the place of peace that shall not be broken, where your love will not be forsaken unless it first forsakes. Things pass that other things may come in their place, and this material universe be established in all its parts. But do I depart anywhere, says the Word of God? Fix therefore your dwelling in him. Commit to God whatever you have, for it is bondage.

[36:21]

O my soul, wear it at last with emptiness. Commit to truth, keep it, whatever truth has given you, and you shall not lose anything. And what is decayed in you shall be made clean, and what is sick shall be made well. And what is transient shall be reshaped and made new and established in you in fairness. And they shall not set you down where they themselves go, but shall stand and abide and you will play before God who stands and abides forever. If material things please you, then praise God for them. But turn back your love upon him who made them.

[37:23]

Lest in the things that please you, you deeply displease God. If souls please you, then love them in God. because they are mutable in themselves, but in him they are firmly established. Without him they would pass and perish. Love them, I say, in him, and draw as many souls with you to him as you can, saying to them, him let us be. He made this world and is not far from it. For he did not simply make it and eat it, but as it is from him, so it is in him. See where he lives, wherever there is a slave of truth. He is in the most sickly place in the heart, yet the heart has trade for him.

[38:30]

O sinner, return to your own heart and abide in him that made you. Stand with him and you shall stand. Rest in him and you shall be at peace. Where are you going? To what bleak places? Where are you going? The good that you love is from him. And insofar as it is not wise for him, it is good at all. but it will rightly be turned into bitterness if it is unrightly loved and he deserved it by whom it came into being. What goal are you making for wandering around and about by ways so hard and so laborious? Waste is not where you seek it.

[39:36]

Seek what you seek. But it is not where you seek it. You seek happiness of life at the land of death. And it is not there. For how shall there be happiness of life where there is no life? And then comes the last conclusion of this consideration. That our life in life now written the capital letter, came down to this our earth and took away our debt, slew debt with the abundance of his own love. And he, the Lord, calling to us to return to him into that secret place from which he came forth to us. coming first into the virgin's womb, where humanity was wedded to him, our mortal flesh, though not always to be mortal, and thence like a bright wind coming out of his white chamber, rejoicing as a giant to run his course.

[40:56]

For he did not delay, but rushed on, calling to us by what he said and what he did, calling to us by his death, life, descent, and ascension, calling us to return to him. And then he withdrew from our eyes. For what? That we might return to our own heart and find him there. For he went away and he died. But behold, he, our friend, is still here. He would not be with us long, yet he did never leave us. He went back to that place which he had never left, for the world was made by him. And he was in this world, and he came into this world to save sinners.

[42:02]

Up to him my soul confesses, and he hears it, for it has sinned against him. O ye sons of men, how long shall be ye so slow of heart? Even now, when love has come down to you, will you not ascend and live? But to what high place shall you climb, since you are in a high place and have set your mouth against the heavens? O first descent, that you may ascend, ascend to God. For in mounting up against the heavens, Tell the souls of men to weep in this valley of tears, and so bear them up with you to God, because it is by his Spirit that you are speaking this to them.

[43:14]

Even you speaking, you are on fire with the fire of Jesus. So that is the way, my dear brethren, which goes through this experience of the friend who died, departed, and from the friend who died, he goes and ends with the friend who died for him too, but never left him. And the friend who now returns to him and calls in the word of God to his ears, that he should descend in order to ascend And then ascending, he should take with him others. And that was a large, a large circle of friends. And then with them, in the fire of charity, Flavius, the one who had sent his own son, that he may die so that we may live forever in that friendship.

[44:22]

Only that charity can produce wealth in our hearts which is shed in us through the Spirit who has sent us. Let us pray. We pray and beseech thee, Lord God Almighty, perfect us in thy grace and by our hands put forth thy gifts and love and the tent of mercy of thy divinity. And let them be for the satisfaction of the debts of thy people, and for the remission of all the sins of the sheep of thy pasture, which by grace of thy love thou hast chosen to thyself through Christ.

[45:10]

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