developed the idea of contemplation as extending, let us say, to the general region of the heart, trying to enter into the thoughts of God's heart from generation to generation. In this way we discover the heart of love, agape of the Father. Through the Son he was and is in the Father's bosom, and he has revealed him and the thoughts of the Father's bosom to us. Who sees me sees the Father. The Word was made flesh, and we have seen his glory. What is in this context his glory?

[01:01]

It is his love, his sacrificial love, the love of self-emptying, of descending, of compassion. This love, this agape, is the bond which brings together, the perfect bond, which brings together ima sumis, the lowest and the highest, the bottom and the top, transforming the heart of fallen man into the image of God's heart. Jeremiah has described to us the abyss of the heart of fallen man. He knew it so deeply through his own experience. But we also see it, if I may, refer again with a certain trepidation to the lessons Genesis 6 I don't know if we agree but anyhow we have read it today or not there it is when the Lord saw that the wickedness of man on the earth was great

[02:26]

and that man's every thought and all the inclination of his heart were only evil. He regretted that he had made man on the earth and was grieved to the heart. And then the Lord said, I will wipe from the earth man whom I have created. Now, have you read that today? Not? the heck, what's the matter with the monastic breviary? But I just wanted to call your attention to it because it struck me, you see, just when this morning in reading it, in our breviary, the Benedictine breviary, that they are the two, the inclination of man's heart was only evil, that's the abyss.

[03:30]

But then in relation, you know, if that is seen and realized, that we speak in human terms, tactus dolor recordis intrinsicus, I think it's one of the most beautiful little sentences in the whole of Holy Scripture, because sometimes we have to, we shouldn't too much, but we have to kind of defend ourselves against people who distort the Christian idea of the Father's justice, who kind of glories in the blood of his Son or something like that. And we're here, you know, so clearly. The inner heart of divine justice is revealed, again, in a human way. How else can we do it? But still, absolutely divine, a true revelation of the heart of God, that this judgment of condemnation is said by the Father, «Tactus dolore cordis intrinsicus»,

[04:42]

interiorly grieved, touched by the sorrow of his heart, interiorly pierced by the sorrow of his heart, the Father says, I will wipe from the earth man whom I have created. That gives us a glimpse, really, of the heart of God, the thoughts of the heart of God. who, of course, then at the end of this story, finds and receives the offering, the sacrifice of Noah, who found favor with God, a just man, blameless among the men of his day, and, the decisive thing, obedient. Obedient in building the ark of wood as the instrument of salvation, that floating island on the flern, exactly according to the measures indicated by God, that old picture of the church.

[06:06]

And not only for himself, but for his family, he and his family. Not only he and his family, but the entire animal world within. So all the living flesh, the seed of flesh, that last seed of hope, survival, for a new future, for a new beginning, floating on the waves of the flood. And then the dove comes, earns the olive branch in the beak of the dove. The indication that there the earth is now new because what is the olive tree? But naturally, the olive tree stands for the element of oil. What is oil? Oil is the healing oil. Oil is nourishment. Oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit, of the healing, strengthening, consoling, restoring agape of God.

[07:22]

In the beak of the dove, the dove always, the symbol of the community of love, of the columba, of which St. Augustine speaks so beautifully. that communion of saints, invisible as long as we live and wander here on this earth, but visible once in the future, the communion of saints. And then we know naturally that all these things point to the Messiah, the anointed one who rises out of the waters of baptism. And again the dove appears. He is the olive branch. He is the new earth. He is the new beginning, the new and second Adam, the spiritual Adam.

[08:24]

So we see, my dear friends, there are all these tremendous perspectives, you know, that the very thought of the divine agape, the thoughts of God, is the source of light spreading through our hearts, opening up doors in every possible direction. So the sacrifice was offered by Noah Noah was the first who built an altar. He built this altar, and what does it mean? It is the representation, as all the rabbinic interpreters always explain it, the mountain. What is the mountain? But the symbol, the abbreviation, let us say, of the earth, the covenant with Noah, was a covenant between heaven and earth, God and the earth.

[09:32]

The altar representing this, the sacrifice that is offered there in odorem suavitatis, an odor of sweetness. St. Paul refers to this scene when he later on calls us an odor of sweetness of Christ. And then the Father's heart, as it is said again, let us see that in the 9th, 8th chapter of Genesis, then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took every clean animal, every clean bird, offered holocausts on the altar, the first time that the term holocaust appears here in Holy Scripture. When the Lord smelled the sweet odor, he said to himself, and in the Hebrew text it said, he said within his heart, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth.

[10:44]

I will never again destroy every living creature as I have done. So that certainly points, it points to the future, points to the sacrifice of the Messiah. If we just, because I'm so delighted that we're just preparing now for the first time this community and you, the concelebration, the first concelebration, I'm so glad I can be able to take a part in it. I think in preparing interior life for it, you would allow me just to continue some thoughts that may help us to understand the inner meaning of a celebration like this. Guardini has written some time ago a very beautiful letter.

[11:49]

was translated also into English, about the liturgical act, and he warned, and I think it's so true, against superficiality at the present moment, where many changes are being made, and these changes may, as it is only natural, considering our weakness, also the weakness of our hearts that we get stuck either in enthusiastic yes and amen to everything new or in the reluctance to change old ways. That is the where we are torn in these days.

[12:51]

And all that kind of kindled by the surface, by the newness which is then on the surface of man, received either with too much attention to the new form as such, or to greater reluctance to leave old forms and there to find the depth that is necessary. That means to consider and really to confront the liturgical act, the liturgical act which is as such not and never, as we know so well, in external ceremony. As a ceremony, it wouldn't mean a thing. If it remains on the surface, it doesn't mean a thing.

[13:54]

But every change, to say it again, has in itself, of course, the great danger just to fix our attention on the new accidentals, because the way man is, the easiest way is always to get hooked in the accidentals. But, of course, the contemplative and the monk does not live, really, on the level of the accidentals. He faces things as a matter of inner profession, of his inner dedication, I would really say, to the heart of God. Dedication to the heart of God, to the eternal thoughts, of the love of God's heart. He faces the accidentals with the freedom of the spirit.

[14:56]

We know that there is naturally, there is a close connection in the liturgy between the external form and the interior meaning, that is sure. But in order to really understand and then also enact the external form. It has to come from within. It has to have an inner echo in the heart because these things that we celebrate, they are in the Holy Eucharist. They are, as I tried to indicate yesterday, expressions of the heart of God. So it's beautiful that we can enter on this day into this for the first time, into the celebration. Now, again, you know, the question arises, will it be a success on the level of the accidentals?

[16:02]

But I think that question is already put the wrong way. It cannot be a success, but it cannot be but a success. on the level of the heart, in the internal, inner, because it is, after all, also an acceptance of things that have been in the course of the Council. Through the evident inspiration of the Holy Spirit, doors have been opened and forms have been opened, and one of those is the concelebration. It is true, of course, again, that everybody and every priest has an inner inclination, inner love, you know, for offering now what we call his Mass. The only thing, the only question is if the conciliation is less of his Mass.

[17:08]

I would say it's more his mass, because how is a mass my mass? Only in an absolute, in a deep, in a harmony with the thoughts of the heart of God. And that is for sure, and that is what immediately also the story of Noah tells us. that redemption and sacrifice are not limited to one person, but they are essentially always community actions. Noah was certainly one, the one favorite son of God, so to speak, at the time. But for what purpose? He was loved, and he was the son as the father of a new generation. Therefore, he was saved together with his family.

[18:11]

He was not saved in that way as a solitary, but with his family, as the promise, therefore, and as the reality of a new generation, what we call the third generation. The altar itself that he built, if he built the altar, that very word already indicates that this building is done as a composition of several many stones, probably, as that is sure in Holy Scripture, twelve stones. What are twelve? Twelve is the number of the communion of saints. That's what it is. So therefore there the altar was built. And what is the dove that appears? But it's the symbol of, again, of the communion of saints. So we see that the act of redemption is interiorly and absolutely a community act.

[19:16]

And therefore this sense of community should be expressed, it seems to me, first of all also in the calm celebration, you know, of priests. Because they are the outstanding centers of unity. For what are we consecrated priests if not, you know, for the church, for the people of God? Therefore, we are in that way just as our Lord. As individuals, we are representatives of the whole people of God. And therefore, where in the categories of God's heart the individual enters into sacrifice, he does it as the representative of the whole people of God. For what purpose? That really God may be glorified. Where is God glorified? Through the concordia, the inner harmony of hearts.

[20:21]

As St. Ignatius describes it so beautifully, what are we? What is the church? But a harp and the various strings on the harp. And on these strings, then, the Holy Spirit is playing. That is the idea of this saving celebration through which the church as church, the people of God, is constituted formally and publicly as people of God. When I, years ago, sometime in Town Hall in New York, I had the pleasure of assisting at a series of conferences long before the ecumenical age had dawned on of Jewish church music, cult music, and Protestant cult music, and Catholic cult liturgical music.

[21:26]

and it was preceded every time by an explanation of the essence of the cult. And there came the Jewish rabbi first, and he spoke about the Jewish liturgy, and what is the Jewish liturgy is the public proclamation of the presence of the kingdom of God among his people. Now, that is a definition of the liturgy which as such is absolutely also ours, Christian, in a deeper sense, certainly. But the definition as such is there. The Mass is the public proclamation of the presence of the kingdom of God on earth. And that kingdom of God is the rule of God's heart, the rule of the divine agape, the actual manifestation of God's love among his children, uniting them into the unity of one family, and there it is, and there it can be seen.

[22:42]

And that is here also the meaning of the consolation, to give that possibility, to show it in that way, the unity of the priesthood and of the people. So therefore this concelebration as such is in a deep context, in an essential context. It is really and truly a liturgical act. It is not an external ceremony. It's not something new. It's not a little trimming added to so confusing rather. No, it is a manifestation. manifest a new, clear manifestation of the inner glory of the kingdom of God, presence in God's love for us, as shown through the one Lord Jesus Christ to all the members of his family.

[23:44]

So, in that way, if we go a little further from Noah and Noah's altar, just let us take one step and go from Noah, who is the, let us say, the Adam of a new generation in the general sense of the word, and the covenant between God and the earth. But, of course, later on, there is the other, the line of Abraham, who is called out of the whole world of Babylon into that country that God will show him, whose builder and architect is God, the city. And that is what Abraham was looking out for, for Jerusalem, searching Jerusalem. And then came... his grandson Jacob, and he then was the first father, really, of a family, of a house.

[24:54]

With Jacob, the idea of the house of the Lord enters, as it were, essentially becomes manifest in the history of salvation of the chosen people. There's the house. Jacob rests his head on that stone, God's love for him, the Father's love for him. He sees that communication, the angels ascending and descending between him and his heavenly Father, and he rises and he says, this is the house of God, and I did not know it, a real revelation, the apparition of a new dimension, the house of God. Jewish exegesis has always paid great attention to this term Bethel, the house of God.

[26:04]

Because it was, what does it mean? Again, I simply relate, I cannot judge about these things, and I think in themselves they simply are there, and they might not always be philologically straight, but there is this interpretation, and I think it is in harmony with the facts that In the Jewish thought, the Old Testament thought, there is a distinct difference between the idea of sanctuary in relation to the Gentiles. The Gentiles, there is the temple. This temple is the place where religion is being cultivated in a ritual. But this ritual does not have, I wouldn't say anything, but is not essentially related to the everyday life.

[27:18]

The temple, at least in the eyes of rabbinic traditions, The temple is a form in which religion is isolated and separated from life. The house is and indicates, let us put it this way, a form of religion where the individual encounters God in his family circle. where God makes his abode in the circle of the family. Bethel, the house of God, in that way, is simply the indication of Jacob's family. God will be with Jacob's family. Twelve sons, they certainly make a house, and for that matter, a perfect house.

[28:20]

And so the house, you know, is the home. The home. I think it was always the Jewish idea that religion is not a matter for a ritual celebration, for a feast, you know, which is then also as time and the character of time separated from the everyday life. But the essence is that the glorification of God is done through and in the circle of the most intimate community of man, the cell, as we say, out of which human society is built. And this essential cell is the family. Therefore, this is the house of God. Yes, of course, I know there are theories, was this place where Jacob was an old sanctuary or something?

[29:26]

I don't enter into that. I simply take it in this relation, you see, that house is the term of the home for the family, and that The God who manifests himself in this way is the God of the family. And that means a father, and that means on the part of the family, a life dedicated in all its inner relation, and especially through the concordia, through the inner harmony of hearts, you know. to the glorification of the Father God, of the God who has a heart, who has the thoughts of his heart from generation to generation accompanying the family. That is also, I think, the meaning why then later on, on Sinai, the people enter

[30:29]

into the picture, whereas the people, but a confederation and a union of families. And again, if God chooses a people to be his son, what does it mean? It means, again, that religion is not something that is separate and that is simply, as the Marxists, socialists, concept wants to have, that it is a private matter. It's a private affair. Religion is a private affair. That, of course, immediately relegates religion into the realm of dreams, into the realm of subjective emotions. into the realm therefore in which man is isolated in himself with his God.

[31:30]

and how much illusion and deception can enter into such a private relation. It is, in fact, a public relation. It is if you want something political, at least that is in the Old Testament clearly. And therefore, God's economy of salvation proceeds in this way that his law is offered to the chosen people, not to an individual. The intermediary, yes, of Moses, but Moses is absolutely and completely not only the servant of his God, but also at the same time the servant of his people. He is therefore a public figure. And in that way, the religion of the Old Testament is really and truly, as I say, a total affair, penetrating all various human relations, entering into the daily life, and in that way really transforming man interiorly.

[32:48]

In other words, it is then really and truly a spiritual religion while the pagan religion was a magic religion. And magic simply means a relation to God based, you know, on the knowing, the knowledge of certain formulas, the many words, you know, that the priests, as experts, keep as their secret and then bring, say, practice in their temples. And then later on, you see, of course, we have then, as soon as the people enter into the picture, later on, you know, we have the temple in Jerusalem. But this temple... What is it again? It is really there, the cosmic, a cosmic image.

[33:49]

It is just like the altar of Noah. It is a representation of the whole universe. And what is the idea? It's the idea of one temple. Therefore, it's the idea which is brought into the fore by the idea of the kingdom, also the political kingdom as such, centered in one king, the idea of unity, and as a prophecy, the idea of unity of the entire cosmos, of the whole universe, mankind as well as all the various, let's say, regions and sections of the universe. The temple, in that way, is simply an anticipation of the restoration of the whole earth under God. And in that way, again, goes back, it seems to me, and takes up and incorporates the idea of what we call the covenant of Noah.

[34:54]

But again, you know, it is of course the idea of the temple is again a total consecration and dedication to God of the whole of the universe. And in that way the universe is then an extended and last form of the house. of the house of God, where the one family of man, in unity with the restored cosmic order, offers praises to the creator of the universe. But again, if you ask, you know, and if one reads the dedication of the temple under Solomon, what is it? Of course, and that, I think, is the beautiful thing again, that in the establishment of the temple, the idea of the house is in no way lost, even emphasized, because there is that specific relation and covenant which accompanies the erection and dedication of the temple, I mean between God and David.

[36:16]

and David and his house. David and his house. So that the idea of the family in some ways united and reaffirmed in the idea of the people and also the universality of the temple. And then again, what is the temple there? It is the place where as it is so expressly and beautifully stated, where my heart will dwell, where the heart of God dwells. The heart of God, of course, there is and lives for the whole of his world, of his creations. the heart will dwell there, and thereby my ear will hear the prayers. Therefore, what is the temple still is the place where the heart of God meets the heart of the people, but of the people also as the representative of the whole of mankind.

[37:27]

Later on then, of course, we have the fulfillment of the temple prayer, And again, you know, there is that idea of contemplation, of course, often evident in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Destroy this temple, and in three days I shall build it up again. Therefore he spoke of the temple of his body. And therefore the idea of the temple in the Old Testament fulfilled in Christ the Word of God incarnate who dies for the sins of mankind, who therefore with his gifts his heart and has his side opened so that water and blood may pour forth and that in that way the whole of mankind may be reconciled to him in water and in blood through baptism and the Eucharist. And then the new church arises, and where does this new church then worship?

[38:32]

They certainly take part in the public worship of the people in the temple, but the fractio parnis, the breaking of the bread, and again, I think, That word in itself is so beautiful to describe, you know, the inner essence of this worship that is taking place now in the name of Jesus. That means in the presence of the Word of God made flesh, who died for us, who was broken, as it were, for us, so that his Spirit may fill the hearts of all, the breaking of the bread, as the communion rite, therefore in itself as an inner synthesis of sacrifice and the unity of the Spirit. And that was done where? That was done in the homes, from home to home.

[39:37]

And there they came together for the meal, and now the meal already indicated in some categories of the Old Testament sacrifices the peace offerings, but now fulfilled in our sacrifice the peace sacrifice. And what is the essential note of a peace sacrifice already in the Old Testament? It's simply this, that in the peace sacrifice, the homage paid to God is inseparable from the unity and happiness of the community, of the family. That's the essence of the peace offering. Our New Testament offering is a peace offering, and therefore it is offered in the house of God. We, in Christian terminology, have never taken up, at least officially and in the language of the people, you know, the idea of the temple.

[40:43]

But we have always stuck the idea of the house. house, the church, is the Kyriakei Oikei. That means the house of the Lord. The house of the Lord. Why the house of the Lord? Because what is the parish? It's the family. What is the Lord but the father of the family? Into his house he invites us, not as individuals, but as a family. And the inner If one looks and tries to kind of explore or formulate what one would call the inner spirituality of the mass, let us say, cannot be explained better than in the terms of the inner intimacy of a family gathered in the house, in the best room of the house.

[41:51]

And there is the table, and what is a table but a means of communion. Table is that place where People take their food, but in common, as a unity, as a family. The meal itself, you know, as the source of the unity of family life. Now, we know very well that in the world outside, these ideas today are fading away. Why? Because the family unity is gradually being lost under pressures of trends I would not think that they are irreversible. Very often one is too much inclined to consider certain trends which invade a civilization as absolutely irreversible, especially today.

[42:53]

One has this tendency, we are progressing, there are new forms, and because there are new forms, all the old things are lost, you know. Depends on what is lost. The essence of man will never be lost. Wherever the nature of man is deeply acted against, the nature of man will also revolt against. And the destruction of the family is simply not a symptom of progress, it's a symptom of disintegration, and therefore a reaction will set in against it. But thank God that the monastery offers us the possibility through the enclosure, through that, let's say, getting out of Babylon. and setting up a setup for what purpose? For family life. That was evidently the idea of Saint Benedict, otherwise he wouldn't have called the superior an Abba, a father, if he did not think in these basic question categories.

[44:01]

And therefore, thank God that we today, you know, can celebrate this Mass really and truly as a family celebration. So that there... the inner unity of the Holy Spirit becomes in a new way, to which we have been accustomed up to now, but in a new way becomes visible. And so let us also enter into it with this inner joy that we in the enclosure, let us say, and taken out of the pressure and of the various accidental influences through which the world constantly clashes with the thoughts of God's heart. That is the tragedy, that the inclinations of man's heart our fallen nature, our evil, and therefore constantly clash with the initiative and the thoughts of God's heart.

[45:07]

The monastery is there that the two may be really reconciled, that we may live completely in the thoughts of God's heart. And there is no greater, no deeper thought in God's heart than that of the unity of a family. And for that we live in a monastery. And the greatest manifestation of it certainly is the celebration of the breaking of the bread.

[45:38]

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