The glory of God is a living bearer. And the life of man is the vision of God. The glory of God is a living man. And the life of man is the vision of God. That certainly gives the, indicates the deepest reason for the love of the contemplative life, which has always been a life in the church. At the same time, it also shows us that the ideal of contemplative life in the Christian understanding is different from what it was in the Platonic understanding.

[01:22]

The Platonic approach was really, you can say, an intellectual one. the vision, the ideas, the matter of the intellect and of the intellect as emancipated and separated from all those limitations which the body imposes upon it and therefore the contemplative life has to be preceded as it were by a death that depth in which the intellectual soul separates itself from the body. Now, that evidently is not the original idea. In fact, that the glory of God, which is the Word of God, has become man, become flesh,

[02:28]

That changes that completely. The glory of God is a living man. Now we ask ourselves, who is the living man in whom God is well pleased? Then, of course, we have to point to our Lord, who went down to the Jordan, was baptized, And then the heavens opened, and the voice of the Father was heard, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So it is the Word of God made man who fulfilled all justice, who took upon himself our sin. who therefore was, as we may say so, eminently practical, whose aim was not to help man in a kind of philosophy which would be an intellectual ecstasy, anything like that, but he helped man to cure his wounds and to remove

[03:52]

the obstacle from which kept him from the vision of God by taking upon himself man's sin by becoming the Lamb of God and that changes our whole idea of the contemplative life because then also for us to become the vision of God let us put it this way ears conditioned by or ears cannot be separated from our fulfilling all justice running in this way may be may interpret so just thinking that this morning also at Mass because we have that That verse today for the intro, which we sing, the 16th psalm today.

[04:56]

Ego artem in justitia apparevo conspectui tu, satiabo cum apparure gloria tua. I, in justitia, in uprightness, meaning that justitia of which our Lord said all justice has to be fulfilled, in the uprightness and justitia of penance, of healing the wound of sin, the obedience that our Lord offered to his Father, who wanted him to be a propitiation for our sins. The obedience of the cross, that is the uprightness, that is the justitia. Apparevo in justitia, apparevo conspectui tu. In uprightness I appear before your eyes, in your presence.

[06:00]

I always think of that, and I think it is a thought that we should always keep in mind. You see, the act of highest contemplation of the Church is the Canon of the Mass. And in that Canon of the Mass, the priest stands there representing the whole church, the entire congregation, that is, they are gathered together around the altar. And he stands there with his arms outstretched. In the Dominican Rite, I think it's even verbally, not only as we do it in the Roman Rite, but simply really the priest with his arms outstretched so that the tomb Let us put it this way, let the two say Christ the crucifix on the altar and the priest facing the crucifix are completely in the same attitude and in that way facing one another.

[07:13]

If the priest in offering the canon, the holy sacrifice, the sacrament, of our Lord's Sacrificium Justitiae, sacrifice of justice, stands there, faces the crucifix. And of course, his facing the crucifix is a symbolic sign which points to what he really does. when he offers the holy sacrifice. And he says, this is my body, this is my blood. And his voice unites itself with the voice of Christ, becomes the voice of Christ. When he then says in the person of Christ, this is my body, this is my blood, And then, sacramentally, he and with him all those who offer through him the sacrifice, all those who are gathered together with him, they enter in that complete justitia to the justice, the justice of Christ.

[08:32]

And that is the way in which the one who was baptized in the Jordan, please, was pleasing to the Father. In justitia apparevo conspectuitur. Therefore, and then comes, as we say the divine answer to that, satiavo cum apparurit gloria. That is, let's say, the future. And then I shall be satiated, satiavo, when your glory appears. That is then the glory of the contemplative life, that in its fullness we shall enjoy in heaven. But you see, those two things belong together, that entering into the justice of Christ here on earth and through what we call the active life, And, of course, the sacramental life.

[09:36]

Those two things cannot be separated from each other. That are these 40 days. In justitia par revo conspectui tuos, the meaning of Lent. That is then the meaning of the 50 days after Easter. But those two things are inseparable, one from the other. And therefore, I would say that also the intellectual pursuit, for example, the studies are certainly, and that we have to keep in mind, are not the only and are not even the most important preparation for the contemplative life. But the entering into the form of the cross, that is the important. And that is done through the obedience.

[10:38]

Through obedience we are nailed to the cross. Because why is our Lord there hanging before us? Because He, that is the Father's will. That is what He wanted. That is the chalice He took into His hands. And that drinking of that chalice It's the preparation for the contemplative life. Therefore, I would say everybody in the monastery who really does that, who in that way enters into the justice of the living man, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, he then will satiator, he will be satiated. when the glory appears, when the fifty days begin, when that supper begins that has no end.

[11:40]

Today is the day of our work, the day of our sermons, the day of our prayers, and [...] the day of our prayers, He liked to fly, to fly from flower to flower in churches in the Father's garden to collect the sweetness and beauty which is there to be found everywhere. These last days I especially got so much consolation and profit out of St.

[12:57]

Bernard's. sermons for the capital of the capital of canticles and they are also any things that concern the topic of contemplation contemplative life we are speaking about here in the chapter during these last month you remember the main drift of our thoughts and what we try to see concerning it, and that was the difference or the change, the revolution change. The world of God made flesh has brought about the idea of the contemplative life. That also I thought would be the topic of the Easter Chronicle, the contemplative life was the Lord's Easter gift to all of it, to the entire church, the church as a whole.

[14:03]

That's of course the big difference. The ideal which Plato had outlined in the under the shadow of Socrates' death, and in the backward, that whole context of the treatment of love, the essence of love, the power of love. In those two dialogues, the contemplative light was seen mainly really as an intellectual effort the effort of the soul to emancipate herself from the bonds that bind her to the body and interfere with the purity of vision. But that, of course, is a life which is and can only be the privilege of the few.

[15:10]

the people of Niger. But then, of course, the big difference is that when the wisdom of God becomes flesh and he manifests his glory by showing his agony, a love that seeketh not herself, then things change. Then the whole idea of the contemplative life changes. and instead of the act of contemplating being understood as it is, of course, in philosophy, as the gaze which is fixed on the object in order to rest in its clear perception, That idea of contemplation is then enlarged into the other one where the two temples are brought to a close relation to one another, to a correspondence to one another.

[16:23]

And that takes place eternally between the Father and the Son. That is the home of that contemplation. And that is then extended from the Son to the sacred humanity of our Lord. And from there it is extended to the mystical body, to the Church. So that the act of contemplation is our being built up being built up under the risen Christ as the headstone into a building, O people of God, where the Father dwells and where the stones are united to the unity of the Spirit. So that contemplation then really becomes that act of inner conformity, conformity to the will of the Father.

[17:26]

So that contemplation is a life, a life, that life which proceeds from the Father to the Son, to the Holy Spirit, and which then is extended through the Son made man who enters into the course of history and there in the power of the Holy Spirit who gathers from all the various ends of the world his own into the unity of the church who is then enabled to be the mother through the baptismal font of the new generation of God's children who are reborn in the likeness of a son and therefore have access to the Father. That is the life of contemplation in the Christian sense.

[18:32]

Therefore, a much larger, comprehensive concept Now, that is also the object, really, of so many of St. Bernard's explanations and commentaries on the contemplative life and the canticle of canticles. For once, the insistence that on the part of the subject the contemplative life is a reward cannot be immediately reached after, demanded from the beginning as the reward of what we call the active. And that active life is the purification. But that purification is not so much a purification of the intellect as a purification of the entire man, the heart of man, through the power of the divine agape.

[19:42]

That means through fraternal charity and through obedience. And then on the part of the object of contemplation. What is the object of our contemplation? It's not as Plato has it so beautifully. It was in the back, the beauty absolute. The beauty absolute. And what the mind finally finds after it goes up in a sense, that ladder from beautiful bodies to beautiful thoughts to beautiful... human institutions of state and of laws and then to beautiful notions and then beyond all notions to the one vision of beauty as such which is beyond all visible things not statewide but it is our object of contemplation is

[20:45]

The Word of God made flesh. That is so important. If you look or study the, let's say, the fathers, what we call, those who we call today the fathers of the contemplative life, let us say, Gregory of Nyssa, or let us say, Oeagrius of Particus, Diadoche of Particus, All these fathers who have, say, developed with a certain systematical way the theory of the Christian contemplative life and who are very often thought of as being very much, say, on the line of Platonism. But if you look more closely, that is not true. To all these fathers, it is absolutely evident that the objects, say, of the Theoria, their way begins contemplation, always the Word made flesh.

[21:47]

It's always the economy of salvation, as it is, say, visible in the Holy Scripture, in the life of our Lord, in the very body. And it is not so much, say, the majesty of the Son of God, but it is the humility of the Son of God made man who is the object of our contemplation here on earth. The Theoria, this Theoria I grant you, and of course that is true also in the whole Christian economy, because the Word of God made flesh is not the last objective of our contemplation, but that is, of course, the Holy Trinity. But again, that is not an abstract idea of beauty absolute, but that is the life of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

[22:55]

And that is true. That's the dust. The highest contemplation is what Gregory of Nissan and others would call the theology. Theology. To differentiate it, to distinguish it from the theory. The theory is that where we contemplate, say, in the visible divinity, made visible in Christ, Theology is the entry into the life of the Holy Trinity. That is, of course, the end. That's true. But again, as I say, it's a matter of sharing the life of a divine person, not the contemplation of an abstract idea. And that's a tremendous difference. So therefore, there is a difference in the subject and in the object. in the subject which is and has to be purified not so much in his intellect but his heart and in the object which is not an abstract unchangeable idea but is the divine life the mercy of the Father the heart of the Father made manifest in Christ he in the life of the Holy Trinity

[24:22]

being reached in theology. There he has here a little thing on the St. Bernard. Maybe I'll just read it to you on the contemplation now I can't take the whole thing he speaks there are two kinds of contemplation always in relation to words through which he says now we look at the literal meaning is that it does not yield as much but someone has interpreted the cliffs of the rock as meaning the wounds of Christ and fitly too, for Christ is the rock. So he comments on that word, O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hollows of the wall, show me thy face, and let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy face is comely, the words of the bridegroom to the church.

[25:29]

And then he comments on that, and I just... I'll read it to you. The church is like a dog in her innocence and her continual plaint of prayer, and therefore she finds rest, rest in the word who is the wrong. She looks out from the cleft and sees the glory of her spouse, but is not overwhelmed by it because she does not claim it for herself. Moreover, and that, I think, is so beautiful and important for us, the object of her searching is his will, not his majesty. For though she does venture to contemplate his majesty sometimes, it is only to worship, not to examine it.

[26:32]

And if it ever falls to her love to be snatched out of herself in ecstasy, it is then God himself who lifts her to himself, not she who insolently dares to intrude on him. That's the Christian language. That is the language of the Holy Spirit. Yes, the majesty may be sometimes the object not to examine it but to worship it Plato would examine the Christian worships but it's a personal relation not absolute beauty as a neutral but it's the person it's the heart of God not to examine it but to worship it And if it ever falls to her not to be snatched out of herself in ecstasy, that's in play to the vision of beauty absolute.

[27:36]

For then it is God himself who lifts her up to himself. That means that is an act of grace. Not, however, as St. Bernard says, not she who insolently dares to intrude on him. If that is also so true, the entire mystical tradition of the Church, Gregory of Nyssa, Evaldius of Ponticus, any of those, it's always the act of contemplation, a gift, not an accomplishment, a grace. to seek to know the will of God, therefore, St. Bernard continues, is not fraught with danger, as is the searching of his majesty, but is a safe and beauteous pursuit. How can I do otherwise than try my hardest to find out the glorious will of him to whom I owe obedience in all things?

[28:41]

That aspect of his glory does not overwhelm me, however much I ponder it, for it is wholly kind and fatherly, the glory truly as of the soul begotten of the Father. It does not crush me, but it sets a stamp on me, for when we behold his glory openly, We are transformed into the same image from brightness to brightness as by the Lord, the Spirit. We are transformed, mind you. We are transformed when we are conformed. And the conformity of man to the image of God consists in our alignment with his will, not with his majesty. My glory, then, will be if ever he says of me, I have found a man after mine own heart.

[29:46]

His heart is as his father's, merciful. When he says, let me see thy face, he means that he would have the church be merciful and gentle as he is. then uplifting fearlessly to him, a face resembling his own.

[30:10]

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