It is traditional in the monasteries that the superior should give a conference on this day, the Ember Wednesday of Advent, on the Gospel, Missus Christ Angelus, the angel, was sent. These words, Holy Scripture announces the beginning, the entering of that salvation which God's descending love works with men. The angel is sent to announce God's will to the Virgin, and she willingly accepts the message Behold a handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your will. This is the voice of obedience.

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And it is at the same time the seal that is put in some way or the sign for the happening of that mystery of the incarnation of the Word of God. The very declaration, be it done unto me according to your will, is contemporary with the moment in which the Word of God becomes man. Now, our monastic vocation, and that is the reason why the announcement of this gospel is such a solemn occasion in the monastic life. The monastic vocation is that of Mary. It is the virginal readiness to listen to the word of the one who is being sent, the angel,

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the willingness to accept and to act according to God's word, and thus to conceive and bring forth the Messiah's Christ, who is himself, the Moses, the one who is said. we find this mystery of obedience which is indicated in the scene of the Annunciation, also in a very impressive and beautiful way, announced in two different versions in the Gospel of St John. One in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of St John, the seventh verse, where the man who was born blind is being sent to the pool Siloe, Siloe which means Missus, the one who is sent.

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And he is ordered to wash himself in this pool Missus. And in this way the eyesight is restored to him. And Christian tradition has always interpreted this sign as pointing to the mystery of baptism, where the candidate, the neophyte, is washed in the missus. That means in the Messiah, in Christ himself, who is their presence. with the act of supreme obedience of his dying and his rising, because we are being baptized into the death of Christ. We are being baptized into the missus, and the death of Christ is the work of obedience.

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So that is the womb out of which we are born. And in being watched there, we take on ourselves that very Christ, that very life, that very obedience is being born in us. And so in virtue of our baptism, we are in a very special way the sons of obedience. as St. Peter says in his first epistle. But then we also have in the fifth chapter of St. John that scene of the Probatica Piscina, another pool surrounded by the five porticoes. And there, at least in the Latin version, it is said that at the definite time, that means at the divine moment, the moment of God's will, the Angelus Domini, the angel of the Lord, descends and moves the water, moves the water.

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Angelus Domini descendeva secundum tempus in Piscina and movebatur aqua. And then those who hasten to get into that pool at that time, they are being cured. There we find in this picture not the Messiah himself, but a picture of the church. The church is that Propratica Piscina, which is being moved by the Angelus Domini, by the bishops. And those who then enter into this water, that means those who join the community, they are being cured from the stain and the sickness of their self-will. And so, in fact, we have in this also a good picture and image of the monastery itself.

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The monastery is a church in miniature. The waters are the community. God's angel who descends at the divine command and moves the waters In God's time is the abbot who orders, interprets, and at whose bidding the waters move. So then those who enter into it are those who join. this community and take on the shining weapons of obedience and then for the love of Christ obey the orders given to them as orders which are given by Christ. It may be good just to insert here a little reflection

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about the, one may call it, the development or the valuation, or let us say the growing perfection of the idea of obedience as we find it in the chosen people, in the church, and in the monastery. The chosen people of the Old Testament, the church, and the monastery. In the chosen... People, it is this way. The will of God, the obedience to which is the very essence of religion, because religion comes from the word religare, that means to bind up again. take one's, one can say, rückversicherung, to restore their bonds of obedience, which in disobedience, in the sloth of disobedience, we have left.

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That's the very name of religio, religare, at least in Cicero's interpretation. So the essence of religion is obedience to the word of God. This word of God is given in the Old Testament to the chosen people in two different forms. It is given in the written law, the letter, we call the letter. The letter, what is the letter? The letter is the mark. by the finger of God on the tablets of stone. Moses, the lawgiver, does not write himself.

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That's important for the Old Testament. Moses, the lawgiver, does not write himself. The finger of God writes, and he takes the tablets, tablets, down to the people and then reads it to them. Now this letter, the vestige of God's finger on the tablets of stone, they contain the lasting eternal will of God ordering for all times the community life of the people. That's the written law. That's one way in which God manifests his will to the chosen people. You see, obedience is a community thing.

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The word of God addresses itself to the whole people and gives to the people that lasting norm and rule of their community life. And that remains unchanged throughout history. But then we have the other element. We have history. History is a process of changes, constantly changing circumstances, changing people, personalities, changing nations. The manifestation of God's will in the changes of history is not done by the letter, but is done by the living word. And this living word is inspired into or put better onto the lips of the prophets.

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The prophet is God's living voice. addressing or manifesting his will in the ever-changing circumstances of history, interpreting history as the manifestation of God's will. His will now, in this concrete situation, with the Assyrians on one side in the north and with the Egyptians in the south, and now what to do? That is not written in the law. That only has to be made known by the prophet. But what is, who is the prophet in the Old Testament? Nothing but God's mouthpiece.

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just as Moses, the lawgiver, is nothing but the bringer of the book, not the writer of the book. So the prophet in the Old Testament is nothing but God's mouthpiece. He says, when he announces the word, he says, Thus says the Lord, He does not say, thus speaks Isaiah, but he says, thus speaks the Lord, says the Lord. The summary and the personification of that prophetical mission and function and office in the Old Testament is St. John the Baptist. And St. John the Baptist is called the voice of one crying.

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That should be understood right. He is not the one who cries, the person. He is just the voice of the one who cries. Vox clamantis. He himself, if you want you understand what I mean, he himself is, so to speak, not a person. He is just the voice, just the sound, so to speak. That's very basic to understand the true nature of the Old Testament, because the Old Testament moves in the realm of shadows and images, not in the realm of realities. And therefore it's so beautiful as St. John the Baptist in last Sunday's Gospel says, you know, I am not the Christ.

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Non sum ego Christus. Non sum Elias. Non sum, non sum. I am not a person. I'm just the voice of one, of a person who is crying. Then comes the obedience in the church. In the church it's different. As soon as Christ comes, Then Christ does not say, non sum ego. He says, ego sum. I am the one. He says, I am the way, the truth, the life. See, with Christ, a completely new, the divine reality enters into history.

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completes the letter as well as the voice, because Christ is the eternal, and I would add now, personal world. That means the Son of God. The eternal personal world, the Son of God made man. Evidence then in his teaching, when Christ our Lord teaches, he does not say, thus says the Lord, but he says, compare the Sermon on the Mount, the essence of his teaching, you have heard that to thee. Antiqui to the people of old, it was said, don't kill.

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But I say, whoever, and so on. So he is, he is the one who speaks in personal authority. Therefore, he is the personal word of God. With him, the word of God himself is here among us and speaks to us. But at the same time, this, the one who says, but I say unto you, he also says, but my teaching is not my teaching, but the teaching of the one who sent me. So this one who says, I say, He's at the same time not the Father, but he is the Son. And so, you see, the Old Testament represents to us the obedience of the instrument in Moses as well as in the prophets.

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The prophets are, as it were, being dictated to. But our Lord Jesus Christ, he is not the obedience of the instrument. He is the obedience of the song. That is evident in his teaching, as I just said. It's also evident in his working. He works miracles. He says, Lazarus, rise. But at the same time, and that certainly is a divine work, and that is done in the creative majesty of the word of God. But at the same time, the same word also says in the Gospel of St.

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John, I work the works of my Father who has sent me. I work the works of my Father who has sent me. So in him, one can say, personality and obedience are fused into the identity of one divine person, and that is the person of the Son of God. And this person of the Son of God, in this filial obedience, if you understand what I mean, gives his own body and gives his own blood for our salvation, and gives up his own will, but with and in his full will.

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Not my will, but yours be done. But at the same time, it is said, he gave himself voluntarily, willingly. So that is the mystery of Christ, that in Him the ego, the person, and the obedience are fused into one, the person of the Son. That's the very mystery of the Son. Now this Word, the Son, who lives in the obedience to the Father, but without in any way in that way losing, as it were, his personality or his free fullness of his will, he, as the exalted Lord, sends his Spirit to introduce us into the full truth, as St.

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John says, into the full truth. What is the full truth? That means the fullness of sharing divine life. That's the full truth. Truth is divine life. That fullness of divine life is the indwelling of the three divine persons in us. We shall come and we shall take our abode in them. You can also put it in this way. The exalted Lord sends to his church his spirit. What is this spirit? It is the spirit of the adoption of sons in which we cry, Abba, Father. So you see, through the exaltation of Christ, the mystery of obedience as fullness of life is as it were closed, completed.

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Christ, the Lord, sends his spirit. And this spirit cries, Abba, Father, because it's the spirit of sonship. So the Spirit leads us through the Son, and in and through the Son we have access to the Father. Now let us, that may be a little, doesn't lead us away really from the topic, but it may be a little difficult to understand at the moment. You know, these are big, you know, immense bites, you that you have to chew on, you know, but it's worthwhile chewing. And especially when you go to the fifth chapter of the rule of St. Benedict, the chapter on obedience. You see, you find right there in the rule of St.

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Benedict, you find two things. You find chapter four, And in chapter 4, you have what's called the tools of good works. But if you look at that chapter, what are they? They are, if you want, the commandments. It's a kind of a monastic version of the Ten Commandments, but a monastic version. really a monastic version, because it exceeds by far the Ten Commandments. Still, this chapter four has the character of an impersonal code. There are rules given to us. As important as that impersonal code is,

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It is not really the fullness of perfection. The chapter 5, the obedience, does the other thing. It brings us into living contact with God's living representative to interpret his will in the course of history. See, the fourth chapter is, in that way, a chapter of rules, impersonal, remains the same. Everybody can read it and everybody can apply it to himself. But, and that's the important thing, the monastic life and the Christian life as such is not exhausted by and fulfilled in obedience to norms or councils, but it is only fulfilled in obedience to the living voice of the representative of God.

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And that is why after the chapter 4 we have chapter 5. Just as in the Old Testament, after the five books of Moses, the law, we have the prophets. And just as in the church as a whole, you have, let us say, put it in a primitive way, the Ten Commandments, and outside of the Ten Commandments you have the pope, the bishops, and the priests, as the living representatives and as the living guides of the people of God through the vicissitudes of history. So here, too, after the Code follows this chapter on obedience. Now, that chapter on obedience, as St.

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Benedict has it here, certainly does not represent the whole doctrine of obedience as contained in the rule. To get that, we would have to refer to many other chapters, as, for example, the chapter on the abbot, the chapter on the council of the brethren, the chapter on the officials, deans, the chapter on the cellar, the chapter on the good zeal the monks should have, the chapter on the mutual obedience the monks should pay to one another. All these, all these belong and are needed to represent fully the teaching on obedience as St. Benedict has it in his rules. This here, the chapter 5, is more a chapter which, in one way, which, let us say, meets or explains the actual obedience, the act of obedience, the act of obedience.

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But this act of obedience now, and then you can see right away, is dominated completely by that theological background that just before I have tried to explain. Because in this chapter five, obedience is clearly treated as a, now you permit me to use the word again, as a mysterion, as a mysterion. By mysterion, in that way, we understand a visible act which contains an invisible supernatural reality. And that's exactly the way in which Saint Benedict here looks at obedience.

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Obedience is a mysterio. In the obedience you have, as it were, the sign, the symbolic sign, or let us say the surface, and that is the superior. And by superior, by the way, if I may mention that here, don't understand the word superior simply as abbot or first superior. Superior here is, as is also called, major. Major is in that way a much better way. You see, the word superior in our present language always means the one in command, you know, at a certain place. But as soon as you take the word major, which St. Benedict really uses here, then you see it's not an absolute title, it's a relative thing.

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Major, that means anybody who proceeds or ranks above or has charge of others. And in this way, relative to them is major. So that is not only the average, but that's the prior, that's the seller, that's any senior in relation to a junior, anyone who is in charge of a work in relation to those who help him. All that is comprehended under this word major. So that Obedience here is explained in that way, you know, that the major now represents, I mean, he is the signum of another reality, of the reality of Christ. Who hears you hears me. You see that one can say that hypostatic union

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which that mystery of the Incarnation, which we have in all its fullness in Christ Himself, the Word of God made man, is in a certain way continued in those whom Christ has sent. The leading word of this chapter 5 is who hears you, hears me. That means the obedience which you give to Christ's representative is really given to Christ himself and through Christ to the Father. So the mysterium of the missus is continued in enim major. So whoever approaches Emmanuel enters into the orders of Emmanuel, enters into that pool, missus, into that pool, sigiri.

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Who hears you, hears me. That is a word which is not at home in the Old Testament, but which is characteristic for the New Testament. In the New Testament, the bishop is the real representative of Christ. So is the priest. So in the monastic milieu is the abbot. Only that in the monastic milieu, the abbot is the representative through the faith of the community, because the community elective. So it's the faith of the community that in that way makes the abbot the representative of Christ. That's the difference between the monastic order and the ecclesiastical order, where the identity in office is established by holy orders, as we say.

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So by sacrament, not so in the monastic setting. So the word which guides this chapter and opens the key to the Mysterium is this word, who hears you, hears me. Therefore, the obedience which is given here in the monastery is obedience which is given to the Heavenly Father through the Son's representatives. Now, therefore, that is what we call the inner, you know, one must see that, you know, that is the inner, the continuation of the principle of filial obedience into the monastic life. Now, this obedience which is in the monastic life, willingly and on free accord,

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given to the representative of Christ, who hears me hears you, who hears you hears me, that is then complemented by two words, two other words from Scripture here in this chapter, and the one is, at the hearing of the ear he has obeyed me. And the other one is, God loveth a cheerful giver. You see, this word that I just quoted, he that heareth you heareth me, occurs twice in this chapter. The first time it is connected with the word at the hearing of the ear he has obeyed me. And the second time is connected with the word God loveth a cheerful giver. That means two things which Saint Benedict here wants to express.

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The obedience, he says, which is given in the monastery is an obedience which is given to Christ in the love of Christ. To Christ in the love of Christ. Because obedience becometh those who hold nothing dearer to them than Christ. It's given to Christ in the love of Christ. Now, that means two things. In the love of Christ, that means, of course, in the Holy Spirit. That means two things. What does the Holy Spirit do to the obedience? First, at the hearing of the ear, he has obeyed me. That means such an obedience which is given in the love of Christ, through Christ to the Father, is immediate.

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That means obedience without delay. Obedience without delay. It's an immediate obedience. That means The word of the order, of the command, is immediately filled by the ready execution from the part of the one who obeys. That's that immediate. Obediencia sine mora. This obediencia sine mora, I would emphasize that very much. And in that, I think Abbot Herb Reagan was a little, you know, too much preoccupied with the Roman paterfamilias when he explains it. It is absolutely true that the Roman colonel in the gospel says, when he gives us a picture of the obedience in the Roman legions, I say to this one, do this, and he does it.

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I'll say to another one, do that, and he does that. Boom, boom, just like that. Yes, it is true, the external form here is the same between the soldier and the monk. But the motive is completely different. In the soldier, he is the emperor's possession. He is not a person. In that way, the Roman legion is much closer to the Old Testament. In the New Testament, it's different. This haste and this immediate obedience, what is it? The mark of the Holy Spirit. The mark of the Holy Spirit. It's the mark of that Spirit which overshadowed the Virgin so that the world was made flesh.

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At that very moment. In other words, if you read, you just read this chapter and you see right away what I mean. There, for example, receive it as a divine command as soon as anything has been ordered by the superior, receive it as a divine command, and cannot suffer any delay in executing it. Obedientia sine mora. Then the other one. Therefore, immediately abandoning their own affairs, forsaking their own will, dropping the work they were engaged on, leaving it unfinished, with swift obedience, follow up with their deeds, the voice of him who commands them. And almost in the same moment of time that the master's order is issued, the disciples' work completed. In the swiftness of the fear of the Lord, the two things being rapidly accomplished together by those who are impaired by the desire of attaining life everlasting.

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Now, what kind of language is that? I would say it's the language of the incarnation. It's the language of the word become man, of that inner union between the word of God and human nature. And that is what this obedience, this haste wants. That is not military discipline. Why does obedience have to be immediate in the army? Because if it is not, the army can never kill the enemy. It's incapable. It's not ready for any battle. Absolute obedience is the only means in the army of maintaining the army as a fit instrument to kill the enemy.

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You understand what I mean? In the holy rule, completely different. That immediate union between the word of command And the action of the one who feels that and fulfills the order is in the power of the Holy Spirit, is an incarnation, one can say, of the Word of God, brings about that hypostatical union. So that is the haste, you know, that obediência sine mora means obedience in the absolute fullness of the Holy Spirit. That's what it means. Obedientia sine mora, in the fullness of the Spirit of adoption of sons. The other one, then, see,

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The combination of these two words, hear that heareth you, heareth me, God loveth a cheerful giver, is then completely on the same line. As the obedience, the obedience without delay, joins in the power of the Holy Spirit, the external action of the monk to the divine word that meets him in the order of the superior. So in the second paragraph, last paragraph of this chapter, the heart of the monk is in willing and cheerful obedience united to the word which comes to him, the word of the Father.

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So that this chapter is in that way a beautiful description of that union, one can say, of body and of mind, which the fullness of the Holy Spirit works through obedience in the heart of the monk. So if we go a little into Oh, no. Better not. Because otherwise... But it's a pity, you know, because this is just, let us say, the theory of it. But then we just, we have to... The angel should descend and move in time, and when the time is, he should leave, you know. So we do that too at this moment and close it for today and continue it maybe on Saturday.

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