In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. The rule of our Holy Father, Saint Demetrius. Chapter 49. Hope of the observance of land. This place is solely trying us. Because it strikes as well as it blanches us. dictated both by the same love in that he the lord never changes he never lets anybody down who truly puts his trust in him thou hast mercy upon all the lord and hatest none of the things which thou has made as well as the beautiful words of today's intro.

[01:05]

The singing this morning, the way in which the community participated in the celebrating of the Mass had, I must say, a quality which filled me with great happiness. It had an earnestness to it spirit of recollection of death, and I ascribe it to the fact that we all suffer. But in the sense of the Patio Beata, blessed, blessed suffering, life-giving suffering, in that quiet resignation to God's will, We are all sad, but not in that sadness which is at most unto death.

[02:10]

I mean the sadness without hope, human sadness, but the sadness of God's children, which deepens the heart and draws them closer to God. The sadness, I mean, of the poor, O Lord, remember not our former iniquities. Let thy mercies be faster than our slow wills, for we are become exceeding poor. How well the Lord knows our true needs. We may think that we need vocation, But God knows that we need depth, that we have to be purified by paternal charity, that we have to be welded together by the common experience of hardships, disappointments of all kinds.

[03:23]

And only then do we have the inner strength to help those who come to us to be transformed As long as the present situation is seen by all in this light, and as long as all accept it from the hands of God as a means of conversio morum, there is no reason at all for discouragement. On the contrary, there is all possible reason for hope. That group of monks that founded the monastery of Sito in the year 1098, that group waited for 14 years for candidates to join them. Nobody wanted to come, and those who came did not stay.

[04:28]

The monks were told that they should change to a more accessible spot, or that they should build a better monastery, or they should try to have less work and better food. Now, if they had done it, they would probably have relieved their situation for the moment, but they would have missed God's road forever. We compare the situation of the early fathers of Sito with our situation, and we realize that we need much more hardship to even compare with them. And how ridiculous it is for us to complain how dangerous it would be to seek a solution in the wrong direction. But the worst thing will be for everybody to get worried.

[05:35]

Worrying is one of these attitudes which thrive in the dark. They are constituted dangers in between. Not quite dark, a little light, but not too much light either. Worrying is the process by which one thrives in need in one's own path with the fire of one's earth drive or one tries to wind the threat of providence over one's own hands and then of course it gets hopelessly entangled the lines are not drawn out to go wearing is the opposite of prayer wearing is the library leads nowhere but tires us out, makes us dizzy. Before we know it, we are all in a flutter. We stir up the mud.

[06:41]

We lose our peace, and we make others lose it. We upset the order of God's grace by assuming responsibilities which are not ours. and therefore one may not be constructive, one may not edify by that. But you understand that by all this I do not say one should not be interested and take an active part in the affairs and cares of one's family, certainly should. But worries are always accompanied by the fear that those in charge don't know what they are doing or have no eyes to see. And that is the difficulty. By that, one then becomes isolated and gets caught in one's own circle.

[07:51]

One should break out. break out in the spirit of confidence and trust and hope. True hope. That is done and that comes into the soul through prayer. Because prayer is the opposite of willing. In prayer I open myself. In prayer I put all my needs into the transforming, truly transforming fire of God's charity. That is the essence of prayer. And therefore, prayer edifies. That is something really and truly constructive. That deepens, that opens our hearts, reddens, And you see, that is what fasting is all about.

[08:55]

We have in the liturgy of this stage wonderful words and advice about true and false fasting. And if you go through them, and you will first, of course, meet with that sentence that on the day of fast we should not rend our garments but rather our hearts and that is of course that is the first admonition fasting is an external symbolic act and but as such as external symbolic act it has an enormous depth of signification. If one thinks, for example, about the ashes that we have put upon our heads this morning.

[10:02]

Now that is a solemn and public confession that we are sinners and that we deserve the fate or the judgment therefore put before Adam if you do this and you trespass this commandment then dying you shall die but death is the answer to man's sin because by sin one has lost the right to live because life is God's. God is the creator of life and God maintains us in life. In every moment of our life we depend on him.

[11:06]

Therefore we have lost any claim to life at the moment in which we trespass against God's full realization of what we are doing therefore the wages of sin are death and that is what we acknowledge that is what we say yes that is true and so be it therefore we condemn ourselves to death we take the ashes upon our heads, because ashes, that means death. And that you realize is a confession of a tremendous meaning, goes really into the very center of our entire existence.

[12:15]

It's a big order And therefore the danger, and by the way, rending one's garment means absolutely the same, is also a condemnation to death. So, one sees one can do something like that easily in the sphere of external symbols, but then to realize what it means a man to live up And it means, of course, death of the heart. That's what we call mortification. Just I think what's so. Just in reading and studying these things a little in these last days, found that this expression, chastising one's soul, really has in the Hebrew the same chastising, the same root as the famous word anabim, the poor one.

[13:36]

It means not so much to expose oneself to pain, but it means Making oneself poor. Making oneself poor. Become one of the poor ones of Jahangir. Chastising one's soul. Make one's soul poor. And that is the meaning of fasting. By fasting we resign this claim to live, to be. We make ourselves poor, reduced to dust and ashes, oppressed before God. And that is the meaning of fasting. Then you can also see right away that it is easily possible that we miss this meaning, that our fasting may not really

[14:44]

that point that god really wants to hit and that we should ourselves hit in fasting there is another word indicating that if fasting is a matter of the heart and means wending not god but the heart there is another word which occurs I think it comes in tomorrow's lesson. No, tomorrow is Thursday. It comes in Friday's lesson. In Friday's lesson. In your fasting, your own yourself will is found. Your own will is found. That calls our attention into another direction. It's not only that we should not certainly stop with an external action which has such a universal and sinful total meaning that only the surrender of the heart, the poverty of the heart can respond to that.

[16:04]

But it's also this inner act, as every act of the heart, has to be absolutely sincere, has to be completely pure, has to be undivided, not mixed with anything that does not belong to it. And in that direction, this other admonition is pointing into that direction. In your past, your own will is bound. For as the Hebrew may also be translated, you make of your past a matter of trading. You try to trade with God in your past. There are not really people who from bottom of their entire existence agree to your judgment and see that they really through their sins are reduced to nothing but you try to make a fasting with fasting a bargain with God try to make a bargain with God that is

[17:31]

That is the great danger, that we make a contribution, that we think by this contribution we have certain rights, and that then in making this contribution we complain if the desired effect does not take place. As it is said there in Scripture, we fast so that our voice should then be that are heard by God. And then we who fast and then pray complain when our prayers are not heard. So we try to make a bargain with our past. And then, of course, all aim, all purpose of gain has to be completely excluded from it. fasting is in that very reason our reducing ourselves in absolute humility to us then in that way become the us poor ones to become the object of god's grace in any way he wants

[18:54]

Your self-will is found in your fasting. That series also sometimes has another connotation. What the prophet Isaiah complains about in that, I think it's the 58th chapter of the prophet Isaiah that we read on Friday and on Saturday. What the prophet complains about is that these people here, these people who are fasting, are people who, as he emphatically says, they love to ponder about God's law. They love to know about all his admonitions about the Torah. They love to approach God. They love to go into the temple. And they love to sing songs, God's glory.

[20:01]

They love the splendor of God's house. And it's just these people are in danger to have their own will in their fasting. Because, and that is, of course, the danger of the monk. That is our greatest danger, that in the best in which we think we are very perfect, we are doing just the right thing, in those acts ourselves we may be found. And that is the greatest, that is a danger which everybody should constantly have in mind, especially those who are inclined to think of themselves in terms of high perfection. They, in their fasting, their self-will is found. They are not really poor.

[21:04]

They are not really dead. So that fasting in the idea of St. Benedict is strictly bound up with the idea of obedience. And therefore he says, yes, there should be something spontaneous, but that should then be put into the hands of the abbot, and it should be sealed with the seal of the approval. Instead, of course, is again, you know, that kind of, I want to say, symbolic gesture. That's what we do here. We do it really in such a way that not our self-will is found in our task. Then there is another thing which you will find in these admonitions which the liturgy puts before us.

[22:17]

The beginning of the first initial days of the Lenten season, the opening days of the Lenten season. And that is that fasting not only has to be an act of the heart and not only has to be sincere, clear, and pure, and through humility and obedience be free from all self-will, wrong ambition. But it also has to be consistent. That means our actions have to show absolute consistency. That totality which the past thing expects of us is not only a totality which goes into the center of the heart, but it also is a totality which has to inform all our actions and has to tune our actions all in the same tune so that we eliminate from our actions what is not in tune with us.

[23:41]

And there you only have to read what the prophet says. He tells these people, he says, in one way you are fasting, but at the same day you are contentious. You fight with one another. How do those things go together? And that's the other thing that I wanted to recommend to you, all of us, that this Lenten season may lead us a step further to watch and to bring our various actions in to make of it a consistent whole. Not allow contradiction. The contradictory things disturb the picture, a new picture before God. with your fasting for example must go absolutely a keen sense of poverty and that's what i'm missing i miss that so often here in the community we haven't at least reached you know a true realization of that much too much but

[25:10]

is not in harmony with that real internal comedy. Too many demands are being made, and being made in a regardless way, being made very often in an unnecessary way, or being made in a stubborn way, and therefore not pleasing to God, not in harmony with our status as nuns. With that also other things which are of great importance, that with fasting, the anything that has to do with our, to say, nourishing, healing, our self-love is incompatible.

[26:17]

And there are so many ways in which we do that. That is the cherishing of our own judgments. One can see that that's one of the great dangers here in the community is that a great, not in all, but in many, great stubbornness and getting stuck, lack of flexibility in their judgments, lack even of listening to the reasons of the others. Therefore, very often no dialogue can come about because it isn't a give and take. It's simply an exposing, an explaining of one's position, and that is it, finished. Of course, where could there be then really any true growth?

[27:19]

Where could there be any development? Where could there be then any kind of growing together in the spirits, aims, purposes, and judgments of the community? Too much hanging on. But that is, of course, the root of it, is pride. That pride gives them an unhealing attitude. And with that unhealing attitude, very often in an unkind way, of meeting objections or of making objections. And it all ends in a stalemate, ends in the stalemate of bitterness or of mutual contempt. But see how dangerous that is. It's incompatible with the meaning of fasting.

[28:23]

If you do that, if you hang on to your own judgments, very often not even willing to yield to reason or even to worry of the reason, then of course it's holding on to yourself. It's not the attitude of the poor or child, it's not the attitude of somebody who is ready and willing to die, but one who wants to survive at all costs, and maybe even at the expense of others. So therefore that should be also, should be kept in mind by everybody during this season of Lent. It's a season of humility. The season of, you know, these words also in the language of Holy Scripture, these words are nearly synonymous.

[29:32]

They all are one group, and that is the word poor one, the mild one, meek one, and sweet ones, sweetness, mildness, meekness, poverty. That's one group of words. Signification and humble ones. Signification basically is the same. So there is bitterness, there is contentiousness, where there is this somebody is constantly a kind of flinch and then strike and once a spark comes that's not consistent with the attitude of fasting then our fasting will not and cannot be convincing the foreground

[30:42]

So these are the three aspects I wanted to put before you, that the essence of fasting is what is expressed in this very comprehensive, radical, external action with which we started this season, and that is the taking of the ashes, and that is the acceptance and agreeing our agreeing that we are really worthy of death because we are sinners and that we are reduced therefore to that we are the poor ones of justice and therefore that this comprehensive radical thing is really a matter of the heart only in the heart can this inner process of self-renunciation take place.

[31:47]

This inner act of self-renunciation has to be simply pure, therefore not mixed in any way with selfishness, pride. Insistence on our goodness, on the value of justness, justice of what we are doing. Furthermore, it has to be a center with which all other actions have to be brought into house. We have to be consistent and strive after their inner oneness that is what makes the monarchos has to be one therefore to extend that rending of one's heart into the whole field for example of one's judgment to extend it into the field of one's relations with others

[33:04]

And in these relations with others, too, one is and acts as the poor one of Javi, and therefore also has that great inner, say, meeting everybody on the same good level of eagerness to humble service. That is what then binds us really and truly together. And then also, in light of that again, the better observance of that also material poverty. And therefore, in that field, everybody also should check his own attitude.

[34:09]

There is, for example, one very concrete little thing that I'd like to recommend right now when these books are distributed. Everybody's wearing what is used, everybody receives the book. This is a good moment, the beginning of Lent, to return to the library the books that one does not need, that are maybe still stored up in one's cell. That's what a master's for. He tells them he can't use them in the life. He has no room for them. But the other things, that's a different story.

[35:14]

No, but I mean, you understand what I mean. The, um... So in that way, you know, it would be a good thing for all if you would check and books that you don't need, bring them back to the library at this time. Then I give various books for the members of the community.

[35:47]

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