So we come to the end of our retreat. And I'd like to leave you with one last word. And that word is a word of hope. Hope for me is one of the most uniquely Christian virtues. Many, many good people are loving and patient and honest and heroic. But to have real hope, I think this is a gift from the risen Lord. And it all starts with his mother. Mary is the mother of hope. And we began this retreat with a story of a mother looking at her son with a long look of incredible love. And now we, her sons and daughters' daughter, might take a minute to look on Mary, our mother, with love.

[01:10]

And if we look carefully, we will see in her a cause for hope. And just for a moment, I'd like to recall the special atmosphere of Advent, because Advent is the season of hope. The liturgy of Advent is about Yahweh's people waiting, right down to Elizabeth and Zachary and Mary, waiting. And all this waiting is because they believed in a promise. And so they can wait sure of that promise because they are sure of the God who has promised. I lifted a quote from somewhere and I can't remember where. It might have been Henry Nowen. The root that nurtures the plant is like a promise that nurtures hope.

[02:19]

That really struck me. I think it's a beautiful image. I guess we all have some experience with growing things, and we know that for a plant to grow in a healthy way, it has to have a healthy root. If there is hope, there has to be something on which that hope rests, from which it grows, and from which it gains nourishment to continue. We cannot have hope for something that we have never heard of. A promise nurtures hope. And the fuller and the stronger the promise, the greater the hope. As Mary waited through the first Christian Advent, This was the promise that sustained her hope.

[03:27]

You will bear a son. He shall be called Son of the Most High. And Mary believed in this promise. And she assented totally to all that it would mean. In the fourth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, we hear the story of another who believed. who took God at his word and who assented wholly to the promise of God. Abraham believed the promise God made to him. In hope, he believed beyond hope. Both Abraham and Mary were in an impossible situation, and sometimes we are too. The impossibility of the human possibility. For Abraham, a great nation from a dead womb.

[04:35]

And for Mary, a child from the womb of a virgin. When we take God at his word, we can have hope and we can take risks. We can believe that the impossible can happen because of God's promises. In hope, Abraham and Mary believed beyond hope. Or as the New Jerusalem Bible says, though there seemed no hope, he believed that he was to become the father of a great nation. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. When I reflect on these texts and the reality that they portray, I have to ask myself, what is the promise that nurtures my hope?

[05:41]

What is the word that sustains me really and truly in the days and months and years of my waiting? I invite you also to question yourself, to look into your own heart. And what is the promise which is your hope? I think that Mary can reveal to us three promises that are our promises. From the moment the angel greeted Mary and invited her to yield herself totally to the Word of God, she became disciple. She was the first disciple. She is the people of God, the church, us. And therefore, the reality that takes place within her is our own reality.

[06:49]

Through the power of the Spirit, she became pregnant with the Word. And this is our promise also. Through the power of the Spirit poured into our hearts at baptism, we also become bearers of the Word. We will bear Jesus to the world. So this is, as I perceive it, the first promise that sustains our hope in life. Mary needed a strong promise and she needed to believe it deeply because her life was turned upside down and her days of waiting held very painful misunderstandings. even censure and rejection. In our own waiting, waiting for Christ to be fully formed in us, we too may experience upheavals and times of confusion and a testing of our faith.

[08:03]

Can we return to our heart and remember this promise on which our life of waiting, of hope is based? and then go on with peace and confidence. We will bear Jesus. Through our baptism, he will be formed in us. And there's a second promise to Mary and to us, which sustains hope. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. All of us have this power, the power of the Holy Spirit from God. And very often I wonder if we really believe this. In one of the retreat conferences that Father Michael Casey gave to us, I don't know if you know him. Has he ever been here?

[09:07]

He's a young Cistercian monk from Australia, a very, very fine communicator. He can really express truth. And he said in our retreat, we don't use the power we have. And I really think he's right. I think each one of us has a power within us by the Spirit given to us in baptism that can do great things, not necessarily in ostentatious ways, but is a very real power of the Spirit. The Greek word is dynamis, a dynamic movement. And it led Mary to leave her security and to run to her cousin to bring the joy of new creation to her old cousin.

[10:09]

And Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit just at the word of greeting of Mary. And she gave a great cry. And someone pointed out to me once that that word, Megale, is from the same root as the word Mary will use in the Magnificat. My soul magnifies the Lord. So these are not timid women, afraid to speak up, but they proclaim boldly all that God is doing in them. They aren't afraid. They express the power of the Spirit at work within them. From this I guess we can guess where John the Baptist got his boldness of speech. I think he inherited it from his mother. The same power is within us.

[11:13]

We are baptized into Christ and his Spirit is poured into us. Do we allow the spirit power to move us on? Do we proclaim with joy the new creation happening within us in some way? Not necessarily going around saying, look at me, but look at the wonder that God is doing. And then perhaps to share what God is doing within me. It's good to be a little bold in our trust that God can do impossible things in us, too, when we yield to him and take him at his word. In this way, Mary of the Annunciation is cause of our hope. By looking at her, we become more aware of who we are, disciples.

[12:20]

and of what we are called to become, bearers of the Word. And we become more aware of the promise that the Holy Spirit will overshadow us and be within us a power, a movement forward. And so the second promise, the power of the Holy Spirit will overshadow us. And I think there's a third promise that nourishes our hope. The Magnificat of Mary is often compared with the song of Anna in 1 Samuel, and there are many similarities. But there's one great difference, and that is mercy. Anna does not mention mercy, but Mary proclaims the mercy of God, a mercy promised to our fathers.

[13:28]

And His mercy is from age to age on those who fear Him. And then Mary describes the work of God's mercy. He uses the power of his arm to root out the proud-hearted and to cast down the mighty from their thrones. No one is mighty but God. And if anyone think of himself as mighty or takes a place over others as mighty, he will be cast down. The empty are filled. The rich are sent away empty. The mercy of God acts according to our need. Mercy for the poor is to fill them. Mercy for the rich is to send them away empty. It's the same mercy, but it touches us in our need.

[14:36]

It's paradoxical. But it is one mercy and it is a necessary mercy. C.S. Lewis calls it a severe mercy. And sometimes it really does feel like that. But the heart of God is inclined toward mercy. I think we really know this even if at the time suffering and our own vulnerability seem like a big mistake. Often enough, as we wait it out, go through the suffering, allow it to happen, we can even begin to experience the meaning that God has for us, and we can understand it as mercy. We've probably all experienced times of being brought low, either in our own esteem or in that of others.

[15:43]

And as painful as it may be at the time, we also may have experienced being filled with a great peace and perhaps a freedom in our hearts that we had never experienced before. When our hands are full, God can't pour his peace and love into them. And so he empties the hands that he desires to fill. And this is his mercy. Whatever else may captivate us in our lives, in the end, it is the mercy of God that holds us. And I saw that happen once. In the 31 years when this happened, it was 31 years of my monastic life, I had never witnessed a death or a funeral.

[16:49]

That's one of the consequences of being in a young community. When I was at Rentham, it was a very young community, and now at Mississippi, we're a fairly young community. So I've never had that experience and that real joy of being part of the death and funeral of one of my own sisters. But a year ago, My brother was taken very sick. He had had a bad heart all his life. He had rheumatic fever three times when he was young. So we all knew that every year of his life was pure gift. He lived to be 63 years old. But he was stricken by something that caused him to go unconscious. And it was very clear that he was going to die. I was supposed to go to Rensselaer for a meeting in another couple of weeks.

[17:56]

And so the sisters were prevailing on me to go early to be with my brother. We don't necessarily go home at that time. We would for our parents, but at that point we hadn't stretched it out to siblings. So after 10 days of my brothers being unconscious, I did change my ticket. And I arrived at the hospital in Connecticut on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows on September 16th. And never having been with dying people, I really wasn't sure at all what to do or what to say, how to be with him. And as I walked into the room, it became extremely clear what I should say and what I should do. All I did was pray with him. He was not conscious, so I don't know that if he even knew I was there, although I think he did. Let his mercy hold you.

[19:01]

Let his mercy receive you. And those were the only words that came to me. And when I had walked in, he looked very tanned and very healthy. And he looked as though he could have sat up and asked for his trombone and start playing for us. And the next day when I came back, he was entirely changed. He had no color. He was running a fever. And he died that afternoon. And I think that he yielded to the mercy of God. And I believe that that mercy did receive him. And later, I remembered a quote from Father Lewis that had always meant a lot to me. The mercy of God is like a calm ocean. An ocean holds us up.

[20:05]

But it also works on us, on the rocks and the pebbles of the beach, purifying, smoothing out. So the mercy of God is in our lives at every moment, emptying and filling, purifying, always holding us. And in the end, the mercy of God will receive us. I don't know if you have the same custom in the Benedictine order. I think you do, but we in the Cistercian order, as we enter into a new stage of our moving ahead with profession, we always are asked by the abbot or abbess, what do you ask? And the traditional response is the mercy of God and of the order. Do you have that tradition? It's really very striking and I noticed that over the years we were free to change the response when a little bit more flexibility moved into the liturgy.

[21:20]

we told the young sisters that they could answer anything they wanted and so for a while it did change and people said something in their own words but now I've noticed that it's going back to this response the mercy of God and of the order and I think it's good that it does because when you think about it Isn't that amazing? Because that really is all that we ask and all that we need. The mercy of God and the mercy of our brothers and sisters. It seems very right to me because in the end, that is all we have. The mercy of God and of our brothers and sisters. And it is enough for us. It's all we need. In her song of joy, Mary speaks of this mercy as promise to us.

[22:30]

So again, we come back to the promise. God promises to us in the person of Mary, his mother, and ours, that we will bear Jesus to our world. that his spirit will always be with us, empowering us, and that his mercy holds us. Mary is truly mother of hope. In her annunciation, she assented to the promise. Fiat, let it happen. In her assumption, she receives the fulfillment of that promise. And in between, there is hope. A lifetime of hope. I'd like to end this talk and what I have shared with you during these days of retreat

[23:34]

with the words that Dante put on the lips of Beatrice and Saint Bernard when Our Lady is revealed to him in the 32nd canto of Paradiso. I think it brings out our theme of looking with love to a point of rest. Look now at the face which is closest to that of Christ because only its light can prepare you to perceive Christ. I found it, that face, shining with such happiness, that nothing I had seen thus far had filled me with so great an enchantment and offered me an image so similar to that of God. O Virgin, mother and daughter of your Son, Humble and higher than all other creatures. You are the one who enables our human nature.

[24:39]

Excuse me. You are the one who ennobles our human nature. In your womb, the fire of love was relit. You are for us the torch of love's high noon. Look with love on the face which is closest to that of Christ, because only its light can prepare you to look on Christ. I suggest Psalm 44 and the Magnificat. Any thoughts you'd like to share? Any thoughts you'd like to share? When you wrote the discourse, you spoke about that. In my mind, I recall that years ago, and I guess at the time I was still a senior, she and her father, she and her radio broadcast spoke about

[25:48]

Limey went into Westminster Cathedral, and one of his associates, he was in there a long time, he said, what were you doing? He said, well, I was praying. I said, just how do you pray? He said, well, I look at God, I look at God, and He looks at me. And this thing came back over the years. But I thought that's a succinctly and very good definition of contemplative living. I remember that too, brother. Oh, yeah, I do. In fact, I had it written on my paper, but then I decided not to tell it. Oh, I hate to say. I hate to say it. Forty years ago. Oh, yeah, I could understand things at one, two. There's never any reference to his gospel or my narrative about the infancy, about any suffering that Mary must have sustained from the fact that she wasn't married and had a child.

[27:06]

Or maybe that succumbed in some way where there wasn't any sexual union, but maybe So everybody else, the neighbors, it may have appeared that Joseph and Mary were American. I don't know. There's never any reference to that, I guess, because I imagine in the Jewish community that they would know somebody in the state who wasn't American. Oh, I think so. I think they had pretty rigorous penalties for adultery. Well, I think the scene with Joseph or the whole experience of what Joseph went through with Mary's pregnancy, I think that was pretty much suffering for Mary. That would be my guess. I was just going to say, how would you feel if your fiancée told you she was pregnant but it wasn't valid? Yeah. Right. It would be a hard thing to believe.

[28:07]

Yeah. Took a little divine intervention to get him over the hump. I heard that story, Brother Sebastian, from the Curé of Ars, not an English story. Was that so? That there was a peasant in the back of his church, and he couldn't understand what he was doing there all day, and that's what the peasant told the Curé of Ars. Well, I think that sounds as good as it is. He got a good story. The story about this English, the mind of Daniel, America, he wanted to go to Christchurch. He got into a taxi cab and he said to me, the driver, take me to, have you heard this? Take me to Christchurch, and the landlord went up to St. Patrick's. He said, my fellow, this is not Christchurch.

[29:08]

He said, I'm not in Christchurch. I don't know what to say. It is a strange virtue, there is a hope. I mean, if we don't trust God, we'll be fighting, we'll be walking through a dead market. But God is promising, as it does in the rest of the world. And you don't hear about hope very much. You hear a lot about faith and a lot about love. And I don't know what put me on to it. But it means a lot to me. Especially in the, you know, kind of tough things in life and you face difficulties that you're just not sure how it's going to turn out. I feel that hope has a very important place in how we face the unknowns of our lives.

[30:12]

Not that we... It's necessarily going to mean everything's going to turn out just the way we want it. But the ultimate is that it will be for ultimate happiness and ultimate sanctification. Faith and hope are very similar. Yeah, I always had a lot of trouble distinguishing them. I was going to say maybe faith is more common than hope, because for me faith is more cerebral and hope is more emotional. And to be modern American, to intellectualize, it's very frowned upon to wear your heart on your sleeve and say, I'm hoping. Say I believe. Yeah, that's true. You say that hope requires faith. Oh, I think so. I think it's faith that takes the promise, and it's hope that runs with it. Were you going to say something, Fr.

[31:16]

Martin, before I leave? I think he has something similar about the three sisters here in Birmingham, and hope is a little as well. But she's leading the other two, actually. Because everybody can hear something. But when you actually believe it, that's what makes the difference. And that to me is the faith. I really believe this. And then to live out of that belief is the hope. To keep moving out of that belief. That's right. And all the substitutes of whatever it is. I think one aspect of hope is anticipation. You know, like you hope for a trip, let's say, you know, one of the days now. In some ways, sometimes it's more interesting before the trip than the trip itself. Then it's quieter, you're no longer what you expected of the reality.

[32:22]

There was more content in the hope than there was in the reality. In Spanish the word hope also is similar to wait. What's the word for wait? Those things in there, those three theological virtues are inextricably intertwined, we can't really take them apart. We always try to do that, especially scholastically, we analyze them apart. Now we can do that together again. It's easier to do that, so it's a three-functioning necessarily, you know? So rather than hoping to be really kind of integrated. But then it seems like, I think, all residents, the only one that remains is charity.

[33:38]

Maybe the faith and hope are based on the blindness of the not knowing. In the end it'll be just love. I'm having trouble with trying to understand the Three Promises with regard to the hope. In those Three Promises, there is an arrow word at the end. Power of the Spirit. God. If hope is pointing towards something, pointing to the promise, pointing to the fulfillment of the promise, What's being said is that the Three Promises are kind of like ingredients of the whole person.

[34:43]

In other words, what does that mean? That's a good question. First of all, the way I'm saying that is very subjective. I don't say that this is the only way that you can express the promise on which our hope is based. It's a way of seeing things that is personal to me and it's subjective. The way I would express it is that In baptism, which is the fountain of our Christian life, our life of faith, hope, and charity, I see these three things happening. And in a sense, we only know they happen through faith. I mean, it's a question of belief that we have been baptized into Christ. Christ is living within us, and the features of Christ are being formed in us.

[35:45]

We only believe that the power of the Spirit actually is within us as a living power. And that's the promise. that I have accepted this belief, or rather I believe that this is true, and I'm believing a promise. Now, in a sense, I can't tell you where the promise is stated, so it's not the same as Abraham and Mary. I can't point to something and say, Maybe there is some place, but I haven't dealt into it that far. So I'm not pointing to a written promise. I'm only pointing to baptism and the effects of baptism as the promise. We accept the promise in faith, and then our hope is living out of that promise. Does that make it any... Well, I was saying that the three promises are all part of the interior.

[36:50]

Being there of the Word, the power and the mercy of God are all part, you might say, that a non-hopeful person, that's a mark of a hopeful person in public. You might say that's part of it. You know, we always think the promise maybe is given to Abraham, you know. But this is also the promise. Sometimes the walk is in a way an insane muscle, you know, it may be a messiah, you know, a story told, which is, you know, as you live it, it's being accomplished. And then only a person of hope can do that. In other words, what is it in my other life, what is it in it? And that's it, that's it for me.

[37:53]

The only thing I can say for you is you have your personal hope. And it can be a variable word, but I'll spare you anything you can to empower you. And the stronger the hope, the stronger the faith, which will in turn make our hope strong, we will be able to do that with greater, greater facility and it will be more a part of us, kind of become, become second nature to us. Well then, what I was struggling with is it, you hope for something that's out there, Not necessarily, yeah, yeah. Okay. Right. Father Martin used the image of the seed this morning, as the seed cracks open, you know, it's buried within. or the enigma of something, but hope is not a question of intellect either.

[39:15]

It's a grace. How much is in you and how much is grace is very difficult. Yeah, it's hard to talk about it, yeah. Intellectually, yeah, hope. That's right. You think it's painful? I think you have to assent, like if I promise you that I'm going to send you a letter. Well, at that point, you might begin to hope that I will send a letter. You believe my word, and then you might begin to hope. And if you really want that letter, you'll begin to hope a whole lot. So I think the hoping begins with the assent, which is the act of faith.

[40:22]

And then it's going to be fueled by love. As Brother James said, they're all together. I mean, they're inextricably tied together. But I think we're living them all the time, constantly. It really is our life. I just think it's good sometimes to realize what's happening, what's going on within us. Because to me, monastic life is a life of hope. It's a faith in love, too. But if we don't have hope, it doesn't make any sense. Because we would have had easier ways to live our life than in the monastic life. Do you know what I mean by that? Does that make any sense to you? Yeah, I connect that, actually.

[41:24]

And sometimes you want to marry me, you say, I hope to see you soon. And in some ways, you can turn around and say, I hope to see him soon. Yeah, yeah. The eschatological, yeah. And then when you look, why do you hope to see somebody soon? And then it's because you needed something, you got to see him, you got to do something. We love this. Sometimes people, after they've come to our monastery, or speaking of being with another monastery, will say that it kind of renewed my hope. You know, I just feel a little stronger in my own life for having been with these people. And I think that's what they're touching into, that our life always points to something beyond ourselves.

[42:27]

I don't think they're just looking at the fact that we're living together or the fact that we're praying together. But I think that the life itself points to something else. And maybe that has some other little nuance of a bearing to your question last night, Fr. Martin, as far as what's specific to monastic life. And I think that's part of it. It's a scatological and it's being basis. One of our colleagues at Waterich who's a monk, some of our colleagues are very much concerned with vocations. in the monastery, you know, somehow or other, and they worry a lot about it lasting. Some of them are older, older than we are, and they worry about it lasting. So I think they get very tangled under that.

[43:30]

When they come here, that's all they want to talk about, you know, that time. And I have a hard time with that, because it shows such a lack of faith They're almost terrorized by the fact that they even want to say they're not eager. So what do you say to them? It's very hard, right? I find it very hard. But you can't very well say to them, I don't want you to open and break my heart. It's what I feel, you know. It's very hard to express that. And I heard him there. Hopefully, it's going to go away someday. Yeah, it's probably going to go away someday. And that is a big deal. It's not forever. That is forever. But it's a dream.

[44:33]

I've been on the road, I've been mesmerized, I've been on the phone. It reminds me of a story that, it's not a story, it's just something that an abbot shared with me once. You really have to intend to go there. So they've never had many vocations. The Abbot, the present Abbot is a friend of mine and he told me that when he was first Abbot, he began to get very discouraged because I guess he hadn't had vocations for a few years or something. And he was worried and kind of anxious. And he said one day in prayer, he just got this intuition, however it came, of Christ saying to him, This is my house, and it will be as long as I want it to be.

[45:34]

This is my house, and it's for my people, and it will be as long as I want it to be. And I think that's all we can say, really. It's not ours. Then there's the other thing about faith that I always get a kick out of. It's the people that are, well, the Jehovah Witnesses. They go around proving all these things to God. I remember one Christmas morning, I went to the door, and we went to the door, and we were all up Do you have a Jehovah's Witness coming here?

[46:35]

We do too. She's 18 years old. Yes. Yeah. But they really are nice people. Did they come to talk to you and see if they can convince you? They were kind. Yeah. I like very much what they said, but I said I couldn't agree with Smith.

[47:48]

I'll sit down and have a drink and you take out the whiskey. You're very welcome. Thank you very much for your welcoming. I've really felt very much at home among you. I don't know if you've had women or a woman in sharing quite so much of your life before. Well, you have been very gracious in making me feel at home. So thank you very much. You're all brothers. And so, my sister-in-law will be leaving for Rochester right after mass. And she's going to end up in Pittacock. And I've been asked to come out to Montreal and meet with the vicar general of the diocese.

[49:15]

I'm a warrior for the diocese of Montreal. But, you know, what's to happen to the, you know, to the assets and so forth. And to handle the legal aspect of this all in one place. So, you say you're leaving tomorrow, then? Yes. Also Trojan Jews. I would like to be back on Thursday, but I don't. I'm unfortunately the only U.S. air flight out of there at 6.15 in the morning, so I did maybe Friday. But we're going to have to take Wednesday for lunch. So I'm going to take Friday. I'm going to fly from Rochester to Montreal. Tomorrow. Tomorrow? Yes. Then I'll be back. God willing, on Friday noon. I'm going to be back Thursday morning. I'll show you back then.

[50:16]

What's the reference to the video? Well, he's going to cook. I'm going to cook. That's Wednesday. Yeah, that's a real fact. Christmas, if you do. You're a wonderful brother. I get somewhere between Thursday and Sunday off Friday, you know. How about Friday, isn't it? Well, he doesn't have a pair of shoes. Like me, he doesn't have a pair of shoes. Oh my God, everybody will leave the community. Call in Omaha State. You got a shipment of chocolate. Is there any program, the tweezers? That other people have any kind of... Can I go out to the firehouse? I would ask you if you could put goose down at a meter or so for your chicken breast already for lunch.

[51:23]

And there's going to be a pizza for the evening. Well, we'll put a blank piece of paper around the end of the war. We'll get a little bit of science out of it. We'll say, well, you don't deserve it. You know what I'm saying? That's what we're going to do. It's a little less horrible if someone doesn't do anything else. That's possible. We'll have friends. Take on a houseboy gang, you know what I mean? We've got a house for guests. There's 15 or 16 guests. They'll be here tomorrow, yeah. So, there's like a chicken breast for them and then the pizza for tomorrow evening. Will they meet them for lunch? Yeah, they'll come in here, somewhere. I could see just breathing a little bit.

[52:14]

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