Assistant Joe is with us. We've had a lot of talk about theory of paternal charity. We talked about the two commandments, love of God and love of neighbor. We talked about the kind of love of God that takes place in the Gospels as exemplified by the sinful woman. As we have that exegeted in the tradition where you have a link up between the sinful woman and the Christian soul in love with God or called by God into love. And we saw how the call of God into love makes the human person or the Christian soul larger in life by expanding them in love to the point where they do things, we do things that would normally be beyond us.

[01:10]

And that that structure of ecstasy, I don't want to use the word ecstasy because it has these connotations of great mystical experience, and that's not what's happening here. We're talking about ordinary Christian experience. I insist on that. But I am going to say that the structure of the call of God's love in our lives mirrors in some poor way the structure of love in the Trinity. We saw how Christ is the ecstasis of God towards us, and that that ecstasis of God towards us is something that's already taking place among the persons in the Trinity. Okay, so you see how the whole thing is starting to In this perspective, the whole thing is starting to reinforce each other. Okay, so I want to continue that tonight, but I want to suggest, before it gets too esoteric, that what we're talking about here is really the warp and woof of monastic observance, of monastic life, and it goes this way.

[02:18]

You have ascetical effort, you have prayer, and this is in ascending order. Ascetical effort, prayer, contemplation, and God's theophany. Now, I really don't think, I don't believe, and I think you'll agree with me after you hear what I'm going to say, that this is not, I'm not talking about some crazy, far-fetched doctrine that has nothing to do with our personal lives in the monastery. It's my firm belief and conviction that it does. This doctrine that's handed down throughout the monastic centuries is our property and is our vocation too, today as we speak, and that we all have, in most of our houses anyway, the structure and the means to achieve this kind of experience, because it's not so much our effort or our work as it is God's gift. And God continues to give this gift in the Church.

[03:18]

So I want to make clear that while I'm going to use a lot of different monastic terms, and some of it might sound far-fetched and highfalutin, I really don't think it is. And you'll see what I mean when I talk about asceticism, prayer, contemplation, and God's theophany. Theophany, that's really a tautology. Theophany, the glory of God. How those four things happen in our monastic life. And I'm going to demonstrate that by an exegesis of the parable of the Prodigal Son and also the Good Samaritan. More the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, but I'm going to use both of them. Okay, let's start by looking at a couple phrases in the parable of the Prodigal Son, because this is how Gregory the Great exegetes this parable, and it is absolutely fundamental for the doctrine of contemplation in the West. We know that even St. Thomas Aquinas borrowed St.

[04:21]

Gregory the Great's doctrine of contemplation. Now, if you want a quick rundown of St. Gregory's doctrine, all you have to do is go to Cuthbert Butler's Western Mysticism. You don't have to go searching through all of the Latin works of Gregory the Great. The chapter in Cuthbert Butler's Western Mysticism, the chapter on Gregory the Great, gives everything that I'm going to say tonight. Okay, so we know that the prodigal son went off and squandered his inheritance. And he went to a far-off country, very important detail, and he squandered his wealth in loose living. And when the money was all used up, he hired himself out. and took a very degrading job by feeding pigs of one of the landowners of that region. Now having pigs may not have been a sin for that landowner, but having anything to do with pigs, feeding them or whatever for a Jew,

[05:27]

was the worst kind of degradation. So this poor man finds himself doing the worst possible thing that a Jew could do. He's in a foreign land, he's outside of the promised land, number one. Number two, he's doing things that he shouldn't do. He's degraded by associating with the animals that are unclean. Okay, and he's so hungry that he isn't even able, doesn't have anything of his own, his money's all gone, and he can't even eat what the pigs are eating. So this is This is a hebraism for the worst possible degradation, the most shameful kind of impasse. That's where this man has gotten to. And when he hits rock bottom, he comes to himself. All of a sudden, the grace of God is there, and he wakes up, and he comes to himself. And that's the great praise. And it is right in the Greek text. And it's what has spawned, from the Christian centuries all through them, what Gilson will call a Christian Socratism.

[06:33]

Know thyself. Well now, know thyself in Christ. When the man, the prodigal son, came to himself, he suddenly realized the extent to which he had fallen, as Gregory the Great says, beneath himself. Well, he comes back up to himself and he stands straight and realizes what his situation is, just like the woman this morning was raised up from her degradation to the point of noble womanhood and could look down from this height and see the extent of her degradation. So also, the prodigal son, according to Gregory, he had fallen beneath himself by going into a region of unlikeness, regio dissimulitudinis. And there he was disgraced. But when he hit rock bottom, the grace of God was finally able to break through. And he stood up and he came to himself and he was erectus in Christ. And he was able to see his situation in all its stark realism.

[07:34]

And that was enough to galvanize him into action. That's always the case with a true conversion. galvanized him into action, and he was able to say to himself, I will go back to my father, and I won't have any posturing. I'll be able to say to a father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, and I'm not worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired slaves, but at least I'll be home. And so he's going to do this, and then he sets out on his journey. And of course, we know that the father's already looking for him. Now that rest of the story is for another day. But right now, as you're in on Gregory's exegesis of he came to himself, came to himself and he looked forward. turned his back on the region of unlikeness and looked forward to the region of likeness. And that's where St. Bernard and others come in and say, aha, the region of likeness, where the human person once again becomes the image and likeness of God, once again takes on the image and likeness of God.

[08:39]

Now, starting with that, I want to construct an image for us. Because images are always very helpful to keep what is sometimes complex doctrine clear and in focus. And I use those terms clear and focus on purpose because what I'm going to suggest is that the human person in all our complexity is a pool. We are a kind of pool of water, a reflecting pool. And deep down inside, you know, you see these beautiful reflecting pools and great estates. And when everything is clear and the water is just slightly shimmering, you can see to the bottom. And at the bottom, let's pretend there is a kind of medallion or an icon of Christ at the bottom, a mosaic if you want. And when the water is still, you can see the image of Christ in the bottom of the pool. When the water's stirred up, you can't, because not only is the water stirred up and the image is doing this at the bottom, but when the water's stirred up, it's also stirring up the grime and the dirt and the sand that's on the bottom all through the pool, and so it becomes cloudy as well as refractory.

[10:01]

Okay. Now we stand on the earth and we are this pool on the earth and deep, deep, deep down inside of us is the image and likeness of God, Christ. That medallion or that icon on the bottom of our pool. And when God chooses, God's sun, that is S-U-N, the light of God shines down on the pool. And when this pool is still, it creates an arc of light with that golden icon in the bottom of the pool. You know, when often you're on a high place, a mountain or a high hill, and you look down below and all of a sudden a car on a clear day is catching the reflection of the sun and it kind of gleams like a diamond? We've all had that experience. And you know that some distance away, wherever the equation is right, the sun is hitting that gleaming object and reflecting it back up to us and blinds everything out.

[11:06]

some kind of an explosion of light that hits our eyes. Now you can go three feet to this way and three feet to that way and it's gone. But for that instant, you know, there's this tremendous explosion of light and there's like an arc of light from the sun down to the bottom of the pool. And so that's important, that little excitement there to keep in mind, because that's who we are. And when God so chooses, every so often, His light shines down onto that icon. And if the pool is clear, there's this tremendous arc of light that goes up. The glory of God, so to speak. Okay, well we are this clear pool. But by our sins and our rebellion, we kind of fall down into our own pool and murk it up and stir it up. And those, of course, are the passions, the eight passionate thoughts, according to monastic tradition.

[12:08]

And when any of those eight passionate thoughts are stirred up, you all know them, and I'm not going to waste time on them. You can look them up if you don't know them. They're in enough texts. They're in the chapters on the practicos in Evagrius. They're in Cassian's Institutes. They're in Gregory the Great's Moralia, although there he only has seven, not eight. And from there on, after Gregory the Great, they're called the Seven Deadly Sins, not the Eight Passionate Thoughts. But anyway, they're like envy and anger and lust and gluttony and sloth and vainglory and pride, that kind of thing. Whenever they get going, any of those get out of control and start to impact on the various faculties of the soul, the part where the will resides, and the energies, the part where the senses and the feelings reside, and the reason. I'm giving all this platonic stuff out in one fell swoop.

[13:10]

Okay, whenever those passions get going, they cloud the pool. The water starts going like this, and the image and likeness of God, well, The image is always going to be there, but the likeness, you can't see it any longer, because it's all stirred up. Well, that's a good way to describe our situation as we come into the monastery, and the goal to which we're called. We're called to get to the point where the pool is always clear, and that the Greeks always called apotheia. And it means, apatheia is a Greek word with an alpha privative in the beginning, it means no passion. No passionate thought has control, or no passionate thought is stirred up. And there was a big controversy, as you know, in the fourth century about that word, the use of the word apatheia, because it's basically a philosophical term, a Stoic term. And people like Saint Jerome, he got on his high horse and he said, you know, anyone who really lives that kind of doctrine is either a stone or God.

[14:17]

Because only God can be without passion or a stone. It doesn't even know what passions are. Well, that's really too... that's an over-exaggerated criticism. Because what Evagrius and Cassian and Origen and others were saying about this doctrine is it's a very good concept that they borrowed Christianly from the Stoics. Because what it means is that everything is in balance with everything else. The powers of the soul are all kind of working together. And what, if you take it for granted, and none of these writers ever said that we were born that way or that it's easy to maintain the balance. But they said what human life consists of is a series of tests and trials where you take in more and more information, more and more experience, that is more and more life, and you try to balance it out. so that you are able to integrate more and more of human experience, that is, more and more of God's world.

[15:21]

You take too much and it's going to unsettle everything, but the monastic life and the Christian life are meant to be able to absorb more and more of the light, more and more of God's world, and to integrate it more and more so that all of the parts of the soul, all the various faculties, our thoughts, our sentiments, our energies, are always in balance with one another, and no one is ever out of sync with the other. So St. Bernard says you're not likely to confuse lesser matters with greater matters. And how often that happens in each of our day. in each of us, in the lives of each of us. We often confuse things. You know, we're always our own worst enemy. You look at the things that have made you unhappy at the end of the day, nine times out of ten, it's not what somebody's done to me, or even if it is what somebody's done to me, it's how I've handled it. or what I've done to myself. We're our own worst problem. Let's face it, anyone who's got any self-knowledge knows that.

[16:24]

So this doctrine of apotheos is pretty, I think it's pretty useful, because it's constantly suggesting that anything that happens, any and all that happens to us, can be integrated so that it's in balance with everything else. And how does that work with the classic three stages of our spiritual life, where, you know, we have the hard things, the dura ad aspero, when we first come to monastic life, and that gradually passes on to, after many years, a kind of all-pervasive joy and praise of God, and finally that passes on to some kind of lasting spiritual peace, which the Fathers called variously love, apatheia leading to a kind of teoria of God, a knowledge of God, because everything that I experience in human life speaks of God. We are talking about mystical experience in that third stage, that is true. The first two are of vital importance though.

[17:27]

It means the rough and hard journey where I learn, I start to learn to integrate all the disparate elements in my life and they start to come and I start to try to make sense of them. Okay, so that my pool of beautiful, clear water is not disturbed. Now you have to be careful. I'm not talking about a kind of a life where no one impinges on my peace. I'm not talking about that at all, because remember, I said that apotheia is the ability to take in more and more in an equilibrium that is from God. See, that's the key. Okay, so I'm saying that We can't be perfectionists. We can't be people who read the interior castle of St. Teresa and automatically think we're in the seventh mansion by wishing it, by willing it. It doesn't work that way. What does happen, though, is that God constantly calls us to this apotheia, this stillness of the pool.

[18:29]

We may constantly miss the boat. We may constantly stir up the waters. But we're constantly called back to it, like in a daily conversion, we're constantly reminded that this is what Christ is calling us to, number one. Number two, I have to realize that I cannot, by wanting it, even by Christ dangling it in front of me, I cannot thereby demand it, because this is a gift of God, always and forever. And it's not something, it's not a necessitas, it's not something that I have to have. It's something I'm called to, but that doesn't mean God necessarily is going to give it. According to St. Thomas, God will give it, but not when I want it. So we've got to be very realistic about these spiritual goals that we have. I want my pool to be still. I want it to reflect Christ. I want the possibility of the light from God reflecting down to the depth of my pool and just lighting up the world around me, in me, through me. Sure, I want that.

[19:31]

But I know that I can't have it most of the time, but is that going to stop me? Am I going to be discouraged daily from going after this goal? Isn't that what the monastic examen is about, time and time and time again? Okay, so I'm going to say that We're always called to this apatheia, this stillness of the pool, and with some frequency God gives it, even to novices. With some frequency God gives it. It's going to be besmirched again very quickly, but that's okay. Less and less will it be besmirched as I pass from the first degree of spiritual life to the second. major degree. And when I talk about the three stages, or the three degrees of spirituality, I'm talking about a lifetime of experience. I'm not talking about something that we can achieve in the mind and therefore think we've arrived at it. I'm talking about years and years and years of this. Perhaps some of us have passed from the first stage to the second stage.

[20:34]

And what that means, in terms of apatheia, is that more and more our pool is clear. tending more and more in that direction. And we enjoy this peace, this true benedictine peace, more and more. Not all the time, because as St. Paul reminds us, there's a law in our members that's at war with this peace. Let's not kid ourselves. But let's not get discouraged either. This is part of the game. So St. Paul, in two very important places, in Romans 7 and at the end of Galatians, said, you know, I was caught up to the third heaven, but in order to keep me humble, God put a thorn in my flesh, a thorn in my side, that Satan would beat me so that I would remember that in my exaltation that this was not my own doing and pull me back down to earth. So you see, there's this kind of built-in

[21:36]

safety valve that God gives us, lest we become proud, lest we become silly with our own sense of self-exaltation. But human life is an exaltation. I think Jerome said, you know, that we are miserable, but we are exalted. Certainly he was, and experienced it that way. All right. It's important to remember that we are called to this, we can have it on demand, but that we tend to it more and more and more to the extent that we cooperate with God's grace. Okay, so that's the region of unlikeness moving more and more to the region of likeness where the reflection of God's image happens more and more. Now, I want to put that in the context of a daily monastic life. Daily monastic life. Remember I used the word episodic and how often in situations, in episodes that happen during the day, I'm called to make an exam of my life because things happen and I often find myself caught off guard and I don't do the right thing.

[22:53]

My pool gets cloudy. My pool gets churned up. But I'm constantly called. The whole spirituality of the Benedictine rule is a constant examination, a constant conversion. Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. And a constant calling to mind of the Gospels. And that acts like a prophetic voice in my life which is, no matter when and where I live, which is full of contrary voices, a culture that goes contrary to the Gospel, which, even in the monastery, filters in right through the walls, in the air, on the airwaves, you know. There are other voices constantly there trying to churn up the pool all the time. They're always there. But the monastic assesis is such that we're always called even beyond ascetical effort to a kind of continual prayer, a kind of continual reminder of what we're called to and what can be ours.

[24:01]

Now we have to suffer through many, many, many disturbing things. Often our chores, our work, pulls us out of kind of scripture reading and pulls us out of remembrance of God, but you have to come right back to it. And that's the whole idea of formation. That's what we're formed to constantly remember. To be ourselves to have this mechanism in ourselves of the prophetic voice where the prophets always called Israel back to the high road. Well, we're expected to be our own prophetic voice in the monastic world, in the monastery, today if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Because there's going to be all sorts of trials and episodes when we're called on it. A brother taps me on the shoulder, I turn around in a fit of impatience and say, leave me alone. Or whatever. And my pool gets stirred up by anger. or whatever, whatever would happen during the day. We know this, we know if we examine ourselves, and that's what we're supposed to do constantly, to remember, always to have memory as the constant, the constant structure of our prayer, so that our prayer is continuous, so that we're always awake and conscious of the drama that's taking place all around us, so that our pool is always reflecting God.

[25:25]

Okay. Let's take that reality and pretend that the Good Samaritan, the parable of the Good Samaritan, happens kind of in this perspective of monastic spirituality. And let's put ourselves in the place of the characters of the Good Samaritan parable. Now what happened? Well, there was this unfortunate thing. This man was on his way from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he fell into robbers and they beat him and stripped him and left him half dead. And there he is on the roadside. And the priest, a priest of God, comes by. And priest, according to the exegetes, is the highest, in the highest circles of religious observance in Israel. So here's a man who's supposed to be steeped in the law and the prophets. Remember, I used this prophetic voice.

[26:27]

He was supposed to be constantly called to, to, to. feed the hungry, clothes the naked, and all that kind of thing. Whether you talk about the justice of the prophetic voice in Isaiah, whether you talk about it in Jeremiah, this is the constant call of the prophets to the religious leader of Israel. And here is the test. One day, a priest is on his way on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he sees this unfortunate on the side of the road. Now, what happened? He was certainly moved with pity, He's a human being and he sees this man, but it didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? Well, either his pool of water was churned up to the extent that he couldn't see that this was a challenge to his religious observance. Something besmirched the pool. He couldn't see clearly. The Word of God didn't make its way through, wasn't reflected.

[27:31]

How else are you going to explain it? I mean, he was certainly moved with pity. What got in the way? Well, Jesus tells us in other places in the gospel, the word of God was planted in the man's heart, but the devil came and took it away. Perhaps the devil made him see there because of the fact that his pool was all turned up. Perhaps he saw a Samaritan down there. He said, ooh, I don't have anything to do with those people. I'm out of here. I can go on. Completely justified. You see, he was blinded at that moment. He failed the test. Or, perhaps he went by, and all of a sudden, he realized that if he stopped and helped this man, he was going to miss his appointment in the synagogue at Jericho. He's an important man. He's supposed to give a talk there. He has to be on time. He doesn't have time for this poor bloke. He probably did anyway. See, so values get clouded. The pool gets clouded. That's not just a sweet image all of a sudden.

[28:33]

He realized that if he stopped and helped this man, he was going to miss his appointment in the synagogue at Jericho. He's an important man. He's supposed to give a talk there. He has to be on time. He doesn't have time for this poor bloke. He's probably dead anyway. See, so values get clouded. The pool gets clouded. That's not just a sweet image. Our sight gets clouded, and we make wrong decisions because we let contrary voices cloud and befuddle our mind and our heart. So we can't see. There's a dying man there, but I often can't see him. And how often does that happen? All day long in the monastery. Somebody's really hurting, but I can't see it. Because they're hurting all the time. My God, I'm so used to it. I don't even want to... It doesn't impact me anymore. Why? Because my pool's all turned up. I can't see the truth for what's there. Okay. Or, I've just got too much to do.

[29:37]

I'm going to lose money. if I take care of this person. If I get involved with a person like this, you know what's going to happen. They're going to want money, they're going to want time, and time is money, and they're going to want energy, and I'm broke. I've just given all my money. I mean, I can't do this anymore. How often that happens to me. When I have to make decisions in the monastery during the day, especially on my time, you know, people think you've got all the time in the world. 31 people think you've got all the time in the world, you know. And then you're trying to make the monastery, you're trying to make context with the monastery on the outside, and people call all day long, and then the order gets involved, and Abbot so-and-so calls, and Abbot so-and-so calls, and some poor jerk's at the door because he wants something. I mean, how can I see what the right thing to do is? How can I see it unless I'm clear, unless my pool is clear? If my values aren't immediately evident in a continuous prayer, I'm going to do the wrong thing. I'm going to send the brother away.

[30:39]

He was ready to talk. He was ready to kind of come clean on an issue that I've been working with him for many months, and I missed the boat. If we're to explain the parable of the Good Samaritan in any other way, explain it off as this was the great trial of a lifetime, I think that's wrong. This kind of thing happens. This episode happens. If my values aren't immediately evident in a continuous prayer, I'm going to do the wrong thing. I'm going to send the brother away. He was ready to talk. He was ready to kind of come clean on an issue that I'd been working with him for many months, and I missed the boat. If we're to explain the parable of the Good Samaritan in any other way, explain it off as, this was the great trial of a lifetime, I think that's wrong. This kind of thing happens, this episode happens, all day long to all of us. Or the parable, why would Jesus tell it?

[31:41]

So, the priest and then the Levite, who was a layperson attached to the priestly office, does the same thing. I mean, he's got, if the priest had his values screwed up, probably the layman does too, taught by the priest. So the devil either takes him away, makes him see that there is a person that he doesn't help, or he's got better things to do and he's got an appointment someplace else and he misjudges, here's a man who's dying, or time, he can't afford it. Time is money. And if you get involved with these people, he's probably a fake. He's probably a beggar there that's just lying there because he wants money, because this is like a gypsy. He knows that this is how you get the money. So he passes by. And so then the Samaritan comes along. Of course, we know a Samaritan, to the audience to whom Jesus was telling this parable, is a despised person. someone you don't have any dealings with.

[32:45]

And it's precisely the Samaritan who And then certain things followed. He did this, and he did this, and he did this, and he did this. He was a neighbor to the one who had fallen victim to the robbers. And of course, the point of the parable is you don't go by titles and appearances if you want to see where God is working. The men who helped the man who was beaten, the Samaritan, his pool was clear. He could see at that moment what needed to be done. He wasn't caught off guard. He was in some kind of prayer, because the reflection of God, there he could see that God was asking him to do something. His humanity was moved, and it was moved in such a way that it galvanized him into action. He did something. And it not only impacted on his day, it pressed his pocketbook, and went into the next day.

[33:48]

Remember, he stayed overnight with the man in the inn, and then went on his way. So, John 9, remember we talked about blindness that often happens, that often occurs in spiritual leaders? The poor beggar, who was born blind, had spiritual sight. The Pharisees, who were born with all kinds of spiritual insight, were blind. So you never know, do we? We never know who's really living the truth at that moment, in these episodes that God's world is full of. And if you want further evidence from the scriptures, David, Samuel was sent to anoint the next king of Israel, and these big strapping people come in, impressive looking people. But Samuel said to Jesse, do you have any more sons? Because none of these, none of these are right. Appearances are very, very deceptive when it comes to the spiritual life.

[34:52]

But how much posturing goes on in the so-called spiritual world of the church and other places when Cardinal so-and-so is saying all this stuff, does that mean Cardinal so-and-so is right? A lot of the time Cardinal so-and-so isn't right. you know, to say nothing of other such people. But okay, I mean, that's to read the Gospel and read it with a certain kind of razor edge. That's what Jesus is saying. The Gospel is meant now for us in the Church of 1996. Not for some... Because we read it liturgically in the mystery of Christ, and it makes it present and acting now. That's a doctrine that we have to keep in mind constantly. Okay, so what happened then with the Samaritan? He did the right thing. Let's look at four marks of what I call this ecstasy, so going out of yourself in order to love your neighbor.

[35:56]

We saw how you go out of yourself to love God. Let's see what it looks like when we examine those four marks of ecstasy which we saw this morning and last night and see if the Samaritan matches these. Now here we're at the point of contemplation. I'm going to suggest that what the Samaritan did by helping the man who was beaten by robbers is he enjoyed contemplation, he enjoyed prayer. Because in this perspective there's no separation, there's no disjunction between prayer and love of neighbor. You know, it took the medievals a long time to get those two realities into one. But it's time to say in the tradition, in the Christian spiritual tradition, that loving your neighbor and the kind of action that we're called to when it calls us out of ourselves is contemplation by its very nature.

[37:02]

is prayer, is contemplation. More so than on your knees before the Blessed Sacrament or whatever. Now, I shouldn't really say that because at any given moment God may want us to be on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament. And that's going to be the highest thing that's going at that moment. But let's not put down what happens when we go out of ourselves and in Christ go out to help someone who's in need because God has suddenly appeared there. If your pool is clear, you know what to do at the given moment. Okay, so here are the four marks of ecstasy. The Samaritan did what was impossible. At least it was impossible for the priest and the Levite. He ruined his day, went over to the man, put the man on his own beast of burden, took him to the inn, just shattered his whole schedule.

[38:04]

How many people in our day and age will stop their car on an interstate and give someone who's in distress that much time? It's impossible that the Samaritan would think to do that, but he did it. Okay, the second mark is that it's episodic. He knew that this was, for some reason, this was the thing to do at that time. Maybe he saw a Judean there in the pit and said, oh, I don't deal with that kind of person. But he did it anyway. In other words, he knew instinctively, somehow, by the grace of God, that he was called to help this person. He was moved with pity, and it galvanized him into action. So it was episodic. He responded to the challenge of the moment. The third mark is that it was absolutely exorbitant, exaggerated, and magnanimous.

[39:06]

What he did, he took the man to the inn, bound up his wounds, took care of him, stayed overnight. And when he was on his way out of the inn, he gave the innkeeper more money and said, here, take care of him while I'm gone. And if you overstep this budget, I'll pay you when I get back. I mean, how much more could you do? There's no more you could do. It was like giving him his credit card. In those days, I'm sure, with the way finance was, it was like, you know, charge it up. I'll pay the bill later. Put it on me. I mean, such a magnanimous gesture. You know, I know I would be... Now, don't go over it, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da, because I can't... No thought of that at all. So that's the mark. You remember this magnanimous kind of abandon? Anything you need, I'll give you, you know, if it's half my whatever, St.

[40:08]

Martin, half the cloak, whatever, you know. You ask me one mile, I'll go two. You ask me for my jacket, I'll give you my shirt. I mean, this is the gospel, Matthew 5, whatever. Okay, so that mark is taken care of. And finally, as we saw last night, the fourth mark is that, while he can't be transcendent, but he's justified by Christ. So that what he did joins in God's work. Now those four marks are also in the sinful woman that we saw this morning. She did what was impossible, a prostitute walking into a holy assembly of men, that's impossible. Number two, she responded to the challenge of the moment, got up and did that, and when she saw Christ, fell into weeping, went all the way, as we say in artistic circles, she went all the way to bullseye,

[41:10]

You know, hit the mark right on the nose. Episodic. Third, she was absolutely exorbitant, exaggerated, magnanimous. Took an alabaster jar of ointment. We saw how precious alabaster can be at the corning center of glass, you know. She broke it and used the ointment to anoint Christ's feet. An absolutely exaggerated sign. And she was justified. Fourthly, she was justified by Christ. So you see, those marks are there. The marks, the four marks of ecstasy. Ecstasy. I don't want to use the word ecstasy. Ecstasy are there. These people, both the sinful woman and the good Samaritan, went completely out of themselves in a way that maybe they didn't normally do. But it's episodic. God called them at that moment. And in the case of the good Samaritan, His pool was clear, all the passions were in balance, or he wouldn't have been able to see or do what he was going to do.

[42:17]

He wouldn't have been able to answer the challenge by God. So, I want to keep with the monastic thing. I said that the first step is this ascetical effort. The second, as we saw, is one has to be in prayer. One has to be, the pool has to be clear. Thirdly, God starts to act in contemplation, or as the Greeks would call it, teoria. God starts to act and he pulls us out of ourselves. And so I'm saying that that act of gracious charity was contemplation, is contemplation, and can be contemplation for us on a daily basis. Now, let's look at what the Good Samaritan did from another perspective. He went beyond himself. He went out of himself. He came to himself, first of all, in order to see clearly, and then he was called out of himself. That's the classic doctrine of St.

[43:18]

Gregory the Great. How was he able to do that? Well, God called him to do that in this episodic way. But remember that This has to be understood from a rational human point of view. What happened to the man was that he grew bigger than the situation. For an instant, he grew bigger than the society. He became more than the situation. So, from that perspective, it was clear what he ought to do. What am I trying to say? Well, for an instant, there was no there was no nationalism. Because remember, everyone in Jesus' time was caught up with this nationalistic spirit. Does that sound familiar? If you were a Judean, a national, you hated the Galileans and you hated the Samaritans. Your life was just full of pens.

[44:22]

And you put people in the various pens. And if you happened to be in the wrong pen, you were no damn good. Prejudice. Enormous. And you hated the Romans. It's just all sorts of people that you were brought up to hate. Imagine. But that's, I mean, are we that much different? There are all sorts of people that would, oh, yeah, we can be politically correct, you know. But try that one on for a while and see if there aren't some pretty deep, hidden prejudices in every human heart. OK, so for an instant, the man was bigger than the nationalism the nationalistic spirit. You know, you always come to, especially if you're ever living outside your own country for a while, and who of us has not lived outside the States for a while? I may be embarrassed about a lot of things that the U.S. government does. I may be embarrassed about watching American tourists act like idiots in some tourist spot in Rome or something like that.

[45:25]

But by God, when the chips are down, I'm an American, and I don't want to hear my country in an international gathering badmouthed by stupid French people or German people or whatever. I mean, do you see what I'm saying? All of a sudden, all these other blokes are stupid, and they don't know what they're talking about. I can remember being in the refectory at San Anselmo, and I got drawn into an argument about the Argentine war with Britain. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I said, I don't care what happens to the Malvinas or Falkland Islands. I don't care what happens. And all of a sudden, you know, a table of monks, we're all monks. And all of a sudden, all this nationalism starts igniting all over the place. Well, in an international college, that'll happen like that, you know. Oh, some Frenchman came in and he said, what's Reagan doing? This is in the early 80s. What's Reagan doing now to ruin the whole world economy? I couldn't believe it. And he's berating me as if that had anything to do with it.

[46:29]

Nationalism isn't dead, as we know. But here, for an instant, see, and I'm trying to drive home what Jesus was trying to drive home, that here, for an instant, this man, this Samaritan, was bigger than nationalism. That's hard to do, I think, in my experience anyway. It's hard to constantly be bigger than petty nationalism, because it will grab you at the oddest times, over a highball, you know, recreation on Wednesday nights at San Anselmo. I can remember getting into more, doing more sin, you know, with my mouth at recreation at San Anselmo on Wednesday nights with a bottle of beer or a Sambuca or something like that. I'm like, God, I go back to it every day. What the hell? Is this monastic life? I can't remember thinking, I'm such a fool. I get drawn into this stuff. And I'm either bad-mouthing some individual, or I'm bad-mouthing the English, or I'm bad-mouthing this, or something. It's terrible. In an instant, a whole day of spiritual effort up in flames.

[47:34]

OK. What about dogmatism? Try that one on. For an instant, this man was bigger than dogmatism. And what I mean by, you know, the right or the left, how often we get caught into arguments about liberal, conservative, you know, this, that. the pro-life, the pro-truth, blah, blah, blah. I mean, we're so fragmented in our thought patterns. It's hard not to take sides. And often you have to take some kind of a side, but are you going to be mean and nasty about it? And are you going to put... I may think I'm right, but then I categorize, I put all sorts of people over there and despise them for it, because they're on the wrong side. So, for an instant, the Samaritan was bigger than dogmatism. To say nothing of bigger than orthodoxism. You're not right.

[48:35]

You don't have the true spirit. And then we categorize people like that. But this man, for an instant, was not like that. Or racism. And and if you think that that you've gotten the black issue taken care of and that I'm not prejudiced against black people Some some Asian will will get in there and and and just do something that makes me so mad Because Asians do that kind of thing, you know, and there I'm talking there. I'm talking in a prejudiced way I mean, it's just it's amazing how we'll do that or how I'll do it anyway Okay, so there's racism, and then there's all sorts of other isms. And for an instant, this Samaritan was bigger than all of them. Now, how did he do it? Well, he grew up in Christ, of course, but what does that mean? What is that really trying to say? Well, here I'm going to use St. Gregory's image of the vision of St. Benedict. This is our great monastic legislator, our father in Christ.

[49:42]

who, when he went up to the tower and suddenly saw the whole world caught up in a single ray of light..." What does that image mean? Is that just sweetness and light and bald or all? I don't think so. Not according to Gregory the Great, who wrote it. According to him, the man of God who's caught up in this single ray of light... Remember I talked about the pool being capable of reflecting the glory of God? You get caught up into this light of God when your pool is clear and when God's light strikes it and makes contact with that image deep, deep, deep down inside and there's this tremendous arc of light and all of a sudden we're caught up there and we see the whole thing, the whole world drama, maybe even our whole day for what it really is and what it really means. And then, in that vision, and it's not just some kind of cotton vision, it's for real, because it's God's vision of the world.

[50:45]

That's the way God sees this whole human drama. And when I can see the world from that perspective, I will make the right decision in any episode, in any given moment. See, what I'm trying to say is that what Gregory is saying about Saint Benedict What he's saying about contemplation is not a luxury. It is what we're called to in the Christian life. And if you don't believe that, then we're going to make mistakes. We're not going to be able to live the gospel. This is what we call sin. So the stakes are high. You either live the gospel, and you do Matthew 5, and you get called out of yourself. And when you get called out of yourself, God's going to erupt in some kind of glory of light. And from that perspective, Maybe at a given time of trial and testing, I can see, at a time of great stress, what it is I'm supposed to do. That's where heroes are made, and that's where martyrs are made, and that's where monks are made as well, I believe.

[51:46]

It's a tremendous idea, but it's more than an idea. It happens. People do this. People in monasteries actually experience this. They're called out of themselves so far that, for an instant, the glory of God just makes the whole thing clear, and then they act some more, and they do the right thing at the right time. And it could be, as Merton says, that the whole common wheel of the world is depending on someone's right decision at any given moment. Because, from this perspective, God sees the whole thing out, and there's so much foolishness and nonsense going on, one person might keep the whole thing in balance because they lived the gospel, because they attracted God's light onto the whole thing. So I think that's vitally important. We don't often see the world that way, but I wish we would think about it a little more because it's vital and it happens and people do it. And they're the unsung heroes and they're the unsung saints.

[52:52]

Their causes are not being postulated in the world. Most of them, anyway. Forget all that nonsense. What's important is the Gospel. The Gospel lived, the Gospel struggled for in asceticism, the Gospel lived in prayer, the Gospel transformed into contemplation of God, and then God takes over and glorifies the whole thing. The glory of God is so much a part of our lives, the warp and woof of our lives, at least von Balthasar was trying to say that. And, you know, we don't talk about the glory of God so much in our lives, but boy, is it important. And it happens. If we had the spiritual eyes to see it, if our pool was clear enough of the passions in order to let God's light start getting reflected deep in our world and high in our world, and in that perspective, we see the right thing to do. We can act, we can be like the Good Samaritan and do this utterly impossible thing. But do it, and glorify God, and God will glorify us at the same time.

[53:57]

So I would recommend that we take this vision of St. Benedict very, very seriously, because it is the place in the dialogues by St. Gregory Book II where he exegetes the parable of the prodigal son. One little parable told by Christ is at the base for this tremendous structure of spiritual teaching. To me, it's just the most incredible thing to trace out the influence and the marks of a parable in the Christian tradition. It's just really, you think, who could be behind that if not the Spirit of God? What creativity. I mean, what poetry to be able to do that. And yet, that's our tradition, and that's who we are as Benedictines. It's just the greatest thing. Okay, would that be enough? Unless you have any questions or issues?

[55:01]

Well, you see, the woman, let's look at the sinful woman for a minute. She was justified by Christ. At the end of the story, Jesus talks to Simon the Pharisee about her. He says, look at this woman, you know, you gave me neither water to wash my feet nor oil to anoint my face, and she has done all these things that you didn't do. And I have forgiven her, her many sins, and therefore she has shown such great love. Therefore she has salvation. She's justified. And so this exorbitant action in which she broke the law doesn't count. She is right with me, and that's what's important. Whereas Simon, the Pharisee, who, yeah, invited Christ to dinner, but didn't do any of these things, and really was forgiven very little because he thought he had done hardly anything wrong, is not justified.

[56:25]

So also, the Samaritan, I could have been accused by some rabbinical interpretation that maybe it was a Sabbath. He shouldn't have been doing that on the Sabbath. And anyway, what was a Samaritan having any truck with a Judean? I'm sure there would be some way in which some crimped soul would say that that was wrong, that the Samaritan shouldn't have done what he did. But in Jesus' eyes, he's justified. Remember, the question was asked Christ, who is my neighbor? And at the end of the parable, Jesus says, so who was the neighbor to the man who fell in with robbers? And the answer is the one who took care of him, the Samaritan. And Jesus said, well, then you go and do likewise. So the Samaritan was justified in what he did. And you always have to look for that sign. I may think I'm doing the most magnanimous, charitable thing in the world, but it's not up to me to justify myself. It's up to God to justify me. See, discernment is always to be had.

[57:31]

I can never go to bed at night and say, well God, see what I did today? I was ascetical, I prayed, I did contemplation, and I got your glory. Uh-oh, I don't think it works that way. We don't know, we never know until God justifies us in the next world, whether we've done the right thing or not. We have faith, But we never know. There are signs, yes, from time to time, signs of affirmation, which are precious and wonderful. That's what we call a consolation in the spiritual life, but you can't depend on that. So that's why I mean justification by Christ is an important mark there. Otherwise, you know, we're not really talking reality. Time for compliment. Help is the moment.

[58:19]

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