Is it a troubled community? No, I would say it's a very young community. Let's read it together. And what catches your attention? Unless the Lord builds the house. they labor in vain to do. Unless the Lord guards the sin, in vain does the God keep watch. It is in vain for me to rise early and put off the rest of life, to eat bread earned by hard work. All this God gives to the beloved in sin. Children, too, are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the fruit of renewal. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children born in one's youth.

[01:08]

Blessed are they whose quivers are full. They will never be shamed when contending their foes at the bridge. Is there something about this psalm that catches your attention or makes you question or you would like to ask a question? Good. Thank you for asking that. Psalm of Ascent, now this is a little song book beginning with Psalm 20, and we're saying these psalms in prayer. Psalm 120 to 134 is their stairway psalms.

[02:15]

It seems like these psalms are either marking various milestones along a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, their pilgrimage psalms, or there are 15 steps that go up to the temple of Jerusalem to enter the city of Jerusalem, the temple, and so it could be one psalm each step. There are stairway psalms, psalms of ascent. We really don't know what it means. It could be also another possibility is there are psalms that you raise a note, a half-tone every psalm, so you start with I rejoiced when they heard me say, let us go to the house of the Lord." And then the next psalm would be, and the next psalm would be, and then we end up with the blessing of Psalm 1. There are two psalms in this whole psalter with the name of Solomon. There are 70 psalms that have the name David, Psalm of David.

[03:18]

Now what does that mean? Did David have anything to do with this psalm? Probably not. I mentioned the first day that probably most of the psalms were written by Levites, by poets after the exile, 500 years after David. But who is the author of the Pentateuch? Moses is the author, but he didn't write it. He authorized it. Who's the author of the Psalms? Well, the authority behind the Psalms is David, but he didn't write them. And Solomon, they probably put Solomon, somebody put Solomon here because it's kind of a wisdom song. Solomon is attached to the wisdom tradition in the Old Testament, and so Solomon might be here because, well, this is kind of a wisdom song.

[04:27]

And there's a lot of psalms, Gregory, that don't have any name on them at all. But most of the names on the psalms, we really don't know what it refers to. Yes? My idea is, unless the law is good, and there's a lot of freedom in the game that you must keep quiet, turn it on and off, you're going to have to do something. And don't do it effortlessly. It's not sufficient. And it takes a lot to work through. I think it was for the 2nd of February that Pope Francis came out with just a one-page thing for religious life.

[05:45]

And he talks about a sickness in, I don't remember what he says, but it's a very strong term, a sickness in religious life, religious consecration, just straight across the board, that we're kind of forgetting about, that many religious are kind of forgetting about God. And we're really good organizations. We're running fine organizations. We're taking care of the physical plan. We're doing all these things. He's not talking specifically about monks, but monks fit in. And also the fact that, you know, why aren't we getting vocations? religious houses right now are not getting vocations, rather, they're kind of pushing vocations out because they're not fixed. They're not taking care of the Lord part of the vocation. If you get a chance, check Pope Francis out, his message to religious, and it came out this week.

[06:58]

You might check that one out. It's just a one page thing. But it's rather, rather thought provoking. Lack of commitment. Yeah. Yes. He does have a very strong term for the sickness that is suffered by, in general, by religious today. It's not sclerosis. What? No, he does, he does talk a lot about, he has talked a lot about boredom in the last two years. So we have this, unless the Lord builds the house, what are we working for? We can divide this psalm right in half.

[08:02]

Verses 1 and 2 are about building a house. Verses 3 to 5 are about forming a family. The first two verses, efforts like building a house, guarding a city, daily toil, seeking God in a monastery are futile unless they are in harmony with God's grace. In the second, happy is the family or happy is the monastic community that has many arrows, many children to defend from the adversary. Who's the adversary? It's anyone or anything that separates us from God. God is the architect of our community. God is the watchman. God is the provider, finally. Even when labor ceases, God provides food for the next day, the psalmist is saying.

[09:08]

In Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, I often celebrated the Eucharist with the Benedictines in Mount Calvary Monastery, a little monastery of French nuns, elderly, tough, pioneer ladies living in adverse political situations. Given the social conditions adverse to Christianity, there is less than 0.4% of Palestine which is Christian. Given the social conditions adverse to Christianity, these ladies had no material means of ensuring their own future or engendering a next generation. At times city government officials made efforts to confiscate their cloister property on the Mount of Olives overlooking the temple in Jerusalem.

[10:29]

But the nuns trust in divine providence. Unless the Lord guards the city, in vain does the guard keep watch. I visited an enormous monastic complex built in the 1860s in triumphal architectural style, complete with elegant staircases and wide arched corridors opening onto spacious gardens. There were, there are, 160 rooms for nuns. The Baroque chapel is a stunning work of art. The dining room was ornamented with frescoes and papastries. The monastic village was outfitted with laundry, a farm, an orchard, a large college. All this had been built by God and by the nuns who would staff the schools, hospitals, and diocesan missions

[11:41]

in the region. Now the monastery is nearly empty. With fourteen very elderly and ill sisters praying and working, caring for each other, doing modest community service, eating dinner at little round tables in a corner of their grand refectory, switching on the night lights and turning them off in the morning, singing the office. As the superior recounted the past glories, I was in awe of the precarious future. When I commented on this, she said, The future is our main concern. But besides, that's what celibate chastity is all about, isn't it? I was struck by her comment.

[12:45]

She made reference to Sarah in the Bible, and the fact that out of our own bodies we cannot produce the next generation. It reminds me of this psalm, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build. Children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. We're talking about monastic life and monastic vocations. And I will now turn to talk about community life. In a carpenter shop in a little town in Palestine, one particular day when the master carpenter was out, all the different tools had a bench meeting.

[13:54]

The ensuing discussion was loud and long as some members of the assembly wanted to excommunicate others from the shop. One spoke up emphatically, Sister Saw takes up too much room and her singing is more of a screech than a song. Besides, she bites and grinds her teeth. She's the sharpest character I know. Somebody else said, we can't put up with the wire brush any longer. He rubs us all the wrong way. And what about Brother Hammer? I've never known somebody so annoying. He pounds out his points and it's just noise. He should be discharged from service. And the nails, such sharp little people intruding in places where there's hardly room.

[14:59]

And the sander and the sandpaper are abrasive and they just mean to hurt. The square won't change her way of thinking no matter what we all think or say or do. The screw always revolves around the same point and we never get any place talking to him. The tape measure just judges and sizes us up and she thinks she's always right. That's how the discussion heated up among the tools. Everybody talked at the same time, feelings were hurt, Everybody accused everybody else. Each one wanted to exclude somebody else. Each valued his or her own importance over the good of the whole, and they simply didn't want to work together.

[16:04]

But suddenly, everything changed. When the carpenter entered the shop and approached the bench, he took a board, measured it with the tape measure, and with the saw he cut the board as she sang her tune. The brush, the square, the clamp, the sander, the nails, everybody was put to the task and each did what he or she does best. The carpenter took the nails and hammer who pounded out their part in the symphony. He used each and every tool and he built a crib to receive the little baby that was about to be born into the world, to receive us, to receive and give us peace. When the carpenter finished his task and left the shop, the tools once again gathered to continue their deliberations.

[17:11]

It was then that Sister Saw said, gentle sisters and brothers, it is obvious that each and every one of us has defects and limitations. But the carpenter knows how to make use of each and bring out our best qualities. That's what makes us valuable. So maybe we shouldn't concentrate so much on the negative aspects of our characters and reflect more on our good qualities that make us useful together. And the assembly began to discover the qualities of each individual. That the hammer was strong and useful. That the screw was a unifying factor in their common life. That the sandpaper was good at polishing and smoothing out the roughness in life. That the square and tape measure were precise in their thinking. and they agreed that they were a community capable of producing quality furniture if they only work together.

[18:22]

I think it's pretty obvious what it's all about, you know. We are Cenobites. Saint Benedict makes that very clear from the very beginning of the rule. In Cenobitic communities, in fact, in many Cenobitic communities in the world today, there are anchorites. and there are Serabeites, and there are Gyrobaites. But the strongest kind of monk that Benedict writes the rule for is the Cenobite, the person who comes to the monastery to forget a little bit more about himself, not being his own abbot, not be the measure of his own search for God, but rather allow his search for God to have a heavy dose of charity, community thinking, common vision.

[20:06]

He will always be an individual. And we live in an age where individuality is almost canonized. I think being a Benedictine Cenobitic monk in the world today is a very heroic thing. It's a very heroic enterprise. I find that your community is doing that in a beautiful way. It's a challenge for every one of us. we are this carpenter shop and we all have individual characters which we could put under the microscope and find out we don't like certain things. But ultimately, you know, we are made strong and we are strong as a community because we're walking and working together towards God. Unless the Lord builds the house,

[21:11]

We labor in vain who build. Unless the Lord builds the monastery, guards the monastery, in vain do we build, in vain do we perform. And the Lord is very much in this monastery. You have a long and and beautiful history, and you also have a very long and beautiful future waiting for you. I can see that just by living with you for the last few days. Let us prefer nothing to the love of Christ. May God bring us all together to everlasting My dear conference, daughters and son, the grasshopper spent the entire summer dancing from place to place, playing the fiddle, while the bees spent their entire summer working and collecting the precious food stores that would see them through the cold winter.

[22:44]

When the cold weather arrived, the grasshopper got hungry. And finding no food in the fields, she went to knock on the door of the beehive. Surely, for laboring all summer, there would be enough food for everybody to eat. After all, what are bees for? But for the production of honey and the sweet life. The grasshopper didn't have to knock twice. The bees were so glad for the visit. They not only offered the grasshopper as much as she liked, but told her to stay as long as she wanted, even all winter. Oh, in their secret hearts, the busy bees enjoyed the grasshopper's fiddling. and dancing.

[23:49]

The very safe and secure world they had created for themselves suddenly became more enchanting and enjoyable for their visitor. Gentle confers, this fable about the grasshopper and the bees illustrates the parable of the salt. You are the salt of the earth. Let me explain. I know a country where everything tastes the same. The bread tastes like barley or rye or wheat. It's never clear to me Beans and rice are boiled together and each loses its flavor.

[24:53]

The tomato doesn't taste like tomato. The strawberry and the apple taste just about the same. But one day in the kitchen, the various dishes, meat, potatoes, vegetables, eggs and rice, Satanized the salt. They agreed not to add salt to their stews and their dishes. They registered their complaint. Salt changes our taste. It makes our taste stronger or more subtle. Salt removes something of our essence. It transforms us. We don't want salt added. We don't want to lose what is rightfully ours. And so it was with the kitchen rebellion.

[25:58]

It was then that the complaint was heard from the dining room, you forgot the salt. Jesus tells us, you are the salt of the earth. What does Jesus mean? A society without salt is a people without the gospel that enhances the taste of human life. Remove salt and everything becomes functional and something is lost in the taste experience. Remove the gospel and everything tastes of marketing and the shopping mall. or Walmart. In the gospel, just after Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes, he sums up the Christian vocation with the parables of, you are the salt and you are the light.

[27:06]

Then Jesus warns against diminishing the salty grace in the heart. The danger of removing ourselves the salt would be that life becomes insipid, that life sink into mediocrity and frustrate the best efforts to live the gospel, the good news. Oh, excess of salt is to be avoided. But a salt free diet is like the human story deprived of the gospel, the good news. And the danger is real. we may look at our monastic community, a microcosm of the Christian community at large. Or just take a lucid look at one's own life. If I'm honest, I recognize that the enthusiasm, the passion, and audacity of the good news

[28:17]

tends to give way to gravity, to apathy, disenchantment, and routine in my own life. And if I am apathetic, disenchanted, and tiresome, I can become blind to the joyful, friendly people who salt their daily lives with God's glory and happiness and friendliness. Gentle confreres, dear sons and daughters, the challenge, you are the salt of the earth, is addressed to each one of us. The parable is for each person, a call, an opportunity, a grace. so that creation all around us and human society regain its rich flavor and its incredible beauty.

[29:22]

I know a society where the gospel has not yet been introduced. It's a very efficient operation with precise rules for order and discipline But the Beatitudes have not visited that society or resounded in that dull land, that world of shadows, the society where the poor remain poor, those who weep continue to weep and grumble, and the clean of heart remain blind and do not see God, do not see the citizens die of hunger and thirst for the grace of God. What happened to our friends, the grasshopper and the bees of the parable? On the basis of their friendship forged in the hive during the long winter, the life of each and every one found greater meaning and became fuller.

[30:31]

In the fable, the grasshopper depicts Christ and his community of disciples in the midst of a limited world, a world that is efficient in questions of organization and production, but closed and sterile with regard to human values of goodness, beauty, and truth. Now, with the visit of the grasshopper who lives and embodies the evangelical values of the Beatitudes, the routine world becomes more palatable, more delicious and pleasant. Gentle confreres, gentle daughters and sons, may we be salt today and every day so that the world may acquire a rich flavor so the beauty of the world

[31:36]

the vestibule of the eternal kingdom of our lovely God, may be ever more flavorful, beautiful, and happy. The Lord be with you. From the Holy Gospel according to Mark. When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed hands. for the Pharisees, and in fact all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the traditions of the elders.

[32:47]

And on coming from the marketplace, they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds. So the Pharisees and scribes questioned Jesus, why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but instead eat a meal with unclean hands? He responded, well did Isaiah prophecy about you hypocrites? As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God's commandment, but cling to human tradition.

[33:54]

Jesus went on to say, how well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, if someone says to father or mother, any support you might have had from me is Korban, that is dedicated to God, you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the Word of God in favor of your tradition, which you have handed on. And you do many such things. The Gospel of the Lord. My dear conference, this reading of the gospel where Jesus upbraids the Pharisees because they are all concerned for washing their hands but they forget to clean their hearts.

[35:14]

This comes right after the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes where 5,000 and more people ate without washing their hands. They ate with Jesus. And now we have the Pharisees, the Pharisees complaining that people around Jesus eat, but don't properly prepare themselves or wash their hands before. Did you notice that in the Gospel of Mark, The only eating that takes place is in the presence of Jesus and the food and the nutrition that Jesus offers. A few days ago we heard about a great birthday party of Herod the Great and I can imagine all of the food and the drink but the only thing that was served at that meal was corruption and death, the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

[36:23]

Later on, Jesus will criticize the government leaders and the Pharisees for eating the houses of widows. Not a very nutritious diet. But where Jesus is, there is Eucharist. Where Jesus is, there is nutrition and life. This gospel of the gospel of the multiplication of the loaves in the gospel of John is followed by a desertion of many of the disciples for being scandalized of Jesus. Jesus asks his disciples, will you too also leave me? And Peter says, But Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. The words of eternal life, the teaching of Jesus, is our nutrition, is our food, is the food which feeds us for life eternal.

[37:36]

Where Jesus is, where the word of God is, there is life and life eternal. In so far as the Pharisees separate themselves from Jesus or the word, the words, the meaning of the words of the gospel and the law, they're going to die of hunger. And in the process, they will kill other people by not nourishing them with the word of God.

[38:11]

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