Thank you for your prayers today and bring the anniversary of my ordination. Looking back on it, you realize that during those days the question of the relation between monk, monastic vocation and the priestly vocation was not acute. It simply wasn't a, in that way, the status questions had not arisen. It's always very important to remember that, that the periods and various phases of which the life of the church goes are very different and problems that may be very acute at one time are not all acute at another time. So for me the inner connection between the

[01:05]

monastic vocation and the priestly vocation was always kind of clear and with the grace of God and I saw it all in the light of the one idea of Christ who is the head of the monks and of the priests and of The entire body of the church in him, all things are knitted together and he is the high priest and he is this high priestly function, means function of reconciliation. Reconciliation, he has reconciled, he has united in himself Ima Sumis, the lowest thing he has united to the highest thing. the earthly thing and not only the earthly things but those things that were far away and opposed to God through his sacrifice he has and through his incarnation he has united them.

[02:10]

to the highest things, and that is the mercy of God the Father, that is the creative power of the Fathers, the glory of the Father. And in that way, when I became a priest, I still remember that very well interiorly. I asked God that he may use me as an instrument of his peace, and that what I wanted love to announce as mouthpieces the glad tidings, a herald to become a herald of the feast. That was so clear at the time. Through me, of course, that's all part of the spirit of the monastery of Maria Lachner I grew up And in that way, today one would say, in this phase in which we are now, to serve the men is in a converging movement.

[03:26]

He called it reconciliation, but it's a converging movement. You could see that so clearly also yesterday, or the day before, in Panikkar's little talk. It was of course an improvisation. here and there, maybe daring in the statements, but the important thing is to see, I think, what is the inner spirit, the spirit of converging lines. It doesn't mean that all that is done without battle, without death, you know, certainly, but it is simply also the thing that we feel so very strongly, that is, That is, at work in our days, opening the hearts and bringing about new dimensions of union, unity. And that is the other thing, to be an instrument of his peace, to serve the community life.

[04:38]

I must confess that the older you get, the more, with the grace of God, you try to become objective towards yourself and to look at yourself really with the eyes of Christ and the eyes of the church because judgment is approaching and it is one of the themes of the monastic life for us to anticipate judgment. and to live under judgment. And of course, it is amazing how obstinate we are as human beings, how difficult it is to let a certain spirit enter into Every realm of our being is even sometimes seems to be sheer impossible. One falls always into the same old grooves and one catches oneself again at the same kind of pattern of behavior and of judging and of thinking all the time.

[05:46]

But of course, there, that is the first function also of the priest is, and in that way there's no difference between the priest and the monk, is to open the possibilities for God's grace to accomplish that reconciliation in himself. and to help in his own little microcosmos to lift and allow the lines to converge. Converge in the cross and glory of Christ. He is the knot in whom all things are tied together. So that knot has to work in us to tie the loose ends together that everybody has in himself. But then, of course, also towards within the church, the larger context of the church of God. And now we see that more and more, and we get more appreciative all the time of the vision of St.

[06:52]

Paul, to whom the whole of creation or sighing for this, for the glory, the manifestation of the glory of the children of God. And all the things, or many of the things that say that we experience today and that we are going through are on this line. And we as monks, we must be in that way clear, we must be conscious also of this, one can really call it our cosmic function. And one can see that in the workings of a community. Why is the witness of a monastery so important? Because there are people, and there are very different people, and everybody who comes realizes the tremendous differences that are there, but that then gives witness to the higher power of unity. unity in the Holy Spirit, that there is really this power that makes things converge, and that is the Holy Spirit.

[08:01]

But he has to do that through human hearts. And the human hearts first have to be pacified interiorly themselves, then they have to get that inner contact among each other. And then maybe one can speak about further fields, the fields of the nation, or the fields of a certain civilization, or the fields of mankind, or the fields even of creation. But of course, for us as human beings, that recapitulation and to be part of the process of recapitulation Now the whole of creation, that is of course only possible through our hearts, that is the instrument, and that is therefore something that we have to watch, and the monk's calling is to watch the purity of the heart, the puritas, that is really to be an instrument in God's constructive, magnifying, praising glory, and then to

[09:17]

from there then to take the whole of creation into it. So, in that way, again, there's a deep inner harmony between monasticism and the priesthood. Not in a function, but in the spirit. The spirit is the same. One spirit of Christ, the Pantocrator, the all-ruler.

[09:47]

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