I'm happy to be here with you, but sometimes I dread giving retreats and giving talks. But once I get into it, I think it's okay. There's always a certain amount of dread there, I suppose, and I don't know if some of you feel that way or not, but it's always nice to experience new communities, new benedictine communities, and the Spirit that's there. And so I'm really looking forward to being present here with all of you during these days. I don't know if you want to hear a little bit about our background or not, if that would help, from Blue Cloud. We're a foundation from St. Mindred. We were founded in, the abbey itself was founded in 1950, the monks that founded the monastery itself, but actually the monks from St. Mindred were out in the Dakotas way before that. The first abbot of St. Mindred, Martin Marty, who eventually became bishop, He was the first Abba St. Minor and he came out in 1876 to work with the Native Americans and he just loved it.

[01:03]

There was a real strong love relationship between the German-speaking people in Europe and the Native Americans and I guess that was part of that too. So there were four Indian missions already out in the Dakotas before Blue Cloud got started. so the mother house came after the daughters which is a little bit backwards but that's how it works and uh... that caused a few little political problems but not too many and anyway i came from southern indiana uh... evansville and i joined uh... blue cloud in nineteen fifty nine uh... at the age of twenty so uh... i've been out there for a few years and uh... we also have founded a monastery and a priory in guatemala And I was down there for a couple of years as well. And that was still going. The others we backed out of. We turned them over to the diocese. So we're no longer really directly in Indian work in the Dakotas. pretty much just concentrating we do very much what you do here, do retreats and try to stay close to the soil uh... i always think that's probably the most important part of being benedictine, staying close to the soil uh... manual labor is a good part of it not that intellectual labor is not valuable too but we need a balance there but i i think our

[02:27]

spirit at Blue Cloud is very much like your spirit here. You center on retreats and work the soil. And we're a relatively small community as well. There's about 19 of us. I don't know if any of you have any questions about any of that. As we go along you might. But a monastery is a monastery. I'd like to start out with a little story. There's a story you told of Saint Peter at the pearly gates and he'd been watching the pearly gates for close to two thousand years and Jesus being socially conscious and realizing that his workers needed a few days off decided to give Peter a day off from guarding the gates or watching the pearly gates of heaven. So Jesus was there at the pearly gates and up this bright cloudy road to the gates of heaven came this old man bent over, long white beard, leaning on a cane.

[03:31]

And Jesus ran out to him and he said, do I know you? And the old man said, well, maybe you do, maybe you don't. And Jesus said, well, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? The old man said, well, yes, I can. I was a very famous carpenter. And not only that, I had an even more famous son. And one day the son left and never came back. And Jesus looked at the old man and said, And the old man looked at Jesus and said, Pinocchio? Anyway, I sometimes start off with that, sometimes I break the ice. Actually, as the monks know at the monastery, I'm very much, at least in my talks, into show and tell. I obviously won't do this at every talk, but at least in this opening talk, I like to use some visual aids. This particular visual aid is post-toasties.

[04:33]

and i don't know if any of you remember years ago the advertising for post toasties uh... but it i thought it really captured my uh... imagination capture my attention uh... when when it said because there's so many uh... varieties of of cereals out there it's it's practically impossible you know to figure out which ones are you should eat or pick or whatever but post toasties i think are cornflakes came up with with this with this really interesting ditty for its advertising and it said Taste them again for the first time. It's like, you know, all of these other cereals, you can go through them all, but this is the old, original cereal, and it still has value in it. It's still as good as it ever was. It was one of the very first ones that came out. And all it said was, taste it again for the first time.

[05:34]

And so I thought, well, that's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea to talk about. So I talk about the Holy Rule and I say, taste it again for the first time. And I think it's important that we do that for our retreats or for our lives because, you know, a lot of us have been around for quite a few years in the monastic way of life and sometimes we need to taste it again for the first time. We need to go back to that original fervor and ask ourselves, why did I come to the monastery in the first place? You know, what drew me? Certainly there was a love relationship there between your own spirit, your own life, and the Benedictine way of life. And we do that, I know marriage counselors do that with marriages, when the marriages are on the rocks, not that your vocation is on the rock, but sometimes when they just start getting dull and dreary, marriage counselors will tell the couple, why don't you go back to your original

[06:43]

engagement, when you first fell in love, you know, what drew the two of you together? And I think we need to ask ourselves that same question as monks with our monastic way of life. What drew me to the Benedictine way of life? What was that that really attracted me and that keeps me here and where I continue to persevere? And so all the more reason why I think we need oftentimes in our daily life as monks to recapture that first fervor to recapture that first taste of post-hostess, the first taste of the rule, that original flavor that we tasted in entering the monastic life. And really what that means is, and I think it's drawing us back to the simplicity of the Gospels, really, because the rule is based on the Gospels.

[07:45]

There's no question about that. And the simplicity of the Gospels is reflected in the rule, because the rule is a very simple rule in a good sense of that term. And like I mentioned to you about the various, the varieties of cereals, if you've ever been into a grocery store, I'm sure some of you have, go shopping, but I mean there's aisles and aisles of cereals. There's aisles and aisles of different kinds of of coca-cola or pop or whatever. I don't know what you call it out east here, soda pop or soft drinks. We call it soft drinks. But what do you start? What do you pick up? I remember Bishop Hoke in He was the bishop, two bishops before, well we don't have a bishop right now, three bishops before, the one we don't have now. But at any rate, he came one time to the monastery for breakfast and they brought him all these cereals, speaking.

[08:50]

This thing's turning into kind of a cereal talk here. They brought out those little packages, you know, there's a dozen in a package of those little cereals, different varieties, and he sat in there and he says, he says, gee whiz, I can't even sit down to breakfast without having to make a decision. There's a lot of truth in that. I'm sure you have noticed also too, in the various electronic equipment that we've got, it's gone from basic simplicity to complexity. And it just boggles my mind. If I go home sometimes and visit with my brothers, and their TV sets or whatever they got. But you got two or three remotes with a hundred buttons on each one. And you need one remote for this and one remote for that. And I remember one time going to a rectory and I got up in the morning to fix myself some coffee so I went to the microwave and I put the cup of coffee water in and punched the button it said hi holy cow they got a talking microwave here I said they're really getting sophisticated so I said hi back I was just stupid you know hi to you too so I'm talking to a microwave at early in the morning and then I happen to punch another button it said low

[10:15]

So it was really high, low. So it wasn't talking after all, I guess it was, but at any rate. But I think in order sometimes to recapture that original, the freshness, try to approach the world with fresh eyes and a fresh mind and fresh heart, I think it's important that we look to the oblates, the lay oblates, who join our monasteries. I'm sure you have some Oblates here. We have them at Blue Cloud. But I've always been very impressed with the Oblates. They tend to be older people, a little bit past middle age maybe, and some of them are not Catholic, but they feel drawn to the Benedictine life because it's kind of pre-Reformation Christian living, the monastic way of life. And so they're not caught up in all those divisions that came in the Middle Ages with the other churches.

[11:18]

So it draws a lot of people from other denominations as well. And they really help us to, I think, to revisit the rule for ourselves and to see what richness we have as Benedictines. And oftentimes we take it for granted, I think. But I hear the comment from some of the Oblates, you don't know what a gift your monastery is to me. I'm sure you've heard that from people that have come here. Or, it's so peaceful and prayerful here. And I say, yeah, hang around a while. But basically it is. I mean, you have to admit that, that we do create a peaceful and prayerful environment for the people that come here. You know, certainly there are struggles that go on within the community, but that's normal. And one of them said, which really struck me, he said, it's a comfort to me knowing that all the monks are praying at around seven o'clock in the morning when I'm driving to work and I can join them in spirit.

[12:22]

And I thought, golly, I didn't even think of that, that they see that. I mean, here we're praying four times a day. They know that. And so wherever they are, they can join us in spirit, whatever they're doing, if they're driving to work or if they're at work or whatever. There's one particular oblate that many of you are familiar with, I'm sure. A very famous woman oblate, a Presbyterian, by the name of Kathleen Norris. she was very much actually she came to the benedictine life out in the dakotas so uh... i guess we we can always be feel a little proud of that but uh... she is very much connected to the assumption abby north dakota but she also was connected to us in [...] uh... in in another way too she passed through on her way to saint john's or come and visit and she and our brother bennett are good friends because they're both uh... writers and they both published books but

[13:25]

What she said was interesting. She said about the Rule of Benedict, few books have so strongly influenced Western history as the Rule of Saint Benedict. And I'm sure from reading her books, you know that she's an extremely intelligent and perceptive woman. And so when she says things like that, I think we need to sit up and listen. Because she is well read and very knowledgeable. She says, it is a brief, practical and thoughtful work on how human beings can best live in community. The true power of the book, as with the gospels it is based on, lies in its power to change lives. And she says about herself, it has changed my life so profoundly, I hardly know where to begin. That's a powerful statement. It has changed my life so profoundly, I hardly know where to begin.

[14:32]

So people like Kathleen Norris wake us up from our monastic slumber, if we happen to be in one, or from our monastic ennui. Because we can, we can slowly slip into a monastic rut without knowing it, just by living day after day. We can take our Benedictine life for granted, we can take our prayer life for granted, we can take our community for granted, and worst of all, we can take God for granted if we don't watch it. You know, I sometimes image ourselves like this, the Energizer bunny, you know, we just In the novitiate we put in our little Benedictine battery and we just keep bounding away, just keep going through life, just praying and working and praying and working. And all of a sudden we find out that we're not conscious anymore of what's going on about us, or not as conscious as we should be. So we go on and on and on without much thought and reflection.

[15:40]

So, you know, Benedict talks about perseverance, of course, and perseverance is good, but when you think about it, perseverance without reflection and conversion is deadening. Because then you're just digging yourself a rut, a religious rut, and we become religious robots. It's like spiritual suicide sometimes, like those lemmings, those thousands of lemmings that run into the ocean, heading to the sea and drowning. There was a far side cartoon about of those lemmings running to the ocean. I don't know if you've seen that one or not. But you saw all these little heads of these lemmings heading that way, and they're very serious, and they're all looking in one direction. And all of a sudden, in the middle of all these hundreds of lemmings out there, there's this one lemming that's got his head up and is looking right at you, and he's got a nice smile on his face, or kind of a smirk, smirky smile, and he's just looking right at you. And you look a little closer, and he's got an inner tube around his waist.

[16:43]

So he's going to survive, he's not going to drown. In some way, that's the way it should be with us. We need to put an inner tube around our waist, know that we're going to keep floating above things. But conversion of life is really, for me, I think it's probably one of the most important vows that we take as Benedictines. Because each day when we get up, in a sense, we have to renew that vow for sure. Because each day should bring before us something that we should probably have to change in the way I think, or the way I talk, or the way I act. something little, sometimes it could be big, but that conversion is important, the change in our life. There's a story told about Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, our retreat director told it to us, and we just finished our retreat a couple of weeks ago, so I was taking notes so I could plagiarize a little bit.

[17:46]

But this lady, this mother brought her seven-year-old boy to Mahatma Gandhi, And she said, Babu, Babu, tell my little boy not to eat sugar, that it's bad for him. And Mahatma Gandhi just looked at the little boy and then looked at the mother and said, come back in one week. So the mother was really disappointed. So she took the boy and left and came back in one week. And so she brought the boy to Mahatma Gandhi. And Mahatma Gandhi took the little boy aside and looked intently in the eyes and he says, now, you know, you should not eat sugar. It's bad for you. And the mother says to Mahatma Gandhi, Babu, why didn't you tell him that a week ago? And he said, because a week ago I was still eating sugar.

[18:52]

So for Kathleen Norris, the rule really spoke to her. The first contact she had with that was with a group of Benedictine nuns in a parish in North Dakota. She was going from school to school teaching a class on creative writing or poetry or something like that. So she stayed at the convent there, but she was petrified about this. do something wrong or say something. She said she had this nagging fear she would say or do something wrong. And so one sister said, well, would you like to read our rule? Then you'll know if you've done something wrong. So she just handed her to the rule. And she said, I'm always a sucker for a good book. And that did it when she read that book. She talked about the prologue and how it's so appealing in its familial tone.

[20:04]

You know, listen, my son, to the precepts of your master. She said, he is refreshingly realistic in his understanding and acceptance of people as they are. as he says in the prologue, the souls of all concern may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and safeguard love. And he doesn't say a whole bunch of strictness or a huge amount of strictness, but a little strictness in order to amend faults and safeguard love. There's a lot of meaning in both of that. In one way it's a negative thing to amend false, but really the whole positive element there is to safeguard law. And she says, the language of the rule surprises people. It's not the kind of ether that often wafts through spiritual books. And I think what she was referring to is, you know, a lot of times we can pick up spiritual books that just kind of float around.

[21:05]

I mean, you can't get a handle on them or they really don't say much. But she says Benedict writes simply and concretely. The practicalities are always a spiritual concern for him. She says many communal ventures have failed over the question of who takes out the garbage. There's some truth in that. And then she talks about common property and common meals. that everything is owned in common, and common meals are a good thing, and in many ways it should be, but sometimes it's not. It's punishment to eat alone, but in our society we tend to sometimes, maybe it's a punishment to eat with others. But she said, I've been amused to find that Benedict devotes roughly the same amount of time to discussing meals in common as Augustine in his rule for monasteries devotes to the reasons why men and women shouldn't look at each other.

[22:14]

And then she goes into the rule as being counter-cultural. especially at the end uh... that you know the nine-to-five workday that people are locked into well actually they're probably locked into more of a seven to ten at night workday or something like that. People put in long hours, but I think that's part of what we can be counterculture, I mean, how we can be counterculture to that kind of workaday world, that workaholism that is very prevalent in our world today. Where our life is is based on nature, really, when you think about it. We pray morning prayer when the sun comes up, and we pray evening prayer when the sun goes down. We pray vigils when it's dark, when it's night, in the night hours.

[23:15]

So we're very much rooted, our life and our prayer life, is very much rooted in nature. The liturgical life wakes up the morning sun with psalms of praise and sings the world to sleep in the evening vespers, as she put it. And St. Anthony of the Desert, he's often pictured with holding a book And for him, people would think that was the scriptures, but really for him it was the book of nature that he read. Not that he wasn't versed well in scriptures as well, but the book of nature. He says, my book is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God. So both nature and the words of God are important. And then she goes on to talking about sex, poverty and being counter-cultural. Monastic celibacy in its true context as part of the vow of poverty.

[24:20]

Sexual consumerism is rampant in America. There's no question about that. You turn on any TV sitcom, or trying to find a decent movie, or the lyrics in music, or the magazines, or the pictures. I mean, we're sexually saturated in America, there's no question about that. And she says, monastic people reject sexual consumerism among other forms of consumerism. They reject the culture view of sex as power. As Saint Benedict says in, I think it's chapter four, in the Instruments of Good Works, no one is to follow his own heart's desires. Monks should have a healthy respect for the power of sexuality." And then she goes on to talk about, she's drawing this out of the rule, death as being counter-cultural, death and being counter-cultural, as St. Benedict always said, he says in the rule, keep death daily before your eyes. And it's interesting because just this past week,

[25:22]

We had two young men, one was a young priest and a friend of his who lives close by in the little town of Milbank. They came up and made a retreat and they called it a casket retreat. They made caskets, their own caskets. And I was supposed to be the one to help them because I work in the carpenter shop and luckily we have an associate there who's even better. work that than I am, which is thank God. But I kind of turned them over to him. But they spent the whole week building caskets for that very reason, I think, so they could be reminded of their own mortality, which is a good thing for all of us. And she quoted Dr. Johnson, Samuel Johnson, who says, the prospect of being hanged wonderfully concentrates the mind. And it's true. But today's philosophy really is sort of like a glorification of the body, especially people that are in extreme exercise regimes.

[26:29]

The right diet and the right exercise and you'll gain immortality. And she says it's like heading for that great tofu in the sky. Have you ever had tofu? You can't taste it. But there again, it's a balance. So I think for monks too, a balance between overdoing that or underdoing it. I think we had a monk on the other side who was underdoing it. He pretty much always had his nose in a book, but he could be extremely funny too. And he would throw workshops for just about anything at a drop of a hat. But this particular monk who just hated exercise at all costs, physical exercise, he started Exercise Anonymous. And he says, so, he says, this is how it works. It was kind of funny. He says, you know, whenever you get an urge to exercise, you call up your sponsor, and he invites you over for a cigar and a good shot of scotch.

[27:37]

So much for his exercise regime. And then work. as a counter-cultural thing, we are not defined by what we do, even though the world does define people by what they do. And how often we say that, you know, when you're talking to people, what do you do? You know, as if this is really the important thing, instead of, well, of course you don't want to say, well, you know, what's your spiritual life like? You don't want to go into that too quick, I guess. But Benedict was well aware of our tendency to take pride in our talents. Artists are not to get puffed up by their skillfulness. But not just artists, but anyone who thinks he and his particular work or job is indispensable. I remember one time I was talking to my spiritual director, and I must have been working along that line, that my work was indispensable.

[28:45]

And he says, whenever you feel like you're indispensable, just go down to the cemetery and look at all those indispensable people that are down there. So I thought that was pretty wise. Okay, okay, I get the point. I get it. Then she talks about the words that breathe, particularly the psalms. She says just by reciting the psalms out loud, for her even, when she prays alone, she would pray the psalms out loud. My life changes for the better when I follow Benedict's advice and read the Psalms aloud daily, chewing the words, which is, of course, Lectio. She says, so often times religious language gets misused, like, Jesus is my best friend, coffee mugs or toothbrushes with cute little quotes on them, something like that.

[29:46]

So she says, the words of the Psalms breathe in and out over and over. Are words literally brought to life? Well, I think we should know that. We're praying the living word of God. And that's another place where we can all get into a rut, can't we, when it comes to prayer? You open up our psalm books or open up our office books and within the first verse of the first song, our mind is out in the carpenter shop or in the kitchen. trying to fix something or work out something. It doesn't take long for our minds to go, does it? So it's important that we try to be present where we are. If we're praying, we need to be at prayer. If we're eating, we need to be eating and so forth. Sure, a long introduction to what I want to talk about. But the rest of the retreat is going to be based on what I call, and that's why, if we can get that board tomorrow, I like to draw things too.

[31:01]

Well, kind of. I'm not exactly the top rate artist in the world, but you'll get the idea maybe. The Five Steps to a Vibrant Benedictine Spirituality. I came by this years ago in the early 90s when I was prior down in Guatemala and I had to give a talk at one of the retreats and my Spanish was not all that great. I was still stumbling through it because I can remember or the most embarrassing one was, well, I was appointed prior. I had three months of Spanish, basically. And then I had to go become prior at the mosque. So my Spanish was not very good. And I remember talking to a table and stumbling along in my Spanish, and all the monks were sitting there, and they asked me how long I'd been ordained. And I tried to, I thought I told them I'd been ordained 25 years. And they all looked at each other and they all started laughing. And then one of them put his legs up on the chair.

[32:04]

And I said, well, what did I say? And one of them tried to explain to me that, who knew English. He said, you just told us you'd been urinating for 25 years. Gosh, that's all I needed to say. I felt like I'm not going to speak Spanish anymore. I'll keep you humble for sure. But anyway, at this retreat I developed what I consider five essential steps to take to reach a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. And so there are going to be steps. Step one is number one. It's the most important. It's foundational. Step two builds on number one and step three and so forth. But we need them all. If you pull out one of those steps, I personally don't think you're going to have a well-rounded Benedictine spirituality. So I'm going to take those five steps with you, starting with number one and building up on that.

[33:05]

Because a lot of times what happens in our Benedictine life, we might have step three, but we might have missed step two or step one, or we don't think much about it. So I hope to focus on each one of those steps and then let you decide maybe which ones in your own Benedictine life you need to concentrate on or to work on or to reflect on a little bit more. But what might be a good exercise between now and tomorrow afternoon's talk is just for each one of you to sit down and ask yourself, In the order of priorities even, what's the most important step first for me? If I want to arrive at a vibrant Benedictine spirituality, what's the first step I need to take? And then what's the second? And what's the third? And so forth. And you might come up with a different different steps and this is okay too.

[34:06]

If it works for you, fine. Because that's the important thing. If these steps will bring you to a vital and living Benedictine spirituality, then good. hopefully I won't trip you up on the way up the steps or you won't get tripped up on the way. So just during this retreat, if you can, just again reflect on the beauty of the Rule of Benedict and that it really is a treasure that we have. It's the most translated book outside of the Bible in the Western civilization, which is interesting. It says a lot about its popularity. But also, all you need to do is go to religious bookstores, particularly religious bookstores, to find out all the books that are being written on the rule of Benedict by lay people, a lot of them who are oblates. But a lot of them are just reflecting on that rule and seeing the value of it for whatever role they're in in their life.

[35:11]

So taste it again for the first time. So we have the next one at five, five o'clock tomorrow in the afternoon. Oh, we could do it in the morning if you wanted to. You could. I don't know if I could. It makes it a little more relaxed. And it also gives it tenacity. Have a nice night. See you in the morning. We're with you animated our Holy Father Saint Benedict that filled with that same spirit We may truly love what he loved and practice what he taught through Christ our Lord Well what I'd like to do in this conference is second conference.

[36:20]

It's just a Brief overview of the five steps that lead towards a vibrant Benedictine spirituality But first a little story This took place in San Francisco during the days of the hippies, probably back in the 60s. Two hippies were walking down the street in San Francisco, and they saw this nun coming towards them, and she had her arm in a sling. And so they, being friendly as they were, they stopped her and said, well, sister, what happened? She said, well, I had a bad accident last night. I was taking a bath. I slipped in the bathtub and broke my arm. And they said, oh, that's too bad. We're sorry to hear about that. And they commiserated with her. And then they walked on, and then one hippie turned to the other and said, Hey man, what's a bathtub? And the other one said, I don't know, I'm not Catholic. This is a true story.

[37:28]

It took place in St. Meinrad. One of the German brothers, after Kaplan, when it was already dark, but had the customer going back to the Blessed Virgin shrine statue there and our Lady of Einstedown and saying some prayers and he'd go back there and he closed his eyes and was praying to the Blessed Virgin and while he was back there they turned out all the lights in the church and then he opened his eyes he couldn't see a thing he says Mein Gott, mein Gott, ich bin blind my God, my God, I'm blind and he thought he'd gone blind because he couldn't see a thing Sometimes that's where we're at, I think, with our monastic values. Sometimes we have blind spots or we can get a little blindness in our eyes in trying to discern what are the basic benedictine values that we really need to keep in focus. And what I usually like to do, I think a retreat is sort of like a pair of binoculars, which I borrowed from down there in your room, down below.

[38:36]

Father Martin helped me. But a retreat is sort of like a spiritual pair of binoculars. What we need to do, of course you know what binoculars do anyway, if you're looking for birds, or monks, or whatever. They tend to bring things up close, they focus. Especially if you're a bird watcher, you're going to look for a certain kind of bird or if you're out hunting, you're going to look maybe for deer or whatever. Binoculars are very handy for that reason because they really can bring in to sharper focus these distant objects that we're trying to look at. And I think sometimes our monastic life, again, our retreat can be like a pair of binoculars where what we need to do is some of those values that have gotten a little distant or out of focus or maybe sort of turned around when we look through the opposite end of the binoculars which put the values way out there, a retreat can or should help us bring into focus, into our own personal lives, those particular monastic values that we just simply can't let go of, that we have to hold on to.

[39:44]

As some people would say, these are non-negotiables. And in a sense, for me at least, these five steps, and I'd like for you afterwards to share your own. if you have five, or three, or two, or whatever. But I'd like for you, if we can talk a little bit after the conference, or after my conference, on what are your particular values, monastic values, that will lead to a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. And this has a lot to do with vision. uh... in the early days of blue cloud uh... not nice maybe not so much in the early days but uh... over a rather extended period of time there tended to be a little bit of murmuring or grumbling uh... about the uh... abbott this abbott or that abbott uh... i happen to be the fourth abbott so they're probably still grumbling a little bit about that uh... but uh... that the abbott didn't have any

[40:45]

any vision. I mean, it wasn't articulated. Well, oftentimes I think monks sometimes can mix up vision and goals. A goal in a monastery is one thing and a vision is something entirely different. A goal is very tangible. You can have immediate goals, you can have remote goals. Like here, for instance, you can have a goal of developing a bigger herd of sheep, but I don't think Brother Pierre would care about that too much. But you can have a goal like that or developing a more vibrant retreat center here or whatever. Those are goals and they're very tangible. You can get your hands around them. And sometimes they can be realized, sometimes they can't be realized. But a vision is something entirely different. A vision is really an intangible spiritual element that animates the very soul of the community. And in that sense, I think an abbot should try to, or a superior, should try to articulate for his monks

[41:54]

the vision, a vision for this particular community. What will really animate and give life to the very spirit or the very soul of the community itself. And basically, besides these five steps, which I think would really summarize my vision, not only for myself personally, but for the community, my vision for Blue Cloud and probably, I guess it could be maybe for any monastic community, would be to make Blue Cloud like a spiritual magnet. I envision it as a spiritual magnet that draws people to deep spiritual values, things that they're really searching for and longing for in their own life that will feed those deepest hungers in all of us. The blue cloud would become that kind of spiritual magnet for a given area where people would come and be refreshed and renewed and to be able to go back to their own work or their own life in the world.

[43:15]

So, the five steps towards a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. vibrant, addicting spirituality. How do we reach that? Well, like I said, there's five steps. Number one, And these steps, they build on each other. Like probably oftentimes in our own monastic journey, those steps are not necessarily in order. We might have accented one over the other early on in our life. But these steps, steps one, two, three, four, and five,

[44:24]

Ideally, they're to build on each other. One is foundational. If you don't have number one, you're going to get tripped up on the other steps. You just will. And everything will just be out. And if two doesn't flow out of one, In other words, if you have one and then you jump to four, it's not going to work right. It just isn't. At least I don't think it will. So number one is what I call from the book entitled I, Thou from Martin Buber, an I, Thou relationship with Jesus, with the Lord. An intimacy with the Lord. In fact, he uses that phrase to signify that intimacy, that warm intimacy with Jesus. An I-Thou relationship with God.

[45:32]

And the prayer forms that help support that intimacy with Jesus, at least in our monastic life, the prayer forms that help support that are meditation, Lectio, basically those two things are contemplation, meditation and Lectio. And this is extremely important. Extremely important because when you look at the life of Jesus He had a lot of relationships and so do we But if you look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, the most powerful relationship he had that dominated all the others, and it was like the magma, the core of the earth, which is that hot burning center in the earth they call a magma. For him, that was his relationship with the Father. And John does that better than all the other evangelists as far as describing and accenting Jesus' intimacy with the Father.

[46:45]

And it's over and over again, and I've come to do the Father's will. And so with us, that relationship with Jesus has to be primary. And it's interesting. Actually, as we all know, the two most important books in our life, we can get a plethora of spiritual books, but if we don't have the scriptures and the rule as the foundational for our reading, then we're chasing the wind. But in the rule itself, the prologue in chapter 73, that Benedict talks about the singular person, you know, whoever you are, who, you know, listen my son. He doesn't say listen my sons, he says listen my son to the precepts of your master.

[47:48]

And so he talks It's this relationship between God and the individual person in the prologue as well as in the very last chapter of the rule as well, chapter 73. Again, he uses the second person singular, you. It's not the plural, you. But it's a singular you in the Latin. So, both in the prologue and in the last chapter of the rule, you have this, in a sense, you have this I-Thou relationship. So that should tell us something, even in the mind of St. Benedict, how important that is in our monastic life, that intimacy with the Lord. Okay, as a person is drawn, first of all, to Jesus and that intimacy with Jesus, in order to keep that alive and to support that, what do we do?

[48:53]

Actually, what this amounts to is that from chapter 58 where Benedict talks about, do you truly seek God? Basically that's what it's about too, the God-seeker. Hopefully all of us here in any monastic life are God-seekers. And we have to do that, in a sense, individually. We, as an individual, have to take that step into that intimacy with Jesus. But we know we can't do it alone. At least I know I can't. We know we need support. And oftentimes I talk about the community being a sin anonymous group. We talk each other out of sin so we can be more virtuous. But we have to keep encouraging each other to transcend our own selfishness and sinfulness so that we can become saints. So we need a support group. And the next step up then is that, okay, let's get together then.

[49:54]

We get together in community. We form a community of God-seekers. We form a community of I-dowers, if you want to put it that way. We're called to follow Christ personally, but we do that in a group. We need the support of others. We can't do it alone. No man is an island. We're not called to the married life. We're not called to the single life. We're not called to be hermits. We're called to be Cenobites. And that's why chapter one is a rule written for Cenobites. And even the word itself means koinos bios, common life for all of us. We're called to common life. And as we all know, living in community can be a crucifixion and a resurrection. Hopefully it'll always lead us towards the resurrection, but at times it can be very much of a cross, living with others, and they have to live with us.

[51:04]

We always think that, you know, it's a cross for me. Well, we need to think it's a cross for others to live with me as well. So, that's the second step up then, a community of God-seekers, a community of people who are I-thowers. Then the third step, which builds on the second step, is if you're going to have a community of God-seekers, the primary activity for that group simply has to be prayer. There's no other way. In order to sustain our own intimacy with Christ, in order to sustain the community of God-seekers, we have to gather together in prayer. That's indispensable means for a community of God-seekers. So the Daily Office and the Eucharist are extremely important.

[52:09]

Of course they are, as you know, in the Rule of Benedict, prefer nothing whatever to the work of God. But he only uses that phrase twice. Prefer nothing to the work of God, which is number one. But he also uses it, prefer nothing to the love of Christ, which is number one. She's interesting, that phrase. But really what that amounts to then when we gather in community for prayer is that we are celebrating the Benedictine sacrament. I know I'm making it a bigger definition than the seven sacraments. But for the Benedictine, it truly is a sacrament. It's an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace, which is an old definition for the sacrament. But for us, that's an outward sign. When we gather visibly as a community in prayer, We are making real our community, the deepest part of our community life, that relationship with God.

[53:16]

We're making it real, we're making it visible, and we're actually sustaining it that way. We keep it in existence that way. And people who come to the monastery, I don't know, I'm sure they'd say it here, too, when they come. But they'll, you know, we think when people come to the monastery for a retreat, they're, oh, we gotta give them a great conference, or we gotta, or if they want a private retreat, you know, we have to prepare them and get ready for certain passages from scripture, whatever, their journey. Really, the best thing we can give them is say, just come to prayer. Just come to prayer, pray with us. And people, they themselves say that. That was the most rewarding part of my stay at Blue Cloud, was to pray, to pray with all of you monks. And to know that you guys do that four times a day, every day. You gather for prayer.

[54:18]

And you've been doing that here in this place for 50 years. And that makes an impression on them. You can tell I'm getting older. I don't want to admit it, but I... And then the fourth step, after the step number three, is, of course, work. Then we get back to the Benedictine model of praying and work. But you notice that model doesn't come into play except after you get to step three and four. But like St. Paul says, if they don't work, don't let them eat. We have to work. It's part of our life here on this planet Earth. Right after the fall of Adam and Eve, after the first thing that came to Adam, the first It's more or less curse, but hopefully we don't look on work as a curse.

[55:20]

It can be a hard task for us at times, but we all need to work, and it's a very healthy component for our life, and a necessary component, because I tell people, I mean, people who even don't have a job, they still have to work. They have to find food. They've got to find shelter. They've got to find clothes. So even street people have to work, in a sense. And as we know from the model, work is the flip side of prayer. But it always has to take a back seat to prayer. It can never dominate our life. Prayer has to dominate. And there's really two extremes here. You know, people oftentimes say, oh, well, you hear, hopefully not Benedictines, but other people, oh, my prayer is my work. Or my work is my prayer. Well, if my prayer is my work, then we end up in quietism, or that type of heresy, where you do nothing but sit around and pray all day long.

[56:24]

But if my work is my prayer, then you end up being a workaholic, and then you lose direction in your whole life. So those two extremes need to be avoided. A quietism in our spiritual life, or a workaholism. And finally, The final step, and it's an important step, at least for us as Benedictines, is what I call Holy Leisure. Just time, time it's, and leisure is not useless. Michael Casey talks about how important leisure is. He often times uses it in the context of prayer, or Lectio, or reading. But here I'm using it more in the context of recreation, social life, gathering together. uh... as a community in our hospitality would be part of that too.

[57:30]

A good example of it was what we did this afternoon at the noon dinner. I would consider that leisure, holy leisure, or gathering or socializing with others or with our own community. And it should be first of all with our own community, but being sociable And enjoying a good time, too. Having a party occasionally. That would really be part, I think, part and parcel of our life as Benedictines. And the two extremes that need to be avoided here, just like in work, is the extreme of always socializing with others, always being with the guests, always wanting to recreate, or to be sitting with the guests, and that kind of thing. Or the other extreme would be to be a total recluse, of not wanting anything to do with the guests at all.

[58:35]

so that the retreat then this particular retreat uh... is going or i'm going to to address each one of those steps uh... in the conferences ahead and but i wanted to give you an overview of it so you have some idea uh... where we're going uh... and what i'll be talking about so the next conference will be on that very first step which i'll probably spend two two conferences on that uh... because i think it's so important that if we get tripped up on that first step, we're going to fall flat on our face for the rest of them. It's just not going to work. So that pretty well brings to a conclusion this particular conference. What I'd like to do now is, of course, open it up to all of you and maybe listen to some of your views on what you consider some essentials in your monastic life. I know our brother Bruno spent wakeless nights figuring out his five steps.

[59:42]

What were some of the ones you came up with? I mean, this is just because they're mine. Right. Well, let me just start out by saying, for those of you who didn't know, I didn't get to sleep until about 12 last night. I was a little upset and followed up as I thought, what did he say that is keeping me awake? And it wasn't until I was reading the first reading at Mass, the actual first reading, it came to me when I met him the third time Samuel was called. And then it just says at the end, you know, it doesn't say what Karl's doing, it just says in the end. And everything's sounding off from that onset. to not fall without effect, or something like that. What came across to me is, I think, it turned out it was God calling. Like, you know, how God was calling me last night to help out reading the rule for the first time.

[60:49]

Which was last night. Anyway, yeah. Well, I did four steps, thinking it was four steps. Then he told me it was a fifth. I said, you have a fifth one. I don't know, the fourth one. The first one is exactly like yours. I have Jesus, and I wrote parenthesis to gospel or scripture, and the trinity. I did not have, well, you can, you know, it would be the relationship with the Father, but for me, well, trinity is a mystery, so the only way I want to get penance is to meditate on it. and to listen to the word. That's what I had in the first one, and then I stopped next to that, humanity and creation, because it's God's. The second message I have in parentheses, it's in parentheses, Paul Martin, And the reason I have it in parentheses is the next thing I have after that in parentheses is the Father.

[61:56]

The Father is in quotation marks. And out of parentheses I have the Messiah. So my point is that He is number two, or that person is number two. And can I see in the other person, whoever is speaking to me, the Messiah? Can I listen? Do I just listen to... Well, Palomar being the father of the community, therefore represents for me Messiah. Messiah meaning the anointed one at this point in time in my life. Okay, this point in time as part of the community also. But I also wanted to make it, I was trying to say, what I'm trying to say is he can also be another brother. Which probably ends up community in a way. [...]

[62:57]

Which probably ends up community in a way. [...] Which probably ends up community in a way They are committed to two, but your first one is to the, what is it, the Latin office. My fourth one is the rule of Benedict. Sort of cheating on this one is we normally call the rule of Benedict, in Latin it's regula, but somewhere along the line I saw the word regula. I don't know whether And I believe, I always thought that meant rail, which, you know, like the side rails to a ladder. And I was seeing the rule as not law, but as God.

[63:59]

And I wrote after that, for nothing to belittle Christ and to anticipate my brothers. I was trying to quote, is it in the last chapter? The second last probably? Goodzeal? I think 72? And the fifth one, the one I left down, which You could see I wasn't going anywhere where you were going. I wrote me, and I wrote the inner self. Meaning, if I really was listening to the other three or four, hopefully, and also at the same time, they'll like what happened to me this morning. That's what's going on. God's trying to tell you, would you please pick up the rule and read it?

[65:02]

That's where I am. I'm glad you put some thought to it though. You really did, yeah. A lot of thought to the point of losing sleep. No, I didn't lose it. Well, had I done it back at 10 o'clock at night or 9 o'clock at night, I might have been a much more relaxed person. I couldn't figure out why at 20 after 12 I was tight as a tightrope. And it wasn't until I realized what God was saying to me, all of a sudden I felt like a whole ton of something went out of me. I says, oh, all right, okay. My Lord, you're telling me I've been wasting my time, or wasting your time, but anyway. Thank you. Well, any reflections or observations or some other additions or subtractions? In French, la règle in French is the yardstick.

[66:11]

and the positive self-remembering well, but at the same time you will receive the la-reng from the teacher. Give me the reng. In English you call it the hooler. Yeah, the hooler. Actually, the homily this morning, which I thought was very good, very many points to ponder, was that very first step in many ways. Well, like you said too, the very first reading with Samuel, are we listening? Of course, that's the very first word in the rule too, to listen.

[67:14]

I think it's one of the Probably one of the most important elements in our society today is quiet. There is so much noise out there. With all these electronic gadgets we've got, iPods and all that, whatever they do. record a lot of music, I guess, or whatever. But, you know, people, it's always puzzling to me when they go out, you know, out of these beautiful forests or walking lanes and they've got their ear, they're plugged into some music or something. Instead of just listening to the stereophonic sound of nature, I mean, it's all around you. Oh, the cell phone. I've written a lot about the cell phone. My message in the calendar was about cell phones. The only cell phone we really need is a cell phone of prayer where we can have that always available.

[68:22]

Actually, I think some people are... I think their cell phone is stuck to their ear. I think they've got super glue on it. They hardly ever take it away. They're always going around with his cell phone, wherever they are. I think a doctor could make a killing by having cell phone implants. Or you wouldn't have to worry about it and holding it you just be implanted in your side of your face someplace I'm always struck by What was the preface of this textbook, the one that visited the rabbi? Recognizing the Messiah in the other person. I want to share this one, because that's what's going through my mind.

[69:32]

Someone once said to me, I tended, as a child, still do it now, tended to look at how I felt about things. And I said to somebody once, I always felt abandoned when I had to go to boarding school on Sunday. I want to go to school in the Bronx. On Sunday, I have to take the Long Island train. My mother or my father would drive me to the train. I'm looking out the window, feeling abandoned. Someone once said to me, do you ever think about what your mother is feeling as she's looking at her son? It really struck me. what other people go through. Or what your parents go through, I guess is the way I should say that. And, you know, my father had to go an hour and a half to drive me to school, and sometimes it was bad weather or fog or whatever, snow, and an hour and a half back or two hours it would be, didn't hit traffic.

[70:36]

And, you know, when you think what other people did for you, it blows this up. I was somewhat making that my theme for the retreat somewhat. to realize what God does, what He's done with one, two other people. So I don't know. Well, what I wrote was so unreal, of course, I forgot it, but recently I was listening to a tape of Raymond Brown, she gets out of three of the epistles, what the early church had and needed, and the first thing it did was be stability, that's what the approach came up with. For example, the requirements for a bishop would be that he would only be married once, and that if his wife died, or he was a bishop, he was eligible.

[71:49]

He was a stable, reliable person. He was a reliable person, and so he was someone who would keep the into the guidelines, and so forth, and we need that in ourselves, and that stability. That's the first thing that somebody promised me, and again, it's come almost, I don't know, a city-state observer, and stability. But then there's also, and these were three, it just looks like I've got to go back a bit to the thing, get them because they were well gone out. But anyway, the second thing is you have to have people who can change. You have to have people who can change. Circumstances can carry a vision. A vision if you walk over, making modifications, you've still got the visual vision, but you've to be able to drop off, say, to a period now or new circumstances, and this whole thing like that, so that we had the same thing, but it would be under certain aspects of your life and all, would be different in order that you'd keep the vision.

[73:05]

And the third thing would be a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And we have that vision, and we all have, we have that more, we have those capacities that are more or less, and within that community, you have some people who are more, you know, stable in a good sense, not religion, but we can keep close with certain stability, and certainly be able to see where there is some need for people to change, in order that you can survive, you know, sometimes in our day, people survive, with the way things change so rapidly, but to change it without changing the whole place, a new thing, keeping that original visual. And then for all of us, I mean, the reason we're here, basically was which relationship with Christ had touched us in some way, and we should read. I often ask myself, what does my relationship with Christ, and having talked to people who were

[74:09]

say engaged or different, say they're even married people and you talk to one and then the other person comes in and you talk to them and it's regarding two different people on two different planets at two different times in history. and it couldn't be farther apart. One thing that can bring a relationship together is a really good suicide. I'm never going to say Jesus is my friend or I'm a friend of Jesus or something like that. It's always a meeting of the mischief attached to And I calmed down because he's my friend. I can't get over him. He said, you know, my partner's friends. But a real deep friendship we shouldn't so expect and want. And I think, you know, that's what I would hope it would be.

[75:12]

But with that kind of a relation, you're not a servant, you're not all these other kind of things, and you are away from me. A deeper knowledge of him and what he wants and expects and then it's really love and affection for us, that's the other thing. You think of helping people in difficulties and meeting people. cause a lot of trouble, and that doesn't suit your love story or concern. And you're going to divide that, what does Christ do? You're going to give her your children, which hasn't given up, you're still locking yourself out. What on earth can I do for this character? You know, if it helps, let me get someone else. So he never gives up on this side. Of course, his mouth follows it as hell, not that he is hell, because he can't return, but those three things, a certain degree of stability, a capacity for change that carries over the original vision, and the whole thing based beyond the vision.

[76:25]

Those are things that you're trying to get right. And it takes a time bomb, right? I don't know, but once again, Sebastian Moore coming up with some insight. He came here all summer time to teach at the Marquette. And he'd have some vision. He said, why did it take so long? And I said, we're having sex about it. Thank God you got it now. You know, it was a different time. But I mean, the truth is, it's great. Yeah, I liken that very first thing very much to friendship and intimacy with Jesus, which is what he says in John in the Last Supper. I no longer call you servants, but friends. And one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament, in fact, one of my favorite personages in the Old Testament is Moses. Because in Exodus, Jesus says, don't you know you're my intimate friend?

[77:27]

He actually uses that phrase. I think it's in chapter 32, 33 of Exodus. You know, you are my intimate friend. And I guess maybe that's probably the reason why I appreciated Moses as a personality, because he was the meekest of all men, and yet, and then God, Yahweh rather, calls him, you are my intimate friend. And then he says, well, if I'm your intimate friend, then why are you treating me this way? Why did you give me this people? First of all, God says, you know, your people have gone astray. And then Moses turns around and says, no, it's your people. It's a kind of a play on words there, but God gives Moses the responsibility of taking care of your people, Moses. And Moses says, no, they're your people. But that intimacy between Moses and God, it just really hit me.

[78:29]

It's chapter 32 or 33 of Exodus. In fact, I marched it because I thought, gee, I just got to keep reminding myself of that. But it really is that friendship, I think. And then you get back to, of course, when you talk about friendship, what do you need to sustain a really deep friendship? Well, time. You've got to spend time with your friend. You're getting into this whole time of meditation and Lectio. That's all time with your friend. And if that friendship is the most important thing in your life, the most important relationship in your life, especially the friendship with Jesus, then there are certain elements. The very first thing you do when you get up, you've got to So you got to be open to that friendship. You got to present yourself in a sense before the Lord. Or at least say hi to your most intimate friend the very first thing you get up, the last thing you do when you go to bed.

[79:35]

Moses said to the Lord, this is 33, chapter 30, Moses said to the Lord, You indeed are telling me to lead this people on, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, you are my intimate friend. And also, you have found favor with me. Now if I have found favor with you, do let me know your ways, so that in knowing you, I may continue to find favor with you. Then too, this nation is, after all, your own people. I myself, the Lord answered, will go along to give you rest. Moses replied, If you are not going yourself, do not make us go up from here. For how can it be known that we, your people, and I have found favor with you except by your going with us? Then we, your people, and I will be singled out from every other people on the earth. The Lord said to Moses, this request too, which you have just made, I will carry out, because you have found favor with me, and you are my intimate friend.

[80:42]

So just within that short space, he uses that phrase several times. Wow, that's neat. So I want to be like, imitate Moses. When I met Jerome, Cornel was here. He gave her some of the things that were very helpful to me. He said, Jacob, I said, I've got a little character. And he said, well, God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the chosen. And that's okay. You can start with zero or below, and let it work on your life. Something happens anyway. Mm-hmm. That's right. Well, I guess we can get ready for Vespers at six then, is it?

[81:49]

At six, yeah. And tomorrow morning's conference is at? 8.30. Okay. 8.30. Yep. We do it with Vespers. We do it on Thursday. We have a, our Thursday schedules we change. The Thursday schedule is that I always have the mass on Thursday as the abbot and it's a special community mass. And then afterwards we have kind of like an agape. We sit around and have wine and cheese or visit with each other and then we don't have vigils that night. Hopefully they'll do their own vigils. Because we ordinarily have vigils in the evening after supper at 7.30. We have Black Seal at 6.30, 7.30, then vigils. But on that particular night, Thursday, we change the schedule around and kind of have an evening of visiting with one another and relaxing, having recreation in that evening.

[82:59]

It's kind of nice. Works good for us. It's a nice break from the regular routine. Thank you.

[83:11]

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