We looked last night at a variety of ways in which the Lord invites us into what we might term a reintegration, a reuniting of ourselves ultimately with God, but also at the levels of a reuniting, a bringing back together into what you might call a primordial relationship of our own inner selves. When we speak of the Fall, that means that we presume an original state of integrity for the whole of humanity, and specifically for us as individuals, a sense that the God from whom we have fallen We are also made for that God, for union with that God. There is still within us that longing for and that desiring of relationship with Him. And insofar as we discover what we were truly meant to be, we're also moving towards God. But that has a broader social dimension.

[01:03]

It also exists in our relationships with one another. The chief place where we find God in creation is in our relationships with one another. We also have to be willing to let go of our own images, our own ideas and thoughts, finally to stand in the presence of the God who made us. A traditional threefold sense of reuniting, a way of transformation at the deepest level of our personality, a way of pregation and of asceticism, a way of beholding God and the created order, of perceiving the light, the illumination of God, present in all that he's made, and a true reunion with the Lord along the lines of the answer to the deepest desire of our hearts. This is what we're called to. This is, at some level, what we're doing every day in our monastic practice. But in a concrete way, whenever human beings have something important to share with each other, they often put it in the form of a story.

[02:06]

That's certainly the way God chose during the Incarnation. He told lots of stories in order to tell people about the Father, and about themselves, and about what they were supposed to be in relationship with one another. And in so doing, God the Word was adapting himself to the way human beings have been since the beginning. We tell stories about the great truths we've discovered. We create stories that are supposed to anticipate what we're trying to become. And that's very true of us as monks as well. The description of what it is that we are supposed to be as men in a process of being transformed and reunited to God very often have been passed on to us in the form of stories. We're most familiar, perhaps, with the Apophagmata. the brief pithy sayings of the desert fathers and mothers, and also of their lives, if you will, their stories. But a great source of information for us and a great opportunity for

[03:14]

the beholding of God in creation, and that part of creation, which is another person, is given to us as Benedictines in the story of Saint Benedict's life. The dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great are a truly wonderful thing, and I think it's rather exciting. They have always, almost perennially, been a source of controversy among Christians. Let me pass out right now. just the first part, and this is all the same text, so if you get two of them at the end, you can just set the extras aside, the first part of the great diptych, the great double story about Saint Benedict that comes toward the end of the section of the Dialogues that is concerned with Benedict's life. Let me just say a little word about both the controversy surrounding the Dialogues, which is ongoing, and my own particular approach or slant on the stories we're going to look at this morning.

[04:17]

The thing that has always struck cultured Christians about the dialogues is that to put it in modern parlance. Gregory the Great, in writing his biography, not only of Benedict, but of all the saints who are described in the dialogues, his purpose, as he explains it, is to give hope to a world that seems to be falling to pieces. The late Roman world is clearly disintegrating The power has shifted. The center of authority is no longer Rome. Rome is not an important city anymore, unfortunately. From the standpoint of international politics, the imperial capital has shifted to Constantinople. The primary language of the empire is no longer Latin. It is Greek. And Latin Christians are moderately reviled for their inability to understand the sophisticated theological controversies that are raging in the rest of the Christian world. It's a constant source of perplexity to the Eastern Fathers that the Latin Fathers are always kind of tilting their heads and looking quizzically.

[05:23]

when questions are asked, detailed questions about the nature of Christ, using words that don't actually have precise Latin equivalents. So to live in the Latin-speaking West was to be depressed, in the most significant sense of the word. Economically depressed, psychologically depressed, and acquiring a strong sense of inferiority, to know that the real center of power had more or less abandoned you, was much more interested in maintaining its eastern borders than it was in worrying about the west. Oh, there was a... There was a sort of a semblance of imperial authority up in Ravenna, but it hadn't really been anything for the longest time. And effectively, the West was not only on its own, but had been left to the depredations of enemies of the empire. We often think of the barbarians invading from somewhere outside and having no respect for Christian culture or Christian tradition.

[06:24]

That's an unfortunate caricature. The truth is far more sinister. The barbarians who invaded, who were given the right to invade by Constantinople, who were told they were perfectly welcome to take over the West, especially Italy and Gaul, were in fact Christians. They were Aryan Christians. They'd been converted by Ophilus. They were not proper Orthodox Christians, and therefore the imperial policymakers in Constantinople could regard them as second-class citizens. But in order to get them away from the borders of the Eastern Empire, these Germanic tribes, who had the wrong sort of Christianity, were sent off and given full imperial authority to become the overlords of the Western world. And Gregory writes at a time when, to a certain extent, their yoke has been thrown off, but the memory of having been betrayed, of having been invaded, of having been left a kind of a smoking ruin, was still actively alive in people's hearts.

[07:27]

People in the West in Gregory's days felt abandoned, felt a certain kind of despair. And again, using modern parlance, it was almost as if they were living in a kind of a post-apocalyptic world, Australia of the Mad Max films, a genre of science fiction films in which the world has degenerated again back into a kind of a barbaric chaos. That's the world in which Gregory's writing. You could look at the buildings, at the remnants of the great basilicas of old, at the aqueducts that have been created by generations long gone, and know that there wasn't a single person in your city who knew how to repair these structures. That there weren't even architects capable of either building or maintaining these things. That you lived in a world where all vestiges of glory from the past seemed to be fading. And it's to that world that Gregory writes the dialogues. A world almost devoid of hope, and to that world he writes a series of stories that say, God is with us, he is active in our culture, he is raising up saints every bit as holy as have ever been in the life of the church.

[08:42]

And the central focus, the jewel in the crown of these dialogue stories, is of course Saint Benedict. But Gregory is doing something extremely subtle, and the controversy of the dialogues is because the genre, the style he chose, was the language and the storytelling style that people could understand in the world in which they lived. The people who were living in this depressed, oppressed, rejected, saddened culture could appreciate, and it was not Ciceronian Latin. It was not a sophisticated delight in the nuance of carefully structured language. From a literary standpoint, these stories are the equivalent of marble comics. These are not, apparently, at the superficial level, sophisticated literature, and that's the controversy. Gregory was not a common man. He was raised in what remained of the highest levels of society of his day.

[09:43]

He'd been very well educated, he knew the classics extremely well, and was perfectly capable of writing an extremely erudite and extremely good Latin, and he didn't in this text. and that has confounded scholars from centuries past. How could he have written such a thing, people ask themselves. How can the author of the Regula Pastoralis, how can the great commentator on the book of Job who wrote the Moralia, how could he have descended to write this kind of stuff? And, of course, the answer of some scholars was, well, maybe he didn't. Maybe it was somebody else's. Maybe it's something that came up later and that was put together out of little bits and pieces of what he'd left behind. And, in fact, there are a few scholars today who still try to maintain that position, that Gregory couldn't possibly have written anything this common, because that just wasn't his literary style. And yet, I think the truth is, and I think the majority of scholar-scholars still agree, that Gregory did in fact write precisely this stuff, these stories, using this astonishingly ordinary language so that it could sneak in,

[10:53]

past the barriers of ordinary people, so that it could be appreciated by people of every level of sophistication. And for those who simply delighted in stories, it is absolutely fantastic. There are miracles, there are people raised from the dead, there are axes floating up from the bottom of lakes, just like in the books of Kings. There are wonderful parallels with the scriptures which the people of Gregory's day would have appreciated because the scriptures were what they were steeped in. But, beneath the surface, if one's willing to look, one will find an extremely sophisticated level of reflection on the deeper significance of the Christian life that allows one to perceive the inner movement of the spirit, the traditional categories of transformation of personality, all of it subtly put in, in, if you will, the guise of, or in the form of, an apparently very straightforward kind of story, a story that can appeal on the surface and yet which has within it astonishingly deep and beautiful things to tell.

[12:03]

And this is especially true toward the end of the dialogues of two great, if you will, literary icons. Gregory is literally painting with words, in the same way that in the Eastern Church people were painting with pigment. We're developing a spirituality and a very controversial theology, which would undergo persecution very shortly, of how to depict the holy in a physical way. Gregory is doing it with language, with ordinary words. In the Eastern Church, it's being done with ordinary pigments and paint on wood. but Gregory is creating icons no less vivid, no less beautiful, than those that exist in the Eastern Church. And again, for us as Western Christians, to be aware of this literary icon, which also liturgically become song. Transformed into poetry and music is to be aware of our specific contribution to the ancient tradition.

[13:04]

At the time that the images were being painted on wood, these kinds of stories were being created for the people of God and transformed into poetry and music in the form of Gregorian chant. The glory given to God, the expression of what God is in the presence of creation, was being expressed in somewhat different ways in East and West. Towards the end of the dialogue, Gregory creates two icons, like a diptych, that you have to open up and hold together, two pictures that, as it were, contrast with one another, but really can't exist without each other. This story we're looking at now of Benedict and Scholastica, which we so delight in on the Feast of Scholastica. I've always wondered what guests must think when they come in and find these astonishing antiphons if they're not prepared for the feast. God forgive you, sister, what have you done? That's sung by the whole community. Go now, brother, go if you can.

[14:04]

Leave me, return to your monastery. What's this all about? They must think. The stories are full of exciting little tidbits that intrigue and tantalize, and yet this story of Benedict and Scholastica is clearly intended to be read, to be viewed, to be held together, together with the other image of Benedict in the tower, of Benedict at the end of his life perceiving the whole of creation in a single ray of light. And we'll talk more about that in just a few minutes. The particular slap I'd like to take on this story is very significantly influenced by an article by Father de Vauguey that appeared in Cistercian Studies in 1983, volume 13, number 3, if you're interested, and I have a copy of the article here if you want to take a look at it. He's subsequently written a number of addenda or extended discussions of this, and they're very good, they're very helpful, particularly most recently in his retranslation of and then commentary on the dialogues, which I believe St.

[15:16]

Bede's is publishing. a very, very fine discussion of the life of Benedict. However, it does not go into as much detail about the specific points that we're going to talk about together as this article which he wrote in response to a couple of other articles. Sometimes we do our best work when we are engaged in polemic. responding to somebody else's approaches. And he was here responding to Dom Laporte and to Dom Henry Wandsborough's interpretations of this story, which had been published elsewhere. Henry Wandsborough I know quite well. He's the master of St. Bennett's Hall at Oxford, where I did my theology and where I'm finishing my DPhil right now. Henry always likes to reply, to maintain jokingly that, ah yes, de Vauguerie, my great enemy, because of this article in which Dom de Vauguerie attempted, essentially, to shoot Henry down in flames for his approach to the whole story of Benedict and Scholastica. That's overstated. That's not actually what it's about.

[16:16]

But Father de Vauguerie is responding to what he regards as a misinterpretation of the story of Benedictine Scholastica, because Henry had suggested, and you can understand that in the English congregation this would be an interpretation that would suggest itself, that Scholastica stands for the scholastic approach, for the educational, for the the teaching, the hortatory kind of dynamic within monastic life, and that Benedict's interaction with her is a kind of a symbolic way of describing these different dimensions of our monastic existence. Well, if your primary primary apostolate is running high schools and elementary schools. Of course, that interpretation is going to suggest itself. And it may well be that there's a hint of that. But again, as Father de Vauguer says, I think there's something very, very much more fundamental in the story of this encounter. Also, Henry Wandsborough and some of his colleagues were attempting to suggest that the story is really

[17:17]

quite apocryphal and is intended to be understood as purely symbolic, not as historical at all. That Scholastica, well, you know, she's the epitome, the embodiment of all of these different kinds of things. We don't really have to think that she existed as a human being. She was, after all, much more important as an archetype. as a human being. To that also, Fr. de Vauguet objects and suggests rather strongly that this is historical. Modification of, adaptation of something that Gregory received from Benedict's monks, who by that time, by the time that Gregory came to know them, had been, of course, expelled from their destroyed monastery of Monte Cassino when it had taken refuge in Rome, but nonetheless a historical narrative. So, Fr. de Vauguerie's approach is based on a response to what he thinks is a misinterpretation of this story. And what he points out in this article, and I think, again, he's absolutely right, I think he does a wonderful job of casting it broadly. is that we have to be aware of what happens in this story we've heard so many times, we've sung about so often, we've reflected on every time the Feast of Scholastica comes up.

[18:27]

We have to be aware that this description of an interaction between brother and sister, between monk and nun, between holy consecrated man and holy consecrated virgin, comes at a time of sharp change in Benedict's life. There is something absolutely fundamentally different about Benedict's life following this encounter. Now, he's moving toward death, and as we know, the story is moving toward Scholastica's death. we discover after we read it that it's all occurring in the light of her imminent heavenly birth, that some of the exceptional characteristics of it are probably there because she is moving towards God. But Benedict's life is also on the cusp of a change, of a radical transformation. Benedict, the man of God, the blessed one, up to this point has been a man of power. amount of miracles.

[19:28]

You know that he is speaking for God, you know that he's acting on behalf of God because what he says comes true, because he's able to do these astonishing things, these miracles of healing, miracles of physical reintegration of things that have fallen to pieces, whether they're broken bowls or broken axes or or things that are needed for the well-being of the monastery. Benedict is clearly a wonder worker, a man of power. After this encounter, no more power. All gone. Superman's touched the Kryptonite, nothing happens after this moment. No more miracles. This is the end of Benedict's great, mighty works of power. He encounters something, something happens that marks a change in his life, and apparently that's intended by Gregory. to remind us, to get people who read this story and identify with Benedict as they are supposed to, as we are supposed to, to give them a sense that there is an encounter that takes place which makes us into different people, and all the accomplishments, all of the doings, all of the things that, as it were, made sense to us in light of the coming glory of the kingdom, suddenly disappear in the light of something else.

[20:54]

And Gregory, being the great teacher that he is, writing this incredibly simple and yet sophisticated story, makes sure you get the point by repeating the message over and over, from the beginning right to the end of the story. And it doesn't always come out as clearly as it ought to. in translation, and that's why a really good New English translation is so desperately needed. But Gregory, again, is not a person to tell you something once. He'll say it over and over again, and the wordplay he engages in is very specific. What he does in his introduction—and remember that the dialogues are the traditional genre of question-answer, the great teacher, Gregory himself, is being asked questions by his disciple, Peter, and that provides him with the opportunity to explain things and even to comment on particular aspects of the story. Gregory asks a question of Peter, a kind of a rhetorical question that's intended to focus what this story is about, the story that occurs at the end of Benedict's life, the story that heralds so much of a change.

[22:07]

Tell me, Peter, Gregory says, who in this life could achieve greater heights than St. Paul? And I'm sure I'm sure this will make even more sense in light of our homilies from yesterday and today. St. Paul so often misunderstood. St. Paul, such a powerful and towering figure, so difficult to emulate in so many ways, who becomes an emblem and a symbol of what Christians want to be and sometimes imagine they can't possibly be. Who could achieve greater heights than Paul? who appealed to the Lord three times about the sting in his flesh, and yet did not have the power to obtain what he willed. Gregory creates a paradox, a kind of a little koan, an opithum worthy of a desert father. St. Paul was a wonderful man who could accomplish everything, right? Well, he asked three times for the Lord to remove the sting in his flesh, and it never happened. So what about all this great power? He makes it really clear by the way he expresses this, quote,

[23:11]

What he wanted, he did not have the power to achieve. What he willed, he could not attain. St. Paul is for us a kind of a paradox, an astonishing symbol of something that God does that simply reduces us to quiet, because what Paul voluit, what he wanted, what he desired, what he prayed for, non voluit. He did not have the power himself to attain, and in fact did not attain it. In this connection, Gregory says, I must tell you how the venerable Father Benedict once willed something he was powerless to accomplish, qui voluit non voluit. The story is going to be about power, and powerlessness, about willing and the insufficiency of willing, about coming up against something that you cannot change, something that seems a scandal, something that seems to limit you in your life, which suddenly turns out to be the presence of God, enabling you to change and to become something you could not have ever been before.

[24:26]

That's what the story's all about. The difference between willing and power and the powerlessness in which God's mercy and his real power for change can be manifest. He then begins the story. Benedict's sister Scholastica, dedicated to Almighty God from her infancy, used to visit him once every year. And the man of God would go down to meet her on the property of the monastery not far from the entrance. Again, we know the story so well that it's perhaps hard for us to hear it afresh. Benedict has the habit of once a year visiting with his sister. This is not a one-time thing. This is not something that just happens on this specific occasion. It is an annual event. It has a character of regularity to it. It's almost a kind of aspect of monastic observance. It seems to have its own rules, its own propriety, its own aspect of meeting, because Benedict is there with his disciples to meet his sister.

[25:29]

He's not alone. He's there, in some sense, connected with the community. And one day she came as usual, and her venerable brother came down with his disciples to meet her. And notice now what the context of what it is that they do. What's at the heart and the center of this encounter between the consecrated woman and the blessed man? They spent the whole day praising God and in holy conversation, sacrisque con loquis, sacra con loquia, sacred conversation. This is a key word that Gregory is not going to allow us to forget any more than qui voluit non voluit. He's going to come back to it again and again, sacra con loquia. They were doing holy conversation. They were engaged in a process of speaking and listening, which mirrors our relationship with God.

[26:31]

Their sacred conversation is itself a representation on earth of what we are empowered to do in our relationship with God. Homily with God, a sermon with the Lord, colloquium with the Lord, is a traditional way of describing our own experience of prayer. we have been empowered by God to engage in sacred conversation with the Lord and with one another. Scholastica is a created point, an opportunity on earth to anticipate, to experience in the presence of another person that blessing which is bestowed on us in the gift of prayer. So they spent the whole day in a holy conversation, and when darkness of night approached, they shared their meal together. Again, hint, sign, vague allusion to the Eucharist, to the festal meal at which sacred conversation becomes God's presence, not just in word but also in element, to us.

[27:35]

And they continued their, guess what, holy conversation, their sacra con loquia, at table until it was quite late. Again, I don't choose the words Marvel Comics just as a kind of a polemic. Gregory is really going to pound it in to make it really clear what he wants the point of the story to be. until it was quite late. Then his monastic sister appealed to him, Please do not leave me tonight. Let us continue speaking about the joys of the heavenly life until morning. She's asking for a change. Their meetings seem to have had their own quality, their own ritual, their own form, their own expectations. And one of them was that Benedict had the right to leave. But she says, please do not leave me tonight. Let us continue speaking about the joys of heavenly life until morning. There are amazing echoes, and remember, of course, that the people to whom these stories were told were filled above all else with the stories of the scriptures.

[28:39]

Their minds, their hearts, their imagination would have been very much aware of meetings between men and women that were prolonged throughout the evening. Echoes of the Song of Songs, of the bride yearning for the bridegroom, not being able to find him, feeling deserted, searching for him. All of these kinds of things are vaguely implicit within the story, and Benedict's reaction is fascinating. To this appeal, he responds, what are you saying, sister? It is not possible for me to stay outside the monastery for any reason. It is not possible. Why? Because Benedict is the man of the rule. He is himself the one who has created a mode of life, a way of living which is life-giving in its compassion, and yet at the same time, which Benedict himself has to keep strictly because he himself is the representative of that rule.

[29:40]

He stands for, he is the legislator. How could he grant himself a dispensation which he regards as inappropriate for disciples? One should not stay outside the monastery unless there's a very, very good reason. One should return, and after all, he's not far away. He's on the monastery property. He's just a little guest house sitting outside of the edge of it. Why shouldn't he go back? That's the standard thing to do under these circumstances. Even if it's his sister, even if they are engaging in sacra colloquia, kind of anticipation of the joys of heaven. And we'll find out why shortly. Ultimately, we'll find out at the end of the story. This is their last opportunity. Maybe Scholastica has an intimation of it. Maybe somewhere within her plea, please do not leave me tonight. Don't literally, do not desert me tonight, because after all, this is my last night with you. This will be our last opportunity for this. There's a kind of a quality within her appeal that possibly looks forward to the end that Benedict doesn't know, and which we are aware of, because we know the ending of this story.

[30:49]

There is something unique about her request that Benedict responds as the man of the rule, as the man of the law, as the person who is left behind a body of legislation to which he must bind himself as well. Well, it's not possible for him to find reason for staying, but it is certainly possible for Scholastica. Now Gregory decides to make it really clear how what happens happens. Now the sky was so clear at the time that there was not a cloud in sight. But on hearing her brother's refusal, the nun intertwined her fingers, placed her hands on the table, and bent her head down upon them, appealing to Almighty God. Gregory's making it clear what's happening. Scholastica as it were, acting out of her own power. There have been some commentators, and to those, Father Duvogui has properly who have suggested that Benedict's subsequent indignation is because Scholastica is a kind of an earth wicca figure who is using some sort of mysterious earth magic to create showers of rain by crying on the tabletop, that this somehow induces cosmic forces to create rainstorms.

[32:10]

That's not what Gregory says. And Gregory's making it abundantly clear what happens. Scholastica is praying. She's engaged in sacra colloquia with her brother, and now she folds her hands, places her head on the table, and turns from her brother to her beloved, to her heavenly spouse, and appeals to him. As she lifted her head from the table, there was such a violent burst of lightning and thunder accompanied by such a flood of rain. that the venerable Benedict and the brothers with him were powerless, they did not have power to set foot outside the threshold of the place. Gregory is again using his key word. The story is about power and the end of power, the relinquishing of power, the discovering that power lies somewhere else. And the fact that for some of us, maybe for all of us, that can only be discovered when we come up against something we cannot change.

[33:12]

The thing that most frustrates, because after all, we know what God wants of us. God made us monks. Of course we have to return to the monastery before nightfall. And suddenly, the lightning flashes, the rains fall, and we're incapable of leaving. God suggests that maybe there's more to our deepening union with him than the literal observance of the rule. Frightening thought, but it's the center of the story. And again, so we don't miss the point, Gregory tells it to us again. He explains that the nun, by bending her head down upon her hands and shedding a flood of tears on the table, had changed clear skies into rain. And just so we don't think it was some sort of odd coincidence and not miraculous, he explains again, between her prayer and the downpour, there wasn't even a pause. Prayer and downpour so coincided that it was thundering as she raised her head from the table. And in case you haven't got it yet, at exactly the same moment as she raised her head, the rain descended.

[34:15]

It is this event, it is the prayer of Scholastica, that's resulted in the change. She, through her prayer, through her relationship with God, has found a way forward by which the apparent external observance of the rule can find a deeper meaning, a deeper form of relationship with God. And then, Benedict's response is not, ah, the Lord has spoken clearly and I know what I must do. Benedict's response is not the humble acceptance of the will of God that one might have imagined such a holy person might be gifted with. Then the man of God, realizing that he could not return to the monastery through the thunder, lightning, and driving rain, in other words, discovering that he was thwarted in his will, that what he wanted could not be achieved, became deeply annoyed and protested, May Almighty God forgive you, sister. What have you done?

[35:17]

He's accusing Scholastica of having acted against the will of God. This is a frightening accusation. He's not saying, well, obviously this is a blessing from the Lord and I have to deal with it. He's saying, What is it you've done? How have you so manipulated events that this thwarting of what obviously is God's will, namely what I want to accomplish, can't take place? Benedict is, in a sense... cursing his sister and using the kind of malediction that reflects real separation between human beings. If we recall from the Gospels, the thing that most grieves the heart of God, the thing that calls forth the response of anger on the part of Jesus, and the only thing that calls forth that response is the beholding of the action of God and calling it the action of the devil.

[36:20]

Seeing Christ's saving works, his miracles of healing, his accomplishing what is clearly the work of the merciful Father on earth, and instead saying, well, it's the Sabbath, and if you were a proper healer, you wouldn't do this on the Sabbath. Finding all sorts of reasons for not accepting the power and the purpose of the Lord in calling what is good and what is holy bad and evil. That's effectively what Benedict is doing at this moment. Again, we often sugarcoat this phrase. We often look at this sentence and don't realize the kind of darkness and real block that it creates between these two holy persons, but her response is wonderful, is a kind of deflecting and reminding of where their relationship really lies, to which she responded, well, I appeal to you, and you refuse to hear me.

[37:23]

So I appeal to my Lord, and he has heard me. So go now, if you can. Leave me. Return to the monastery. She, by turning it into a kind of jest, not sarcasm, not a kind of a cynical taunting, but instead an explaining to him or an opening up of his eyes to what has actually happened, uses humor to defuse, to take away the sting and even the insult that Benedict has offered. Scholastica invites Benedict to look to God. Well, if God is the author of this, if this has happened through God, well, maybe indeed you should stay. And he, powerless to leave the shelter, stayed unwillingly, his will completely thwarted, not able to leave the shelter, and again, Gregory specifically uses these words again,

[38:28]

Valuit and Voluit. He's not able to achieve his will, but he's forced to remain, his power having been thwarted. And so it was that they spent the entire night awake, sharing with each other to their heart's content holy conversation, sacra colloquia, on the spiritual life. Gregory has done an astonishing job of taking his hero, the hero of the dialogues, and certainly the central figure in the life of Benedict, obviously, and turning it around, taking all of the characteristics that he's used to identify Benedict as a man of power with, and instead say, but there is something greater. There is a movement beyond even the acting on behalf of God with mighty deeds of power. And that happens when we recognize the need to stop and let go of our own willing

[39:37]

to accept the will and the love of God and discover what lies beneath, what finally lies as the real goal or the real end of our own striving and our own willing. And of course, so we don't miss the point of the story, Gregory gives it to us in the last little chapter of this section, which we'll look at now as our little conclusion. And it's important for us hearing and reflecting on this to allow this to become highly personal. Gregory is not just intending that we should be aware of events in the life of Benedict. He makes it clear why he was writing this whole series of stories to people of his day, and that should be a key to us or an indication to us of how we are to receive them in our own day.

[40:42]

What is it in our lives that thwart us? What about our experience of community, or the vowed life, or our own monastery, or our own experience of what we thought was the kind of piety to which God had called us, and in which we seem to be making so much progress? What about the running up into the wall. What about the experience of that which seems to block us from going any further? Is it possible that this is for us a kind of scholastica, a gift to us of a reminder that there's much more than just having our own way, that finally our own will has to be thwarted if we're to make any progress? And on page two, and the story continues, and we'll look this afternoon at the story of Benedict in the Tower, the story continues with Gregory stating precisely this. He summarizes the story to this point. This is why I said he once willed something he was unable to attain.

[41:48]

Same words being used again. For if we consider the mind of the venerable man, We cannot doubt that he wanted the sky to remain as clear as it had been when he first came down. Benedict's desire, which ordinarily, in the ordinary course of miraculous stories, is the will that's achieved. Benedict wanted the sky to remain clear. and instead rain came. He discovered a miracle blocking his will, thwarting what he wished, the power of Almighty God aroused by the heart of a woman." Now, what is he attempting to invoke? What biblical image is Gregory trying to hint at here? It is not surprising that this woman, who had for so long yearned to see her brother, Fratrem videre cupi ebat, a strong language, she had desired to see her brother. This encounter was for Scholastica an experience on earth of what awaited her in heaven.

[42:53]

Yearned to see him, she prevailed, for according to the text of St. John, God is love. And thus, by an entirely just judgment, she proved the more powerful, since hers was the greater love." It's very likely that Gregory is alluding or hinting here with the description of the one who loved more, or whose love was greater, to another story of a festal meeting. Another arousal of indignation and an accusation of wrongdoing at one of these occasions, and someone whose love turned out to be stronger, another woman there at the festal meeting. The story of the sinful woman who anoints the feet of Jesus and who is rebuked by the Pharisee holding the feast. And the Lord's response is, her sins though many have been forgiven her because hers was the greater love.

[43:59]

If that's true, if that's the image that Gregory wants to flash in people's mind at this moment, the woman whose love was greater, then that casts Benedict in a very specific role. But that is the role of the Pharisee. Benedict, in his accusation against Scholastica, has literally spoken an untruth about what she is and about what she's done. And now it turns out that the thwarting of his will, the limit in his power, was precisely so he could become something else, so he could cease being that. So, he didn't have to be the one making the accusation, the Pharisee, seeing only the external appearance, or if you will, the letter of the law. He could discover that there was something deeper, the greater love, the love that enables one to finally perceive something more of God. The thing that had not been depicted by Gregory prior to this point was the absolute and fundamental recurrent reality of our need for metanoia, of repentance.

[45:12]

Benedict is the man of faith. Benedict is the man who always achieves things. Benedict is the one who always triumphs. And here, Benedict is the one in need of change. He's the one who has to cease being what he was at that moment in order to go the step further, as we'll see this evening, to behold the light of God, the glory of God, his sister, as it were, ascending to heaven in the form of a dove, and then the whole of creation in a single ray of light. In order to become one who can see God, we have to be people willing to be changed. We have to perceive in the things that limit us and block us and thwart our will, opportunities given us by God to discover the greater love. to let go of what's only ours, to let go of our absolute certainty that we know just where God is, and instead allow the Lord to teach us something new and something unexpected.

[46:12]

So, the story of Benedict and Scholastica is the story of the contrast between and the necessary interaction between the active work of perceiving our need for change, and the contemplative work or life of beholding, receiving, allowing ourselves to be touched by all those passive verbs, the light and the love of God. It's the interaction between the active and the contemplative, not as separate stages in the spiritual life, but as movements, dynamics that are constantly present for us, and especially present in retreat. What is the thwarts, the blocks, that keeps me from being what it is that I'm supposed to be? Maybe precisely in that person, event, experience within community, aspect of my monastic life, maybe there the Lord is giving me a sign of how it is He wants me to learn a deeper love. We'll continue this evening with Benedict in the Tower Window and Benedict perceiving the grace and the glory of God and the ascent of Scholastica.

[47:23]

So, bring the second page with you if you can next time. Questions or thoughts or reflections? Another page here that we should add. Some of us, did people get... Page one is only printed on one side, and the other copy has two and three, that's right. No, that's not, that's your text. Okay, so we didn't tell what it is. I'm sorry, that was an economy-saving measure on my part. I had extra copies of two and three done on a single page. So, I could say that, well, I wanted you to be able to take notes on the other side of page one, but that's not true. That wouldn't be the real explanation.

[48:24]

The name, though, still has to get us in the direction of a wizard. It does. It certainly does. And, again, de Vogelwey tries to parse that out and point out references in the literature to that name. wondering what it would mean if one were to take it literally, someone who had been highly educated, someone who was a kind of an academically well-informed figure. But de Vauguerie's conclusion is that it's probably not a symbolic name at all, but it's probably a historical name referring to a specific person. And what Gregory is trying to do is to flesh out and fill that out more in the direction of, again, as the story of her ascendance will depict, in the direction of contemplation, of theoria, of beholding and receiving the love of God. But yes, of course, and that's the thing that Henry tries to point out.

[49:27]

that, yeah, that name does strongly suggest a wisdom figure in the sense of words, ideas, concepts, and knowledge. I mean, the real wisdom figure is, you know, the type that always... She's not an academic as much as she's... That's right. ...found, you know, the wisdom person in life, in ordinary life, it's relationship. And certainly, holy wisdom in the wisdom literature, setting up her tent and celebrating her feast and so forth is every bit as practical and ordinary in the kinds of day-to-day advice that's dispensed as transcendent and eschatological. I think that's absolutely right. There's a lot more to that wisdom figure than just than just the one or the other, as you say.

[50:29]

Knowledge in the modern sense of academic stuff, or imageless, wordless, beyond creation kind of stuff. It's everything in between as well. Did he treat... John Leclerc gave us a retreat around 1960, very much. in favor of these symbolic significance of Medicare. I remember him being very distinct and very insistent on, not just Glasgow, but several other places. I don't know Well, and the very best thing is to check, as I say, his new translation with commentary of the Dialogues talks specifically about the number of individuals. And yes, I think what he tries to point out is that there will inevitably be, in this kind of literature, multiple levels and meanings. And the name will hopefully, if it's a good storyteller, also be linked in its meaning to what the person is supposed to stand for, without necessarily violating whatever historicity there may be to it.

[51:42]

Of course, we can't get back to that. I mean, there's, however, whatever modern biblical scholars may think, I think my own great joy in being at an institution where the classics faculties were centuries older than the people in the faculties who emphasized biblical scholarship in the modern, exclusively, literally critical sense. There's a kind of a break, in the sense of breaks in the cars, on people in those sorts of institutions against making the kinds of overweening claims about being able to get back to the historical event on the basis of the text. What we have is the text, and we know a little about how it came into being. Undoubtedly, it has multiple levels, but the real key for us is to be aware of the multiple levels as best one can, recognizing that there's probably a strong historical dynamic to it as well. And that where things can be correlated historically, actually it seems not at all impossible that things could have happened, especially the individuals that are mentioned, Totilla and so forth.

[52:50]

But as far as the details of the names are concerned, it's probably a kind of an inclusive answer, a yes and, but not to try to think of the answer as just one thing or the other. I was thinking... Oh, oh, oh. I know. But he emphasized that, he said... Quite frankly, I don't have much interest in myself other than respect. I agree. And all the objections down on clarity, really. That's why it's interesting. Well, yeah, it's intriguing, and I guess things kind of go in waves, but I think sometimes what happens among Benedictine scholars, among monastics, don't quote me on this, is I think because we are so imbued with and are so nourished by the allegorical, the symbolic, the liturgical, the glory flashing through reality. Because that for us is so much a part of what we do and what we delight in, when we have to interact with people for whom even the existence of that dimension is regarded as a dangerous delusion,

[54:02]

as something that will cause you to impose on the text your own interpretation, rather than to be open to some sort of objective model. We sometimes tend to move in the opposite direction, to prove to people that we can be as objective as anybody else. Well, I'm no more devoted to the symbolic meaning than some demythologizer. Well, it's sort of silly to pretend that, but sometimes we tend to we tend to overly assert the fact that we have to let go of our desire that these things be absolutely historically true. And then, of course, as you were rightly pointing out today, then we discover that God in his wisdom turns things around and says, oh, by the way, do you know this actually did probably happen this way? Just at the point we've decided it's purely symbolic, suddenly it turns out that John's geography is better than Mark's. What do you do with that? What about the fact that just about the time that you've discovered or you've determined that Luke's description of what was happening at the temple is all probably a kind of a fabulous Gentile misinterpretation of what was going on in first century Palestine, you discover actual records that

[55:19]

what Zechariah supposedly did in the temple is exactly what was done among Levites who lived out in the provinces. Just about the time we think we've all got it rocked together, well, God sends, as it were, a Scholasticon to our hearts and says, well, you know... I don't think that you're up to my mind, unfortunately. When you were speaking about the kind of a parallel between Jesus and the sinful woman. And it occurred to me also, Canaan is a more beautiful, their St. Benedict would be compared to Christ himself. It's not strictly a parallel, but it's a brutal idea that he said, no, no. And so Mary went right on and appealed to God over his head. That's a very good point as well. Yes, yes, if you invoke the Kena story, you do get a different dimension to it.

[56:20]

Just a fancy thought. It's a nice one. woman what are you doing when you when they tell these guys do whatever he tells you that's right that's right you know he's gonna tell him something and where did she get that idea Yeah, a strange thwarting that turns out to be an opening. I like that very much because, again, we're almost at the end of Benedict's life. This is almost the end of the story, but at the same time, it's also the beginning. It really is the beginning of his life in heaven, and symbolically, you know, the kind of Benedict's miraculous way, the rich path that he treads up to heaven. is a reminder of the fact that, for Gregory, that really is the beginning. All we've seen is just the prologue to the great story of Benedict's eternal life.

[57:27]

And in much the same way, then, yeah, Scholastica is serving as a kind of a Marriott Cana figure, because this will be the beginning. Benedict is going to lay down his miraculous ministry and begin his ministry of vision, of beholding things. And that's a new kind of ministry, and in fact, it's a ministry that leads directly into the next life. And that's quite nice. Let me throw one question to you, Dr. Steffens, about this Kedah. I was reminded last summer that there was this bishop who was studied in with me many years ago, and I remember him telling me his experience at the time. This was in the 60s. He got on a bus. And this old Hebrew who was in Israel, of course, he got on this bus and this woman was all excited about something. There was something going on outside. And she said to the bus driver, he said, well, stop. And he said to her, woman, what is that to me?

[58:29]

Yes, that's right. And it was just the same thing that Jesus said to Mary. What's it got to do with us? Just astounded him. Yeah, and there again, it's probably a very different model of femininity, of what it means to be a woman, than we might necessarily be comfortable with, or than necessarily the later Middle Ages, after the imposition of a kind of a feudal mindset, where women are primarily, unless their husbands happen to be off waging war, they've got some sort of local responsibility, are primarily kept within the bower, somewhere within the castle, cloaked around with all sorts of veils, not available to the outside world. That's not what Scholastic is like. She appears suddenly, and her action is, you know, zowie, bang, poof, and there's some exciting, amazing things happening. That's where the Lord is present. It's a very different model of how women act, which may actually be much more Semitic than later

[59:30]

later European. There's a gutsy quality to her interaction, which at the same time is wonderfully deflecting. Again, her response to Benedict, I don't know that we ever can get back to what this would have meant in idiomatic Latin in Gregory the Great's day, you know, what it would have felt like for someone to say that to you. in response to your overwhelming wrath and basically accusing them of being an agent of some sort of dark supernatural force. The fact that she can respond to Benedict and turn it into something very different is probably a very, very inspired example of discernment and spiritual direction in a certain sense. But there's probably a lot of subtlety that's very hard for us to get back to or really impossible for us to appreciate fully. And I think probably Cain is an instance of that as well. What's it to us? Or, what does this mean to you and to me, Mother? This means a change. Our relationship will be altered forever if I do this.

[60:35]

My ministry begins in our relationship as we've known it. And it's a time of changing that's very hard to perceive. One of the places in the dialogues where we switch to two different parts of two quotes, one place talks about Benedict and brothers with him, and how Romeo believed. And I'm always going, In the third chapter, singular and plural, one side is Scholastica, the other side is Benedict and the brothers with him. And the rest is the one that talks about the brotherhood. Scholastica and Benedict. I get the impression, having the brothers with him, one of the things you could derive from it is And if you want to have a community, I mean, where was it?

[61:36]

Sure. Sure. Single single out one person. And certainly the Western iconographic, the painting and the mural and the tapestry and the mosaic tradition of this will add Benedict's nuns and Scholastica's sisters there as well. And so you have this kind of double community. You have, well, they didn't mention them, but of course you wouldn't have had a nun, or if she was the superior of a community, an abbess necessarily going out on her own, although of course occasionally they did. She would have had companions as well, and so one fills them in, one fills in the story a bit. But he certainly is hinting, and we'll see it even more strongly in the story of the Tower Window, there is a community element to it. Benedict is not alone. This is not something that is just happening to him by himself. He isn't ever really just by himself. There is the time in the cave, but that's at the beginning. And he strangely moves from being an anchorite into being a Cenobite. And from that moment onward, he is surrounded by the Brethren up until death.

[62:38]

And in death, he's supported by the Brethren, physically held by the Brethren as he dies. So there is a strongly communal dimension to Benedict. I think you're absolutely right that Gregory hints at and brings out constantly in the story. Well, I was also thinking that how one person in the community does all of our practice. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that's a very good point that we'll also see here, that Benedict's ultimate experience also has to be shared, not completely, not fully, but partially. It has to be symbolically shared with the representative of another monastery who's there with his monks. So it's as if you have a kind of a, as you say, nothing ever happens to a Christian by themselves. There are always implications for the community as well. I think you're absolutely right, that's there within these texts as well. Okay, we'll continue with the story this evening.

[63:39]

Thank you.

[63:39]

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