To conclude in two ways, one by getting very practical, by having us all together do a little exercise in Lectio Divina, which sounds like a kind of a contradiction, and in a way it is, although it seems to have been a successful one, because the particular form we're going to use today, which we adapted and developed based on some suggestions that came from some oblates in our community, and which we use in our Benedictine Spirituality for Laity workshop, has been incorporated by Father Basil Pennington into his book on Lectio Divina. However, I have to say it was actually published elsewhere before he published his book, and I don't recall his asking us about it. But that's perfectly all right. That's perfectly all right. Exactly, exactly. The most terrible The most terrible insult you could offer a monk, probably in the early period or even into the Middle Ages, was that he'd had an original thought.

[01:01]

The great gift of monasticism was to continue passing on the tradition, often anonymously, and so to be a part of that is, I suppose, a very great and high honor. So, evidently, there are folks who like this particular method. But, to be perfectly honest, what we'll do together is not really Lectio Divina, strictly speaking. It is something which is very natural and ordinary among Christians whose approach to the biblical text is still fairly, if you will, humanly natural. not dominated by a modern frenzy to get through huge blocks of text, and in which the text is still revered as something holy. The place one finds it these days, outside of the monastic context, is really in base communities, in communities in the third world, places where The primary mode of experiencing the biblical text is not by reading with your eyes a book that you have in your home or your hut or your shack, but by listening with your ears to a text being read out, being read out multiple times with periods for silence and then periods for interaction.

[02:15]

What we'll do is a kind of a very common thing in communities of the third world, And the particular form we'll use is an adaptation of a method that was noted and then incorporated into his own practice by a couple of missionaries in Africa a number of years ago, being used by Christian communities there. And it's really quite simple. And the reason it's valuable is that although it is intended more for what we would call catechesis, explaining the gospel and helping people to live it out, It nevertheless provides in a kind of a very clear way several of the movements that we've described using some of the classical descriptors of Lectio and Meditatio and Oratio, and it also is very accessible. It's the kind of thing that can be done, adaptations of it can be done, as I said yesterday, when we're not at our spiritual best. It provides a very simple way of asking a couple of questions about the text.

[03:17]

It can be used in small groups, or if you have occasion to give a talk on monasticism and you want to get practical, it's the kind of thing that can be done in a large group, simply with you leading the process and everybody else participating in it to some extent. So I think it's very flexible and adaptable. But it was not created by monks and nuns who said, we're going to give these people an experience of Lectio Divina. I think the delightful thing about it is that it's something Christians do quite naturally in communities where the primary mode of experiencing the Bible is aural, is something that is listened to and then something that is commented on. No matter where the world goes, no matter how frenzied the so-called developed nations think they get, this approach to the Scriptures remains very fundamental to Christians, and rediscovering it happening or being rediscovered in our own time is a kind of a reassuring thing, because it does have some very strong affinities to the private practice of Lectio as well. And again, it's the kind of thing that can be done in a group.

[04:18]

that enables people to get a little taste of what we're talking about when we discuss Laxia Divina. At its base... It involves hearing a single text read out three times, and the text shouldn't be very long. A couple of verses, maybe three at the most, depending on how long the verses are, but not a long text, not a whole pericope, not a whole biblical story, not necessarily even a whole reading if you're trying to do this in a kind of a liturgical way. Something smaller, because what one is going to try to do is to listen during the first reading for any word or phrase that seems to invite us to take it in. Now, we're not looking for an ecstasy. We are not looking for the phrase that puts my spiritual life into a perfect perspective. Otherwise, we'll be waiting forever. All we're looking for, or listening for, is any word or phrase that seems to intrigue, or to attract, or to invite us in some way to take it in.

[05:24]

And then, having heard it, we just gently repeat that word or phrase silently within the heart. The first time, the text is read out twice, so that if we don't hear anything the first time, we can have the opportunity to take something in the second. And again, it doesn't matter what word or phrase is taken in. Then there is a second reading of the same text. All told, there are three separate readings of the same text, followed by silence each time. In a small group, it's helpful, and we'll try doing that here too, to have the text read out by a person of a different voice. If you have a mixed group of men and women, it's nice to alternate men and women, or women and men, because you hear slightly different things when the text is read out in different vocal registers. But in the second reading, and I should mention that after the first reading in a small group, a quite small group, each person is allowed or invited to say individually just what word or phrase they heard or decided to take in, but without any explanation.

[06:26]

Now, should you decide to do this, to lead this process, and I should say the recipe for it is on the handout that you got yesterday. It's all there. You don't have to worry about writing any of this down. If you decide to lead it, for Americans, The hardest thing in the world is to only say just what word touched my heart. Because we want to say what it means, and how you were grabbed by it, and what you felt, and what this means for you about your inner process, and what Jungian archetype this is inviting you to... I mean, we kind of want to go on and on and on. And you have to encourage people to an almost zen-like simplicity of sharing in the whole of this process, because if it becomes something that's done regularly, we use this sort of oddly, I suppose, at the introduction of our development committee meetings, a kind of a financial advisory board that looks on how we're supposed to raise money, and we find this to be a very good way of quieting, settling, praying, and being sensitive to one another, and it makes our meetings a lot less acrimonious.

[07:28]

And we can do it easily within 15 to 20 minutes, because everybody knows that nobody's going to try to dominate the sharing. All they're going to say is something very brief, something very succinct. But there's a learning curve for that, and sometimes you have to be a tad on the ruthless side to help people know that what they're supposed to share is actually supposed to be quite brief. After the first reading, just what word or phrase was heard? Then there's a second reading of the same text, and each reading is followed by a minute or so of silence. After the second reading, you're not listening for a new word or phrase. You're holding within the heart that original word or text you heard, repeating it, and allowing yourself to ask or be asked by it, what do I inwardly see or hear? This might be sort of translated as, what distraction occurs to me as I hear this word and repeat it within my heart? What unexpected thing do I see or what additional word or phrase attaches itself to this text?

[08:31]

I'm not simply trying to get into a state and maintain it. I'm allowing this word to almost ferment or open me up or give me something else and not an understanding of what it means. I'm not trying to ask the text, what do you mean? Or what's the exegesis of this phrase? But as I hold this word in my heart, what happens? Sometimes I'll visually see something. Sometimes I'll remember something. Sometimes an additional phrase will attach itself to that original word. And then during the brief period of sharing that happens afterward, each person can say what it is they heard or saw, what it is they inwardly experienced with their inner senses. They have to also be offered the opportunity to pass, to not share, to simply share in silence. Because, occasionally, people will be touched at very personal levels by things they don't feel comfortable sharing in a group, and they must have the freedom to be honest with themselves about what they felt or experienced without the obligation, necessarily, to say anything in a group.

[09:35]

So, give them that right to pass if they wish. There's a third reading of the text. This time we allow ourselves to ask or be asked, what's the word or phrase inviting me to do or be or become? In some third world countries, the whole idea of orthopraxis, putting the word into action, is very important. How is this word summoning me into doing, into community? What's it inviting me to change within myself or around me? And at the end of that, there can be, if one wishes, an opportunity for a third very brief sharing of what one experienced of the word inviting one to do or be or become. And the exercise concludes, and you need to warn people about that. We won't do that here, so don't worry about this. The exercise normally concludes with each person praying for the person on their right, and the prayer in typical Catholic fashion can be as brief and as nonspecific as, God bless your servant, N, or it can be something that incorporates what you heard the person say.

[10:41]

The idea is that you have to have listened to at least one other person during this process other than yourself. that there is a sensitivity to or an awareness of what is happening with other people as well. Now, once we've done this in a kind of a modified and succinct form, we'll not do the third sharing actually, or the prayer individually for the person on the right, I think we'll see that it does give us a kind of a common experience and a vocabulary and a set of very simple basic questions we can always bring to the experience of Lectio Divina, even at times when we're spiritually exhausted. And it also adds to our own repertoire of ways in which we can share with people, give them a little feel or a taste for something analogous to our own practice of Lectio, even though this is, if you will, rather artificial and oriented towards a group rather than an individual. Now, for the second reading, may I pass this along to you, Father?

[11:41]

And do we have a volunteer for the third reading? Would anyone be willing to do a... Last reading of the text? Please, thank you. I'll give you a nod, and I'll sort of say this is the second reading, the third reading, when the time comes, and it'll just be a matter of reading that text out once. We begin by putting ourselves in a comfortable position, as comfortable as we can given the circumstances, but not so comfortable as to induce sleep. This is not supposed to be dormitio divina. Although our Father Philip, whenever someone says something like that, says, well, remember the Psalms he gives to his beloved while they slumber. That's true, and if that's what the Spirit calls you to, who am I to stand in God's way? But that isn't the purpose of the exercise. So, if you can put yourself in a posture that is both comfortable for you and slightly attentive at the same time, that will be helpful. And let's begin by closing our eyes. And being aware of that most basic of all basic human rhythms, the rhythm of our own breathing,

[12:49]

Taking a gentle breath in and out, gentle breath in, out, falling into the natural rhythm of our own breathing. We begin by allowing ourselves to luxuriate in, to enjoy the experience of just being quiet together for a minute or so. allowing ourselves to let go of concerns or perplexities or anxieties about what's lying ahead in the day, just allowing ourselves to experience the great joy of quiet together. And remaining with eyes closed, I'm going to read out the same text twice, and each of us will listen for any word or phrase, any word or group of words from that text that seems to invite us to take it in, for whatever reason, because it's intriguing or makes us curious, because we find it touches us in some way, any reason at all will do.

[14:58]

whenever we hear a word or phrase that in some way gently invites us to take it in, we then quietly, silently repeat that word or phrase within the heart. And I'll read the same text out twice. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. If we've heard any word or phrase that invites us to take it in, then just quietly, gently repeating it within us, otherwise listening to the same text, Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

[16:08]

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit? Holding silently repeating within us whatever word we've heard, whatever phrase has invited us to take it in. And coming back to our awareness of one another with eyes open, aware of our presence to one another.

[17:49]

In a small group, as I said, each person would go around and just say what word or phrase it was they heard. We don't have to all do that, but do I have any volunteers for what word or phrase? Freedom. Freedom, right, was being changed. Other words? Freedom. Freedom. Second vote for freedom. Likeness. Likeness. Freedom. Freedom. Popular word. Glory. Glory. Into his likeness. Into his likeness. To unveil a face in his likeness. To unveil a face in his likeness. One of the wonderful things about this kind of a process is that one discovers that in a relatively brief phrase, you know, two or three verses, so many different hearts are touched in different ways. And it's a wonderful reminder that we don't have to worry about exhausting any text in Lectio. There's always going to be something more to be discovered in it. What we'll do now is very much the same as what we did before, but we're not listening for a new word or phrase. As Father Pryor reads the text the second time, we're holding that same word or phrase in the heart, repeating it, and allowing it to be, as it were, the kind of background theme against which we hear the text read out, the kind of colored window through which the light of the text shines.

[19:08]

So, we're continuing to repeat in our heart, almost as a kind of a little filter, that word or phrase that we heard as we hear the text read out this second time. And then in the quiet, in the silence that follows, we'll allow ourselves to ask or be asked, what inwardly do I see or hear? What, as it were, inner sense experience occurs to me, or even what distraction occurs? What is it that rises up within me as I hold this word and repeat it within my heart? So, closing our eyes, all except for the prior, gently putting ourselves again in a comfortable position, repeating the word or phrase within our hearts, and listening to it read out this second time. Now the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness, from one degree of glory to another.

[20:08]

For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Repeating, holding the word or phrase within our hearts, what inwardly do I see or hear? What inner sense experience occurs as I gently ponder this word in my heart? And again, opening our eyes, being aware of our presence to one another, this place.

[21:52]

In a small group, each would go around, and again, this is very difficult for people in our culture, and say just what inwardly they saw or heard, but without explaining it, without trying to say what it means, or how they would interpret it psychologically. The goal is simply to state what inwardly was as it were sensed, but without trying to give it a meaning or an explanation. And that's a very useful exercise, I think, for us. Mine was being changed, and I had this kind of visual image of the courtyard between the two buildings, which the other day I remember walking across snow and crunching and worrying about ice and looking out there today and seeing all the snow was gone. There was a change, suddenly the snow was now revealing soil and grass and living things. Others who saw or heard other things? One was then lifting the veil and seeing God.

[23:02]

Great. That this is... Nope, that's okay, that'll do. No, no, I mean, I'm just quoting. Oh yes, oh great. And that this is Christ who is the Spirit. Okay, and that's the word that comes associated with it, great, lovely. I saw the life to come and the Southwest to manifest. Oh, wonderful. A juxtaposition of two. The Eschaton and the American Southwest. I love it. Mine was a stripping away of self. A sense of stripping away of self? Mine was relief, listening, tension. Relief? Quieting? Tensionless? Mine was glory of God. A sense of the glory of the Lord? little vistas.

[24:07]

It's interesting, as one does this with people, one discovers, in a kind of a generalization, and that's no more valid than any other generalization ever is, but very often women tend to be a little more visual than men, although if men recognize they can, that can happen as well. Although I did have one man who said, is it alright to smell something? He had an olfactory association or memory associated with it. Now that's very uncommon. But in his case, it was very real. He had a memory of a smell associated with the word. It was a positive thing, a very positive thing. So, all kinds of things can happen in this kind of an exercise. All right, let's put ourselves in our comfortable position for the last, I promise you, time, and gently closing eyes. And this time, as we hear the word, the text read out, we continue to repeat that same word or phrase we originally heard in the heart, not looking necessarily for a new one, but gently repeating it within ourselves and allowing us to ask or be asked, what is this word inviting me to do or be or become?

[25:17]

How am I being summoned into doing or changing? Gently repeating the word within our heart, letting it be the background against which we hear this text read out this last time. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness, one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Repeating within our heart that word or phrase we originally heard, what is this inviting me to do or become? How is this summoning me forth into doing or changing?

[26:19]

And again, coming back from our quiet to our sense of each other, our awareness of this place, opening our eyes. In a small group, it would conclude by each person sharing a bit about what inwardly they saw or heard. And this could be an opportunity to say a little more about the process that they experienced. But the one rather nice thing about this is that no one is required to say, and there isn't really any active encouragement to try to say, what the text means. That is to say, it's not primarily an exercise in exegesis. It's almost a kind of a purposeful attempt at backing into the question of saying, how is the text? Christ for me in an unexpected form. What did I inwardly see or hear? What was it summoning me to do or become? These categories are traditionally the ways that the Fathers of the Church have talked about allegory, that is to say, the mystical or contemplative sense of the Scriptures, which is also the Christ sense, the Christological sense.

[28:54]

When I experience something in the text beneath the letter that associates itself with another symbol or another word, that is the action of Christ present, inviting me to find Christ in another form. And when I ask myself, or allow myself to be asked, what's the text inviting me to do, or to be, or becoming, how's it being put into action? That's the moral, or what used to be called the tropological sense of the scriptures. simple three listenings, what word or phrase, what inwardly did I see or hear, what's it inviting me to do or become, they are the three great senses or meanings of the scriptures which we'll always find in the early commentaries on the biblical text by the fathers and mothers of the tradition. How is Christ present in unusual, unexpected form? What is this inviting me to do or change in my life at a moral level?

[29:56]

Sometimes, as in John Cash in that second symbolic or allegorical or mystical or contemplative sense, is divided up into a Christological allegory and what's technically called an anagogical heavenly. And I'm glad we did have the juxtaposition of the Southwest and the Kingdom of Kekum, because that's a very good example of anagogia, a sense of the text sometimes transcending the veil of time, allowing us to catch a glimpse of that being brought into a union that even transcends the limitations of the past and the future, the oneness towards which we're being called. So, in a way, a simple exercise like this, deriving again not from something that missionaries or monks or nuns are imposing on anybody, is a reminder that what our forefathers and mothers in the tradition did was very basically human. Their way of interacting with the text, allowing it to invite them into a listening and a responding

[31:02]

And the responding sometimes being as simple as, well, what did I see or hear? Or, well, what does this mean that I'm supposed to do or be? That that is a very basic way of being drawn into the presence of God. And whenever in the doing of this privately we find ourselves just joyfully sitting back and going, Thank you, Lord. That's contemplatio. That's the refreshment. That's the opportunity to simply, quietly rejoice for however long it is present in the presence of the one who inspires the text in the first place. Now, aside from its utility as a, if you will, as a kind of a vehicle for teaching the practice of Lectio Divina, I have found this approach to be helpful in my own spiritual life, again, because I can usually Simple questions about a text. Did I hear or see anything as I had it before me and looked at it? And on my really bad days, you know, my inner demon will say, no, you didn't hear anything at all.

[32:04]

And I'll sit back and say, well, okay. So I heard nothing. There is a quiet. There is a void. There is an emptiness. All right. Quietness. Emptiness. Even absence is what I hold in my heart. What does that? What is that inviting me to do or be or become? Nothing. It doesn't mean anything for you. Well, okay. So, there's a void that at this moment isn't speaking about changing my life. What does that say about who I am, what I am? Even at my most rebellious, even at my most inwardly put out, Having a very simple little set of approaches to the text can be a way of doing something other than sitting there frustrated and realizing that I'm just not going anywhere, or all I can do is kind of a sterile, acrid, academic exegesis of the text. As long as I let it touch me, invite me to take it in, There will be something there, which can be, if I dare to look at it as such, the Lord for me.

[33:06]

And there may be the glimmering, the hint, of what it is that this is inviting me to do or to change in my life. The process of Lectio is, for us, really a rediscovery of a new world. Fr. de Vogtgewey, in a conference he did a number of years ago, primarily on the relationship between the rule of the Master and the rule of Benedict, one of his favorite things, talked about our reading of the Fathers as a kind of ecumenism. We are required in our own reading of those who have gone before us to use the skills that we acquire in ecumenical dialogue, because these are our brothers and sisters in the faith, but some of their presuppositions are different from ours. Certainly the world they're living in is very different from ours. We have to be willing to, as it were, ask them questions and listen to the kinds of answers they give, but knowing that we may not understand them perfectly, and that we may need to have the same suspension of judgment that we bring to ecumenical dialogue, knowing that things will become clearer the more we get to know these people.

[34:14]

Knowing our foremothers and our forefathers is engaging in a process of dialogue with those whose world was different from ours. And it's a very rewarding and wonderful journey, but it's also one in which we have to have the humility to recognize that we don't often have the first notion of what they're going on about. that the reaction we encounter at times in their expositions may relate to something important in their culture which we need to slowly learn about, but for the moment put in brackets and listen then to other things or other aspects of what it is they have to offer. We need to be as polite and at the same time as tolerant of those who have gone before as we hopefully are of those whose faith positions differ significantly from ours. One of the most, I think, helpful models of the bringing together of what happens in Lectio, our interaction with the text, allowing it to awaken something within us, and the sense that we are called upon to offer to God, to consecrate to the Lord, everything we find in that inner world, which is also very often an exploration of our outer world as well.

[35:30]

are reaching out in prayers to those around us. And also a point where the one and the many, the monk or the nun, as a person of union, who is seeking both the solitude, which is experience of God, and the oneness of the triune God that links us all together in relationship. One of the people who did this most beautifully was actually St. Gertrude. one of our own order. I think it is to be resisted by Benedictines that many Cistercians are attempting to claim St. Gertrude as one of their own. The evidence is very iffy. She was clearly a daughter of St. Benedict, influenced by and powerfully compassionate towards St. Bernard and the Reformed, but there is no evidence that Helfda was a Cistercian convent. So, we should continue to claim her as one of our own. And Father Vagosini, in his beautiful book, Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy, gives a couple of examples, if you'd like to just take one of these and pass them on, of how Gertrude can be a model for us of the bringing together of liturgical prayer, or liturgical piety, and private devotion.

[36:47]

I am reliably informed by one of our older monks, that one of the embarrassing exercises to which novices were often subjected, perhaps as a part of the testing of their vocation, was to translate for the benefit of their fellows the hymn for the Feast of St. Gertrude. And, of course, it has such flowery, even erotic-sounding language in terms of describing her relationship with God that the person translating would get redder and redder and think he must be making mistakes. This can't possibly be what we're supposed to be singing about on the Feast of this Holy Virgin. But the wonderful thing about Gertrude, of course, is that very much like St. Bernard, very much like all of those who in her day were steeped in the culture of courtly love and of the minizenger, those who sang about love as a way of expressing the arts. That was happening spiritually and liturgically as well. The Song of Songs was the primary metaphor, as it had been since origin and before, of intimate union with the Lord.

[37:54]

And Gertrude just has absolutely no problem using the language of embrace, of kiss, of nearness in her relationship with God, but in a way that's very, very clearly chaste. She's talking about something that is that of which human erotic experience and sexuality is but a kind of a shadowy hint. She's talking about the real thing. And she's the origin, of course, of real devotion to the Sacred Hearts. Margaret Mary was a rediscovery of this very ancient tradition in which the Lord invites us into a union with himself, analogous to that of John the beloved disciple on the breast of the Lord, as Gertrude says, hearing that most blessed heart. heart, able to hear it in the very breast of the Lord. We're invited into a relationship with that God whose heart is the symbol of his love for us. Well, there's a really magnificent description of Gertrude's mystical experience in both her experiences on Christmas and Epiphany, but we'll look specifically at Epiphany and, as it were, cut to the chase.

[39:05]

It's important to remember that this woman who was having these vivid experiences of the Lord, her spiritual life was turned around one day when she was walking through the dormitory and bowed to one of the older nuns, as was the custom when you pass a senior, and looked up. And suddenly it wasn't another nun, it was Christ in the form of an attractive young man who invited her to draw near to him to discover that he was really her heavenly bridegroom, and he said, and now I will show you the place where you will experience the, as it were, inebriating torrent of my love, and he took her to her choir stall. There, in the church, where she sang the office, would be the place where she would enjoy this union with the Lord. And so it was. Her experiences, her ecstasies, her mystical stuff happened during the liturgy. But, she was the second Chantress. And the chantress was often sick.

[40:07]

And remember, the melismas and the adephons in those days were very complex. And she never missed a beat. She had all this stuff happening in her heart. She had this wonderful sense of the Lord present to her. and she was wholly present to her sisters as well. For her, there was no distinction between what happens in choir and being set on fire in your heart. The two naturally lead into and out of one another. The source of her contemplative experience was the liturgy. And so it is in the description of what happens on Epiphany. And for her, on Epiphany, the experience is not only one of adoration, of being close to Christ, but of discovering how, in that union with the Lord, we are also invited to reach out and to draw others into that union as well. And so, while the gospel was being read, they entered and, adoring him, opened their treasures. So, during the reading of the gospel, she gives you the precise liturgical moment when this event happened.

[41:12]

Gertrude, urged on by the example of the most blessed magi, and inflamed in the spirit, arose, not physically, but as it were in spirit, to prostrate herself in great devotion at the feet of the Lord Jesus. And notice what it says, adoring him, on the part of all beings, heavenly, earthly, and infernal." Now, that's a quote from Philippians, all right, celestium, terrestrium, and infernorum, but it's a powerful statement that Gertrude is worshiping on behalf of all in the heavens, the angelic orders, on the earth, the human order, and that which is below the earth, not necessarily the demonic or the lost, although there's a hint of something of the possibility of the reclaiming, even that which seems to be farthest from God, but the dark, misunderstood spirits of her day. She lived in a culture that still believed that woods and rocks and fields and forests and other places were inhabited. by not necessarily people, but by intelligences, which were not always very friendly, and all of that, even that stuff, those whatever they are, are somehow to be brought into relationship with God.

[42:26]

And as she's adoring on behalf of all of them, of course, she wants to emulate the Magi and have something to offer the Lord. But she could find nothing she might offer him worthily. With anxious desire, she began to pass in review the whole world. In other words, she allowed herself to do a kind of Lectio on the world, on life. on the world she knew around her, on the political situation that existed in her day, on the ecclesiastical situation, complex and broken and painful and dis-edifying, though it was in many ways, she allowed herself to look out to the world in which she lived seeking among all creatures to see if she could not find something worthy to be offered for his unique pleasure. And remember the problem that we often think that the Lord only wants the good stuff. Well, not for Gertrude. And while she was thus excited and breathless, hastening about in the thirst of her burning desire, you can see what perplexes the novices. You can just imagine the hymn for St.

[43:29]

Gertrude's Day. I don't know if you have a an original or close version of it. Most people don't. Usually it's edited down into a kind of a thin, watery version of its original self. She's thirsting in burning desire and came upon some objects. which every creature ought rightly despise." She comes on that which is despicable, because these things did nothing for the praise and glory of the Savior. But Gertrude, a woman of prayer, a woman listening to the gospel, urged on by a sense of the need to give to God that which is God's, seized upon them, the despicable things, avidly, and endeavored to lead them to render that same glory and praise which it is the duty of every creature to give. The technical language that's used by her biographer, and probably by her herself at this point, especially in describing what happens in her prayer, is the language of alchemy, the very primordial or early form of chemistry, in which it was known that chemical compounds through the power of heat can be transformed into other things, can change, and this led to the belief that they could be changed into something

[44:44]

more noble, ultimately changed into the most noble of all. Not so much changed into gold, which is what some people think alchemy was about, but changed into that which would itself be close and like unto the first matter, that which was created and which has potential for being and becoming all other things, a kind of a highest and most noble form of material stuff. Gertrude's heart, the place within her where she looks at the world and where she is praying, is the place where, through the power of grace, a kind of alchemy takes place. Thus, she drew into her heart, through her burning desire, the language of heat is used here, also because of the understanding that this means the possibility of change, all the pains and fears and sorrows and anxieties that ever any creature has suffered, not for the praise of the Creator, but through the depravities of their own weakness.

[45:47]

That is to say, she offers in prayer the pain and the sorrow and the fear, not that it's being offered by holy martyrs or by people who are being faithful to their own confession of faith, but people who suffer this stuff because of their own mistakes, because of their own weakness, people who are afraid and full of pain and sadness because they've made a horrible mess of their lives. This is what Gertrude is offering to God. through the depravities of their own weakness, and this she offered to the Lord as myrrh of finest quality." Myrrh is not incense, and the ancient world knew that very well. Myrrh is a chemical which is still used in dentistry, but was used in the ancient world as part of embalming rites. It was regarded as a kind of a very fragrant and kind of strong preservative. It was applied as a way of ennobling or making holy things which otherwise might suffer corruption. That which is suffering pain and anxiety and sorrow because of its own wrong choice or sin becomes a kind of myrrh, becomes something worthy of, something of value, something able to be offered to God, as the myrrh was in the first epiphany.

[47:07]

Then she drew into herself all the simulated sanctity and devotion of hypocrites, Pharisees, heretics, and the like. She looks around and sees not real sanctity, real devotion, that's being offered to God spontaneously, but people who are pretending to be holy. People who are caught in the terrible trap of being regarded as holy people, or having offices that cause people to think that they're noble, and who go along with the game, but are inwardly hollow, and empty, and just shells, and even dis-edifying to the faithful. And that she offered to the Lord in place of the sacrifice of the most fragrant incense. People whom Dante will relegate to the circles of hell. Gertrude places in her heart and offers to God as incense. In the third place, she endeavored to draw into her heart all the human affections and false and impure love of all creatures.

[48:09]

Otherwise, more succinctly put, lust. The misuse of human affection, the use of human affection, not for wholesome and life-giving and mutually nourishing and nurturing ways, but instead the misuse of one's capacity for affection for selfish gain. This she offered to the Lord as precious gold. In other words, Gertrude, in her prayer, is aware of a world in desperate need of transformation, full of people in the church who aren't the least bit holy, but are pretending to be, and thus maybe even hurting the people of God, aware of people who are suffering in their lives and know that they're suffering, not for any particularly noble or holy reason, but because they've made really bad mistakes, or maybe because they've made harmful choices, harmful to themselves and others, and people who are abusing and harming others, and all of this is what, for Gertrude, is to be offered to God in the spirit of the Epiphany.

[49:10]

Her prayer as a contemplative is not just about her own sanctification, her own divinization. It's a taking of the gift of union which the Lord is offering her. A looking out to the world and believing that God has the power even to touch those things. Not daring to think that her heart on its own, or her prayer on its own, can affect that transformation. But knowing that, invited by the one who loves her, she can dare to reach out to those things. and allow God to make of her the vehicle and the instrument for a transformation she may never see, but which God and she earnestly desire. And so, all these things together, completely purified of every blemish and wonderfully ennobled in her heart by the heat of her loving desire, Namely, that these things be transformed into submission to their lover. Like gold purified in the crucible, these she seemed to present to the Lord.

[50:13]

Gertrude is a powerful example of what it means to live as a contemplative, what it means to take seriously our call to be men of union, to discover the real rhythm of consecration in our own hearts, the movement from the many into the one that's the characteristic of our life of prayer at the office, our experience of prayer at Lectio Divina, and also to recognize that the God who reveals himself to us then uses us in our intercessory prayer, in our reaching out to offer others, in addition to our own lives, as a means by which the universe itself is consecrated. Teilhard de Chardin had a wonderful image in... in one of his meditations of a day when he was visiting a church where adoration was taking place, and he looked up at the monstrance and had a sense of the light coming from the host reaching out and effecting a consecration and a transformation, first of the church, then of the people in the church, then of the city beyond it, and then of the world beyond it.

[51:26]

And that's how he viewed the power or the energy of Christ working through us. God delights in making us into people who cooperate with him in the work of his consecration of the world, his divinization of all that he's made. Perhaps it's appropriate that on his feast we remember that St. Thomas Aquinas said that one of the most astonishing things about the Lord and about us is that God makes us into instrumental causes. He raises us up into the dignity of becoming people who, through our free choice, like the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, can say a yes to God that has a meaning far beyond our own healing, our own salvation, our own sanctification. God invites us to become a means by which that union and communion of all things which is the destiny of the universe, is effected.

[52:28]

We are God's co-creators in a new world. Thank you. Thoughts or reflections or questions? There's more Gertrude on the other side, if you care to glance at it. There's also a very good—several now—translations of some of Gertrude's texts. Unfortunately, though, the editions that have come out, both in Cistercian Studies and in the Paulist Press edition, do not include Book Four, which this particular citation is taken from. for the slightly dubious reason that Gertrude didn't herself write Book Four, that it's written by her biographers, that it's collections of stuff about her, but it was put together within a very short time of her death, and it's probably pretty authentic. The only translation that's available still of Book Four is through

[53:29]

Gosh, I think it's Christian Classics. It's a smallish publishing house that continues to reprint some old 19th century translations. And there has been no recent translation of this portion of Gertrude's revelations. Another particularly fun thing to look at, especially for monastics, are her recommendations on reviving the spirit and the energy of our own profession and our own investiture. She looks back on those ceremonies and seeks to find, as it were, retreat sort of little meditations that can enable us to get back into the spirit of them. Of course, she does it from the perspective of a nun, and so the image of the wedding is very important and is very prominent. But still, I think it's very useful stuff, and it's the kind of thing that I think we need to find ways of adapting and help people make use of today. Where would you find things like this? In the new translations, in the new sets of The Herald.

[54:31]

I think the Paulist Press edition includes a little bit of that. If it's not there, let me know, and I'll check the exact reference. But I'm pretty sure it's either in the Paulist or the New Cistercian translation, because they include more than her life and revelations, they also include her kind of private, as it were, recommendations for devotion. Many of the Benedictine sisters in this country used a form of the divine office based on several of the liturgical recommendations of St. Gertrude a number of years ago. And I believe the Benedictine Histories of Perpetual Adoration still have some copies of versions of that office that used to be used. And, of course, that's a very complex and rather controversial time in their history for them, and it isn't usually talked about in a very positive way.

[55:32]

But I think there's a lot of stuff there that can be used and rescued and made available to people. She's really, I mean, Gertrude's really on to something in terms of how liturgical prayer and private prayer can be one thing and don't have to be separate. That's hard for people today. There's a lovely little book out in the refectory, and I read it because out in the refectory You may miss some things. You may not be there at that time. And it was as if I was reading it for the first time, a biography of Don Garrold Jade. Beautiful. And in there he mentions again, as in Dallas, I was introduced to St. Gertrude, Don Garrold Jade, his detergent homework, that this was one of the revivals. He had a great devotion to the sacred heart. He would sell, he would show different times, and uh, Gertrude was very influential.

[56:33]

And our father loved Don Geroge. Maybe this evening, maybe we'll talk more about it, because I remember it as a Hidden Springs, Seren Valley, anywhere, people coming here. There was a close, and uh, this love of Gurdjieff, and I'd say he was very influenced by her. Yes, and the first abbess of St. Cecile as well, Mère Bréhier, she also did a lot of translation of certain Gurdjieff and did a lot to popularize that. And again, I think today, sometimes the sort of perplexity or even negative attitude that one has towards certain kinds of popular devotion is the rather more modern manifestation of this. Sometimes one finds the claims or the promises associated with devotion to the Sacred Heart in our own day a little bit perplexing, even exasperating at times.

[57:34]

But one has to bear in mind that that's a modern adaptation of something that's actually much more wholesome in its roots. And to understand its roots and to help people today realize that it's not all just St. Margaret Mary, And it's not all just First Fridays, that in fact, there's something much more fundamental about having an external visible representation of the love of God. To the extent that, and they're finally admitting it, I mean, there are Jesuit historians that admit that a lot of Jesuit energy at the turn of the century and after that went into opposing the Benedictine liturgical movement because of the Jesuit conviction, and it was not completely misplaced, the devotion of the sacred heart had a lot to offer the people of God, and that they would be confused if you offered them, you know, everything else as well. Well, I mean, it's obviously both and and not either or. But part of that was, I think, an inner awareness of the fact that there is something about that image of the love of God made physical, despite the fact that, you know, most of the depictions of it are mawkish and not the sort of thing you'd necessarily want to have a statue of in your

[58:39]

in your cloister. Nevertheless, when well done, it can be a way of reminding oneself that God does love us, and that the love of God is primary, and that that's what we relate to. And Gertrude saw that really, fundamentally. On the masculine side, too, I'd like to oppose the commentary, whether the Carthusian monks It goes right back to the cross. It goes back to St. John. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, so the devotion, that's right. These Carthusians are just as mystic as St. Gertrude, and there's a whole slew of them, all the medieval Carthusian monks. And they're just as fervent as Gertrude. So it's not because some people say, well, this little bumble is something.

[59:43]

It's not just. They are just as fervent. That's a very good point, I think. And the difficulty today is I think one has to simply not be embarrassed about this and not always be cowed by the psychologist who will sit there knowingly saying, oh yes, well, we know what this is really about, don't we? Who will imply that this is all a kind of only partially sublimated sexuality and it's just a reflection of the repression they always knew was there in religious life anyway. But to recognize that our own world is really very naive and even adolescent in its approach to human sexuality and human intimacy, and that many of the sources we tap into are actually much more fundamentally well-rooted into an authentic human expression of intimacy than anything that a lot of so-called mental health experts that our own day could be aware of. We have a lot to offer and we don't offer it well if we're constantly sitting back and allowing someone simply because they have a PhD or a license to say, well, let me tell you what this is really about.

[60:47]

Let me tell you what your spiritual experience really means. Where is the bedrock of our experience? The bedrock of our experience is Christ. Indeed, my relationship to Christ may be powerfully influenced by my relationship with my father and my difficulties with the women and the men and all the things in my life, but those things are epiphenomenal if our life is fundamentally rooted in the Lord. They may be important, but they're not the primary bedrock. And we have access to a tradition that takes that for granted. And boy, if there's anything the world today needs to hear, it's that. So thank you for having us here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I was saying yesterday to Father Pryor, I very much enjoyed being here. I don't think I've ever been in a community where I felt as much at home and as well received for a whole variety of reasons. I mean, this is a lovely setting. You've been wonderfully gracious and receptive of me. And also your liturgical setting.

[61:48]

I mean, many of your psalm tones are very similar to the ones we use. Your approach to psalmody is the same as ours. I was so glad to be in a house where the pace of recitation of the psalmody is roughly the same as our own, and where you don't have endless pauses between the stanzas, which, again, well, I won't go into that. But to be in a place where so much could be quite natural, and I hope this is the beginning of the first of many more comings and goings between our communities. the distance between us notwithstanding. Well, to your personal awareness. Do! Do by all means. I don't think we can necessarily promise you snow unless you happen to arrive on the right days, but we can certainly promise you a nice meal and a warm reception. You had a Chinese seminary who was with us this Christmas. How did you find that for him? Looked through the places that they had at the seminary. He was looking for a place where he could have a Beijing Christmas with a lot of snow. Oh, you're more than welcome.

[62:54]

Again, thank you for having me. Yes, that's what you said. And of course, Father Vincent has positive, wonderful positive things to say. We're going to do dishes. Oh yes.

[63:17]

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