Our help is in the name of the Lord. Praised be Jesus Christ. Amen. These are not all the notes I'm going to read tonight, so there's just a couple of things on a few pages that I want to quote. We talked a little bit about about limitation and of course limitation is exactly the thing that kind of gets to us. Even though limitation is a blessing because it makes us who we are, it still is something that kind of bothers us because we would prefer not to be as limited as we are sometimes. And of course that's the That's why there is quote-unquote progress in this world as well, because we find that there are things that we can do now that we couldn't do before, so that there are things in the future that we will be able to do that we can't do now because we've kind of expanded what our limitations are.

[01:11]

But the essence, the essential limitation that we are is there, and it's not going to change. from the standpoint of, you know, it's not the kind of a limitation that's going to expand in itself, at least not by our doing. There's a limitation that does get expanded not because we do it, but because God does it in us, and I think that's the whole idea of the Incarnation. And I think when you stop and think about it, Probably one of the things that, you know, not only are we bothered by our limitation, but it is desire for what we do not have and what we maybe can't have, but certainly it's the desire for what we do not have that is going to tell us that we're unhappy, that we're suffering.

[02:18]

And from the standpoint of what we do not have and would like to have, suffering is not something that we want to get into very much. We want to overcome suffering. And at the same time, because we want to overcome suffering, it becomes the thing that stands in the way of our relationship with other people. Because, in fact, other people limit us. At least we think of it in that way. You know, if there's a pie out there in the kitchen, and somebody wants that whole pie, then your coming in and taking a piece of that pie is putting a limit on somebody who doesn't want a limit put on them. They want the whole pie, you understand. What we find, of course, is that when we have a limitation meeting another limitation,

[03:20]

putting the two limitations together can expand our own sense of who we are and what we are able to do. I mean, and this is obvious, you look at the number of people that it takes to put food on the table, it's the conjunction of many limited people who expand the possibilities of what we in fact can do. But there are other ways of looking at it as well that says, I don't want to engage with someone else because I certainly don't want them to limit what I am able to do. In that sense, interfacing with somebody else who's going to limit me in some way, my time, my money, my this, my that, whatever it is. can easily become a manner of the way that we love other people as well, of coming into contact with them.

[04:30]

Yes, expanding ourselves in a very real way, but also contracting ourselves because we're bumping up against another limitation that needs to be looked at. One of the ways I think in which God shows us love is by the infinite taking on limitation, and that we call the incarnation. I think that's a real important thing for us to understand, is that the God, the unlimited, the infinite taking on this limitation of human nature, Limitation really means needing the other for survival. When you get right down to it, we need each other for survival. But even in the incarnation, that is the experience that God has.

[05:33]

Have you ever wondered whether or not when you're really suffering something, Does God really know what I'm going through? Does God really know what my suffering is? What the meaning of all of this is? Does God understand me? God can come out and give me all of these commandments, you know, love one another and all the rest of it, but does God really experience what it means from a human standpoint to suffer what we're suffering. And we suffer, let's face it, we do suffer. My concept of it is, is that yes, I think God does experience it in us. I mean, it's the meaning of the incarnation, but it's even way beyond that, because there's a way that we exist in God. We don't exist outside of God. He's kind of looking at the Trinity and saying, well, the Trinity is up there someplace, and I'm down here someplace, and God looks at us from a distance.

[06:43]

But we don't exist that way with God. We exist in the Trinity. We are in God. We're not outside of God. We're in God. But God is also in us, experiencing our life. Now, maybe that's more of an intuition than something I can prove. But I think it's true. Now, I think by the time we get to the end of, not tonight, but a few days from now, maybe I will have demonstrated something of that, of what that might mean. When the Son of God becomes a human being, He takes on limitation. He takes on the limitation of needing other people for survival. In a sense, you know, I mean, Mary said yes. to the Incarnation. Not knowing what all of that was going to mean, but nevertheless she said yes. And somebody had to say yes in order for the Incarnation to take place. And sometimes people say, well, if she hadn't said yes, somebody else would have said yes.

[07:47]

Who knows how many didn't say yes before she came along and she said yes. I don't believe that. I mean, again, this is my opinion, but I think if she had said no, we would have been sunk. Why not? I mean, it's either that or it's not a free act, huh? So, you know, I think that he depended, he made himself dependent on her, yes. That's taking on limitation. That's love. That is genuine love. What it means, of course, is that Humanity is not saved from this death, from this sin of Adam and Eve, without its own consent. We had to consent. That's the role of Mary, to represent humanity consenting, but we also have to add our consent to it.

[08:50]

This is limitation now, this has to do with suffering, and I think suffering is something that we have to face. I think that sometimes we can, pardon me. Is the ice cream? No, it's fine. Thank you. Sometimes we can use suffering as an escape from from obligation, from responsibility, and so on, you know. Try telling the prior someday that, no, I can't go to work today, my stigmata is acting up. I don't think he's going to accept that, you understand. When Jesus came, Jesus faced the reality of suffering people. He healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind. He enabled the lame to walk, drove out demons, raised the dead to life.

[10:01]

He did all of these things, which are participations in some way with death. We can claim that we don't mind, we face the reality of death. If we do face the reality of death, it's probably because we do have faith that there's more to come. But I've always said, I don't mind dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens. But even those that he reached out to and healed of their blindness or deafness or raised them from the dead, they died again. They all did. They all went deaf again. They all went blind again. They all were crippled again because they couldn't move. Death is that way. And he takes that on himself as well. Which, again, is taking on the ultimate limitation. When Jesus cried out on the cross, you know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He knew what he was saying, because he, above all, knew what death meant.

[11:02]

You know, death means ceasing to exist, ceasing to be. Going, you know, going back into the dust from which we came. But he accepted that, again taking upon himself our sin and the consequence of sin. You know, Adam and Eve heard this, if you eat the fruit of the tree, you will die, you will surely die. So, death comes from sin. And when he overcomes sin, when he takes sin upon himself, overcomes it, he dies, but he is raised up again, and we with him. We fear suffering. We fear suffering more than we do death in some ways. But we're dying, and suffering is part of that. And unless we die with Christ, we will not rise with Him. Sometimes suffering is the result of good choices.

[12:06]

You know, you see parents who will do anything to save their children. I remember when I was working in the parish in the South Bronx, a woman by the name of Gladys, school crossing guard, 149th Street and Jackson Avenue, and stop and go lights, and a bus was in the left lane going to make a left turn onto Jackson Avenue and a little kid was coming across the street and he walked in front of the bus and here was a tow truck who had lost his brakes and was going right through the red light. Gladys ran out and she grabbed this kid and threw him halfway down Jackson Avenue. You could imagine a kid picking himself up and thinking how mean and cruel she was for throwing him halfway down Jackson Avenue, but she saved his life. She was killed instantly. No, that was a choice.

[13:13]

It was a loving choice. It was a terrific choice to make. I had the funeral. You talk about heroics. This was a marvelous thing. She limited her life in order to save his life. She did save his life. Suffering, death, was the consequence of making a good choice. The fact of the matter is that we suffer. And I think we have to learn kind of the meaning of what that suffering is. Sometimes accepting suffering has some very, very good and essential consequences. I think that anything that we want to accomplish in life is going to require of us that we give something of ourselves. You don't go through school, you don't learn a trade, you don't do anything without making the sacrifice of

[14:22]

other things that have less importance to you than what your goal is. It's one of the things that makes monastic life an important thing for us to do. There are trials and tribulations in it and so on, yeah. But that's part of what it means. One of my One of my favorite all-time books that I've ever read is called Report to Greco by Nikos Kazantzakis. Nikos Kazantzakis is the one who wrote The Last Temptation of Christ. He got an awful lot of bad press from some people because of The Last Temptation of Christ. But The Last Temptation of Christ was a parable. It wasn't meant to be and it is not any kind of a literal thing. And the last temptation of Christ was not to have sex with Mary Magdalene or somebody.

[15:27]

That had nothing to do with it. The last temptation of Christ was to turn away from what God was calling him to do for humanity. But I think the root of that story is found in the book Report to Greco. in which Kazantzakis is on a pilgrimage through kind of the desert areas where he is running into all sorts of monks who are ascetics and so on. And he has this one particular story about one monk that he runs into, and he asks him a question concerning temptations that people have. Let me read what he said. He fell silent for a moment, the monk did, and then he said, temptations come to us very often here in the desert.

[16:32]

One night I had a strange temptation in my sleep. I saw myself as a great sage in Jerusalem. I could cure many different diseases. But first and foremost, I was able to remove demons from the possessed. People brought patients to me from all over Palestine. And one day Mary, the wife of Joseph, arrived from Nazareth, bringing her 12-year-old son, Jesus. Falling at my feet, she cried out tearfully, O illustrious sage, take pity on me and heal my son. He has many demons inside him. I had the parents go outside. When I remained alone with Jesus, I caressed his hand and asked him, what is the matter, my child? Where does it hurt? Here, here, he replied, pointing to his heart.

[17:36]

And what's wrong with you? I can't sleep, eat, or work. I roam the streets wrestling. Who are you wrestling with? With God. Who else do you expect to be wrestling with? I kept him near me for a month. I dressed him ever so gently. Gave him herbs to make him sleep. I placed him in a carpenter shop to learn a trade. We went out for walks together and I spoke to him about God as though he were a friend, a neighbor who came in the evening to sit with us on our doorstep and chat. There was nothing impressive or difficult about these talks. We spoke of the weather, of the wheat fields and vineyards, the young girls who went to the fountain. At the end of a month's time, Jesus was completely cured. He no longer wrestled with God. He had become a man like all other men.

[18:38]

He departed from Galilee. I learned afterwards that he had become a fine carpenter, the best in Nazareth. The monk glanced at me. Do you understand, he asked. Jesus was cured. Instead of saving the world, he became the best carpenter in Nazareth. What is the meaning then of disease and health? Ponder that one. You know, I love that story. But again, I think it's exactly the same story as The Last Temptation of Christ. His temptation was to avoid the cross. His temptation was to be like everybody else, get married, raise a family, you know, be a good carpenter, live to be an old man, die and go to your grave that way. But that was the temptation, that's the same temptation he's talking about here.

[19:44]

Wrestling, you know, and I think that we expect, you know, that there's going to be all sorts of physical sufferings in our lives. Eventually, you know, we start out totally dependent. We go through the terrible twos, et cetera. When we're 10 years old, we wish we were 20. When we were 20, we wish we were 40. When we were 40, we wish we were 30. We want to start slowing this process down. But there are other ways that we wrestle, not with health or even with emotional problems sometimes, quite so much as we wrestle with God. Frederick Buchner, or Beckner, again, he's written quite a good number of books, actually, but I think my second favorite that he wrote was called The Son of Laughter, which is really the story of Jacob. And he writes a most beautiful passage concerning Jacob's wrestling match.

[20:52]

You remember the story in the scriptures. It's a little bit long, but I really think it's worth hearing, okay? Esau was his brother, and of course he had kind of cheated him out of his inheritance, and now he's on his way. to be reconciled or at least to come to an understanding with Esau. So he's got all of this train of people and animals and so on and they're on their way and of course night time comes. And this is what the story is. Out of the dark someone leaped at me with such force that it knocked me onto my back. It was a man. I could not see his face. His naked shoulder was pressed so hard against my jaw, I thought he would break it.

[21:56]

His flesh was chill and wet as the river. Ah, he was the god of the river. My bulls had raped him, my flocks had fouled him, my children pissed on him. He would not let me cross without a battle. I got my elbow into the pit of his throat and forced him off. I threw him over onto his back. His breath was hot in my face as I straddled him. My breath came in gasps. Quick as a serpent, he twisted loose and I was caught between his thighs. The grip was so tight I could not move. He had both hands pressed to my cheek. He was pushing my face into the mud, grunting with the effort. Then he got me on my belly with his knee in the small of my back. He was tugging my head up toward him. He was breaking my neck. He was not the god of the river. He was Esau. He had slain all my sons.

[22:58]

He had forded the river to slay me. Just as my neck was about to snap, I butted my head upward with the last of my strength and I caught him square. For an instant his grip loosened and I was free. Over and over we rolled together into the reeds at the water's edge. We struggled in each other's arms. He was on top, then I was on top. I knew that they were not Esau's arms. It was not Esau. I did not know who it was. I did not know who I was. I knew only my terror, and that it was dark as death. I knew only that what the stranger wanted was my life. For the rest of the night, we battled in the reeds with a javik roaring down through the gorge above us. Each time I thought I was lost, I escaped somehow. There were moments when we lay exhausted in each other's arms the way a man and a woman lie exhausted from passion.

[24:01]

There were moments when I seemed to be prevailing. It was as if he was letting me prevail. Then he was at me with new fury. But he did not prevail. For hours it went on that way. Our bodies were slippery with mud. We were panting like beasts. We could not see each other. We spoke no words. I did not know why we were fighting. It was like fighting in a dream. He outweighed me. He outwrestled me. But he did not overpower me. He did not overpower me until the moment came to overpower me. When the moment came, I knew that he could have made it come whenever he wanted. I knew that all through the night he had been waiting for that moment. He had his knee under my hip. The rest of his weight was on top of my hip. Then the moment came and he gave a fierce downward thrust.

[25:07]

I felt a fierce pain. It was less a pain I felt than a pain I saw. I saw it as light. I saw the pain as a dazzling bird shape of light. The pain's beak impaled me with light. It blinded me with the light of its wings. I knew I was crippled and done for. I could do nothing but cling now. I clung for dear life. I clung for dear death. My arms thrust him, my legs locked him, and for the first time he spoke. He said, let me go. The words were more breath than sound. They scalded my neck where his mouth was touching. He said, let me go, for the day is breaking. Only then did I see it, the first faint shudder of light behind the farthest hills. I said, I will not let you go. I would not let him go for fear that the day would take him as the dark had given him.

[26:13]

It was my life I clung to. My enemy was my life. My life was my enemy. I said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Even if his blessing meant death, I wanted it more than life. Bless me, I said. I will not let you go unless you bless me. He said, who are you? There was mud in my eyes, my ears, nostrils, my hair. My name tasted of mud when I spoke it. Jacob, I said. My name is Jacob. It is Jacob no longer, he said. Now you are Israel. You have wrestled with God and with men. You have prevailed. That is the meaning of the name Israel. I was no longer Jacob. I was no longer myself. Israel was who I was. The stranger had said it. I tried to say it the way he had said it, Yisrael.

[27:16]

I tried to say the new name I was to the new self I was. I could not see him. He was too close to me to see. I could see only the curve of his shoulders above me. I saw the first glimmer of dawn on his shoulders like a wound. I said, what is your name? I could only whisper it. Why do you ask me my name? We were both of us whispering. He did not wait for my answer. He blessed me as I had asked him. I do not remember the words of his blessing or even if there were words. I remember the blessing of his arms holding me. and the blessing of his arms letting me go. I remember as blessing the black shape of him against the rose-colored sky. I remember as blessing the one glimpse I had of his face. He was more terrible than the face of dark, or of pain, or of terror.

[28:22]

It was the face of light. No words can tell of it. Silence cannot tell of it. Sometimes I cannot believe that I saw it and lived, but that I only dreamed I saw it. Sometimes I believe I saw it, that I only dream I live. He never told me his name. The fear of Isaac, the shield of Abraham and others like them are names we use because we do not know his true name. He did not tell me his true name. Perhaps he did not tell it because he knew I would never stop calling on it. But I gave the place where I saw him a name. I named it Piniel. It means the face of God. The story, it seems to me, as told here has to do with a man who thinks he knows who he is and who

[29:30]

through suffering, through wrestling with God, comes to know who God knows he is. And I think that is what our wrestling is about. Our wrestling with God is to help us to put aside all of the false images that we have, not of God, but of ourselves. and come to the reality of who we are made in the image and likeness of God, to come to be able to see who in fact we are, who we truly are. In the dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, these life and miracles of St. Benedict, we have a similar wrestling with God that Benedict went through. I think it's a wrestling that often gets simply misinterpreted. Benedict is wrestling with temptations that he had in memory of a woman that he knew in Rome. And he is wrestling mightily.

[30:35]

And he's about ready to give in, to abandon his life in the cave and return to Rome. But then, In all of this wrestling that he's going through, he throws himself into the nettles at Subiaco, rolls around in them, overcomes the temptation, and St. Gregory says, he never had that temptation again. And of course, generally, I think we interpret that as being a massive sexual temptation. That isn't what it was. His temptation was to abandon the life. And the fact of the matter was, he didn't abandon the life, and 1500 years later, we are the recipients of the grace that he accepted at that time. I think once again, you know, we have to understand ourselves in our wrestling with God, that it isn't only us that we're wrestling for.

[31:48]

but for everybody that will have any kind of an inheritance from what we do today. I used to tell my novices, I was novice master for seven years, and I used to tell my novices, I said, I have no idea whether you're here for life or not, but I do know that you're here now, because you believe God has called you here now, and I believe God has called you here now. You came in answer to a call of God. If you go, make sure that you're going because it's a call of God as well. And there's no contradiction in that whatsoever. But the wrestling match that goes on is to know what the call of God is on our lives. And if you haven't wrestled with that, you're poorer for it. Because this kind of a wrestling match is a very, very important part of our spiritual maturity. Because what this kind of wrestling does is that it takes our desires that are selfish, of wanting things for ourselves, and brings us to a point where we're down to who we are, which is really up to who we are.

[33:07]

so that we can be gods for God, and we can do what God wants of us, not because we see it as so advantageous to ourselves, but because this is the way God wants us to live in God's own presence. Now, any comments you'd like to make? No, in Gaudium's first days it said, you know, atheism. Today it's all kind of different from atheism, usually years ago. And I think it's, at least for me, it's kind of what Terrence said, that atheism, well they said too, it's the discouragement of being a human being, being a creature. Who says? This was with Teilhard. I mean, some woman asked him, I said, you know, I knew that the most optimistic, in the face of all kind of happenings, would be optimistic.

[34:14]

For instance, a lady I'm living with, on the brink of chaos, and she said, can't anything go wrong? He says, no, it's going to work out, unless people lose confidence in themselves. And I think most people would prefer to be annihilated, and I shouldn't say most, a lot of people these days are so discouraged with being a human being and the frustrations that they prefer annihilation to resurrection, because we know what resurrection is. But it's just, it's a jam. mess, and what's God been doing, and so forth, and here I am, and it's not going to get any better. If this is what life is like, from God, I just don't want to have it. I remember, you know, every once in a while, she's in a place, they introduce a woman to Guatemala, or one of these places in the Caspian Sea, and they say, what's going to be the happiest day of your life?

[35:17]

And she says, when it's over. I mean, to think that a person lived that, that life, that happiness. Really so, I mean, we don't even know what it is, you know. Just, I just want it over. I just read a biography of Teilhard de Chardin, Ursula King, and he went through his wrestling and stayed the optimist on these things too. I think it's nail on the head for guys like myself and the guy that just started also because you know, some, and other people, especially when they've gone into this domestic life, middle of the road, so to speak. I'm 51, I mean, and I always keep saying, I have a ball, but I'm not happy.

[36:19]

I believe that, I mean, 90% of me believes this is what's going to make me happy, so it's been a pretty tough rest of my life. And I know this isn't an easy road, but I'm ready, willing, and then God will let some of you just think, He won't be admired. I think that the temptation sometimes with this wrestling is that, you know, the challenge. You know, there's some people who seem to thrive on a challenge.

[37:21]

And I suppose it's where moderation and discernment is so important. Is it, you know, is it coming from God or me? imposing a challenge on him so that I can say how victorious he was. You know, I think there's a great deal of ambiguity in that. Whether or not I'm, you know, how much of, you know, I have a challenge in front of me, my ego says I have to succeed. And maybe God says, no you don't. You know, maybe the best thing is to fail at something. But I think the basic challenge that goes on in our lives is to put aside the things where I have found my identity.

[38:24]

Which doesn't mean that I destroy my talents or anything of that sort, but how do I use them? Do I use them for the sake of other people, or am I there doing things for the sake of some kind of a personal honor for myself? Does it just simply mean, you know, there are two equally valid ways of doing something, but by gosh, you're going to do it because I want you to do it that way." That sort of thing. It's another thing that comes into our whole system of education, for instance. The whole competitive spirit in education. I've been involved in education for a good number of years, but I've always kind of thought that what sets Benedictine education apart from so many other kinds of education is that basically it's non-competitive, it's cooperative.

[39:32]

Everybody's a teacher, everybody's a student, everybody is in the process of learning. And there's no capital in competing with somebody else, because when I compete with somebody else, I'm putting them in second place. Therefore, I'm close to hearing what they have to say. So you've got all of this kind of a thing going on, where, you know, within the monastic community, There's not supposed to be any competitiveness. I mean, if you read the chapter on good zeal, chapter 72 of the rule, you know, it's exactly the competitive spirit that Benedict is putting down. He says, you know, prefer the other to oneself, to what the other one wants. Because these are the ways that we help one another as a community to become what the community is to be. Again, limitation hitting up against limitation and expanding the whole meaning.

[40:40]

If you want to make a description of something that's really glorious in your sight, what do you do? You use words. Or you use paint on the canvas, or you use musical notes on the instrument of some kind or other. But every note that you strike is a limited, it's a limit. But you put them all together, and that limitation of these individual notes expand the meaning of what you're trying to say in your music, or in your poetry, or in your painting, or in whatever else that you're doing. Gerard Manley Hopkins would use that whole concept of inscape, where you pile image upon image upon image upon image, and trying to explain something. And when you get all finished with the thing, and you've gathered, practically speaking, from all these images, a major image of something which is greater than the sum of its parts.

[41:58]

And that's what a monastic community is. That's what the body of Christ is. All of these limited things together, making something that is greater than the sum of its parts. No. Read the Magnificat. The Magnificat is image upon image upon image upon image, and you get down to the end of the whole thing. If you've been listening to it, it's greater than the sum of its parts. But, if some note in that composition decides it is going to be louder and better than every other note in the whole composition, the symphony goes rapidly to hell. You know? So, sitting here in the warm room, it sounds like a great thing to get into a wrestling match.

[43:17]

Clear the floor. I've always been impressed by the second chapter of Sirach, when you come to serve the Lord, be prepared for trials, which was the last thing in the world I was prepared for, when you went downhill in a wheelchair back, in a bad way. But it sure is the truth. It's interesting, I took the word joy as a word for, and then you begin to see how often it appears. I mean, that Peter and Paul had taken all joy from your fall into various trials, which was the last place you're expected to find joy. And then you realize, you know, they really, they knew a terrible lot about you with joy.

[44:20]

And I was, I had something anyway. But it's, that there is joy. and trials, as you say, and not as a challenge to myself, but as a response to God's calling. Very well. Thank you.

[44:35]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v004
@Score_JJ