Our help is in the name of the Lord. Praised be Jesus Christ. When I come to this particular time in a retreat, it's always a little worrisome for me to know exactly how to proceed, because the one thing that I have in mind in this retreat is that we are looking at an overall spirituality that comes out of the scriptures, and we're looking at what went wrong, with humanity in the beginning? And what is the solution to that? And why is it a solution? I mean, I think an awful lot of us grew up thinking or hearing, you know, that, you know, Jesus died for our sins. You know, isn't that wonderful? I mean, if we don't know why, if we don't know, if we don't know the equations, there are some equations in this.

[01:07]

What does his dying have to do with giving, with our being reconciled to God? There's something more in all of this that I think we really have to be conscious of. First of all, if we're going to know what He did, and secondly, what we're supposed to do. And it isn't even a question of us doing, it's us receiving, yes. I mean, salvation is a free gift of God, but what is salvation? What is salvation? Salvation is, oh, we're freed from our sins and now we can go to heaven. That's fine, except that it doesn't really say anything, because nobody knows what heaven's like. Nobody knows what it means to go to heaven. Nobody knows why is that a good thing. What is this thing that Jesus is teaching us? So I go back then to St. John's Gospel. as something that runs a certain parallel with the whole Exodus account.

[02:11]

And I think some of the elements that are in the Exodus account, we have to be able to see these in the John 9 writings as well. Here is a people enslaved, and it's very difficult to move them. uh... even with all of the the signs and wonders uh... you know pharaoh wasn't the only one with a hard heart who wouldn't let them go after these various plagues the people themselves you know uh... moses why don't you just get your nose out of all this stuff you know you you you go and you talk to pharaoh and all of a sudden you know we've got to go and find our own straw now you're making it harder for us not easier for us and after they get into the desert you know it's the same stupid thing of course Why didn't we just stay in Egypt? If we're going to die out here, we could have died there. What's the difference? You're just putting us through more agony. Until Moses utters the words that just about any monastic superior I've ever met will utter now and then himself.

[03:19]

Why did you give me these people? They're driving me nuts. They're going to kill me. What is going on in this? What is Jesus in fact doing? And I think that we can't separate what he is doing from the context of that Passover meal and this meal of the breaking of the bread and finally the celebration of the Passover the night before he died. But, when we are presented with these things, sometimes we see exactly the same material that everybody else sees and have an entirely different reaction to it. For one thing, in the exodus, that moment before they move out, and cross the Sea of Reeds or the Red Sea and go into the desert.

[04:22]

They share a meal together. Well, part of that meal has to do with the sprinkling of blood on the doorposts so that the angel of death will not visit the homes of those chosen ones. Okay, that's one thing. But they're also sharing a meal where they're eating together. And they've got certain things that are symbolic of what that meal is supposed to mean. But of interest to me at least in this is that there are a number of things in this world and in this life that we absolutely need. And food is one of them. You cannot live without food and drink. It's just impossible to survive without that. short of some kind of a miracle. In the Passover celebration, there is a meal that is shared because it is this meal that is drawing people together because they're going to go out together and they're going to be saved as a people together.

[05:31]

There's going to be a togetherness. It's an awful word in our age, isn't it? But there's going to be this unity of going out someplace and establishing themselves as a people. They're going to see themselves as a people. That's good. And then every year, they're going to celebrate that anniversary of the Passover once again. And that is supposed to remind them that they are a people. They're in unity. They're in unity because God has called them to be in unity. And if they're going to be in unity, there are some things they're going to have to do. And some of those things they're going to have to do is get rid of those things that separate them. You know, the hatreds, the competition, the greed, you know, for this. I want this and you have it and I want more than you have because I'm better than you, our kind of thing.

[06:33]

All of these things, these are the things they as a people have to face. And when they don't face them, they get into wars with each other. So, the first and most important thing that God is doing in that Passover thing is bringing them together into unity, into oneness. And somehow or other, that unity is going to be an expression of what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God. They know Genesis. They know the story of creation. And I think they understand better than sometimes we do of what that meant, to be made in the image and likeness of God. God gave freely and is not going to be separated from that people because somebody over here is going to please God more than these over here and therefore I'm going to favor these over here. You didn't pay me enough. God doesn't need payment. All of this is a preparation because it's not complete yet. Even when they get to the promised land, it's not complete yet.

[07:36]

There's something more to come. Well, Jesus comes to proclaim good news and he has gone through these various stages. He's a special individual and he's reached out to these people in some very miraculous ways in his ministry to them. And they see what he is doing. They hear the word that he is proclaiming. They hear it not only by the words coming out of his mouth, but by the actions that he has towards the people around him. They see this. They see him as a man living a very, very simple life. who is not greedy for things, who is not running after people because he wants to, in some way, possess them for himself, for selfish reasons. They see him as being altruistic, I suppose, loving. This is who he is, this is what he's doing. And then he comes along and he has pity on these people who have come out into the desert with him and are receiving this word, listening to his word, but they're out there, many people, and he has compassion on them, which is another very divine attribute to share with these people.

[08:57]

He goes out there and he says, we've got to feed them, so they feed them. Well then, this is where the people seeing something that is really very, very good, misappropriate the meaning of it. And they come running after him to make him their king, which he's not interested in doing, and he runs away, of course. But when they find him later on, on the other side, they are quite interested in what he has done. But Jesus says to them, in all truth I tell you, you are looking for me not because you have seen the signs, that because you had all the bread you wanted to eat. Well, you know, this is something that they liked. It's a marvelous, marvelous sign. And it's so good for us to have this. You know, I don't have to work for bread, if that's the case. That's not his message.

[10:00]

That's not what he's doing. He's talking to them about something else. He is feeding them. Because feeding people is a good thing to do. Sharing bread, breaking bread together is a good thing to do because it manifests that we are one humanity. When we can share with all people without exception, there's a recognition there that we are one with this humanity. And that's what he's been talking about. Even his baptism talked about that. His recognition of himself as being one with us or one of us. He said, this is carrying out God's work. You must believe in the one that he has sent. Now they're starting to have some questions because they're starting to recognize that this isn't why he multiplied loaves. He's telling them something about himself, but he's also demanding from them that they live like he is.

[11:04]

Now comes the resistance. Now comes the wall. It starts being put up there. You're going to be making some demands on me that I don't want to have made on me because I don't want to lose my selfishness. I want to have some of this. I want to have an advantage over other people. I want us as a people to have an advantage over other people. He says, in all truth I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread. For the bread of God is the bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Oh well, now that sounds pretty good. So they say to him, give us this bread always. And he says to them, I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever hunger. No one who believes in me will ever thirst. He is calling himself the bread of life. This is why he came. This is what he's giving to them. But that isn't what they want.

[12:06]

They want real bread, you know, the kind that you can bake in the oven and all that. They want these things for which they no longer have to work. He says, I am the bread. They understand what he's saying. Believe me, they understand what he's saying. what they're complaining to him and to each other. He says, I am the bread that has come down from heaven. They were saying, surely this is Jesus, son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know. How can he say, I have come down from heaven? But he said it. And they're in denial of this now. He says, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they are dead, but this is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that a person may eat it and not die. I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.

[13:09]

Now, keep it in the context, please. You know, they know bread, they know what he's saying up here. They know that he's saying, you have to live the way I'm living. You have to accept the Word of God as the Word of God is coming to you now, right here. This is what I'm saying to you. There's some changes that take place in your life. But now, they find themselves able to find something in what he is saying that gets them off the hook. He says, I am the living bread which comes down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world. Ha ha! Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus replied to them, In all truth I tell you if you do not eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life and I shall raise that person up on the last day.

[14:20]

For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. Somehow a diversion has come in here that lets them off the hook in some way again. But what is he saying? You know, is he saying you have to be a cannibal? No, he's not. And they know he's not. I'm very convinced that they know exactly what he's saying. that I am giving my life for you. I am denying myself everything that is purely self-centered and all the rest of it. I am giving my whole life to you. You've got to take that whole life. You have to take it into yourself because I'm willing to take you into myself. They know what he's saying. And the demand is too great. The demand is simply too great.

[15:24]

They know that he's not offering, telling them to become cannibals. That is not what he's, that's not what he's saying to them. And I think they know it. So what do they do? You know, is it because of the threat of cannibalism that they're going to depart from him? I don't think so. This is what he taught at Capernaum in the synagogue. After hearing it, many of his followers said, this is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it? See, I think what you have to understand is the Hebraic way of speaking. Unless you hate your father and your mother, you cannot be my disciple, my follower. Come on, Jesus, what did you say before? And you have to love your neighbor as yourself. You know, that's the commandment is like the first one, love God with everything you are. This is a contradiction. How can you say that?

[16:24]

They know what he's saying. They know what he's saying. You have to prefer Christ to absolutely nothing else. St. Benedict says the same thing, but he says it in a language that we can understand. It is still hard. But he says this is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it? How could anyone accept having to follow Jesus' way? That's really what they're saying. Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and he said, does this disturb you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? And then he says, it is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. Now what's he been talking about? So there seem to be contradictions in the text until we come to understand what he's doing, what he's drawing us to. What is it that he wants of us? We've got to come to know something.

[17:26]

Eating flesh and drinking blood is entering into the life of somebody else and allowing that life to enter into us. That's what he's talking about. He says, the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. He's making it quite clear what he's saying to them, I think. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Then Jesus said to the 12, what about you? Do you want to go away too? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life. And that's the answer of faith. That's what is drawing us on. That's what's drawing us into the life of Jesus. But I think we've got to understand this. We've got to understand it from the standpoint of what the Eucharist is. The Eucharist is something in which we are entering into the life of Jesus, and the life of Jesus is entering into us.

[18:32]

Now, if the life of Jesus is entering into me and into you, we've got to be at one. You know, that's what reconciliation is all about. This is what the You know, go back and see what happened in the sin of our first parents. The disintegration. And what Jesus is doing is a reintegration. In fact, what it does, it makes us better off than Adam and Eve were before sin. And we have a hard time believing that. But remember the Easter vigil and the exultet. where it says, oh happy fault of Adam which merited such a Redeemer. Oh happy fault, happy sin of Adam. If Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, we would be not where we are now, right now.

[19:36]

as far as our unity, our union in Christ with God. You see, I think, I think that we have to, I think we have to understand our salvation that way. Our salvation is something that comes with all of us together. We're not alone in this. It isn't me and God. It isn't, yeah, I was baptized, I made my first communion and my confirmation, got married in the church, I got anointed before I died, and now I'm, you know, everything is right with me and God because these magic things have happened to me. I mean, I'm not putting down sacraments by any means, but I think that what we have to do is look at sacraments. What are they supposed to accomplish in us? And what they're supposed to accomplish in us is the unity, the oneness for which Christ came to bring us back, to reintegrate us into the life of the Trinity, to bring us there and make us one. I think it's a hard lesson to learn because these are the things that we face day by day.

[20:44]

These are the things that we wrestle with. We talked about it last night. Our wrestling match is with all of these different things. The ways that we get irritated with one another or that we take what isn't ours in some way or another. or take from somebody else, or how we use whatever power we may have to, in some way or another, shortchange people in whatever ways. Our working out of our salvation has everything to do with receiving within ourselves the life of Christ and living that life with each other in the oneness in Christ that is our salvation. Either we are going to cross that sea together and go into the promised land together, or we're not going to make it. That's the way it goes. That's what the message of the gospel is. This is the good news, is that we are going where we could not have gone by ourselves.

[21:48]

The unity, not uniformity, but the unity is all important. Because this is what the message of the gospel is, and this is what the purpose of the sacraments are. This is what the Eucharist is all about, is bringing us into that life. Your comments? No, but something that occurred to me, I mean, the cannibalism is pretty, I think it's a question about, but an infant in its mother's womb is eating and drinking her... Her substance. As a matter of fact, when the child is nursing, he's having her flesh and blood in a form that's So these various things are ways of sharing life, and then fully sharing the life of another person.

[22:53]

But it's not cannibalism, but I have to say, for a long time it made you nervous to talk about this flesh and blood stuff. But you just see that we do. And then living in another's... When you're in love with someone, it's more than simply the physical fact of, you know, of receiving nourishment. There's something happens when we're in love, or are loved, either way. And that's what's going on, but it's, as you say, it's a treasure hidden in a field. So the field that acts as approval, or co-op, or self-deprecation, when you fear one part, They all took off. Like you said, it had nothing to do with, you know, cannibalistic language, except my love.

[23:57]

I'm glad to hear he had the same thing. He was a good... ...and then he slipped that one in and kind of... That's our challenge. I also like it all, what we can do. I can cross-dread. For the nature, the blood will fight and protect us outside the body. And one of the fundamentals I spoke, you know, the role of blood in our lives.

[25:03]

And I tried to do something similar in a barricade I have on the internet. And I was also mentioning about the Eucharist, you know. And somebody sent me an email and said, you Catholics are obsessed with blood. as were the sacrifices in the Old Testament. But it's amazing, this ocean of blood, what it can do. I remember when I was with my father at the hospital, he was all suddenly agitated and all that, and we discovered that there was an imbalance in his blood system because it doesn't even attach to something more. something and in an hour he was gone. It's amazing. The life force. Life force.

[26:05]

I hope it's going back to our conference. We used to, you know, whenever we What if we do, you know, has an effect on the future? We would write the same kind of thing for him. Action for the future. And then if it hadn't been for him, we wouldn't have the gift of life. It's amazing when you think about it. You know, our actions have an effect on what we do for the future. Absolutely. No, that's good. You know, I think when you try and analyze where your faith came from, you know, I mean, I look at my father and my mother, both people of faith, and who handed on their faith to me.

[27:16]

At some point in my life, I have to choose it also. But at least I had something to choose. And there are so many people who never hear or observe the effects of faith in anybody, and so the opportunity is missed. And that's where we haven't sometimes given the best witness. And it's amazing where you pick up faith. I recall the people that used to live next door to us in Minneapolis And houses in Minneapolis could be fairly close together. We had a little sun porch. A sun parlor. It wasn't a porch. It was a sun parlor at the front of our house. I think it was a Saturday afternoon. And all of a sudden I heard the screeching of brakes. I think I must have been about 10 years old. Heard the screeching of brakes out in front of the house. And this car came to a stop, before it even came to a stop, the passenger side door had flung open, and this woman got out of the car, she ran as fast as she could, crying, screaming, and then she ran up to the upstairs of the house next door to us.

[28:34]

And she rang the doorbell, and he parked the car, he was out there, and he came running up after her. And these people next door, came out of the house and they accepted them. They didn't know them, they were total strangers to them. These people just happened to come to that house and they calmed them down, they brought them into their home, they sat them down at the table and they made coffee for them. And they sat and they talked and they prayed together. And these people left hand in hand or arm in arm, got back in the car and drove off. And I just sat there looking at this thing. I said, my gosh, you know. I mean, if they'd come to my front door, I would have hit under a bed, you know. But these people were kind of, they were, I don't know if they were evangelical or what they were, but they were awfully good people. And they saw this as an opportunity to minister to them.

[29:39]

Well, frankly, that helped my faith. This is what Jesus is talking about, I think. This is the kind of thing. I've run into so many things like that. Those things we knew were things, simple things, like you just said. I was speaking and you said that you were putting on another outfit. You were just trying to be a woman. to save an old child. And, anyway, you know, imitating Jesus. I cut out an article, or Xeroxed an article, by the way, and said, what are you doing with this Buck Jones article?

[30:51]

He was a cowboy hero when I was a little kid. Even before that, I think he was an older movie cowboy. And so I explained to him what he, he was a true hero because he died When I was a little kid, a great tragedy occurred. I remember it was an active football game, Boston College Holy Cross. And they were celebrating in a nightclub in Boston, the Coconut Grove, I've never forgotten that. And the fire broke out and I think four hundred and some people were killed. It was terrible. And he died, the same old people, doing what he could. Bob Jones. And I thought, here, for this, they're so beautiful. And he was a hero, little kids shooting him up all the time. Here he really was. And Tom Hicks was another great hero. He died of a virgin getting his car out of the way.

[31:52]

And if he was going to hit somebody, he died because he avoided hitting this person in the way. and uh it's so beautiful what you said that's kind of every day it was right next door to you it was yeah it's so beautiful because these things we hear such awful things all the time and we'll just talk about the biblical scene tonight you know over in israel again I shoot, you shoot, and everything. And then the beauty of this sort of Christ-like love comes through. Even if they're Muslims or Buddhists or something, it is Christ's love. It's just there. Somebody said that. Well, I think... You said that, and then you kind of caught yourself, and everybody said, yes, it is Christ's love, because Christ is the perfect image of our loving God. It is Christ's love. But there are a lot of very simple things that happen in life, too, that are faith-conveying.

[32:56]

When you think about the South Bronx, you think about all sorts of horrible things. I know you do. Everybody does. I spent eight years there. And right in the corner of three precincts, one of which was Fort Apache, if you remember that movie. We had a priest in the parish. He was a Benedictine, but he was from Spain. He didn't belong to St. John's. He belonged to Samos. And he had been kind of exiled from Spain because of Franco. And he had spent almost 33 years in New York. And one day I found him dead in bed. He had died of, he was diabetic, he had had a leg amputated and apparently had a blood clot and all that sort of a thing. He had absolutely the most wonderful Spanish masses. And the people sang, they lifted the roof right off the church every time they had a liturgy, they sang so beautifully.

[34:01]

Well, the man who led the singing, was a Presbyterian who didn't know a word of Spanish, but he could sing it beautifully. Frank. And he was actually a Broadway singer. He had been in Camelot and... What's the name of the one? I can't think of it now. He'd been in a lot of these. And, of course, All of these singers will sing at weddings and funerals and church services and so on because they don't make that much money and you've got to, you have time between shows that you're unemployed so they'll go out and become singing waiters and everything else. Well, Father Bonifacio died and we arranged to have the funeral on the following Saturday, but I wanted to have Frank come and sing, you know, lead the singing for it. He lived in New Jersey, and I called him up.

[35:05]

I called up his home, and his wife answered the phone. She was an understudy for Carol Channing. And I thought I was talking to Carol Channing on the phone, you know. Hello, yes, you know this. And she said, well, Frank is in Philadelphia. And they have a new show, and they always take these shows off-Broadway first, someplace else, and they work out all the kinks in the thing, and they come back when they've got them near perfection and put on Broadway again. So she says, I'll call him and tell him when the funeral is and ask if he can come. So about an hour later she calls me up and she says he can't come. The director of the play said they've got so many things going wrong with this play that he said if any of you decide to leave town this weekend, don't bother to come back. And you can't afford that, you know, when this is your livelihood.

[36:06]

So he couldn't come. So I called up the parishioner who was kind of the lead singer among the parishioners, a man by the name of Benjamin. Father Garcia used to call him Benjamón, as much as Benjamín. I said, Benjamin, Frank can't come. You're going to have to lead the singing. He said, Padre, I could never do that. I said, Benjamin, if you do not lead the singing, we will not have singing. That's all there is to it. I said, after all of these years of this powerful, wonderful liturgy, it would be a shame at his funeral not to have singing. I was shaming him shamelessly, you understand. He said, Padre, I will try. I had the funeral. He did a wonderful job. You know, we get out to the cemetery, we had the burial, St.

[37:08]

Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. When the burial was all over with, I went over to him and I said, Benjamin, I said, you did an absolutely wonderful, beautiful job of singing. It's the best I've ever heard you. He said, Padre, I came into church this morning. I went to the crucifix in the back of the church. We had a mission cross back at the church. He says, I went to the crucifix. I knelt down. I looked up. I said, Jesus, I will open my mouth. You sing. And he did. But it was sheer faith. It was just absolutely beautiful, beautiful faith. And, you know, I loved being in the South Bronx because I ran into so many things like that. Just so many things like that. They were good people. But it builds your own faith, you know, to see things like that. Last summer there were two young people here in our little program, the monastic experience, and one was converted.

[38:19]

by the family, the other's family, the other and his family, so beautiful, Catholicism, so worthy. We see that a lot, don't we? Because I remember once, many years ago, this college student told me, this little person, he said, became a Catholic because I visited, he was just recently a Catholic, I was visiting my roommate's family and I said, what is there about these people that's in Torre here? Then he realized it was their faith, so he wanted to give them faith. Hazo.

[39:20]

Hazo? Very good. Hasta mañana. No, I think, you know, we do overlook things like Hazo. It is such a blessing when you are aware and responsive to something that's going on. Because when you see that, that's what you're seeing. God, a God is, what's his name now? Michael Hynes has, you know, a thing of, you know, that John says God is love. He doesn't say he's a lover or loved, just love. So when you really see who you are, experiencing God. That's right. I remember when we were in Korea and You know, they bring in a train with a balloon, you know. This one kid had been bit with shrapnel in his intestines and everything. And so, you know, they took him in and operated on him.

[40:23]

And when he wakes up in the morning, he's got an ileostomy. His feces are coming out on his belly, you know. And one of the nurses was there, you know, cleaned him up. He just looked at her and said, you don't have to do this for me. And she could never tell the story, breaking down. I never should even think about what she was doing. I mean, in the sense that that's what she was doing. But, you know, it really, you know, you don't have to do this for me. I think, God, I say that every so often to you, you don't have to do this for me. So now, so don't forget Wednesday, next Saturday. I'm going to call some people on Thursday, and they'll sign about 645.

[41:27]

Okay. Is the South Branch just over the Willis Avenue Bridge, or where is it? Willis Avenue Bridge is, no, it isn't directly over that, it's over the 149th Street, 145th, 149th Street Bridge from Harlem. It's bounded by the Harlem River and East River. Is it St. Anselm's? St. Anselm's, yeah. That's where I was pastor. You know that already? I know the church. What's the saint that she's like responsible for?

[42:09]

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