Welcome to this sixth of our series of lectures in our series for our 50th anniversary, and I'm not one for long introductions, because in this case especially, I think you'll be impressed without my help. In Vatican II, we were told to go back to our origins, the various religious groups. And for most of us, the overgrowth or undergrowth was so bad we couldn't find our roots. And so we're blessed with those who are able to help us in Lectio Divina, which is a particular way of encountering the Lord in Scripture, in other writings, and also for the earliest monks and the great doctors of the Church, what was called patristics, and certainly also in Scripture. But the necessity of not simply finding roots but finding the fruit

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which is growing on the tree at the moment, so our own times. So we're especially blessed and honored to have Fr. Jeremy Driscoll from Mount Angel with us today. And really with no further introduction because I'm sure you will appreciate his being here as much as we do. So, well, Fr. Jeremy is going to speak. And then we have some questions, and then we will have vespers almost immediately, and then a reception afterwards. From the Dialogues of Saint Gregory, which were written just a short time after Saint Benedict's death, we know the little and all that we know of the life of Saint Benedict. And in that text, Saint Gregory tells us how shortly before his death, Saint Benedict had a magnificent vision in which he contemplated the whole world as contained within a single ray of light.

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Think about that image. Saint Benedict was grasping the meaning of the whole world within something larger than itself. He was understanding it within the light of Christ and his whole monastic life had been a preparation for this contemplative grasp. Let that serve as an image for what I wish to speak about with you this afternoon in this conference, namely the vision of church and world that monastic life makes possible. I think that it is in a particular kind of vision of the Church and of the world that the monastic life can make a particular contribution. I'll return to this image in a moment because it bears some analysis. and I think it should be located in a wider monastic context. But first let me indicate how I wish to speak in this talk about the theme which Father Martin assigned to me, namely the contribution of monastic life to church and world.

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On the occasion of the founding of a monastery, the anniversary of the founding of a monastery, the tendency is to speak of history. and I will do so. What has the contribution been? But I would like to speak about history with a view toward the present and the future. What can the contribution be now and for the future? The monk is a type or archetype in the technical sense of that term. All societies, be they ecclesial or society as more widely conceived, have their types. The tiller of the soil, the hunter, the warrior, politicians, poets, sages, kings and queens, monks, etc. To speak about the monastic contribution to church and world, I want to begin here, and not simply with the Benedictine focus.

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The Benedictine special something, whatever that may be, is best understood when it avoids being too preciously focused on itself. So my first question becomes, what has been and what can be the contribution to church and world of the monk? as a type. We in the West say monastic and are inclined to think immediately of Saint Benedict, but we need to be aware that he comes as a sort of culmination and turning point in a movement that was several centuries in preparation before him. One of the areas of pre-Benedictine monasticism that is particularly useful to view is its relationship to ancient philosophy. The monastic movement took much from the spirit of Greek philosophy, just as the whole Christian church did.

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And it could do so because philosophy was profoundly religious and spiritual. It was a being in love with wisdom, that's what the very word philosophy means, it was a being in love with wisdom, a conversion toward wisdom to which one dedicated one's whole life. The scholar Pierre Hadot describes ancient philosophy as spiritual exercises. Exercises whose purpose was to teach those who loved wisdom how, four things, how to live, how to dialogue, how to dive, and how to read. Philosophy for the ancients was not a body of abstract thoughts that you could push around. It was mainly about a way of living that enabled one to think right thoughts and thus to arrive at the truth.

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But no right thoughts without the foundation of right living. Well, the 4th century Christian monasticism of the Egyptian, Palestinian and Syrian deserts is at first not affected by this philosophical current. It was an asceticism that replaced martyrdom. at the time of the imperial church in the first half of the fourth century. But through the Cappadocian fathers, Basil and the two Gregoris, and then through Evagrius Ponticus, the asceticism of the desert came to be understood as moving within a same trajectory and directly related to that of Greek philosophy. conceived as a spiritual exercise, and thus Christian asceticism receives a refined focus, asceticism as a way of living that enabled Christians to think right thoughts, thus to arrive at the truth that is in Christ Jesus.

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So the Christian scriptures became for the desert monks the main text around which they learned how to do four things. How to live, how to dialogue, how to die, and how to read. And the desert monks who dedicated their entire lives to this, you can call it philosophical search, bequeathed to the whole church a tremendous patrimony. of slowly acquired spiritual wisdom based on the scriptures, but much refined now by the precision that Greek philosophy promoted. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as articulated in the debates around the Council of Constantinople in the year 381, also owes much to the Greek philosophical tradition. And so toward the end of the 4th century we can say that monasticism had become an actual spiritual workshop where one learns how to live, how to dialogue, how to die and how to read the mystery of the Holy Trinity in all of life.

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Well, it's within this most swift and powerful of rivers that the 6th century monasticism of Saint Benedict should be located. In a way that's most admirable for its practicality, Saint Benedict arranged a way of life suited to the people of his time. who were less immediately sensitive to the Greek philosophical patrimony. But this way of life enabled them to continue this search for divine wisdom. We're not here today to speak of specific doctrines that are found in the Holy Rule. Specific doctrines aside, the contribution of the Holy Rule to church and world is felt already in the whole way of life. that Saint Benedict organizes. He arranges the monks' day in such a way that it is saturated by the sacred scriptures.

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In the divine office, in the Lectio Divina or holy reading that the monks practice, in the pervasive silence of the monastery which is designed to let this word sink down ever more deeply. So, Benedict's monks were also learning how to live, how to dialogue, how to die, and how to read the mystery of the Holy Trinity in all of life. Okay, from here, let us return to Saint Benedict's vision. Think again about this image. In effect, it shows us a wonderful paradox. a wonderful paradox that gives us a key to the Christian life. In virtue of the Christian's participation in the resurrection of Christ, the heart of the Christian becomes in a very real sense larger than the world. Before Christ and the divine life that he brought to earth, we can say rather naturally that the world is a macrocosm within which each human being is its microcosm.

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The world is big and each of us is small. Each of us a small world. But in Christ, nothing less than the very being of God that is to say the Trinitarian relations, nothing less than the very being of God is placed within the human heart. And in this way then, each believing person becomes the macrocosm and the world is its microcosm. This is what I think is signified in the vision of Saint Benedict. The whole world can be seen in a single glance in Christ. It is beautiful and stunning and something to be loved. But in Christ my heart is bigger than the world and contains it. This is the monk as a type in the technical sense in which I wish to use the term.

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The monk is meant to behold the world in a single contemplative glance. and to contain it in something larger, something larger that paradoxically lies within. The inside is bigger than the outside, as we learn from C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia. And although a type must really live the reality of his calling, the type bodies forth a truth that is valid for the whole society. Others, too, can learn the monk's vision. And when this happens, I think it can be called the monastic contribution. It is in this perspective that we can also understand the contribution of the monastic practice of Lectio Divina, the prayerful reading of the scriptures. Reading the scriptures is, among other things, about reading the world. seeking to uncover its deepest meaning.

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And in the end, we will discover, through the sacred text, that the heart of the reader is made ever larger, such that, in fact, it becomes larger than the whole world. For the heart of the reader of the scriptures becomes the temple of Trinitarian love. Plexio Divina was conducted in the monastic centuries with the Canticle of Canticles as the centerpiece of the whole effort. Every word of the scriptures was referred to Christ as to a bridegroom and understood to be, every word understood to be potentially a kiss from his mouth. to quote the opening verses of the Canticle of Canticles. And every desire to understand the text was nothing less than the bride, the soul, seeking her lover wherever he roams.

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And so what makes the heart large enough to contain the whole world is love itself. my love for Christ and my astonishment that, like the bride in the canticle, my astonishment that He finds me beautiful. It is to this that we can refer the words at the end of the prologue of Saint Benedict, words so precious also to Father Damascus. As we advance in this way of life and in faith, our hearts enlarge And we run the path of the commandments of God filled with the inexpressible sweetness of love. The monk as a type is in fact a very broad category. History shows us many versions, but this is not because the category is vague.

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It is a breadth essential to the very nature of what the type is required to instance in society. And this is nothing less than the freedom which the search for God both demands and brings about. In fact, what we admire in the great monastics from the past, or in contemporary examples of the same, is the attainment of inner freedom which their lives body forth. The real monk is the one who is free to do whatever God calls him to do, and no institutional forms can pin this grace down. More often than not, the monk will live in a monastery and take up the obligations of community life and work. But there are monks who abandon even this and live entirely alone or wander from place to place.

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In some rare cases, the freedom is so radical that the church and society no longer is even able to officially identify the monk as such. Anonymous, as it were, this absolutely free monk lives an intimate rapport with God in complete secrecy. Or, in a different direction, a monk may take up the ministries of preaching or teaching or even social work. But what identifies the monk in this and distinguishes from others who practice the same profession is the witness, the witness to a radical freedom which corresponds to the divine transcendence. The monk must somehow be seen to belong to God alone and to witness to this fact in whatever is done.

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Nonetheless, we should not speak for too long of the monk as type without coming to grips with the distinguishing characteristics of the Christian monk. What I have said about the monk thus far could apply in large part to the monastic phenomena of other religions as well. Among other things, this explains the tremendous potential for inter-religious dialogue in monastic settings. Yet, leaving that fruitful possibility aside for the moment, or if you will, preparing a solid foundation for it, I would like to try to indicate now the specifically Christian features of the monastic phenomena. Facing the question theologically, as opposed to a mere distinguishing of practices or a distinguishing of classical texts, I think the heart of the matter could be expressed in this way.

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The Christian monk has a special calling to witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Of course, every Christian is called to be a witness to this, but each in a particular way. The monk is called to this witnessing as one summoned beyond all signs, as one whose entire way of life offers clues to a reality, a reality that is infinitely transcendent, as one who wrestles at ever greater depth with the terrifying and joyful paradox that the Risen Lord is met precisely in the experience of his absence to all merely carnal modes of detecting him. As Saint Paul once exclaimed, if once we knew Christ according to the flesh, we no longer know him in this way.

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What does that mean? Let me try to be more concrete. in speaking about what is not concrete in any ordinary sense of the term. I would propose to you the image of Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning as an image that can give us some sense of the particular monastic witness. And now it should be obvious here, from the very example that I take, which is not an exclusively monastic example, that if I am speaking of the monk here as a Christian type, then what I say applies to all Christians, and the monk exists to provide the service of being a particularly clear instance of it. That's all. So, we're in this together, all of us. Part of the raw material that slowly and painfully is stitched together to form the type of the Christian monk is the struggle through a lifetime to face, however it may come, the paradox of the presence of Christ precisely through his absence.

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This presence in absence continually deepens as the years pass. It is like a grid pulled down through the particular life story of each monk and its particular monastery with its own unfolding history through the days and the years. And as this grid is pulled down through the lives of the monks, it slowly molds the type of one whose whole being begins to bear the shape of presence in absence. In this precise way, the monk becomes witness to the resurrection. But if it is a paradox that is continually deepened by the monastic life, then this means that the monk is made to live an ever greater sense of absence of his Lord.

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And precisely in this way does he come to know the unexpected joy and wonder of his presence in unexpected ways and places. The gospel scene of the Magdalene at the tomb helps us to gauge the theological significance of this archetypal struggle. The risen Lord who is not in the tomb, the living one among the dead, impossible. The risen Lord who is not in the tomb will nonetheless manifest himself there at the tomb and in terms of it. And it is a manifestation which unfolds in stages. First two angels appear there in dazzling robes. Their very presence is an eloquent, though wordless, discourse. They make visible the glory of his absence, a glory which issues directly from the tomb itself, precisely because it is empty, precisely because he is absent.

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In the angels, the one who has disappeared from there is present in an inexpressible way. Holy is the place of his absence, they tell us. Holy the monastery. Holy the monk's heart. The place of his absence, for he is not here. In the next stage, The Lord Himself appears, but the vision is veiled, and He is unrecognized, yet it is He, completely He. He is glorious Lord, but mistaken for a gardener. But therein lies a lesson for the monk, and so for the Church. in every age, repeated in other resurrection appearances and anticipated already in the teachings of Jesus. As risen Lord, He is present and goes along with us in our ordinary time, making His way along the road to Emmaus, being hungry and naked, or fed and clothed in the least of His brothers and sisters, or standing there as a gardener.

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The final stage for Mary Magdalene is unveiled vision. He is recognized when, as the good shepherd who knows his sheep and calls them each by name, he calls her name, Mary. And in that instant, something deep within her shifts utterly. Her weeping is exchanged for sheer joy, and the tomb where He was absent becomes the place of the manifestation of the Living One. And all this is expressed by Her in His name, pronounced by one who loves Him, Jesus, Rabbouni. And here again, I think we have an archetypal description of a monk, one who unexpectedly hears his name uttered by Christ in the depths of his being, in the moment of darkest absence, and one who utters in response the name of Jesus from those same depths.

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Nonetheless, This unveiled vision takes place mysteriously in what is also an act of withdrawal. Do not cling to me, the risen Lord says to her. The act of withdrawal and the assignment of a mission. Go and tell my brothers, he says to her. The freedom of the resurrection tolerates no confining, no assurances based on what can be isolated in a particular and only here and now, a visible something, a tangible something. For he says to her, I am ascending to my father. That is, he is filling the universe with his presence. He is Lord everywhere and in every time and so he teaches her and teaches the monk, do not cling to me then here in this one time and this one place. Rather the Lord turns Mary's attention from his localized self to his brothers in a mission.

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just as he vanished immediately upon recognition by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, so that they too could hurry out and announce the message. The angels who ask, why are you looking for him here in a tomb, will also ask on the day of ascension, why are you looking up to the sky? Everywhere, the Lord and His angel messengers are urging us to the mission of announcing that He is risen. This is the going to Galilee of which the risen Lord speaks in another gospel. That is the going everywhere, the going away from the tomb. Tell them to go to Galilee and they will see me there, He says. Not in a tomb. not in the heavens, not clinging to me here in this one place, but in the mission of announcing the good news. Monastic life is very much like this.

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According to an ancient sensitivity cultivated in monastic life, in the monastery also there are angels present. who, without words, help the monks to take the measure of their place. Namely, that he is not here. That he is not here in this world of death. Not here as a corpse that we might view. Not here as someone, one person to whom we may cling. And yet, he is here in his own sovereign way. Here, but so often unrecognized in the gardener sitting next to you. Not clinging to him. not placing one's fingers in his hands and side as did Thomas, but seeing only the empty tomb that is this whole carnal world, monks are meant to put their trust in the Lord's words, blessed are those who do not see and yet believe.

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All that I have suggested here about Mary Magdalene shows us, of what Mary Magdalene shows us, all this can be played again briefly in the key of Saint Benedict's vision. The monk is someone who slowly learns that there is nothing in the world to which he may cling. that virtually everything, every person, every experience will continue to whisper to him what the angel said to Mary. He is not here. Why do you search for the living one among the dead? Obedient to this experience, even while being deeply disappointed, and sometimes pushed to a desperate and tearful searching, the monk may suddenly, in some completely unaccountable way, meet the Lord for whom he searches.

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Yet wherever the monk meets Him, there is simultaneously the Lord's act of withdrawal. Thus though he is surely met in some particular here and now, he may never be clung to there. As he withdraws, he draws the monk with him, such that eventually the monk looks back at the whole world. and sees it all in one glance in the light of the One who is ever drawing him beyond it. And every bit of the world at that point becomes precious to the monk. Not as the goal of his ultimate search, but as the treasured particular something in terms of which he came to know, and without which he could have never known it, in terms of which he came to know that he is not here, he is risen.

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The whole world is contained within this larger light. Light which is nothing less than Christ filling the universe in all its parts. If there is a monastic contribution to church and world, I think it would be to witness to this. It is to put the world in its perspective, to put it in its place, as it were, to point to the beyond this world and yet to do so in such a way that every particular piece of the transcended world is suffused with resurrection light that gives it its meaning and preserves it from death and disappearance. What ultimately preserves the world that is, saves the world, is precisely the fact that every piece of the world shall have once been the particular place in terms of which the final message can continually be uttered.

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He is not here. Well and good, even beautiful perhaps, hopefully also correct and true. Yet possibly I have gotten too quickly beyond this world to provide something tangible and fruitful for you with my reflections. So let's come back to the here and now of the monastery and monastic practices now. I've tried to come rather quickly and honestly to what I think is the real heart of the monastic matter, to its inner essence. With what I have suggested, we can revisit some familiar monastic practices and experiences. Let us begin with what guests experience at a monastery. For here we must surely be close to at least the raw material of whatever may be the monastic contribution to what lies beyond the monastery.

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Guests are drawn to monasteries because, to put it in the terms of the title assigned to these reflections, there is something that the monastery can contribute to them, be they believers, that's church, or not, world, the contribution to church and world. But what is it? What draws people to monasteries? What do the guests at a monastery receive? Whatever it is, I think that in the reflections I have developed thus far, I have already indicated the secret of how it comes about that something is received. But let's try to be now a little more empirical, less theoretical. Guests through the centuries have often told monastics what they experience at their monasteries. Despite the difference of ethics and places and styles and sizes of monasteries, This testimony tends to fall into a same pattern, suggesting that there really is a particular something that monasteries commonly impart.

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There is a monastic smell to things, generally and thankfully a sweet odor that is probably best described with the simple expression, monastic peace. There is a silence and calm about the place. The site itself, the geographical location, almost always has a particular genius, a unique sense of place that has been drawn out by the long years of steady, stable monastic practice in this particular place. The tradition of monastic architecture contributes much to this. A monastery is often a model of what is meant to be the peaceful interchange and loving dialogue between human beings and the little place of earth that they are privileged to inhabit.

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Monks know that they're living in a place that they share with other living creatures and with the plants and the rocks and the trees. The weather and the seasons and the years pass over us all and we survive it together in this place and we enjoy this place together, I repeat, with the other living creatures, with the rocks and the trees and the grass. Participating in and assisting at the chanting of the Hours of the Divine Office holds a special attraction for guests. Perhaps especially those offices of the very early morning or the depths of the night give to guests a sense that they have discovered a singular secret whose power quietly pulses beneath the surface of the world's activities and perhaps also somehow holds it in place.

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These are just two examples, the sense of place, and the chanting of the hours that can indicate the kind of dialogue in which a monastic contribution might be offered to the church and to the world. There are ancient wisdoms being carried in these and other monastic practices which, if they are attended to, can be useful and challenging to others, individuals and society at large. Yet, even here, The dominating paradox of presence and absence is not far from any explanation or understanding of how or why all this works. For example, it can often be the case that guests may experience a tremendous tangible peace, a grace in assisting at the chants, while that very day

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and those very hours of chanting may have been particularly trying for the monastic community itself. What seems an absence for the monks is tangible presence for the guests. You may be sure that if a monastery has been in a place for a long while, and has faithfully persevered in the round of prayers which its rule of life requires, then this paradox has repeated itself there many times. You may be sure also of finding this same paradox lived not only by the whole community, but by any individual monk who has persevered longer than the novitiate. This paradox extends as well to the example of the monastery as a place. Wherever a monastery imparts a tangible sense of the divine presence,

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precisely in terms of the beautiful interchange between human beings and all the natural features of this particular site, then once again behind that piece lies the asceticism of the work and struggle that brought it about. Hours and years in which many who contributed felt very little of what others are feeling now. I'm not at all suggesting that monks are always suffering and guests are always enjoying the fruit. My point goes past such an obviously mistaken simplification. What I'm trying to do is understand where fruit comes from. Fruit that I'm calling the monastic contribution. And my suggestion is that if there has been fruit, and if there is to be fruit in the future, we must understand where it comes from and what produces it.

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Fruit comes from hoeing, pruning, watering, waiting, wondering, and worrying if something might not destroy it as it's coming to maturity. Fruit comes from its absence. slowly emerging from it with unaccountable beauty. In these reflections, I am in fact slowly circling around and articulating good old-fashioned monastic doctrines, doctrines which Benedict's monasticism provides an actual way of living out. These doctrines form a pattern They give a concrete shape to the monastic life. It is what Saint Benedict calls in the prologue of the Holy Rule, sharing by patience in the sufferings of Christ in the monastery until death, so that one may also share in the glory of his kingdom.

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Such a doctrine He is the center of Benedict's rule, but it's the center of his rule because it's the center of the scriptures, whose center is Christ, whose center is his paschal mystery. It is no accident that the monastic life has been sustained through the centuries by the practice of Lectio Divina, the prayerful reading of the sacred scriptures. St. Benedict's daily schedule provides for several hours of each monk's day to be passed in this slow and meditative pondering of the sacred text, not to mention the several hours more in choir where the chants are primarily composed of scriptural texts. It is in this sustained encounter, sustained encounter, sustained through the years, it is in this sustained encounter with the Word of God that the monk is slowly led by the Spirit ever more deeply into the paradox of presence in absence.

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By the scriptures he is instructed in all its ins and outs. The Dialogues of St. Gregory provide us with yet another image of St. Benedict that can serve as a representative summary of how the monastic practice of reading might also be a contribution to the Church and the world. The scene which Gregory describes begins with St. Benedict seated quietly at the door of his monastery, absorbed in reading. Suddenly, crashing unexpectedly into this piece of this scene, there comes riding up on a horse a rough-mannered and haughty barbarian, shoving before him a poor peasant who is bound with ropes. The peasant owes the barbarian money and has claimed that his goods are deposited in the safekeeping of Benedict's monastery. Without any introduction or any attempt at graciousness, the barbarian shouts at Benedict, who's sitting there calmly reading, shouts at him, get up, get up, no tricks, get me this scum's money which he says you have.

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What follows is important for our understanding of the power of the practice of monastic Lectio. I would call it a quintessential monastic moment. It is, if you will, the monastic contribution to the world, here represented in one of its unhappier aspects by this barbarian. We are told that in response to the barbarian's rude and abrupt command, Saint Benedict calmly raised his eyes from his reading and looked for a moment at the barbarian. Then slowly his gaze turned to the poor peasant, noting how cruelly he was bound. Here too, I think, the task of monastic reading is represented. The monk, looking up from the scriptures, fixes his gaze on the suffering of the world.

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And in that moment in which Benedict's eyes fall on the suffering man, Let us call it the moment in which the scripture penetrates the darkness of human suffering and injustice. In that moment, a tremendous wonder is worked. The knots in the rope which bound the man suddenly unravel, and he stands there completely free. He, of course, was not displeased, and the barbarian was terribly impressed. This latter, in fact, threw himself down at Saint Benedict's feet, asking for his prayers. Benedict effortlessly returned to his reading, ordering several of the monks to prepare some refreshment for the barbarian. As he was about to depart, Benedict simply took the occasion to tell him, don't be so cruel to others. So, how to state the monastic contribution?

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Maybe this way. In the midst of the massive inhumanity we direct toward one another, to stay calmly anchored in the word of God and to let its power set us free. If we speak at too much length of the great example of the monastic saints or of the features of the monk as a type, we may tend perhaps to say only good things about monks, which of course is unrealistic. No real monk considers himself a saint or a worthy representation of the type. The monk's disappointment and dissatisfaction with himself is an essential dimension of the monastic experience. But here too, there are even possibilities for a contribution to others.

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One of the surprises for the new monk is that as he makes progress in the life, he will be made to learn to regard himself more and more as a sinner. And this becomes a kind of crisis. For after all, one has come to the monastery to leave sin behind and to advance toward the good. Yet after a while, one wonders if this noble project is really possible. In fact, it is not possible if it is conceived too simplistically. The monastic life relentlessly forces the monk to abandon simplistic conceptions. A story from the Desert Fathers illustrates, I think, in a representative way, how this necessary crisis is provoked. A brother asked Abba Poiman, how can I think of myself as less good than a murderer?

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This is a fair question, I think. Murder is an appalling sin. Can a well-behaved monk sincerely regard himself as worse than a murderer? Well, listen to Abba Poiman's unsettling response. He said, when a monk sees a man committing a murder, he should say, he has only committed that one sin, but I commit murder every day. A tremendous amount of monastic wisdom is packed into Poyman's pithy response. At first glance, it may seem that Poyman is simply requiring only a sort of pious play-acting. Murder every day? Who commits murder every day? The Desert Fathers knew that their unexpected formulations would rattle their disciples.

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They were designed precisely to do that. But they also, the fathers, also hid within their teachings scriptural treasures that could be discovered by the disciple who pondered the Abba's word and tried to take it seriously. Working with Poiman's word here, the meditating monk, sooner or later, finds his way to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has recalled the commandment, thou shalt not kill, whoever kills will be liable to judgment. And then Jesus immediately adds his but. But, says Jesus, I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. And whoever says you fool to another will be liable to the fires of Gehenna. In this same context, Jesus goes on to say that adultery is committed not just in the act of physically coupling, but by whoever looks at another with lust.

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Against this new standard of obeying the commandments which Jesus establishes, no monk measures up very well. For sin, in fact, is in the human heart, and not merely in an exterior disobedience to commandments. The monk's heart is made of the same stuff that every other human heart is made of, and for that reason he may never regard himself, as the publican did, as not like the rest of humanity. But by the same token, the struggle against sin that is waged in the monk's heart can take on archetypal significance. In fact, the monk is called to a limitless empathy with the human condition. He must see himself as standing in complete solidarity with his wayward race.

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and this not as some act of condescension, but simply in virtue of the truth of things. The mistake that the questioner of Poyman made was to have posed a comparison between himself and others. What the monk comes to realize, with a sort of terrifying clarity in his prayer, and in his whole living of the monastic life, is that one cannot stand before God and point to others saying, they are worse than me. It may well be true, but it is never relevant. Standing before God, every person is unique. Each has received gifts, talents, a time, a place, a country, a culture. But there is something terribly wrong in the world.

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We are all terribly afflicted by sin. And when anyone at all stands under the light of God's truth, the light of God's gifts to us, then that one can only cry out, as did the tax collector, O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. No one comes naturally to the uttering of such a prayer. Increasing the depth of conviction of oneself as a sinner is a real struggle. If I call the monk's struggle with this archetypal then I mean to imply that his vocation requires more than other vocations that he explore this experience to its very depths. This is not an exploration that he undertakes for himself alone, even if by its very nature it is concentrated there.

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The monk who pursues this way conscious of his solidarity with the whole human race, is able in some representative way to repent also for those who feel no need to repent. Likewise, in some representative way, he is able to receive forgiveness also for those who have not even asked for pardon. But there is more. Because joy unexpectedly emerges from the darkest and most sinful depths of the human condition. Why and how? Precisely because this place the most sinful depths of the human condition. Precisely because this is the place in which the Lord himself descended when he emptied himself of glory and became sin for our sake.

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And so it is precisely from that place, the most sinful depths of the human condition, where in death he stands in complete solidarity with us in our waywardness, that the mystery of his resurrection begins to emerge. The sheer gratuity of this salvation, of this joy, this unexpected victory, infinite divine love flooding suddenly into the heart that sees with deadly accuracy all its capacity for sin. Each monk's heart becomes the place of that dramatic combat of which the Easter sequence sings, Mors et vita duello, conflixere mirando.

[56:45]

Death and life are gripped in a tremendous duel. The leader of life, having died, reigns alive. We've come full circle. Presence and absence. The monk sees himself as a sinner and so suffers the absence of God. And precisely there is God's presence unexpectedly known. But this is no private or solitary experience. even if it is intensely personal. For the monk is gazing on the whole world in the midst of his combat, and he suddenly sees the whole world caught up in a single ray of light, and that light is nothing less than Christ himself.

[57:53]

That light is the same light which unaccountably began to shine in his own darkness. It is the joy for which he never could have hoped when he was in sorrow. The light that embraced the monk in his own personal darkness, he now sees embracing the whole world. This is all grace. The monk has contributed nothing to bringing it about. But if somehow monastic life could keep the church and the world focused on this hope, then that perhaps would be a monastic contribution. For fifty years monastic life has been lived on this piece of the planet where we are gathered today, Mount Savior.

[58:59]

We come here today, those of us who are not members of this monastic community, we come here today to honor the monks of this community, those living and dead, and to thank them for their contribution There is a secret story here of tremendous struggle in which the monks have suffered long nights of darkness and the absence of their Lord. And in this place and in the terms of the history of this house they have also unexpectedly been embraced by the light which they know embraces also the whole world. In the secret story of their struggles, the church and the whole world is caught up in a single glance in the light of its savior.

[60:12]

That's just one of the reasons why this place is deservedly called Mount Savior. Now, you haven't heard anything like that very often before, so the introduction was hardly necessary. A strange question, but are there any questions that people would like to ask Fr. Jeremy? I invite not just questions, but maybe your own thoughts as well.

[61:23]

You don't need to simply ask me a question. If you wish to share your own reactions, either agreements or disagreements, or something that occurred to you. Yes. Yes, some of them, which Well, I was thinking of getting rid of all the fire hospital bandits, fire department, police, people. But the idea of abstinence, that there's a value, that this is the life of these people, is beginning to be changed. And sometimes something hurts more than it leaves. Maybe a lot of the time it brings with it, but also a kind of yearning for something to replace that, that kind of spiritual yearning. Even at the beginning, I started to find the mystic people who wanted to be, I mean, he wanted to be, he wanted to make the scripture.

[62:27]

I was wondering that same paradox. Anyway, it seems to be a simple proverb. Certainly, I hadn't thought of that, but I think you're right. In fact, just thinking of, I mean, you stimulated me to think that it's really, you could describe O'Connor, I think, in those stark kinds of terms, because Part of what she does, and she uses humor to do it in a magnificent way, she just describes about the most desperate scenes you could ever imagine, and keeping you kind of laughing all the while, and even that laughter is a sign of kind of hope and disarming of the demons. if you will, but yeah, but her, the salutation appears in O'Connor's stories at the most unexpected places and moments and so that's a good example. I think that, I may be wrong on this, but just to throw it out for your general reflection, I think that what I've described here in monastic life, which I tried to root in a central way of understanding the scriptures,

[63:43]

I think you'll find parallels to this wherever the gospel message is authentically preached. I think this is one way of saying what it's all about. I use the word absence and presence as a way of getting a hold in a concrete way in the monastery of something that we're all the time saying as Christians but need to be sure we understand, namely cross and resurrection. O'Connor certainly is all the time moving within that pattern or framework. But thanks, I'm glad to think of O'Connor in this context. Yes? and decided whether to become a charcoal burner in the countryside and be with savings to the poor or providing a different possibility to fill a gap. Both finally discovered that it's a better to be a monister.

[64:49]

And it seems to me that for many of us who have been around for a long time, the monistery is a healing, yes, out of a crisis of life. Yeah, yeah, right. I think it's, you know, the rule of Benedict is so beautiful in so many ways that I think certainly one of his most beautiful chapters is the chapter on the reception of guests, where he says, you know, a monastery will never be lacking in guests. And monks themselves need to keep being reminded of that because every now and then we can fall into the hardcore temptation of thinking, you know, well, I came here for peace and quiet and there's too many guests. But there is our monastic legislator, he is teaching us, no, that is the life. That is the life, is to receive the guests, and to receive them as one would receive Christ himself.

[65:50]

He has this very strong expression, to adore Christ in the guest. Tremendous line, huh? To adore Christ in the guest. Thank you. Something else? Yes? As I was listening, it translated to what you were saying about the monastic vocations and monastics. I was wondering if there's a better thing than to just close the door to the wall, but in the hall, there's Christians have faithful Christians, right? You know? That's what we as a faith, we're supposed to do. Yes, yes I think so and that's why what I was aiming to express by starting with the idea of the monk as a type, that a type plays a role in the whole society. So monastic life does not make sense in and of itself.

[66:52]

It only makes sense when connected with the church and with the whole of society. And then what monks are doing becomes part and takes its sense from what it's connected to. I don't think there is any... lesson or grace in the monastic life that is exclusive, is exclusively belongs to that life. I could be wrong on that. Maybe somebody who's lived it longer would want to say otherwise. But I, you know, I'd say in our own guest house at Mount Angel I often say, You know, if there's anything monks are good for, and there might not be, but if there's anything monks are good for, it would be to show in a particularly clear way to all Christians what the ingredients of the Christian life are. And so in that sense what monks are doing belongs to us all and it's wisdom.

[67:59]

That's why I think the wisdoms gained from monastic experience belong to the whole church and why people who are not monks so readily find themselves able to profit from the monastery. Yes? When we got to the door, he was crying like that, like an old brother. Yeah, that's a good question, you know, and the monks have faced that question in their own thinking and in their writings and the saints have commented, the monastic saints have commented on that and offer different practices actually, some urging that the monk, while working, be reflective of God in a conscious way and even repeating prayers while working.

[69:02]

That certainly characterizes the Eastern monastic tradition, not the Benedictine monastic tradition, but the tradition that develops in the Eastern churches, where the work was always kept very simple, precisely, you know, Typically, and this in fact happened, they'd weave mats. Well, once you know how to weave a mat, you don't have to think about it, you just kind of weave. And so that was so that they could pray all the while. But there's another whole school of spiritual practice in which when you're working, you work. And you don't necessarily need to be reflective. And I think, well, it's my own tendency to kind of fall into that. I think it's different with different monks. I think some work really hard at being reflective, and others just, when they work, they work. You know, do what you do, sort of. In either case, there's probably a distracted way to do it.

[70:08]

I mean, either if you're aiming at prayer, you fail to stay attentive, but also sometimes we're not doing what we do. You know, we're not there. So it's really, I think, monastic work, the spiritual goal in monastic work, You wouldn't want to just confine it to saying praying while working, but to working at whatever the job requires with quality, attention, just doing it well, with some kind of concentration. I think that would be a goal. And that's not easy, you know, we're all kind of distracted. It's a good question, it wasn't a silly question. Something else? Yes. You should think of it that way.

[71:19]

You have to practice and have no more than you have to practice. And it's not just doing it because you misdiagnosed it. You have to go out on a mission. And that has an impact on who I'm going to call in the future. Yeah, go ahead. I have a tendency to speak before I read, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

[72:23]

It's not exclusive, but it's a radical option to choose not to do anything with one's life, but be God in the absence of other. And I think that's very difficult for us who have a very long staging in life. But I also believe that in order to make this a voluntary, which is a good question, we have a lot of people who will benefit from voluntary rehab. of behavior and intentionality. We have the seed of experience, the reverence that is present and absent. And so we have food.

[73:23]

We're all being fueled by the word of God, and the more the closer to Christianity. So for me, anyway, it's very difficult greater concern about domestic violence at risk in this country. The other thing I wanted to say was, question, right, question. I was in a domestic abuse group college, though, and I heard a lot of talk about the identity, and I think we're all connected to the development of psychology, from that village in Woodville, and there was some inspection of the walls because of that. And in a way, it is either to me as an outsider, to be kind of that, of what I'm supposed to think of in this time period. And I wanted to question what you were saying about a community that is holding on to the edge of existence.

[74:31]

how to rely on, without pulling the individual from the water, and whether to bring in new young people for external condition to expand and kind of understand it prior to individual satisfaction of it. My question is, do you have any ideas? I know you do. How do we serve the centers that may be really early in the class or in the festival, you know, in a formal way? Then let's speak to your people out there. Well, yes and no. Of course it's a very difficult question and the fact that monastic way of life is not understood or appreciated by contemporary American culture is...

[75:51]

is one and the same time to its credit because it really stands in contrast in its values and so by definition it cannot be an immediate sort of attraction to monastic life from our culture. At the same time there needs to be some way of course of of letting the monastic message, which is nothing less than the Christian message in a particular shape. So it's the same question of the gospel in American culture. It's Christianity in American culture as well. So how to let that arrive? No, I don't have a lot of bright light on it. I think I tried to provide in my reflections here what I called at one point the heart of the matter. And I think that monastic life will always survive if the monks are really doing it.

[76:58]

And if it doesn't, that's part of the plan. But if the monks are really doing it, Then, and especially when monks have to live the deep and difficult cross of no longer being understood even within the church or no longer having vocations come, if you stay in it, then there's a future there that the monks haven't constructed, but that's there. That's the real paschal mystery. And so I put my trust in that. And I learn how to do that. more from the tradition than from psychology. I think that's very risky for monasteries when they rely over much on that. There's a tremendous psychological wisdom in the monastic tradition.

[78:00]

And it's not that one can't learn from the present thing, but when a community begins to construct its project in those terms and in that language, I think it can be quite dangerous for them. So sorry, that's about all. In one sense I think I offer the heart of the matter and on the other hand no practical solutions for immediate implementation. It is the presence and the absence. And I think that if a monastery... well, I'll tell you a story. Often monks tell stories that illustrate whole values. A Trappist abbot lives near us in Oregon. had visited with three other American abbots a Trappist monastery in Belgium that had been there for, oh, I don't know, it was a Cistercian monastery and enjoying the Trappist reform, maybe 500 years of existence.

[79:05]

Beautiful old building and all. And there were only three elderly monks still there. One was the abbot, one was the novice master, the other was the rest. But they were showing him around the monastery and it was evident to these three American abbots, well this was just, it's over here, you know. And one of them finally asked, they said, well what are you thinking, I mean what hope do you have for the future? And this abbot sort of looked at him in shock and said, you have no faith. I mean, these guys from all appearances were dying, but they were doing it to the end. And where that goes as a contribution, whether it really means that monastery will somehow miraculously revive in the end, or whether it goes elsewhere, mysteriously off into the world for the benefit of God knows what,

[80:11]

Who knows? But yeah, it's presence and absence. And I think, you know, reflecting Father Martin's invitation to come here and speak was for me an invitation to try to reflect as a monk and as I'm trained in theology, try to turn theological reflection on the question of monastic life and it's as we're living it today and somehow from my own experience as a monk, which always, you know, when monks meet each other they all realize no matter how different their monasteries are, we are all living the same kind of life. We all immediately understand each other. And so it occurred to me that this presence absence thing would be, for me personally, is a key and I hope that it can help here, to help people here reflect about what's happening. We hesitate to have you stand up and jiggle because people jiggle for so long, but so you don't fall asleep doing vespers, you might want to simply stand up.

[81:29]

We'll ring the bell right now and eight minutes later we'll begin vespers.

[81:35]

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