Your compassion embraces all people, and your law is wisdom, freedom, and hope for the poor. May you fulfill in our lives your promise of favor. We may embrace your gospel of salvation with faith, enlightened by your Holy Spirit. May we proclaim it both in words, and the other way that we live. Make this prayer as always to Christ our Lord and in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen. Last year someone asked me, is the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist really real? well I'd like to try to answer that question by reflecting this morning on four topics first of all the nature of symbol since the Lord's presence in fact is given to us under the form of symbols secondly

[01:29]

I'd like to reflect on the meaning of presence and the different kinds of presence, since the Eucharist is meant to manifest the Lord's very special presence to us. And thirdly, I'd like to reflect on the different modes of the Lord's presence in the Eucharist, all of which are really real but different from one another. And then finally, I want to reflect on contemporary Eucharistic devotions, including adoration of the exposed sacrament. I'd like to start with two little stories. A number of years ago, Arnold Basil Huynh or Benedictine abbot of a temple board, and then became the Archbishop of Westminster in England.

[02:36]

He counted a moving experience that he had. He counted it in the tablet. And the story, I think, illuminates the essential characteristics of the Eucharist, God's love for us and our love for one another. The experience happened in Ethiopia. He had been asked to visit a settlement when starving people were waiting for food that was quite unlikely to come. And a Russian helicopter had been put at his disposal. And as he got out of the helicopter, a small boy came up to him and took his hand. The little child had nothing on but a loincloth. He was about 10 years old. And the whole time that the cardinal spent there, that child would not let go of his hand.

[03:38]

And he had two gestures. With his free hand, he pointed to his mouth to indicate he was hungry and needed food. And the other gesture was a very strange one. He took the card in his hand and kept rubbing it on his cheek. And the partner realized that the child was lost and absolutely on his own, totally alone, and starving. And so he later wrote, I have never forgotten that incident. And to this day, wonder whether that child is still alive. I remember when I boarded the helicopter, he stood and looked at me reproachfully, an abandoned, starving, 10-year-old child. I realized in quite a new way those two profound and fundamental human needs for food and for love.

[04:51]

With one gesture, he showed his need for food, and with the other, he showed his need for love. It was much later that day, the Cardinal says, that I realized in a new way the secret of the Eucharist, for the Eucharist is food and love. And through that incident, taught by that small boy, I saw in a new light what is at the heart of the Eucharist. The Lord's law given to us in this most remarkable sacrament, his body and his blood. For indeed, he says, there is no life without food and no life that is worth living without love. They are two fundamental requisites for life.

[05:55]

food, and love. And when Jesus said he wanted us to have life and have it more fully, then he must give us his love, and the love he gives us is preeminently that supreme expression of his love, which is the Eucharist. Eucharist is indeed the gift of God's doom, God's love for us. But it's given to us, so we, in turn, might be love and two for one another. One story. The second comes from Victor Hugo. And the incident occurred after the French Revolution a mother and her two children, exiled.

[07:01]

And so they fled to the forest, where they scavenged for food for three days, to the hot berries and so forth. And at the end of the third day, they heard people coming down the pentway, and so they fled deeper into the forest. Two soldiers. a captain and a sergeant. And the captain realized that there was somebody in the bushes. So he sent the sergeant after them. And the sergeant thought of the mother and her two little children out onto the pair. And as soon as the captain looked at the mother and the two children, he realized that they were starving. And so he pulled out of his pack all of the French bread. And the mother grasped it immediately, like a starving animal. And she broke it in two pieces, gave one piece to the one child and another piece to the other child.

[08:17]

And so the sergeant said to the captain, is it because the mother is not hungry? And the captain said, no, no, Sergeant. It's simply because she is a mother. A mother not only shares her food with her children, a mother also shares, especially in the gestation period, she shares her very body and life, like Jesus. in the Eucharist. And it's precisely for that reason that any number of medieval theologians talk about Mother Jesus. Very strong in the mystical tradition, the medieval tradition.

[09:17]

Mother Jesus. Because Jesus shares food with us, but the very food that he shares with us is in fact His body and His blood. Just like I thought. So our appreciation of the Eucharist and any understanding of that great mystery we might achieve must be rooted in our embrace of God's great love for us manifested above all in the gift of His Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all of us. The Eucharist provides a context, a framework, in which we celebrate, that is all of us, can discover or rediscover who we are in the world and what the nature of the world really is.

[10:21]

And if the Eucharist is celebrated as it should be celebrated. We celebrants, then, are invited to experience ourselves as a human person related to God, to one another in the community, and to the world as a whole. In other words, in this celebration, social consciousness inevitably impinges upon us. We're invited in the course of the celebration to see ourselves not simply as individuals who journey to God alone, individuals who are preoccupied with saving their souls. We are invited to see ourselves as members of the body of Christ, as persons belonging to the holy people of God who have already

[11:24]

been saved by the Paschal mystery of Christ, and who are invited then to appropriate God's gift of salvation offered to us through the gifts of Eucharistic food and love. Christian Eucharist is always the liturgy of an assembly. It's a coming together. in which all who are gathered by the word of God seek to respond to God's initiating presence, mediated into our lives through word and through sacrament, through both verbal and nonverbal symbols, but above all, through human persons who are meant to be the primary symbols in all of our liturgical celebration. The sacraments are for us to transform us into the body and blood of Christ.

[12:27]

I think as we reflect on our own lives, we see that one of the tragedies of human life is often that our worlds tend to become very small. Our vision becomes quite myopic. And as a result, As we know as monks, we're in constant need of conversion in the sense that we need to open our eye to the power and the presence of God, who is great mystery, but who is never distant from us, who rather abides in the depths of our hearts and whose spirit is in fact woven to the fabric of all creation. And certainly, living in any depth involves exploration. Exploration of experience, exploration of the mystery, the secrets, which light holds for us.

[13:40]

And we know that the world we live in, it trumps us with many problems, which can in fact be solved. Or at least we can imagine a solution even if we can't achieve them. The world also comprises with mysteries. The everyday mystery of birth and death. The mysteries of energy within the atom. The endless expanse of space. The mystery of beauty and freedom. The mystery of good and evil. And those mysteries can't be solved. They can only be lived with, contemplated. So it is with the Eucharist and the other very deep mysteries of our faith. We do indeed struggle to believe the words of the Lord Jesus.

[14:44]

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am. in their midst. We believe that assertion, but then we also seek to have some understanding of what the Lord Jesus has told us. However, I think it's important we need to remember that we will never, never exhaust the meaning of that great mystery, and we can never pin down the meaning in neat verbal formulas. And so it is with the Eucharist. Pernodine Allen was the pastor of the large community at Dayspring near Toronto. He used to tell the handicapped members of the community that in the Eucharist, the Lord Jesus sits down at table with us to share in our meal

[15:52]

and what races would love. Perhaps we would do well just to sit with that simple understanding of the Eucharist and not try to capture its meaning in precise formulas, as we're often wont to do. I think one of the primary requisites for an effective celebration of the Eucharist today is the ability to experience it as a complex of symbols rather than simple signs. You know, before the Second Vatican Council, our Roman Catholic catechism and theology manuals used to define the sacraments as outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace. Well, contemporary sacramental theologians are apt to explore the meaning of the sacraments, including the Eucharist, as symbolic rituals, both expressing and mediating participation in the mystery of the Lord Jesus Christ with the power of the Spirit.

[17:14]

I think one of the problems that we face in dealing with symbols is the semantic You know, for many people in the past, if something was only a symbol, it wasn't the real thing. Roman Catholics, for example, sometimes tried to distinguish their notion of the Eucharist from what they thought most Protestants held by asserting, for us, Christ's presence is real. But for them, it's only symbolic. Now, in recent years, scholars working in a great variety of disciplines tried to clarify the meaning of the term symbol by distinguishing carefully between signs and symbols. They note, first of all, that the principal role of a sign

[18:24]

is simply to send out information or to expose data. In other words, a sign stands for or points to a particular object or person or place or event or circumstance. Signs then are always pragmatic. They're always functional. Drink Coca-Cola. Why don't drink the sign? It's inviting me to move toward the can. Shop at Nacy's. I don't shop at the sign. It invites me to go to the store. Bargo. 210 miles. Hilton Hotel. They're all signs. And since signs are being overdue, They need to be very clearly recognized.

[19:29]

However, sign language has to be learned, since signs are meaningful only by convention. Remember years ago, when I was a student in Europe, my car broke down in Germany. And so I tried to hitchhike with a couple other priests. And we stood on the road going this way. Everybody went by. As we soon learned that they hitchhike this way. You know, when I would go to St. Peter's and see Pope Pius XII come in, people would cheer and so forth, and he always did this. Dear, that's really arrogant. The fact is, that's the Italian way of waving. We wave this way, wave that way.

[20:36]

Cultural conditioning here. All right. In order to function effectively, signs should never be ambiguous. And because they are so obvious, they require, on our part, very little intellectual investment, and they elicit little or no emotional response. They allow people to remain uninvolved. Every time I see a sign, I drink a cup of cola. I don't get all churned up. I can remain detached and indifferent. So signs rely on a brief but total message that provides all the necessary information without demanding any direct action or response.

[21:38]

Now some signs can become signals and they will ultimately demand some action or response, like a traffic signal. or a siren. They are signs, but they invite a clear response on the part of pedestrians or the part of drivers. Any questions about your understanding of sign? I think it's quite simple. Well, unlike a sign which points away from itself, A symbol is the sensible expression of a present reality. In a sense, a symbol stands for another reality, but it reveals that reality in its own structure.

[22:43]

Of its nature, and this is important, A symbol is limited, but it reveals a reality that goes beyond the limits of the symbol itself. Tracy, what's the problem? Can I help you? Oh, I just, I didn't quite get the first part instead of a signal. Oh, all right. Yeah, a signal is something that it, a signal is a sign which in fact demands an appropriate response. I mean, the red light is there. I should stop. If I hear the siren, I should move over to the side. All right. Of its nature, then, a symbol is limited, but it reveals a reality that goes beyond the limits

[23:48]

of the symbol itself. The task of a symbol is to make the transcendent or some aspect of the transcendent available and to mediate participation in that which is revealed. I'll give you a couple of examples. is the primary symbol of my human person, but there's more to my human person than my body. My speech is a symbol of my human inner experience, but there's more that goes on up there or in my body person than is revealed by my speech. In other words, A symbol cannot be simply equated with what it symbolizes.

[24:57]

It is the sensible experience of the transcendent, and as such, it is the place of revelation, the place of participation in that which is revealed. In other words, symbols invite us to come to terms with their meaning. They challenge us to inhabit their world. Consequently, and this takes us back to Paul Ricoeur at the first day, they must always be interpreted Of course, the interpretation will depend on the experience and the understanding, the worldview that we bring to the task. Because they supply little explicit information, symbols always require that we fill in the blanks.

[26:09]

Consequently, Exposure to symbols is apt to result in diverse interpretations and experiences on the part of various participants. 25 is probably in here. We come from different worlds. Hopefully, we have some common meaning. but they'll obviously be diverse meetings along the 25th. Since they demand participation, rather than inspire our admiration as detached observers, symbols are always power-laden. They're power-laden. So in a sense, symbols are open-ended. They're open-ended.

[27:15]

For example, I, years ago, did a course on T.S. Eliot's poetry, and very attracted then to Ash Wednesday. So I usually read Ash Wednesday every Ash Wednesday. But depending on how many ashes were in my life in the previous year, My interpretation of that poem is apt to vary considerably from year to year because my world view has changed. So by engaging in symbol, by being willing to inhabit their world, we discover new meanings, new values, new motivations, new horizons. for our lives. And because they are open-ended, symbols can in fact grow, expand, deepen, or perhaps degenerate.

[28:27]

Something can start out, for example, as a sign, become a signal, and end up as a symbol and then regrets. For example, a mother's in a garden with her little child, and there's a red rose there, and the mother little child is learning to talk, and the mother says, Rose, Rose, Rose. The little child says, woes, woes. All right, the mother's in the kitchen the next day, and the little girl's out in the garden, ooh, woes, and she goes up and It's not rose. What is it? It's ouch. Ouch. So it does, in fact, then become a signal to stay away from the bloody thing. But then she goes to high school, and her senior prom, her girl, brings her a corsage of red roses.

[29:34]

Then she marries. She carries red roses. Every year, her husband brings her two dozen red roses on their anniversary. It obviously is no longer a signal. It's become a very rich symbol. But then she develops Alzheimer's. She regresses. You've had much experience living with people with Alzheimer's. He regresses. It's no longer symbol, no signal, or a simple sign. All right. To think of symbols, then, as changeless reminders of bold facts or simple truths is to convert symbols into mere signs.

[30:37]

Symbols are always pliant. They're flexible. They're subtle. Their relation to people is reciprocal in the sense that they disclose new potentials for human life, but they're also shaped and refined or even distorted by the changing circumstances of one's life. Any questions about symbol? Clear. Well, the celebration of the Eucharist is meant to be a symbolic experience. However, that experience is often frustrated by one of the problems posed by the spirit of our age, namely what I would call its flat-minded literalism.

[31:45]

Today, in the lives of many people, the scientific mode of knowledge is often considered the only way to grasp reality. Likewise, the communication process in our culture is often understood simply as a process of conveying information. So that cultural move, then, easily induces what I would call a flat-minded liberalism which prevents religious symbols from being experienced symbolically and converts them into signs, meaning can be captured in static statements about an ontological deity. The role of liturgical symbols is not to convey supernatural facts. rather to engage us in relationships with God, and not only with God, but with each other.

[33:00]

Liturgical symbols are not placed and rituals are not executed somehow to get a job done, to fulfill one's Sunday obligation. They are rather meant to reveal meanings and to express dispositions, meant to involve us in relationships. The question then is, are we in openness or are we in closeness? The celebration of the Eucharist is meant to be an in-depth experience in which symbols unfold in the course of the celebration and they invite our interpretation and also our participation. Unfortunately, I think many Catholics continue to interpret the Eucharist primarily in terms of an educational enterprise.

[34:01]

Homolists, for example, often look upon the Seventh Eucharist simply as the primary occasion when they can communicate a system of doctrine and morals to an assembled congregation. should we want to say that the communication of doctrine and moral teaching to the faithful is very important. It is not, however, the primary goal of liturgical celebration. The real objective of the Eucharist is an encounter with the mystery of God through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. It's meant not only to generate insight, understanding, It's meant to generate above all commitment. And so the celebration of the Eucharist then presupposes that we participants do in fact have some creative imagination and that we are willing to bridge the distance between ourselves and the celebration.

[35:13]

so that the symbols will enable us to experience the realities of life in a new way. What I'm saying here is that we have to be willing to enter into the symbols and expect something to happen. It is, I think, for that reason, the celebration of the Eucharist must be accompanied by a reflective, by a contemplative disposition and a life of personal prayer on the part of those who participate. And certainly, I think you come to understand that the dawning of understanding and the disclosure of new meaning usually come very slowly and often quite unpredictably to those who become involved in the symbols and who linger over them imaginatively.

[36:19]

For example, when we hear a gospel or hear a homily, sometimes there is simply the aha moment, aha. I never realized that, the power of God's word. For that reason, as I mentioned, that we need to be reflective. Can't make a self-price out of a sow's ear. What do we bring to the celebration? And so it's the development of that symbolic disposition which is such an important part of our unfinished liturgical business. Oh, I'm sorry, Michael. I'll just... is it the view of how, like, you're talking with, it's because of sign being... Oh, hang on.

[37:24]

Oh. You can tell a sign rather than a symbol. Is it because of science being viewed as a relation of data and information? Yes. And a symbol of revealing a reality that that is why when you view, like, for instance, the Eucharist that Philippians, a symbol that is more deeper... Oh, love. Love. ...more deeply in the... aspect. experience God and we're holy. And hopefully we experience our own selves and also each other. And so, for example, what is to ask then, for example, if you're reading a gospel for some group and then you break that gospel, do you simply engage in exegesis?

[38:29]

The meaning behind the text? Or does what you say take on symbolic meaning for those people. I mean, that's what you would mean by the poetic quality of liturgical text. You need to learn a lot about that, the symbolic character text. Anything else? You know, you were talking about in the Eucharist everything being symbol. Don't you almost need to have, or maybe it's just because, you know, we're different. Almost need to have some type of understanding of the sign. Of the symbol. You mean of the symbol. No, not of the sign. Of the sign. You need to have some understanding of what is taking place. Yes. Otherwise, if it's just all symbolic, I mean, people could be all over it.

[39:31]

Yes. I'll replace it. And that's the role, the important role of catechesis. You know, you can't put all the burden on the celebration itself. And that's the reason I think there's so much wisdom in the revised rites or Christian initiation of adults. You know, when I was ordained, you had convert instruction. You met somebody in the parlor. And you used, Father Smith instructs Jackson. So it was all here up. And nobody else in the parish had anything to do with you. Now, I mean, you gather people in assemblies and you break the word for the living word and so forth. And again, you're raising the question, you know, what I eat and drink. Does it look like bread? And is the cup offered to me? Still lots of places where the cup isn't, I mean, fidelity to the words of Jesus here.

[40:32]

to eat and to drink. Is that helpful? Yeah, so what you're saying is like that's where the celebration of the Eucharist, the symbol Samuel Leaning. That's right, that's right. And these insights happen very slowly. Thank you, Dirk. Yeah, I would just, the presentation of sign of the symbol, you know, It's like harkening back to my seminary days to hear what you said. And something dawned on me before you started with that, you know, kind of definition of a two, and an etymological way, and trying to flesh that out so that you could see that relationship of something that was a scriptural thing. And I was wondering you to, you know, like, grapple with it like I just have been grappling with it. It's not a big deal, but it's... something that might fit, and it might fit very well, what folks have said, it may be outside the ball.

[41:37]

It was the quote of Scripture, and I don't have the citation, where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, and it's because he'd been doing signs and wonders. And they say to him, and so then the thing is, he said, why are you people always wanting signs? What did they understand signs and wonders to be? Was it the kind of miracles he was doing, his odd things that didn't fit the norm of normal activity. And so they, you know, what gives, you know, why did he kind of scold that, you know, you're always wanting signs. And is that how maybe the definition of an outward sign, something Christ is doing that is different than what everybody else is doing, that should give you a clue. And if it doesn't, it's instituted by Christ to give grace. I wonder what the Greek word is for that. Yeah, I would like to know that too.

[42:38]

You see, the words symbol come from symboling, to link together. That's what symbols do. Link us with something that is other than ourselves. By the way, the understanding of symbol that I just... That's very common in many disciplines right now. Mathematics, psychology, literature, anthropology. I've noticed the church documents tree is actually called a symbol. A symbol, yeah. And that's the way it originated. It became the identification of these people. and brought together by this particular doctor. In our modern world, are there peoples that see without seeing?

[43:40]

Are there people that see without seeing? Without seeing? Without seeing? They'll live. They'll live. I would hesitate to say so. I think in this regard, one would have to distinguish very carefully between what I would call primal cultures, classical cultures, modern cultures, and postmodern cultures. Trimal people are extraordinarily sensitive to symbols. Native Americans, for example, Latin Americans generally, very sensitive. their religion is based primarily in a natural kind of religion. God is very imminent for them, rather than primarily transcendent. So I would find that unless I become very much of a scientist and I'm so steeped, you know, in the communication of information, then somehow I can attribute and peer down and my mind can be

[44:52]

simply looking for information. What do you think about that question that you asked? What do you think? I don't know. Maybe the very industrialized societies are in that kind of way they are living without interpreting simple words. Don't you think much interpretation goes on, though, unconsciously? I'm inclined to believe so. You know, when I did Lonergan, I had an experience. And I feel very ambivalent about all that. Why? I don't know. And I don't know how to take time out to try to figure it out. Something good about that, but oh, something made me very uncomfortable. So, Emmanuel. Oh, I thought you... Come on, go.

[45:53]

Can an event generate in a group of people three different, all three different types, the sign? Oh, definitely. Yes. The guy holds up a 316 sign and blah, blah, blah. Right. You know, there's a sign for some people. That's right. The signal of what? My vision for another. The other guy is this variable. You know, and I raised the question. I said, why do I go to church on Sunday? To fulfill a moral obligation. And so I read the bullets about doing that. Anyway, my conclusion here is that the Eucharist should cease being a complex of mere signs pointing to God up in heaven. and become a complex of vital symbols revealing God in our midst here and now.

[46:59]

So our Christian faith certainly challenges us not to take life simply at its base value, but rather to probe beneath the surface of those people and events. I've asked before, what do I see when I see? What do I fear when I hear? What do I touch when I touch? So it trumps us. You don't know what to do with them. The radio is always on. So is the television. living. I'm just going to make this show personality to that, because we are living like sons in a sense. Oh, that's the question. Assertist kind of existence.

[48:10]

Thank you, sir. And you see quite a bit of that word used in some of the past, the obligation of past. That word really is a sign. We probably weren't just preaching and speaking. He's saying we need to use a symbol and we want to go to past, not because it's an obligation. Because we want what we receive, what we've got. So, well-formulated laws, though, I think, you know, do not emphasize simply the obligation, but the meaningful experience that this has for people. That's the reason I feel convinced, you know, it's the birth of a baby and the baptism of a baby, or the marriage of couples, or the burial of grandmother. They can be really profound religious experiences.

[49:16]

And sadly what Manhattan hears, I mean these become traumatic experiences for people. Because the father was so difficult to deal with. He didn't want to baptize my baby. People have a right. Hope is very clear. People have a basic right to the sacraments. And often then when somebody does die, People who have been alienated, you know, at a well-celebrated funeral, can really have extraordinary transformative power. Well, if we just look at the rule of Benedict, the rule itself.

[50:20]

So it's very symbolic. It's very symbolic. Very symbolic. You know, I think I mentioned the other day, when the postulate with the novice comes, you're not simply given the Magna Carta. You're introduced in all sorts of symbolic rituals. I mean, the way people dress, the way people bow to the altar, the way they bow to one another. The way they eat. the way they receive guests, I mean, all those things are profoundly symbolic. They're not simply functional. It was so easy for people to do that, it could simply be reduced to functions. I mean, the jobs that lots of people have. Mere functioning, huh? Anyway, it's our Christian faith, then, which enables us to open our eyes so that we might see life as it really is, and rightly and responsibly live, human life is really a share in God's own life.

[51:40]

A question that I always keep asking, what do we see when we see? What do we hear when When we hear, what can we touch when we touch? You know, I'm not going to think right now it's so tragic that because of the sex abuse scandal, you don't dare touch anybody. Tragic. Little children, for example, in school, I mean, they'd love to be cognitive. And we're so suspicious about all that. I had a friend who has been the principal of a very large school in Chicago, a marvelous son. And she was telling me two stories she gave me that made me wonder very interesting. This little boy in third grade came to her and said, Sister Margaret, what's a virgin in this third grade?

[52:48]

Well, how do you answer that? The third grader. She's very shrewd. She said, well, I'll tell you. You know, I'm a virgin because unlike your mother, I don't have any children and I don't have a husband. Now, Mrs. So-and-so in second grade, she has a husband and she has three little kiddies who are in the school. So she's not a virgin, but I am. And the little fellow says to her, Sister, I'm just wondering, Sister, because Madonna makes fun of virgins. What we hear and what we don't hear. Sometimes you just have to say, go ask another one there. The other story, very interesting, her kindergarten teacher was, they were making Mother's Day cards.

[53:55]

And of course the teacher told the kindergartners, now when you get home, don't tell mother what you're doing today. When the child went home, then the mother said, what did you do in kindergarten today? Well, can't tell. The parents and the lawyers We're at the principal's office by 5 o'clock. By 5 o'clock. But what a world! What a world! Some parents change a bit and some of them does not become anything you have for them. Alright, let's move on. All right, this general shift in our understanding of life will also, I think, involve a change in our understanding of Christian mystery.

[55:08]

You know, for many Christians, the mystery or the utterness of God refers to the separateness, the remoteness of the divine from the human. And such an interpretation is often expressed verbally in spatial terms, the divine being high above the earth, often expressed ritually in terms of the strict separation of the sacred from the secular. However, contemporary theologians are pointing out that in the truly Christian tradition, Grounded as it is in the reality of the divine incarnation of God's Son and the outpouring of the Spirit on all of creation, mystery should be understood as the presence and the power of God permeating all of creation, yet at the same time extending infinitely beyond creation.

[56:15]

In other words, Christian mystery addresses not only the God beyond, but the God who is present in our midst through Christ and in the power of the Spirit. What I'm saying here is that God is other in the sense that the divine fullness always extends beyond our boundaries. We are the bearers of God's life. but we're not God. And no matter how much we grow, how much we are transformed, how much our lines and parts expand, no matter how much our awareness is deepened and our love expanded, the fullness of life continues to unfold. It means then that we never exhaust the mystery of life The mystery within which we live is God.

[57:19]

It never exhausts the revelation of the divine mystery. There will always be more to be discerned than God. That has profound implications, by the way, for our understanding of eschatology. You know, when I was a little child, I just remember my old grandfather. He seemed to spend eternity in a rocking chair. And he died very suddenly one afternoon. And I remember my father saying, Grandpa died this afternoon, so he's gone to heaven. Well, in my little mind, I envisioned Grandpa getting a heavenly rocking chair. And I thought, well, that's not where I'd like to go. But if I understand heaven, in the sense that there will always be more. I will never exhaust the mystery of it.

[58:23]

There will always be more to be revealed. Now that can turn me on to heaven. You might know the name Godfrey Deepman, one of our charismatic monks who died a few years ago. And when he was struggling to die, he was very fond of telling everybody in the community, I don't want eternal rest. I want eternal life. It's so typical. Everything is turned on to everything. Eternal life. All right, I'll let you go. Give a break.

[59:02]

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