This morning about the importance and the necessity and the role, function of the rule. And he made this distinction that certainly the monastic life as such is and has found and produced a great variety of rules according to the various temperaments, approaches, various times and that indicates of course that the rule legislates for the monastic rule for something very special It means for the striving after perfection. And that this striving after perfection is not the same as, let's say, the year. Definitions and the year.

[01:03]

Indication of Where the Christian life begins and where it ends, you know, exactly a few do that, indicate the minimum for the ordinary Christians. And in this way, a law which indicates the minimum, that is not the meaning of the rule within the monastic life, regular life. The regular is needed indeed and therefore has a great inner personal relation and the spirit, as it were, takes care and considers the variety of situations and all that. The regular wants and is needed and is an instrument, has its function and role only in a specific state. the stage of the beginning in the monastic life. It is there, needed there, where the skoda, dominici servizi, is established for those disciples who join a master and then, as a group, follow the regula as a way towards perfection.

[02:27]

Scholar, as you know, means in monastic, in the language of antiquity, means the guild, means the workshop. It is their very art. The spiritual of the spiritual life, the art of perfection, is being cultivated and practiced and in the same time taught. That means handed down. All that is contained in the idea and the growth of the school. So therefore, in that way, the school, the way you laugh, is a means, means to heal, to develop, the spiritual life. So it's really a motherly function which the irregular foresees. To bring the child to maturity. The other function of the rule is

[03:34]

The beginning is always the best beginning of an elastic life. So the form of charity, the fullness of charity, belongs to Christian perfection. And therefore the elastic life is, in the beginning, bound to the community life in order to develop, in order to test, in order to purify, the cavitas, the charity, which is perfect, may go into the hermetical stage, but then the hermetical stage evidently is not an immature attempt to escape obligations, is not an attempt simply to follow one's own subjectivity and get away with it. But it is a valley which then characters comes to its full flowering in the hermitical stage where hermit tested in concrete circumstances of the community life is then dismissed as well into the complete freedom of the Holy Spirit.

[04:57]

Now, we could still, I have done that already in the past, but I would like again to remind you of it, and also those who haven't had any opportunity up to now, I mean, to penetrate into the meaning of these terms, still to point out that the word Renula, is, in its original sense, not a juridical concept, essentially. It's not a collection of regulations. Therefore, not a code for any kind of regimentation. But this Latin word, regula, is the translation of the Greek kanon. And kanon means standard. Standards, that means the measure of the ideal, the rule according to which one measures or draws out the straight line of perfection.

[06:06]

Therefore, a regular is an orientation. It is showing for the ideal. and it throws the light of the ideal on the various human circumstances. In last analysis, Regendau-Canoe is really the inherent, or so in Greek philosophy, inherent voice for order of the logos, the world speaking and guiding the universe and the hearts of men. In the Christian sense, naturally, this word takes on a much deeper meaning. It's the teaching and the deeds of the world made flesh. out of his spirit.

[07:10]

You have, and that is true, of course, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, in the 15th chapter, you have there the verdict of our Lord against human traditions, tradiciones humanas. And standing up wherefore the divine commandment against the Tradiciones Mai. But this protest grows out, of course, of the specific situation of the Old Testament. The Old Testament, as you know, is based on a code, on a written Torah, which Moses, as the mediator, receives as it is written in its integrity out of the hands of God. He doesn't even write it himself, but he receives it written as an immovable letter.

[08:19]

And this letter then he reads to the people so that in that way it is not God's, I mean it isn't Moses' teaching, but it is Moses' readings reading what has been written for him on the tablets of stone, so that it may stand there indelibly and inaccessible to any mutations. Now, such a written law, of course, needs, in the course of time, needs what then the Jews later on called the fence around the door. And this is around the lowest standard work of the rabbis, whose first office, of course, it is the rabbis to copy the written law with every little period and dash that belongs to it.

[09:29]

And that is, of course, really, I mean, has to be taken absolutely literally. The rabbi copies the most noble office of the rabbi is the copying and the absolute exact copying of the Torah. Word by word, letter by letter, period and dash and everything that he lost. And our Lord, as you know, takes that up. I mean, he knows what he's talking about because he's his people. He lived among them. So he knows the devotion to the letter. But I would emphasize that this devotion to the letter comes, of course, from the fact that the Old Testament economy is based on that. Moses does not receive an inspiration Moses receives, for that matter, a book.

[10:34]

And that is what he then gives to the people, as it is, as it stands. And so the copying is the most important office, let's say, of the teacher. The copying of the written word of God, the book. Yes, our Lord himself takes that up. In my mind there's always a certain sense of divine irony, a certain spirit of humor when he solemnly announces, you know, that the law will be fulfilled with every period and dash. That's of course not only, it's something much deeper, you see. It's so that who follows and receives the living law of the living world naturally fulfills the whole letter from the beginning to the end, doesn't lose a thing, because what he does...

[11:44]

simply done on a higher plane, on the plane of the living world and of the living spirit, as we said so there. But our Lord in this occasion, this discussion with the Pharisees, points that out there you change the word of God for your traditions. In human traditions, these human traditions refer to the faiths. And the faiths are certain rules or certain prescriptions which are not written in law, but which the rabbis have worked out so that the literal observance of the law may be protected and that a minimum of risk may be taken. So that already certain actions, for example, if there is a certain amount of rules which refers to the past for me, and that is written, and that's the divine letter, and that has to be followed as it is.

[12:54]

But then, of course, there are many things which are not described and which in the concrete lie not described in the law. but which in the complete circumstances of life, they may occur. And then doubts arise. Now, what shall we do if the law says we should have, let us say, these bitter lettuce, you know, there, and these. Now, what are these, for example? Or then comes the whole business about his wine. Yeah, but then this wine, now this wine should be really and truly wine. That's the problem now. What constitutes a real kosher wine? All these things. So a whole section, all kinds of whole jungle, one can say, of rules and of prescriptions goes up in the early tradition as wine.

[13:56]

And, of course, the great difficulty is when the Jewish mind, you know, once is set, say, on the lie of the letter. that this character and this attitude then also is extended to the various rules which the rabbis have advocated in order to ensure the exact observance of the Torah. And that is of course a difficulty because in this Torah then, if that is all written and ready and there it is put into the hands of Moses, and there it is, and it has to be observed as it is, then naturally also the distinction between in importance what is essential, what is accidental, What is more important?

[14:57]

What is less important? All that is obliterated. And everything has the same importance. And then, of course, you come, you know, to the orthodox, logical, consistent form of Judaism, which takes that absolutely seriously, but then runs into all kinds of dead-end roads, more on the way, and with the development of tyrants, and then you have a reaction against that in Reform Judaism, and that is the basic Jewish problem up to this day, springing up from the difficulties which are created by the integrity of the written law understood as a dictatum divinum, without any interference of any human instrumentality. But, of course, with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, something else takes place.

[16:00]

The Lord is the Savior, the Living Word, a person, Jesus Christ, living here on earth, addressing this crowd, addressing these people, teaching. And it's not only teaching, but then also living, acting, doing things, so that his life ends in his sacrifice and his resurrection. So this teaching, all this life, words, and the deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are now derailed. They are the canon of Christianity. They are the staff of Christianity. But a living thing is a person. It's not anymore a written law. A living person. And this living person gives, hands down, his teaching to his apostles.

[17:07]

As the Father has sent me, so I'll send you. hands on to America his teaching, and in this way we arrive at the phenomenon of what we call the apostolic tradition. This apostolic tradition has the meaning of being a chapel in which the divine teaching, that life which could work given to the apostles, as communicated to them in his teaching and in his life, is preserved intact, pure, from human additions and human distortions. Therefore, this traditio apostolica is always connected with and done in authority. But we have to consider now a very essentially important fact.

[18:14]

The teaching and the work of the Word made flesh ends in the ascension, in the return to the Father, and the setting of the Spirit. As we saw that already in St. Augustine, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, withdraws from this world to give root to the Spirit, sends the Spirit. And therefore, this Spirit, as our God has said in the sermons for the Last Supper, he will take from me and he will announce it to you. For, as he says, he will teach you all things. introduce you into the full truth, and he will remind you of what I taught you. So you see, the Holy Spirit, at the same time, one can say it's the lifeblood which fills the world and makes the world and keeps the world really a living world.

[19:28]

And not only the word in the sense of the teaching of Christ, but also the word in the sense of the deeds, the actions of Christ, the work of redemption. So the land is still the fountain, the word, and the spirit. One can say the Lord and the spirit. That is the fountain out of which then the gospels, for example, are formulated. The gospel, that is the reason why we have in this whole apostolic tradition, especially in the gospel, that means in the reports on the words, the teaching and the life of our Lord in the gospels we have there, a completely different attitude to historical exactness as you would find it in the minds of the professors of the 20th century.

[20:32]

The Gospels are not a photography of the life of Christ, the Word of God made man, but they are an interpretation in interpretation in the spirit of the resurrection. It's absolutely evident in the Gospel of St. John. But we should always remember and especially state that also against any heretical misunderstandings of the spirit and the so-called freedom of the spirit, as the spirit, of course, is not a human being, but is a divine power. And this divine power, absolutely real, lifts up the mind and frees the mind from all merely human pressure and human limitations and leads it into the divine depth of the words and the deeds of Jesus Christ.

[21:41]

Therefore, it is the Spirit who opens the access to the mysterio, that means the divine depth, which is hidden beneath the surface of the historical factum. In that way, the apostolic tradition, as the Church knows it, is not simply the handing down of a letter, but it is the handing down, not only the handing down, I would say it's the constant flowering. It's the constant development. It's an organic, final process of the divine life in the ordained vessel, in the vessel of the Church. Flowering, growing in the vessel of the Church. Therefore, this together of word and spirit In the church, flowering in the church, they constitute the fullness of tradition in the Christian sense.

[22:49]

Therefore, you see, right away, Christian tradition, and I say that because this is true, then even in a deeper sense, we say of the monastic tradition, or in a more acute sense of the monastic tradition, which is not simply a memorizing of rules, but a continuation, flowering, and growth of the divine life. And that is regular. That's canon, but in the New Testament sense. Of course, that is different. If you today, if you take a Jewish boy, the celebration of his confirmation, that is after years and many years shows the intelligence and the capacity to memorize, to learn by heart the Torah. That then qualifies him.

[23:52]

But that is not this kind of photographic memory. That is not the essence of Christian tradition at all. And of course, certainly not then of the monastic tradition. We speak in our Christian language, we speak of, for example, a regular feeding. That is the canola pistils, regular feeding. And this week without delay, what is that? It's formulated in the Queen. What is that? This Queen is certainly not a photographic copy of the Gospels. It's not a collection of words that our Lord said. Not a collection of quotations. This week without delay. But that is a new formulation, formulation. Even in many ways, the Regula Fidei, a new discovery, so to say, in certainly a living deepening of what has been received through the Tradition.

[25:05]

But the Regula Fidei, of course, is never independent. I mean, it is, as I say, it's free and it is not a copy of Holy Scripture. That's true. It's a new formulation. Remember what we say, the formulation of the Trinity is a new formulation. It can be the seeds of it and the basis of it. And the truth of it, of course, is founded in the Gospels. But the formula, the explicitness of it, all that has developed where? Now, in the womb of the Ecclesiastes. The Church, she is the mother of this form of nature in this and this regular freedom. Therefore, it's usually the fruit of an ecumenical council. So, a manifestation, a regular freedom of the divine world in the spirit, fullness of the spirit, which is present in the Church.

[26:16]

In the Ecclesia Catorce. In this sense, for example, in a similar sense, we can see that St. Paul speaks in his epistle to the Galatians of the way, the kind. He says, and whoever follow this rule, peace and mercy upon them. Now, what is that rule, what he speaks thereof in the Epistle to the Galatians, in the sixth chapter, in the sixth verse? Now, that is not a set of rules. But what is this regula, this rule that he recommends, that he has done? It is the faith in the crucified Christ. That's what it is. Faith in the crucified Christ. Christus Crucifixus. He is the Regula, the Canon. Now there you see a completely different concept.

[27:20]

And that is the concept also, which is still alive in a document as the Regula, the Rule of Saint Benedict. We just look at the end, say, the last sentence of the rule of St. Benedict, in the last chapter, just before the epilogue. And that, of course, has a very significant rule of law in relation to the whole of the rule. And there St. Benedict says, Christo homino nihil preponant, Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all alike to life everlasting. That is the summing up of the whole meaning of the Irregula, and that is the whole reason why such Irregula can be called Santa Regula.

[28:25]

It's certainly not a satire, like it was in Benedict. It was the same. You don't even know it. I mean, it was set at the feet of Jean Leclerc. It's a little quandling, you know, back to the present. Somebody wrote it, you know. Why not Saint Benedict, I would say. That's a scientific remark, you know. But it's not, you know. Today, it always says, the holy rule by the holy founders. It's the holy founder who makes the rule only. That's, of course, not the idea of the awakening of Benedictine. That's a sancta regula. Why is it a sancta regula? Because it doesn't say, in last analysis, it doesn't want anything else but this Christo omnino nil prepotent. At the wrong meaning. Nothing prefer to Christ.

[29:27]

So what is the root? It's Christ. It's the kernel of the whole Christian. And therefore it is sancta regula. And then we have tried, of course, in the past, you know, to show that it is always, you know, set in the tremendous authority of the rule. It's founded not on the authority of the one who wrote it, but because the one who wrote it had his eyes, for that matter, on the Holy Scripture. He said in that way, let Christ speak to us. It's always this addressing of the word to us. Reading in a rule, we listen to the word of God. That's what we do to Christ and to his voice in the prophets and so on. And therefore, that is then applied by, let us say, the practical motherly sense of

[30:30]

of somebody like Sid Pendick, who, for that matter, in this whole business, would be set as the eclipse. It would be completely wrong in my mind to think that St. Benedict the man, you know, he is the one. Sometimes it's maybe a little strongly emphasized, you know, one speaks about St. Benedict the last Roman and that he has, you know, the patriarchal spirit, you know, on that, you know. Nobody but the Papa Familias, you know, has anything to say at the family and so on in this way. That, the more I read it and so on, the more doubts I had about this kind of approach. St. Benedict acted, first of all, listening. It is one, in some ways, the word says, the lobs who speak. St. Benedict listens to it, but then what does he do?

[31:32]

He doesn't pick out the things that just, let us say, were very familiar to his Roman mentality or fitted into his scheme of a rigid part of chameleons or so. He evidently did not do that. But he listened to the whole of the world. But what he did is he arranged it. He put it, you know, so and applied it to concrete circumstances, especially in the second part of the book. But whose office, essentially speaking, is that? That is the office of the model. That's the office of the ecclesia. And therefore also, it's in that spirit, in a motherly spirit, in which these things are arranged. And that's in Benedict Seth, of course, clearly. What he wants to do is to make it possible to reach this thing for the little ones, for the beginners.

[32:40]

You see, that's a motherly attitude. Feed the children, rear the children, bring them up, arrange things for them in such a way that they are able to catch on to it and grow in it. But that is what I would emphasize very much. Growth is the aim of the rule. Not, you know, simply and only the seal of old monastery as a French garden. with the hedges, you know, absolutely horizontally and, you know, cut, so that everything, you know, is just, I mean, a hedge is a living thing, but then in the French garden, it looks like a wall. And then, of course, makes the wall, and who looks at it, always look uneasy. Poor hedge. Or poor bushes, you know, in that hedge.

[33:42]

You understand this. I mean, the right sense. That is the important thing. See that also in the earth world, always, you know, regular ethics. And the advice for that matter, he again, you know, he requisites, let us say, the living presence, you know, of the risen Savior in the spirit. He is the pneumaticos. His interpretation of the rule, you see, should be a pneumatic spiritual interpretation. If I may at the end, you know, of this now just say a few words, you know, still addressed to you in the course of this retreat, you know, and things that I would recommend to your attention concerning the regula, the observance of the root.

[34:47]

One thing that's really that we have to remember again, and that I again urge and implore you to pay more attention to it and to take it more seriously, and that is the rule of silence. I wanted, in the course of this retreat, but I see I don't have any time, it's impossible, and I wanted to talk about, give a whole conference, maybe again tune that. I think sometimes we speak about the silence We don't do it enough, really, in this kind of living spiritual tradition that we just had spoken. But we made it too much, then, a matter of rules. But, of course, you see here quite a way that naturally St. Benedict doesn't speak about silencio, that he speaks about taciturnitas, and that is, of course, a living virtue.

[35:53]

But if one wants to, say, for example, bring such a thing, you know, to the living or loving understanding of people who, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have wings, you know, and are eager to observe things that they see are the expression of the fullness of the spirit. Naturally, it is difficult and in some way dangerous, just in the interpretation of the law of science. to do it the negative way. So you have the typical case of a regular, and then again this regular naturally gets effects about it. Something of the Old Testament meaning. Repeatedly, you know, and this fence is now in the loca regulari. You shouldn't speak then, you shouldn't have a different kind of silence.

[36:55]

in the night time and the different night time signs, at daytime, and then how far can you go, and then of course you right away get to the point, you know, what is the meaning of the observer. So there, in such a concrete case, a wonderful example, You know, for such a situation in which, let's say, the spiritual reality and the living world of the world in its application becomes and takes a certain rigidity. Now, we, of course, as Christians, and in the spirit, we have, of course, that feeling to discern, to distinguish what is important and what is less important. I mean, we have a certain... let a certain epikaia, you know, very often into our action and our observance and our interpretation of a certain rule.

[38:01]

But anyhow, there is that problem, you see, of a certain rigidity, that is true. But, and therefore, you know, for somebody, for the abbot, who should bring that close to the hearts of the community, should not only put his fist down and say, here, anybody who speaks at this place, head up, or three days with water and bread, the monastery, what is it, prison, or something. And that, you know, there is a danger. And there comes, or there comes very easily, comes that rigidity and then monotony and then a certain archaism, a certain disgust on the part of the audience. And a retreat certainly is not for that. A retreat is not simply the wee hashing of little wounds of the tongue.

[39:04]

But the retreat should be a time in which one finds a new, and if God wills, bigger, you know what, deeper approach to one's love to the monastic. And I think it is a whole matter of science. It would be so good to understand it more deeply and to observe it more lovingly. It would be so important to understand, maybe, and start from an understanding of the importance and the dignity of the world, instead starting with the dignity of the science, of the world. Because if one really, you know, the most great thing of science, for example, the chattering on, you know, during the day, silence, you know, during work, One works and works with somebody else together and one chats along with the idea of song and war might be a kind of a gamut if you start here working together in silence.

[40:14]

There is no contact and where there is no contact there is hostility and all these kind of interpretations which of course is war. And therefore one starts, but I say that, you know, also to show that what we understand, you know, this kind of tendency to chat away and to fill in the gap of silence, this kind of threatening business, you know, border or whatever it is. But of course we are not in monastery to be entertained. It's a true thing. So, but, you see, the approach to that, the dignity of the church, you know, that the monk can take it, you know, all here in the context of what we have said. That's the monastic life, rule, what is it? Nothing should be preferred to Christ.

[41:15]

So, that he is the one word. And then really one can start, you know, the dignity of the word. And one can contemplate the way also in which Christ speaks. One can, for example, one can go and take something like the other faith. where our Lord teaches, and he teaches certain words, and he gives us there a formula of prayer. All this is, as you see, all this, of course, is again a canon. What he speaks, what Christ there gives in answer to the demand of the apostles is a canon. It's a standard. But this, that our Father who art in heaven, you see, is that something, you see, that is, of course, formulated, you know, with greatest care, you know, and that is an utterance, you know, which comes out of the heart of God.

[42:26]

And there, the dignity of the word, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. There one feels the tremendous majesty of the Word. And then one must say, now this Word is given to us. Therefore, what is our first office? Our first office is to take on, to penetrate, to take it in, this Word that is given. which is given to us as a canon, that means as a transmission of life. Transmission of life. And that's then, of course, how can we absorb it? It's somebody like Franz Ebner, you know, such a wonderful, sensitive soul, who has written that just lying on his sickbed, on which a month later, a few weeks later, he died.

[43:41]

And saying that, I could spend my life I wish I could spend my life just to penetrate and to absorb the depth of the hour. That's absolutely true. But there we see the dignity of the divine word. Now to amount that word is to give hold of Holy Scripture. And that we receive in silence. But then, of course, we ourselves, we are then asked also to speak. But naturally then, to speak in the line of the incarnate world. To speak to the world and to those around it in that same direction. To, as it were, to repeat the word of Christ. to carry the word of Christ into the hearts of those we live with.

[44:43]

So the word of the monk who doesn't prefer anything to Christ cannot simply blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. and just go on, you know. And trust him to say it whimsically, to this one or to that one, and say how nice the cap is, you know, and how many young ones she has, you know, she's now usual, all kinds of things. Then it's evident that we just don't speak in our order. And the words that in that way, that biblical word, is a caricature. of what we should be. Therefore, we should think of the dignity of the world. And then we realize that this world really should rise out of the depth of the science, of that science which is the presence of God in our soul.

[45:49]

And so in this way, think about the science. and observe it, and therefore avoid, St. Benedict says, the much-talking, this kind of chatter. Have the respect for the world. Have the respect for your own dignity as not as another Christ. And if you are that, then speak like Christ. But then be silent. if you realize that you cannot or that you don't, shut up when you realize that you don't. And in that way also something else, of course, originally is done in the monastery, which is so important. You see, we labor some way, maybe, I hope that this retreat, you know, will give us the possibility to speak about it, but we labor, you know, on this Christian example of doctor, you're sick, but I just mention that because that is the expression of a much deeper problem.

[47:06]

And the deeper problem is the vita communis and the speaking or the listening of God in the depth of one's heart. That, as far as, is a problem. And that problem, the majority of us here, thinks that that problem, as a step or means to solve that problem, would be the same. I'm not closed against that idea at all, but it really is. But I would say, or Hannah would say, that because then, as you know, when we have the cells, we have the walls, and then are they really soundproof and all these things? I would say, in some way, my dear, Confluence, the cheapest wall we can build is that of science. That's the best wall. If you want that, if you want that dip of you and God being united, dip of your soul, no better is that sign.

[48:17]

The silence in the community life makes and represents the aramidical element, the silence. It's not de facto or the same. I don't say anything against the same. I just put that at your thought, for your things. The silence is the aramidical. And therefore, if somebody, you see, on one side is a fervent advocate of the same, I don't mind that totally, I'm not angry or something, but at the same time, somebody who constantly wakes the sun up, it doesn't work, you know, because then the same won't get... Then he will have in his cell, on the morning to the night, various visitors, or they go to other cells and visit there, and we just chat, you know, or talk about what is just in his mind. And there, of course, that's not the meaning.

[49:21]

And it disturbs this inner solitude for which we are not. So therefore, keep that in connection with this retreat, make a special real resolution and effort. Think about the that I would say is also called to speak. But, therefore, the reverence for this vow of boldness, it protects you from chattel away calling to your own witness. He who is proud of life, source of life, author of great and founder of the world, counter of knowledge, treasure of wisdom, teacher of glory, the kind of gift of the soul, Thou who hast raised us from the dead into life, and given us life out of death, who hast graciously brought us out of slavery into freedom, hast captured the darkness of sin by the presence of man, only he got us all.

[50:38]

Even thou, Thou, [...] and saintly purpose through and through, in body, soul, and spirit, to Christ.

[50:56]

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