Bless us, help us to move out of the limits of our own time and space and enter into that
area of communion in which we can really touch our predecessors in the faith and in the mastic
journey where we can feel close to them and a bond of real brotherhood and sisterhood
with them. We ask especially the intercession of St. Romuald, St. Bruno Quirford, the five
holy martyrs and all of our saints to help us to understand, to see it as much as possible
as they saw their vocation, to live our own vocations with great generosity and great
joy. We ask this in Jesus' name. So, thank you all for coming. I'll pass out the copies
later. I only made ten copies. The copy doesn't work very well. I think maybe the best thing
to do would be to go on. This is only half of what we'll be talking about.
What I'd like to do is just to present the translation that I have, which is the next
to the last draft of The Life of the Five Brothers by St. Bruno Boniface of Quirford,
whose feast we celebrate in a few days. This was written in 1006, about. It was really
not known, but what I want to do is really present some clues on how to get in touch
with this text, because we're talking about something that's 980 years old. You can insist
all you want on the fact that we're all human beings and human nature has never changed
that much, and so forth and so on, but my own feeling is that there's a great distance between
ourselves and the 11th century, and we simply see the world differently. We see even the
common things, the everyday things, because we relate to them differently. We have shoes
on our feet, we live in concrete boxes, heated rooms, and things like this. All of these details,
all of the things that go to make up our own sense of our relatedness to time and space
and other people, place distance between us and the people of that time. And I think our
grandparents or great-grandparents would have a lot greater facility in relating to these
people of the 11th century than we do, or even perhaps the generation span that's here
in the room. I sometimes feel that there's a gap between myself, my 47 years, and someone
who's in his 20s or her 20s, or something like that, so the times change so rapidly.
So we shouldn't have any illusions, and this of course creates great problems for translating,
and so I've done my best to make something that's English. It's not. You can't get really
the flavor of the original unless you go to the original. That's obvious, it's true of
the Bible, true of everything. And I don't claim that I've been able to create the definitive
translation of this thing, but I'm working on it. I'm trying to make it just as good
English as possible, reasonably faithful to the original, but trying to bridge some
of the gap that I feel between ourselves and that time.
And yet at the same time we do have a kind of a con-naturality of experience. That's
the important thing. Where this con-naturality comes about is our life and community, our
experience of the monastic life according to the rule of Saint Benedict. That was what
bonded these men together, men, we can say women also, because remember that Saint Romuald
founded women's communities, and bonded them together, and so it is with us. We're related
to them through this heritage. Now, a couple years back, when was it, I gave
a series of talks on the vocation of Saint Romuald, and trying to fit him into his times,
and to give a picture both of the, you might say, the secular scene and the monastic scene,
the religious scene that he grew up in, that he was formed in. These were all recorded
so anyone who doesn't have that can go and look at them there, I mean, listen to them
there in the library. But just to pick up a couple things. First of all, the monastic
milieu of Saint Romuald was the Cluniac reform. He was a Cluniac monk, not of Cluny, nor of
a monastery that was considered really dependent on Cluny. He was a monk of Santa Polinare
in Classe, in Ravenna, which was the most venerable monastic community there, had been
a Greek monastery, and then when the Lombards came in and the city was Latinized, it became
a Western community, it kind of evolved into a Western community, and then Saint Maiolus
came along and encouraged them to adopt the rule of Saint Benedict as their one rule,
and to adopt the liturgical customs of Cluny. These are two of the big things that are important
to keep in mind in the Cluniac, what we call the Cluniac reform. There's also the whole
area of spirituality, and Romuald was very imbued with the spirituality of Cluny, to
absorbing it not only in his, well, not so much in his own monastery, which had adopted
the externals, you might say, and not even very well the externals. But the inner life
was still very weak, these were very lukewarm monks, and so for Romuald, entering in a phase
of turmoil and crisis in his own personal life, his anguish over his father's killing
a relative, and his desire to do penance for this, and his discovery of the monastic life,
he never had any idea of becoming a monk. But he was not satisfied with the monastery,
and so he left and went to Venice, he was a hermit there, and then he met Abbot Garry
of Cusha, a monastery in the Pyrenees, which was one of the great centers, not of Cluny,
but it was like Cluny, it was like the Catalonian equivalent of Cluny. Catalonia is, at that
time, extended on both sides of the Pyrenees, and depended from the Duchy of Barcelona. So,
the area around Barcelona is called Catalonia, and they have their own language and literature
and considerable culture there. So, Cusha was a great center of monastic life, a very
fervent monastery, and the abbot was in contact with the great Mayans of the time, with Gerbert
of Auriac, who was considered the greatest Mayan of the 10th century, early 11th century.
And he was in contact with the emperors, there was Otto I, II, and III, during the lifetime
of Saint Romuald. And then, during the period covered by this text, the life of the five
brothers, Otto III dies, and there's a revolution, there are wars in Europe, Christians fighting
Christians, and then Henry II, who was canonized, becomes the emperor. And then the Saint Romuald
and Saint Peter Damian later spoke about the contact between Romuald and Henry II.
Romuald wanted to have as little to do with Henry II as possible. But he was very close
to these Ottonians, Otto I, II, and III. Romuald got very involved with Otto III, a young emperor
with kind of grandiose dreams about reestablishing the Roman Empire. And partly through that
contact, and partly through the disciples who were in the court of Otto, and then entered
the monastery, and Otto wanted to become a monk himself. And through that contact, Romuald
opened up to the missionary idea, which was something that was present in monastic tradition
from the time of Saint Boniface, the 8th century Saint Boniface, and then from England, who
evangelized what is now Germany and parts of Holland. And this was a great inspiration
also in general for monks, even of the Cluniac reform, but Romuald didn't have this in view.
He was interested in encouraging the hermit life, but this was part of the Cluniac spirituality
as well. They had hermits at Cushaw, they had hermits, not very many, a couple of hermits
at Cuy, they had a whole colony of hermits near Monte Cassino at this time. We read about
one of the companions of Saint Romuald being a hermit after they leave Catalonia, they
come back, and this other hermit, John Gradinigo, joins the hermit colony with an ex-abbot of
Monte Cassino on the slopes of Cassino. So this is the context of Romuald and of the
period covered by this little book, The Life of the Five Brothers, which was written around
1006 and covers the period just immediately preceding and following the year 1000.
So we're right centered on the millennium, and just as people today are beginning to
get the creeps about the three zeros coming along, the neurosis of the three zeros, and
that's not going to make a bit of difference, we know that, I mean it's just a cipher on
the calendar, but people are getting antsy about it. And of course those people who like
to manipulate other people's religious fears, they're writing books on how Lindsay and all
of his troops are on the attack and pushing their own agendas through this millenarism
and through this idea of, you know, the world's going to come to an end and all the good people
are going to get caught up and the others are just going to get mashed. So that's the
mentality. And so there was some of this, and of course the wonderful thing about Romuald,
about Gary and about these others, was that their spirit was, you know, we're living
salvation history now, and the world's not coming to an end, it'll come to an end when
God wants it, but in the meantime we live the mystery of Christ in our reality, which
will be positive or negative. There's a war going on, we face that, we live it in the spirit
of Christ. There are these new missions opening up in Eastern Europe, the ecclesiastical hierarchies,
Rome and Constantinople are kind of running neck and neck, there's a kind of a competition
going on to put out as many missionaries in that area, and they were struggling, especially
over Bohemia. Bohemia was the big thing, that who was going to have Prague, you know. Finally,
Rome got Prague, Rome got Prague. And whereas Constantinople got Rus', it was the original
Russia centered around Kiev, and Saint Vladimir, or Vladimir, was the prince of Kiev, and he
was converted and baptized in the year 988, so next year is the thousandth year, millennium
of Christianity in Ukraine and Russia. It's a very important event, but I know the Pope
is just dying to go there, and Gorbachev and the others are not, by any means, dying to
see him come to, but they'll probably have to say yes. I'm betting that they'll have
to say yes. But at least, you know, something, because that's too important even for the
history there. So, where do Romule's monks come in? Otto wants to send missionaries up
into Poland. Poland is securely in the Roman camp. There was some missionary work of the
Byzantines from Constantinople in that area, but Poland accepted Latin Christianity in
966, something like that, and then, so that was a foothold in Eastern Europe. Lithuanians
held out, but then, of course, Bruno Querfurt, you know. But you see, the important thing
about where Romule enters into this whole missionary thrust, and you get the idea, I
did get the connection of the idea, this is the opposite of the millenarism, you know,
the idea that God is going to step in and pick out the good people and blast the corrupt,
those who are destined to perdition, eternally destined to perdition. They believe that there's
a future, and they believe that the future, we have to participate in it, and we have
to continue salvation history for all the peoples that are... So anyway, so this is
a great experience of hope and confidence that God's work in Christ is going on in
the midst of the most ambiguous and miserable human circumstances. Anyway, so, Romule connects
with this Emperor Otto III. When does this happen? It happens in 998, and he's been back
from Catalonia for about ten years. He's been living as a hermit on different properties
of his monastery. He's tried a couple of foundations which didn't pan out terribly well, but he
has a reputation as being a very solid, spiritual man, someone who gives wise counsel, someone
who lives a very austere life in the spirit of the desert elders. That is, by the way,
my solution to the desert fathers thing. I'm not saying fathers and mothers, desert fathers
and mothers, I said desert elders, so I don't know if that annoys you, but anyway, say desert
elders is the way I translate them now. So anyway, the desert elders. So he was well-known
and the Emperor came along, and there was an opening in the Holy See, and there was
an opening in Ravenna. Both the monastery needed a new abbot, they needed a new archbishop,
they needed a new pope in Rome, and the Roman families had been electing their own, alternating
and warring over who was going to be the next pope, and one pope was about, I think, seventeen
when he was elected. You know, things like this. It was a really messy situation. Rome
was at the nadir of its history. There was no ministry of Peter, it was just Peter denying
his lord, historically once again. So in this mess, the young Emperor steps in and names
one of his own, names a German, who was himself only twenty-three, but that was already, well,
he was an adult at least, a grown man. So what is his name, Gregory, I forget the number.
He was, no, no, I think he was just a priest. But he's probably poisoned, he's poisoned,
so... But before he's poisoned, Otto wants to settle the situation in Ravenna. So what
he does, he names Gerbert of Aurillac. Gerbert of Aurillac was the greatest, as I said, the
greatest man of the tenth century. He was a monk, and he had had some troubles with Rome,
but he had gained some credits with the Emperor. And he was a brilliant man, he was a good
man, a man of virtue, and so forth. So the Emperor put him in as Archbishop of Ravenna,
which was the number two seat in Western Christendom. Number one was Rome and number two was Ravenna,
because it had this reputation, even though the city itself was kind of really, you know,
kind of broken down, but the prestige of this being, it was the exarche of the Eastern Empire
and was a center of contact still with the Eastern Empire, so it was politically very
important, so it was number two in, well, in Italy, shall we say. And then he put him
in Gerbert, I think it was probably Gerbert, that's my hypothesis, who suggested, well,
you know, you know that there's this holy hermit monk, he's a Benedictine of class A,
I knew of him from Gaudi when he was in Catalonia, and so he's the man to be the abbot. So he
put him in as his abbot. And that worked for about one year. It was, again, it was the families
that lay influence. This was a big problem in those periods. So you had these families
in, and one of them, of course, was Romulus' own family, so they thought, ah, we got one
of ours in here. So this is going to, and they started manipulating him, and then there
was all sorts of speculation. The German pope, by the way, the first German pope in history
was the one, the young one nominated by Otto, was poisoned, or whatever, and so he was out
of the picture, probably Gerbert was the obvious candidate, but then, so they were going back
and forth between Rome and between the archbishop's palace and the abbey, and so they were trying
to get Romulus to consent to being the archbishop. This is my hypothesis, but it's most likely
that they were going to do musical chairs and move Romulus up to archbishop, and he
wouldn't have anything to do with it. So he goes and throws down the, the, the basal insignia
in front of the emperor, and runs off to Monte Cassino to see his good friend, John Gradenigo,
again, and to spend some time with him. Now, they meet up again in the year 1000. Romulus
is there at Monte Cassino for a few months, and he takes the old, and he meets a young
monk from Benevento who had come and was living with John Gradenigo, and meets up with this
young monk, Benedetto of Benevento, and this is, he was a very fervent, very hot-blooded
young man. He was just gung-ho on being a hermit. He joined a monastery to do penance
for the fact that his parents had paid for his ordination for the priesthood. He was
in his teens when he was ordained, and his parents had paid the bishop, and when he found
out that, he decided he had to do penance, so he did the monastery. The monastery wasn't
enough for him. He wanted to be a hermit. The abbot tried to, you know, say, stay in
the monastery, we'll give you a private cell, and that sort of thing. No, he had to spend
some time outside. Then he came back to the monastery, and then he went to Monte Cassino.
That was his history. So this very fervent young monk meets Romulus, and they become inseparable.
And so, Romulus gets sick, and Benedict nurses him back to health, and then they go to Rome,
and they meet Otto again. And there, with Otto, there's some men of his court, there's
his chaplain. His chaplain is a priest in his twenties by the name of Bruno, Bruno of
Querfurt. Perhaps he had also a Christian name, but there was no Saint Bruno at that time,
so he was the first one. So he probably had the Christian name Benignus, and he's referred
to as Benignus. This might be an invented name that he uses just to cover, you know, not
to talk about himself in the first person, when he talks about his meeting Romulus. But
it's obvious that the reference is to him. He and another, and one of the generals or
colonels or whatever, of Otto's army, decide to become monks. And Otto is living there
on the Aventine Hill. That's where St. Anselmo is now, very close to our monastery, St. Gregorio,
St. Gregory's on the Celian Hill, which had just become Cluniac, by the way. But they're
there near a monastery called St. Alexius. And the church is still there, with the Baroque
decoration. They still have the icon, the Byzantine icon of the Blessed Virgin, which
was venerated by Romulus and Bruno Querfurt, and this other one, whose name was Thomas,
his Christian name was Thomas. This soldier in Otto's army. And they joined this monastery.
This monastery had Latin monks and Greek monks. It's interesting, there was more than one
of these kinds of monasteries around, in Rome. And so they would alternate the offices with
two different rites. Whereas the Latin monks were under the rule of St. Benedict. And so
they were making their novitiate, and they meet Romulus, and Romulus says, come with
me, and went to establish a hermitage, obviously a temporary hermitage, outside of Rome. And
a theory is that he established it at the Sacro Speco, at the cave where St. Benedict
was, or at least near Subiaco. That's a good hypothesis. One author I noticed had this
possibility. And the emperor comes out to see him, and so forth, and all of this takes
place. There's all sorts of political things in the city. The people don't want the emperor
there, and that sort of thing. All of this, there's a lot of turmoil. And so eventually
they all move back to Ravenna. The emperor has to leave Rome. Romulus takes his disciples,
his group, and goes a little north of Ravenna, there's some property in the monastery, and
starts a new hermitage. And the emperor wants to build him a monastery, wants to build him
a church, and starts something there. It doesn't work out, but he's infected. Romulus gets
the idea of the missions, and he accepts this. He is not interested in going himself. Later
he will be, he'll try to go to the missions, a few years later. But he sends two of his
disciples, this Benedict from Benevento, and another brother, John, and sends them off
to Poland. And Bruno Quirford, he also permits Bruno Quirford to prepare for a mission. And
Bruno Quirford will later go to Hungary, and then he'll go to, it'll end up in Lithuania.
But he will become friends with Vladimir, with Saint Vladimir. And this is something
very important, that the games that were being played between Rome and Constantinople, Romulus'
people had nothing to do with this. They were not in competition with anyone, anyone else's
missions. They were cooperating as much as they could, whenever they were in contact
with the areas evangelized from Byzantium, from Constantinople. So Bruno Quirford made
friends with Saint Vladimir, Saint Vladimir helped him with his mission. Bruno in fact
went and preached to the enemies of Saint Vladimir, so really favored his own kingdom
in that regard. So that's where the missionary thing of Romulus comes in. And that's where
this story comes in. And so as I said, I tried my best to turn this into English, shortening
the sentences. And so one is always torn between the idea of faithfulness to the text and the
attempt to render some of the rhetorical flavor of the text, and yet to make something intelligible,
not only intelligible, but not too heavy to read. So in any case it's a compromise, and
there's always the element of treason. You might have heard the Italian proverb, il traduttore
è un traditore, the translator is a traitor. There's always this kind of betrayal of the
text, and when you put it into another language you lose a lot. There are certain things that
are just impenetrable about this, and there's this kind of heavy rhetoric about sin and guilt.
And yet I get this feeling that there's almost tongue-in-cheek. It isn't that he's insincere.
He says, Good Jesus, I know what I am. My sins have slain me and left me to rot like a dead
dog on a dunghill. I wallow in evil like a sow in the mud. Do not condemn me, dear Jesus,
if I dare to write about somebody else's virtues. And you, my reader, my judge, forgive me for
telling this story with no style and without practicing what I preach. I simply must do
it for I am driven by love." And this theme now of love, this passionality, it's all part
of this. These are tremendously emotional people, and they let their emotions just hang
right out. They externalize it all. They're very affectionate. They can get very angry.
They can get very upset. They can get very depressed. He talks about when the mission
isn't going right, and there's Benedict and John, and the Polish brothers are waiting for
a letter from Rome to permit them to preach. They've started the monastery, they want to
go out and preach to the pagans, they have to have approval from Rome. This isn't coming.
Bruno Koeffer doesn't come along, never arrives, and so they're in anguish and depressed and
complaining, and he goes on about their depression and everything. And so, some of this sometimes
sounds a little funny, sometimes it sounds just heavy, but it's part of their way of
living. Another important thing about this is the importance of friendship. And these
people really experience deep human friendship, deep bonds, and all of this, it makes them
a little uncomfortable, because in our own society, the sexual overtones of all, be honest
about it, the sexual overtones of friendship are always present as a kind of a threat,
and we just feel uncomfortable about whether it's two people of the same sex or opposite
sex. It's something that, and this is a real challenge to Christians, if we believe in
both friendship and chastity. And they did, and this is of course the, you know, one
thing that can be very helpful for us, even though we can't experience friendship the
way they experienced it. I mean, it's just too gushy for us. But on the other hand, it's
a lesson. I think the most beautiful aspect of this little book is the way it presents.
These wonderful friendships, this wonderful sense of loyalty to each other, and also the
consequence of this, when there's a failure. And Bruno took the name Boniface. Boniface
was his religious name. Very rare in those days. Romul was born Romul, baptized Romul,
so everyone kept the baptismal name. The idea of the religious name came in practically,
didn't come in until the 16th century. It started really, one of the first Kamaldolese
to take a religious name was a man by the name, with a wonderful name, Thomas, Thomas
Justiniani, and he took the name Paul Justiniani. Why he gave up the name Thomas, I don't know.
I think that was a mistake. Don't you think that was a mistake? Anyway. So, but Bruno,
since there was no Saint Bruno, he took the saint, who was specially venerated there at
the monastery where he had made his novitiate, and also because he felt this attraction to
the mission. So in honor of the saint Boniface who evangelized, the English saint Boniface
who evangelized Germany and all. So there's this wonderful sense of friendship,
and then the sense of failure, you know, when Bruno Boniface fails to bring the letter to
these brothers in Poland. And they, you know, they don't judge him and condemn him, but
they're tormented, they're afraid what has happened to him, something has happened to
him, or why does he do this? Doesn't he know that we'll be tempted to think he's a liar?
There's this temptation, but they don't give in to that. And let's see now. What else can
I suggest about this? That the brothers there were in Poland waiting for Bruno Boniface
to bring this letter from the Pope, from Pope Gerbert at that time, he took the name Sylvester
the Second, I didn't mention that. He never came, you see, and they never got it anyway.
And finally they sent away one of the Polish brothers. They were martyred in 1003, on Thursday,
the 11th of November, 1003. These are the guys. The only thing is they... You see, these
are... For one thing, their relics were dispersed, I think, after a couple hundred years, with
the wars that were going on in those areas, between Christians and pagans and so forth,
there was... their monastery was burned, and so their bones were lost, their relics. We
don't know where they were buried, more or less, you know, it was near where the Monte
Crona Hermitage of the five brothers. But, so many legends grew up around them that sometimes
they're thought of as five poles. There were these two Italians, and the two blood brothers,
so there was John and Benedict, the two Italians, Isaac and Matthew, the two blood brothers
who were monks, who had made their vows probably already, and then their cook, Christian, were
the five. Well, they're the first martyrs. Right, right. And they're the first martyrs
of Poland. And the other three were Polish, of course, yeah. And just as Bruno of course
I guess is the first martyr in Lithuania, what is today Lithuania, isn't it? Was there
any martyrs among the Byzantine? Yeah. Let's see, I don't know quite what else to say at
this point. There were some other things I wanted to... Oh yes, one other thing that's
very important, and we can get into this, and that is the background of the rule of
Saint Benedict here. And there are references to the rule throughout this. Usually the rule
of Saint Benedict is referred to with enormous veneration. This is the holy rule. And he
says, when Benedict joins the monastery, let's see, first he does penance for the sin
of simony, his parents, you know, committed the sin of simony by paying to have him ordained.
When he finds this out, he does penance for their sin by joining a community of canons
regular under the rule of Saint Augustine. But soon he was moved by the Spirit to give
up everything for God, and he became a monk. Obviously he didn't give up everything when
he became a canon regular, and he became a monk. In reality he was a monk already.
He had taken chastity as his bride, and kept his virginity with great zeal, knowing that
its reward is great in heaven. So when God called him, he entered the monastery of the
Holy Savior which overlooks the sea. I don't know where this monastery was, but it's dedicated
to the Transfiguration, by the way. Of course that was Romul's favorite devotion. There
he found his mother, the monastic rule. He submitted to her commands, even when they
seemed harsh and painful. And soon he discovered what great sweetness flows from her breasts
which feed God's servants. This is an allusion to the prologue of the Rule of Saint Benedict,
where, therefore we intend to establish a school for the Lord's service. This phrase
of course concludes the part that comes from the Rule of the Master. Then the Benedict
of the Rule, whoever he was, the Benedict of the Rule adds this, in drawing up its regulations
we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. Obviously the experience is sometimes
something harsh and burdensome, although it's not the intention of the Rule. The good of
all concern, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to
safeguard love. Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads
to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way
of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing
with the inexpressible delight of love, inexpressible sweetness of love. So he discovers this sweetness
and there's this wonderful maternal metaphor, you know, the mother's breasts which feed
God's servants. Then he says, he was an exemplary monk and in a few years, in a very short time,
he was ready to live as a hermit. This is where, of course, the Rule of Crerford, reflecting
also the idea of St. Romuald and of St. Peter Damian, departs from the Rule of St. Benedict
who insists in the chapter on the kinds of monks, the first kinds of monks, the first
is the Cenobites, you know. The second are the anchorites or hermits who have come through
the test of living in a monastery for a long time and have passed beyond the first fervor
of monastic life. Thanks to the help and guidance of many, they are now trained to fight against
the devil. They have built up their strength and go from the battle line and the ranks
of their brothers to the single combat of the desert. Self-reliant now, without the
support of another, they are ready with God's help to grapple single-handed with the vices
of body and mind. So this is the wisdom of the Rule of St. Benedict. And it also became
in the experience of Kamaldoli, after a generation of the foundation of Kamaldoli, became the
experience of Kamaldoli, and the principle of a longer formation in the community was
established as the only thing that would really work. However, there's always the exception,
and certainly these were exceptional men we're talking about. These were exceptional times.
Romuald was very much conscious. I mean, he could discern these exceptions, and he may
have kind of exaggerated in the favor of the hermitical life. Whenever he saw anyone he
thought was ready for it, he'd push him into it. And then, of course, sometimes he was
disappointed. In fact, a lot of times he was disappointed, because they needed the community,
they needed formation before they could go into this. Since Bruno worked for him, and
so he's always confident that this works. But it's interesting that what happens here.
There's this Benedict, and of course Bruno's in favor of the idea that if the community
is lukewarm, well, get out of it and go and be a hermit. The abbot would have let him—he's
talking about the abbot of the monastery there with Benedict—would have let him have a
private cell in the abbey. But Benedict could not endure the mediocrity and lukewarm observance
of his brothers. The Holy Spirit's fire raged in his heart and drove him out into the wilderness.
So he left Benevento and went to Mount Soratte. Benedict spent about three years on the mountain.
The hard life he led there made him vulnerable to every sort of temptation, as he himself
admitted later. So here's a little—I can just visualize a little twinkle in Bruno's
eye. This young, fervent monk felt he was ready for it. He wasn't quite ready for it.
And although he was ready to do all the penance and ready for the solitude, yet alone by himself
he underwent every possible temptation. Meanwhile, the abbot, he goes on to say, although he
praised Benedict's austerity, kept trying to woo him back to the monastery. When Benedict
returned, the abbot built him a cell near the abbey where he could enjoy that certain
sweetness—again, the sweetness of the fulfillment of monastic life in this world—that certain
sweetness which God does not begrudge his lovers. And where the hermit life would be
easier for him and edifying for others. So even to make it a little easier, there should
be this sense of fulfillment. It's not—you know, the one thing—I'm sure Fr. Aylward
brought this out—one of the things about the will of the Master is that the idea that
it's all hard work. Penance! Stick it out to the end. Grit your teeth. Push to the end.
And then you'll have heaven, you know. High in the sky. Then you'll have heaven. But
as long as you're down here, knuckle under. Whereas Benedict, the little phrases and
the little paragraphs, the little additions in the part that comes from the will of the
Master, and the other parts too, tend to indicate this confidence that, no, we already experience
the sweetness, and there's a foretaste of paradise. And the monastic life is not
all bitterness, you know. It's supposed to be. Even enjoyable. And so you get this feeling
also. And this is one of the—you know, what makes this a very Benedictine text. It's
about hermits, it's about missionaries, which are atypical, you might say, in the
Benedictine—they're atypical in Kamaldi's history. There wasn't any development—the
missionary thing just disappeared after St. Romuald. It just disappeared, it kind of went
into kind of a slumber. It was there, it was there in—of course, St. Peter Damian talked
about it. Oh, I didn't say one thing. This text was unknown in our community, in our
congregation, until the end of the last century. It was lost. It was known only in Poland and
Germany, and was copied—a few copies available. The only copy from which they make the critical
text dates from the 12th century. So there's even a certain interruption, but I think it's
certain that this is an authentic work of Bruno Quirford and of the time that it's
talking about. But even so, a lot of this—the feel of this—came through and continued
on down through the centuries. So as I say, there are lots of references to the Rule
of Benedict, although in parentheses, with this sense that for Romuald and for those
who were under his guidance, there could be an exception in the general rule that a monk
needs a long formation before he's ready to be a hermit.
Let me—I only have ten copies of these, and I want to—yeah?
I just wanted to ask a question. Yes.
Essentially, what you spoke about in the beginning, the flavor of the time being different, but
then also emphasizing the kind of friendships they had and the type of relationship. Do you
get the feeling that there were very few relationships they had, so therefore they
needed to be very meaningful or handy? Or is it the way that people expressed themselves
in those times—you said it would be negotiated for us.
Yeah.
Well, would that imply that what the words express is different in the reality of the
relationship themselves? Because I know a lot of people, when they express themselves
in writing or in speech, it may be a lot more—it might be a lot more than seemingly is implied
than it is actual reality of relationships.
Right.
Because that's hard to determine.
Yeah.
And I'm just wondering, curious, what your impression is, because I'd be interested
in knowing what kind of relationships they actually did have. I mean, loyalty and fidelity.
But in terms of love and affection and real human contact, it would be interesting to
know—I'm just curious about what you were implying.
Yeah. I had the impression that, of course, there's always a certain amount of rhetorical
exaggeration here. I mean, it's heavy with rhetoric, you know, and I've tried to scrape
off a little bit of that, you know, a little bit of this whipped cream on top, you know.
But that's the way it is. It's the way they express themselves. And yet, at the same time,
my impression is that at least among the aristocracy—and that's what we're talking about, because
like it or not, Romulus was an aristocrat, all these people were noble people, and that
sort of thing—later, the destiny of Camaldoli was to become a people's congregation. And
so, very soon, you know, it attracted the local people and became also a place of upward mobility,
where the peasants, you know, would have no chance for an education, would join and get
a good education, where even the townspeople—Camaldoli was at the forefront of founding urban monasteries
when urban life began to take off again in the late 11th and especially the 12th century.
Some of the first foundations from Camaldoli were—well, the first foundation from Camaldoli
was at the gates of Florence, the first Florentine monastery that we had. And then, of course,
there was the other one, the more famous one, St. Mary of the Angels, right a few blocks
away from the cupola, from the Duomo, the cathedral. But at that time, this was the environment.
And so I can say that my impression is that among the aristocracy there was a great deal
of warmth and affection and they expressed themselves freely in this. And they were mainly,
you know, what we get here is male bonding, so male bonding. In other words, these were
friendship among men. There were later, developed in Camaldoli's history, some beautiful male-female
friendships within the monastery, either in the joint monasteries or like at St. Mary
of the Angels, there was the nuns across the street, you know. So there was a lay brother
and a nun, you know, who had this correspondence. And they never saw each other, they were cloistered,
strict cloistered. They had this wonderful affection and friendship. But my impression
is, yeah, that there was a lot of expressiveness. And I think it was mainly wholesome, mainly
healthy. I mean, people, human nature, what it is today, it was like that then. You find
in Peter Damian, and we're talking about the middle now, of the 11th century, begins to
... the alarm goes off in his conscience. He begins to be very wary of some of these
things, and you start then to have the warnings about the particular friendship, and you have
the incident of the homosexual at Citria, in the life of Romuild. There's this guy that,
you know, who commits a sexual sin, Romuild accuses him, and he in turn accuses Romuild
of playing around together. So, and that's important in the ... more in the context of
whether it's historical or not, it's not important. It's important for Peter Damian. So he was
beginning to see problems there. I don't think there were great problems at the time of Romuild.
I think they were just effusive, and as things happened, and as Europe began to be torn
up, and there was this population explosion, a lot of people just couldn't get married,
because there was not ... so a lot of people got into monasteries, they had no business
being there, had no vocation. One other thing about these friendships that you see, see
Romuild, he was an affectionate man, he was very ... he mentions this ... he's longing
to see, you know, after he resigns as abbot, he runs to Monte Cassino, he's longing to
see John Gradinico, because they had shared the cell together there at Cushon. By the
way, also the ... Romuild, for the ... I think most of the time, up to when he began to really
go over 60, most of his years as a hermit, he was living with someone in the cell, except
when he had any community, he had someone with him in the cell. When he was by himself,
period, obviously he was by himself, but very often they would come along a monk, and they
shared the cell together. This idea of two to a cell was very common, and was part of
the Romuildian experience, and at Fontevillan it was structured that way. By the time ... and
this may have to do with the incident in Citria ... by the time Romuild comes along
to Fount Camaldoli, and this is ... he's close to his death, he makes a big point, in the
charter it's mentioned specifically, one hermit per cell. It may be because of the danger
of abuses, or it may simply be, you know, this seems to work out better, and creates stability.
The emphasis on friendship may also have a reason for its existence in what we would
regard as extreme formality of life in the Middle Ages. And for us, you know, it would
be just a straitjacket, and people had their place, and you did things, you know, in a
way. Everything was kind of cut and dried, and people also didn't have a lot of freedom
and vocation. Like, the vocation of St. Romuild is an adult vocation. At the age of 20, and
he's way beyond the usual years of people entering monasteries, in his time. And later,
after him, in the 11th century, it became more common for grown men and women to enter
monasteries. But for him, it was a novelty. So this experience of his freedom, he made
a vocational choice, which was against everything that his family intended for him. He was probably
engaged, his bride was chosen, and everything was set up for him. He was going to follow
his father's military career, and whatever. So he was breaking away from that. And I think
friendship also was a way that people could break through some of these structures, and
experience the freedom of that. Also because if the sexes were separated, as I think probably
they were at that time, it was the only way that you'd have affection. So it was a healthy
thing, I think.
I think my analogy is reminding me of a certain rhetoric or language, Zen literature, coming
from China to Japan, which is almost like a spontaneous, almost anarchic thing. But that's
coming out of society as very hierarchical, formal, ordered, like that. So I think it's
But then you just simply translate that anarchic language into our situation. So you've got
to do a very careful translation of what's coming out, because the background is very
formal.
Excellent observation. This comparison with the context of early Zen, and of Romuald,
is quite apt. There is something in the character of Romuald which is rather anarchic. Because
of his taste of freedom, in choosing his vocation against his family's expectation, against
even the monks themselves didn't want him, going against the grain in every respect,
he got to the habit of this sort of thing. So I was saying about, you know, after he
met the emperor again in Rome, and the emperor could not stay in Rome for political reasons,
Romuald could not stay at the Hermitage near Rome because it just wasn't, you know, there
was a lot of people coming there, just too much disturbance, so they all go back to
which now is a little village called Sant'Alberto, and Alberto was really Adalberto, Adalbert,
which was the, he had just been martyred in Poland, and was Otto's new saint, the new
martyr for his, you know, his project of the expansion of the Church into Eastern Europe.
So the Hermitage chapel was dedicated to Saint Adalbert, and that's why the town is now,
or the little village is called Sant'Alberto. I was there and there's absolutely no remains,
but the parish priest is very interested in the history of Romuald and the brothers
and everything there. But there's nothing remains of the monastery.
So the context is that Otto promises that after he sets things straight in the empire
he's going to be a monk. As a means of realizing his desire to become a monk, Otto conceived
the following project. He would choose some of the more fervent brothers and send them
to Poland. There they would build a monastery in Christian territory, but near an area where
pagans dwell, secluded and surrounded by woods. This would offer a threefold advantage, the
community life, which is what novices want, golden solitude for those who are mature and
who thirst for the living God, and the preaching of the gospel to the pagans, for those who
long to be freed from this life in order to be with Christ. This is Otto's idea. It's
also Bruno Kruppert's idea. I don't think it's exactly Romuald's idea. But on the other
hand, Romuald plugs into this. The idea of three stages is something that obviously attracts
him, and he'll come back to it later, after a few years. And the idea of being a missionary,
he's already lost a number of his disciples to martyrdom, and he says, well why not me?
So at that time he wants to go to Poland. And anyway, so the emperor there at Pereo,
near Ravenna, since there wasn't the preaching to the pagans, well he'd construct the hermitage
and the monastery. And so Otto decides to build a synodium at Pereo as soon as we had
established a hermitage. He acted with the best intentions, for the salvation of the
synodium was for the greatest number. But on account of our sins, his efforts produced
the opposite effect. In the end, he lost the hermitage without succeeding in founding the
monastery. When they saw the emperor doing all this for Romuald, many people were scandalized.
They accused Father Romuald of greed, ignoring the pastoral motives that guided him. His
intention was that the emperor might be saved through this good deed, and he also saw that
the monastery would be useful for winning souls. Romuald's personality, as a contemplative
and a true servant of God, had one outstanding characteristic. Whatever people would have
liked to see him do, he tried at all costs to do exactly the opposite. Only when he could
get them to insult, taunt, and slander him, provided he did nothing against his own conscience,
did he consider himself worthy of esteem and capable of preserving his virtue.
So this is Romuald. And it's interesting that this is one of the few points where Peter
Damien says almost the same thing in almost the same words as Bruno Boniface of Quirford.
Peter Damien did not know this text. One of the proofs that this text is authentic is
that it doesn't quote Peter Damien. Obviously, if it had come after Peter Damien, Peter Damien's
life as King Romuald was fairly popular and widely diffused in Italy. So, both of them
say the same thing about Romuald. There's something anarchic about him. And yet, again, this is
within the context of a rigidly structured society, where everyone has his place, the
peasants are peasants, there's really no middle class, no townspeople, no bourgeoisie, as we
say today, or they used to say, and there's this aristocracy, also very rigid. So the families
are always kind of jockeying for position and trying to, you know, who's going to have
their cousin made Pope or Bishop or whatever, or they can't get the secular dominance, and so forth.
I think that sketches out the thing, the context of this.
Questioner 2 Apparently Otto never became a monk.
Otto never became a monk. Died at the age of 23. All these guys in this story are very
young men, you know, we've got to get this idea out of our heads, you know, these had
greybeards. All of them very young. I think, let's see now, Bruno Quirford, I think when
he died in 1009, when he was martyred in 1009, was in his early 30s. The five brothers
must have been in their early 20s and mid-20s, maybe 25, something like that. Romuald had
a good age, he says. He had a good age, and of course this whole question about how old
was Romuald, because Peter Damian gives him 120 years, which is impossible, even if you
read Peter Damian's book, there's a hole there where you can't fit in those extra 40 years.
And then of course when they exhumed the remains of St. Romuald in 1980, the anthropologist
said, well this man was over 60, but certainly not 120. So Romuald was born around 950, anyway.
So when he was in the year 1000, he had a good age, bona erat etatis, and everyone was
saying, well what is this good age, bona etatis. In some languages it means that he was very
old, in some it means he was in the prime of life. Very interesting, I was just with my
mother, and she's from Texas, and she said, speaking about somebody around 50, that's
a good age. So it's interesting, I never mentioned this to her, but she just uses this
expression to say, for someone around that time of their life. But it was unusual for
someone to live that long, to arrive at the age of 50. Certainly very unusual to arrive
over, to get to be in their 70s, so by that time, by that time, if you ask how old was
he, oh un saeculo, a century, just in general. So it's very easy for the reputation to grow
up, when Romuald is in his last days, he's bent double with arthritis, he's coughing
from emphysema, so he really looks old, he looks his age, and to say, oh he must be 100
and some odd years, well let's give him 120 years, the age of Moses. But anyway, in the
story, he's always the eldest of the group, at the age of 50.
This is Bruno of Querfurt, Bruno Boniface, Bruno Boniface.
Well, I suspect there's a bit of it, I mean, he's always talking about his sin, of course
he really regretted that he never got to the brothers before they were killed. And this
of course, you can see this pathos, he deeply regrets this, he says, it's all my fault,
I was unwilling to go, but of course the war was on, you know, Henry II was already making
war against Bolesław, who was the prince of Poland, and so the brothers couldn't come
down to Rome, he couldn't get up to them, but he could have gotten there, you could
say that he could have tried at least. So he's really regretting this, but he goes on
about it, you know, and you think that sometimes, when he says, you know, that I'm all corrupt
and I'm worthless, and even my good deeds are tainted with sin, and let me ...
I'm sorry? And he's in his twenties, well ...
Yeah. But no, he doesn't have this lugubrious quality, because you feel, you know, the vitality
of this man. Oh, here it is, yeah. So he's undecided, you know, and finally somebody
comes along, who tells him about another monk who died, who got involved in politics
and was lynched, because he had a lot of connections with the mafia and that sort of thing.
Well, no, I don't say the mafia, but it's, you know, kind of implied. And so, somebody
comes and tells him about this man that he knew, you know, and he says, you know, what
can we do? Man's life on earth is warfare. Those who are alive with us today are taken
away tomorrow. And so, having told this tale, the brother left, and my thoughts began to
goad me. Why wait any longer, I asked myself. Delay no more, be on your way. Better to be
killed in a pagan land, preaching the good news of the Savior, than to stay in this swamp
and one day die of malaria. And so, I remember the brothers in Poland,
finally made up my mind, I go to Pope Sylvester and get the permission, and then start out
north. And I ought to have continued on to Poland, where Bennett and John were anxiously
waiting for me. But a war was on, and the roads were filled with enemy troops, and so
I turned my horse in the opposite direction. My unfulfilled promise and my dishonesty toward
the brothers, not a shadow of memory, remained in my heart. And then, I have no, yes, I have
no way of knowing whether my Maker will take me soon. At that time, two years ago, I'm
mad at this phrase, because he's writing around 1005 or 1006. At that time, two years ago,
I was far from salvation. But the moment was close when God's servants, according to his
merciful will, would bravely suffer and merit their reward. I, a dog, was not worthy to
be with saints, nor was I worthy to have pearls cast before me, a swine. It was my fault and
no one's else. I was unwilling to make the journey to Poland. There they waited, day
and night. They were waiting for me, and I was not fit to be numbered with the saints,
nor to join the company of the elect. I was a miserable cerebrite, because the rules
are liberal, you know, pseudo-hermits, the cerebrites, pseudo-hermits, following my own
will, and all I cared about was keeping up appearances. So I abandoned my honor to strangers
and my life to the cruel. My law is what I like to do, and my pleasure is to let my lusts
lead me in the ways of the world and make me a slave of many lords. I ought to be seeking
my salvation, but I follow my fickle heart, lest God save me." And so forth and so on.
Yeah, he's on it, dreadfully on it.
It's style. It's style. I mean, it's all a tissue of quotations from, yeah, these are
all quotations from Scripture and from patristic texts.
Oh yeah, I mean, this is the language that they use.
Yeah, yeah, this is not psychological.
But they can be introspective. I mean, you get the idea that when he talks about Benedict,
that he was also very introspective and easily inclined to depression.
He says, let's see now.
Right. John was a calmer one of the two.
Benedict's fellow saint, Blessed John, humbly submitted to God's judgments and patiently
accepted events as they happened. Thanks to his innate wisdom and God's grace, it was
easier for him to restrain his emotions, and if things could not be as he wished, he wished
them to be as they were. Benedict, however, was battered by wave upon wave of emotion,
and he could not stand the slow passage of time. Unable to accept his lot in life, Benedict
was at war with himself, afraid that his holy desire might be frustrated and that his hope
might fail to attain its crown. And so forth.
Um...
Well, we don't have anything of St. Romuald, but this is about him.
Yeah, right. Well, Bruno Querfurt wrote this, but...
He's writing about Romuald. He knew him personally. I mean, he was with him probably for about
two years, not very long. But he knew him very well, and Romuald also had a reputation
of great virtue, you know, being a great monk and of great austerity, but also a very warm
and loving person, very tender-hearted towards the poor and all of this. You get this in
Peter Damian, he brings out this other side to him, this very jovial expression, always
radiant smile and everything, you know. So he had this wonderful combination of the very
austere and rigorous lifestyle, and yet a very tender-hearted person, very warm personality.
Also, one other thing, you know, we talk about the penance of them, but see, for them penitentia
was more penitence, you know, more repentance. And the idea of the affective dimension, all
the fasting, the vigils and so forth, I mean, yeah, this could be an exercise, but they
were aware that you can get into this as kind of an athletic trip, you know, and it can
be a real athletic trip, a real false thing. So the thing about all the rhetoric of repentance
and lamenting one's sins is because this was where, you know, they tried to give life
to the hard side of the life. All of this is aimed, the focus and the finality of what
we call penance was penitence, was this attitude of constant repentance and function of heart
and contrition. This also, of course, is in Benedict, Benedict in spirit.
I've been much closer to Benedict than Peter Taylor feels when you're looking at it.
I think it's the same contrast as when you were, when you were the last person I was
looking at. In fact, it's short term, short term in time. There's a whole difference
in even a certain speed in this case.
Yeah, 50 years, yeah.
And in my part of the answer to the question you go to, it's also the one about the age
of the people. At any time, in fact, people are getting much more expensive in the ivory
house than they would be, say, 50 years ago.
Sure, sure.
Including Alaska.
Mm-hmm.
The look of Merton's early writings, very rhetorical.
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, the Seven Story Mountain has enough of that, you know. Mutatis mutatis,
you know. Move it out of the different context, and it's similar to John, really, in a way.
Because that's what I'm feeling.
Yeah.
This thing about Merton's, I'm not interested in him from that.
Which I like that he was saying that, I did some of it, but it was a terrible deal.
And you know, that is, I feel I've prompted him to say the same thing.
Mm-hmm.
But I haven't talked about it.
Mm-hmm.
But he's an example of one who, in my school, he has a bit of that.
He was ordained about in 1933.
Yep, 34. He was 34 when he was ordained.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was 28 when he, he had ordained in 43, was it?
28.
Some of the relationships that, you know, he was dissatisfied with before he entered the monastery.
Mm-hmm.
It seems like he worked that out in later life.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, they didn't get a chance at midlife crisis.
I mean, they missed out on the real nitty-gritty of monastic life.
I mean, that's where it really, you know.
Yeah.
Certainly, certainly.
Yeah.
They didn't have this thing that this is going to go on for 45 years.
You know, they got the idea.
I mean, that was the thing, you know.
Who was it that Abbott Thomas, what's his name, of St. Joseph's Abbey?
You know, Travis Abbott Thomas.
Keating.
Keating, Keating, yeah.
Like he said, you know, the...
the Orsay had this idea, you know, that hurry up and die, you know.
And in the meantime, you know, you're willing to do all of this penance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Things were always at an end times where the world was getting consumed or whatever.
That really says something to me in terms of getting oneself totally into a situation
about if you don't think you're going to live very long, you might as well do everything
you can here at this moment.
And it becomes very, very intense.
You're lost out.
And maybe that gives more impetus to the person.
I don't understand.
Once he came yesterday to explain to me that he was caught on the dial, conviction.
I myself hadn't done anything.
I said, David, I didn't do nothing.
He said, no.
And she said, don't do it.
Your mind goes on and on.
The reason I brought it up, it really is striking to me.
See, I thought it was in fact seven.
It had been seven.
I mean, it always stretched a little bit.
I never could figure out what I was doing here.
But it was always with that feeling.
In my view, it was more a desire to go home, or to escape, rather than to do something
great here on Earth.
But as I see this one goes on, it does allow you to have a very intense life for a certain period.
I don't think it is much time.
You're living a hard life.
You don't have any time.
Yeah.
So it's interesting.
It's surprising that solitude is so much tied into the life of such young people.
It's not so much about mere mental activity, but it's one thing.
Even though you may have a formation at a certain point in the monastery.
Yeah.
That's another thing.
We don't have time really to go into this, but this would be a good theme to maybe next
time develop, the question of solitude and how our models of solitude are very different
from theirs.
Just one element of one enormous difference that a lot of them experienced living with
someone in the same little room.
I mean, it's anything but solitude.
No privacy, though.
For us, the two are inseparable.
I have a quick question.
Did I recall right, I read one of our former translations of that.
Something about them learning Slavic or Polish.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And you have this reference here to their adaptation of their life, style, and I think
their liturgy to the local things.
There is a reference to...
The only thing that gives me any possible clue to this is that when the robbers come
in and they kill the brothers, they take from the altar the cloth, not the altar stone,
the cloth in which were the relics of the saints.
Now what is that?
What is it called?
The antimension.
Okay.
That's the Byzantine rite.
I don't think they celebrated the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but it's not impossible
that they celebrated the Mass of St. Peter, which was the Slavonic, slightly Byzantinized,
Slavonic translation of the Roman liturgy made by St. Cyril and Methodius, which was
probably what they celebrated, you know, when they came to Rome and St. Mirnager's, probably
the Mass that they celebrated there.
So that's a possibility.
Certainly this was a very important point.
Bruno Quirford makes the point, you must learn Polish, and they make every effort to
learn Polish.
I say translated Polish.
It was a dialect of Slavonic, and the Slavic languages were much closer than they are now,
but just for convenience, and also Poland, it's called Slavonia, Sklavonia in the Latin
text.
I translated Poland, just because that's where it is geographically today, and not to make
it distracting.
So they learned the language.
They adopted the local clothing.
They didn't wear a habit.
They dressed like the local people.
They grew beards.
Like all the Latin priests and monks, they shaved, and so they stopped shaving, and they
cut their hair short, whether it was this kind of mohawk that became the custom in Poland
for a certain period of Polish history.
Did you know that?
They used to shave the sides, you know, and leave this thing up here, like the punks, you
know.
I don't know if they went that far, but anyway, it says there they made themselves miserable,
you know, by growing beards and that sort of thing, and wearing trousers and all of these
things that they had never done.
So the idea of adapting to the greatest possible extent to the local appearances and the way
they dressed and that sort of thing was very much a part of their mission.
Comparing it to our modern frontier, where was the Martyrdom?
Where was the Martyrdom?
I think it was pretty close to Gniezno, to Warsaw, shall we say, you know, in the center
of Poland.
It's anything but uniform, yeah.
Even in the heavens above, even in a number of places where things were not even done
for the full five nation projects, most people aren't aware of this, but just that there
were the punks.
Yeah, Trent was never fully applied.
It was never fully applied.
The Council of Trent never fully applied.
Never.
Never.
Because no council ever has been, has it?
And you remember, he said, the first place where in the 18th century, I think hardly
there were any children having done both kinds.
Yeah.
Having what?
Communion under both kinds.
Things about St. Romuald's, the way he would celebrate the liturgy, for one thing, it would
look, you know, a lot of Byzantine stuff to us.
The sign of the cross, he made like this, from right to left, like the Greeks today
in Russia, you know.
He used leavened bread, you know, not the unleavened wafers that we have.
He used leavened bread in celebrating Mass.
This is Romuald, in Italy.
He never said the Creed, and therefore never the Filioque, you know.
How do we know that's a liturgical history?
The Creed was introduced after the schism, into the Roman Rite, in Rome.
I mean, it was used in Spain, it was used in France, and other places.
But in Italy, in the area around Rome, the Creed was introduced in the 11th century.
Very consensual.
Certainly, certainly.
The population of that time.
Yeah.
So there were lots of things that, yeah, so there's a lot of this liturgical pluralism.
But the idea, you know, that they could be very flexible, very, you know, adapt, and
this was something that was taken for granted.
This is our way of putting it.
This is our way of putting it.
I think it was the spirit of St. Cyril Methodius, you know, that inspired them to a certain degree, at least.
Certainly the spirit of St. Boniface.
So, the monastery as the center of evangelization.
The idea, the principle that was from St. Boniface, the earlier St. Boniface, the one who evangelized Germany.
Almost every monastery had its own rite.
Exactly, yeah.
There's a lot of variety.
Well, they would distinguish between a rite and a use, you know.
Like there was the Dominican use, we had the Camaldolese use, which is very similar to the Dominican.
The Dominican was more Roman than the Roman rite, am I correct?
It was more like the earlier Roman practice.
Also, the Cistercians had the same thing.
The High Mass was deacon only.
The single prayer at the operatory, you know.
This was also at Camaldolese that this was used.
And then after Trent, you know, they adopted the books from Rome.
I guess that's enough for this time.
Thank you.
Let's see, I only have 10 of these, but I want to get better copies.
Anyway, this is only half of it.
These are 22 pages, and the whole thing will be something like 40-some-odd pages.
Also, I was wondering, do you think that we could read, not the whole thing,
but little snippets from it at Vespers?
If I could edit some of it?
Yeah, well, at table, not everyone is there, you see.
Yeah, they're not, although Brother Gabel, just the kind of book it is,
they're not these little, you know, meaningful things, you know, like the desert saying.
So it's not exactly adaptable to that.
But I can cut it, you know, into pieces that make it a five-minute reading at Vespers.
We'll do that.
So I'll put one in the library, and you can scramble over these.
I don't know who to give these to, but there are nine more copies there.
And then I'll try to get...
Yeah.
Are you going out tomorrow?
Somebody going out tomorrow?
You are not.
You are.
Si.
Okay.
Well, no, actually, I would, because the machine here, I spent an hour and a half to,
you know, it's just too much toil.
I would really rather go to a place and get decent copies made, you know what I mean?
So maybe I could come with you to Carmel and stop there in Carmel and make good copies there.
You can do that.
Yeah.
That place hidden in the back there.
Yeah.
I mean, everyone can get a copy, and then when I finish typing it,
you'll have the complete thing, so...
Take whichever one you take.
No, this is half of it.
This is maybe a little more than half of it.
It'll be about 40-some odd pages, 42 pages.
Oh, you'll find typos in here.
I wasn't able to correct it, because the type of paper doesn't take the white off,
so I have to use the white tape to correct the typos.
But if you notice anything, you can just mark it on your copy.
It might help improve for you.
Thank you.
So we'll have another couple more meetings with this, and maybe we could...
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would like to suggest we could do it kind of seminar style, you know,
and just open it up to discussion, because I've given you the background.
And then, if you have questions, you know...
I can give you...
Yeah, I can give you a kind of assignment, if you can...
If you can read through page 10,
that'll give you, you know, up to the point where they leave for Poland.
Yeah, up to the beginning of chapter 7.
Chapter 7 is a fascinating chapter.
It's the death of Otto III.
You can read that if you want.
Excuse me?
Yeah, it's the pagan oracle.
And it talks about how he died at the gates of Rome.
Yeah.
He put the gates on him, and he died right there.
No, the gates didn't fall on him.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Pleasure, Steve.