This is today the 24th of March, 1957. We have celebrated the Mass of the Third Sunday after enduring Lent, the Mass vocally, the Mass of the Migratory Birds, and we can hear them all over the place. They are singing, already filling our fields, We also have on this day, this afternoon, the first vows of our brother Thomas. So I explained this morning in the Mass, when we had quite a few people up there, explained in connection with the Epistle of St. Paul, the theme of this Sunday, The 24th of March is just one day before the 25th of March, the day of the spring equinox, where darkness and light hold balance with one another, with the light in the ascendancy.

[01:13]

And this idea of the victory of the light is also so evident in the Mass today, especially in this epistle of Saint Paul, because there he describes the opposition between darkness and light, and that we are sons of light as Christians. He describes the work of the darkness and he describes the fruit of the sons of light. And when we compare the two, then we feel right away there is the whole difference between darkness and light. The works of darkness are fornication, impurities, greed, and the others, cruelty and vain talking. We feel it right away, the fornication and impurities and greed, our evil, selfish instincts taking the other hand,

[02:16]

making us slaves and throwing us into chaos, into the depths of chaos, while scurrility and vain talking is this playing on the surface of life, is wasting our time in vanity, seeking to be interesting and to build up a false facade without any truth, without any depth, really all Those who give themselves to scurrility and vain talking have no roots and have no weight. But in the other hand, the fruit of the children of light, that is goodness and that is justice and that is truth. Goodness, justice and truth. I try to explain to the people who were gathered together there a little the meaning of these three fruits of light, goodness, justice, and truth, the meaning that they have in Holy Scripture.

[03:20]

Goodness, God alone is good. We praise the Lord because He is good. Then he imparts this, his goodness, to the things that he creates according to his word. His word is the stamp of goodness on his works. He sees them, they please him, and he calls them good. So a thing is good, as far as corresponds to the idea of the Creator. Then we have justice. Justice doesn't belong in the Holy Scripture to the terms with which we describe the realm of creation.

[04:26]

Justice belongs to the work of redemption. The idea of justice really is shown by our Lord Jesus Christ himself. When he, becoming man, joined the crowd of the penitents that came down from Jerusalem in order to be baptized, the baptism of penance by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan, he went down with them and he asked John to be baptized. And through this baptism, he declared publicly that he came as the Lamb of God to carry the sins of the world. That is the justice of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the justice of the cross. The Heavenly Father sends his Son into this world to become a propitiation for our sins. That is the divine justice. So justice means that entering into the spirit of the cross,

[05:28]

to be buried with our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world, in repentance for our own sins and in satisfaction for the sins also of many. And then we have the work, the truth, the fruit of truth. What is truth in Holy Scripture? God is a true God. Why? Because he keeps his purposes. He has, on his own sovereign will, he has entered into a covenant relation with his chosen people. And he keeps this covenant. That is his truth. He fulfills his promises. He will say yes and amen to all his promises. Therefore, the Old Testament and also the Apocalypse call him the God Amen. Amen is the confirmation of the truth.

[06:33]

So in this way we are sons of light because we are created by God and we are created in every moment of our existence, again and again. And every time that we return in the simplicity of the children, really to God, to receive being out of his hands, we again become good, as it were. The justice we take upon ourselves, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we follow him to Golgotha. That is the justice which is fulfilled in us. When our Lord descended into the Jordan, all justice was fulfilled. He did it to fulfill all justice. And therefore also in our life, justice is not insisting on our claims, but justice is to follow our Lord for the redemption of many, to serve the love that does not seek her own.

[07:37]

And then we have the truth, Now we enter into this truth through trust and confidence in God who never contradicts himself. He keeps to his promises, and that is our hope. Therefore, following him, taking the cross upon him, following him to the darkness, and also adhering to him when all the lights go out, that is entering into the truth of God. So when we in the afternoon gathered together again to receive the simple vows of our brother Thomas, in a little talk that I gave connected these two things, the Mass of the morning and this beautiful ceremony of the simple vows. During this ceremony, We had it before Vespas at 4 o'clock, and the whole Jakubiak family, father and mother, and his two brothers and also one sister were there, and our dear brother Thomas is deeply attached to them.

[08:51]

It's a wonderful, real Catholic family. The father is a real teacher for his children. His children admire him. and his mother has all the loveliness of a really good Catholic mother, so his face was just radiating when yesterday night, when they came after a 12-hour drive from Akron in Ohio to be here with him today, and tomorrow in the morning they have to leave again. So it was a great sacrifice for them, but it expresses the whole spirit of that family. It's so closely knit. And so they were there, and that was a great joy for him and also, of course, for us, for the whole community. So we did it in the beginning, before Vespers, and Father Master then leads the novice, puts his stable stand before the altar. There's a carpet there, and then he lies down on this carpet,

[09:52]

And then he's being asked now, here to you, you know now what the rule is asking of you. Are you willing to take upon yourself the yoke of the vows of obedience and of conversion of morals and of stability in the monastery? And then he gives his answer and expresses his readiness. And then he rises. And the first thing he does, he goes to the credence table, and there he signs the profession chart on which he has written that he, before God and the saints and the whole community, promises the stability, conversion of morals, and obedience for a period of three years. So he signs this chart, then he goes back, and standing before the altar and before the prior who is seated in front of the altar, and the whole community is around, And then he reads the profession chart, and he shows the signature to the prior, and then he's accompanied by the novice master, goes up to the altar, puts the chart upon the altar.

[10:58]

Then he returns, and then lifting up his arms, he sings that beautiful verse, However, we have the whole ceremony in English. so that the relatives may follow it better. And then he reads it, and he lifts up his arms, I mean, and he sings, Receive me, O Lord, according to your word. I shall live, and I shall not be confounded in my hope. And then the whole choir takes up this verse, and they all add glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, and so on. And then after that, the scapula is blessed by the superior. He becomes now the long scapula. The novices have a tunic and a short scapula. The triennial professed wear the long scapula. And the cowl, the solemn monastic choir habit, is really given only after the solemn profession, after three years.

[12:06]

So the scapula is blessed, and then afterwards the scapula is being put on. The old, the short scapula is taken off, and the new scapula is being put on. And during that time, they all sing the antiphon, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, and they sing the psalm. I think it's Psalm 23, and we sing it all in English. And during that time then, he is being dressed in his new scapula. And then afterwards, we say some prayers still, some petitions for the newly received monk. And then the prior gives a little short address to him. Now, during that address, I wanted to explain a little the significance of the 25th of March. We had put it on the afternoon of the 24th of March because that made it more easy for the family to be here with him, but really the profession was planned to be on the 25th of March, on the Feast of the Annunciation.

[13:16]

So I took the significance of that day as an idea for the sermons, And the 25th of March, such a beautiful day in our Christian tradition. It unites three ideas, three beginnings, one can really say. The first is, according to old Christian idea on the 25th of March, is the day, the first day of creation. Really the world was created in spring when the night and the light were in a complete balance and the light is on the ascendancy. This is therefore the day of the triumph of the light and that is the day of the creation. Then the other idea of this 25th of March, that is, according to Christian tradition, the day on which Christ died on the cross. And therefore the new Adam, as it were, really fulfilled his work of restoring mankind.

[14:22]

And then the third idea connected with the 25th of March is then the idea of the Annunciation. This is the day of the Annunciation. where the work of redemption began, where Our Lady as the Virgin Mother received in the purity of her faith received the Word of God in her womb, and the Son of God took on human nature on the day of the Incarnation. That are the three ideas of the 25th of March. And these three ideas so beautifully, it seems, fit in with the idea of the morning, that we as children of light walk in all goodness, in justice, and in truth. Certainly putting on and becoming a monk means to become a son of light for our dear brother Thomas. And he first enters into the spirit of Our Lady. In that spirit of faith, he opens himself to the divine call.

[15:28]

He is willing to obey and to follow the divine invitation to the perfect life of perfection. And therefore, this is the day in which he walks in truth. He speaks that word in which he says, Receive me, O Lord, according to your word, and I shall live. That's the beautiful beginning of this profession. And that is the way in which he enters into the spirit of Our Lady. Receive me according to your words. That word which descended into Our Lady's womb and which today became man. And Our Lady also is his patroness, as it were, on this day and leads him to the altar. And she, when he was young... Her spirit was with him in the family life that he was sharing under the roof of his parents, and where he grew up in that simplicity of good, deep Catholic faith.

[16:38]

He received there that unquestioning, obedience to God's glad tidings and that spirit in which he was trained, and so beautiful that his family therefore could be there on this day. He receives then after he has declared with Mary his readiness to take upon himself the yoke of the rule, after he has pronounced his vows, after therefore the Word has become flesh in him through the promises that he has taken on, then he receives the scapula. The scapula stands there for the monastic habit. And the monastic habit is a burial cloth. Therefore monks are buried in their habit, because that is the idea of the habits, the idea of the burial, They are dead to the world, taken, are buried with Christ in the tomb. That is the monastic life as a life of renunciation.

[17:42]

And that is the meaning of the vows of the conversion of morals. Putting on the scapula means that he now is under the yoke of the cross, that he wants to follow our Lord Jesus Christ, taking upon himself the cross of Christ, dying with him. But this dying with him, this taking upon himself the burial cloth, this being buried, the life in the tomb, is at the same time then also the beginning of a resurrection, of a new life, of a restoration. He gives up everything. He gives up his natural talents. He gives up all claims. He enters into the monastic life really in the simplicity of the child, in the total, complete, total surrender to God, putting his child upon the altar, But this absoluteness of his surrender and this, his sincere willingness to die with Christ, that opens to him the gate of a new life, as if his nature would be received again from God, our Heavenly Father.

[19:03]

He, in the vow of stability, Just as the vow of obedience makes him like Mary, receiving the Word in the simplicity of faith and therefore making him walk in truth, and as the conversion of morals admonishes him to take upon himself the cross of Christ and follow Christ in the fullness of justice, divine justice, the justice of selfless love, so then the vow of stability, really, gives, as it were, to him the Lord as the Good Shepherd who feeds him on the pastures of the monastic, of his monastery. That is the place where God leads him, where he finds the green pastures, where he can expand also his natural abilities Purified in the furnace of obedience and purified through the vow of the conversion of morals, he can exercise his faculties, the God-given talents, in the way in which it serves the community.

[20:14]

He can do a good work and a blessed work. The greatest work that he does is the work of God, is the prayer work. But then this prayer work blesses also the manual labour and blesses all mental and intellectual activities that he will undertake as a monk. So that, in this way, the vow of stability is, as it were, gives to him, restores to him the integrity of goodness of creation and prepares him in this way to be received at the end of his life when the hour comes and God calls him into his light really to be deemed to be a son, a child of light, that has walked in all truth through the vow of obedience, that has taken upon himself the cross, to follow God on the way of saving justice and who then also receives the whole wealth of God's goodness that is the splendor

[21:29]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_94.78