Tuesdays and Thursdays are an optional mediation. It means that we ought to gather here in the room together, but either can use the time for lecture or also for other little pleasant tasks, dabbling in the gardens. relaxation, and then on Thursday it's the same. Now, there might be, if they are on Thursday, might be a conference or so. We have to see that. It depends on how the things will go in the next future.

[01:02]

That is the P.S. towards Martinique and Europe. So, in this, you know, in this question yesterday of the angel showing this beautiful responsory, the fountain of living waters, saying, here you should adore God, it's, you realize, it's, the angel is not only pointing out the glorified Christ as the fountain of living waters for us, approach in thirst and where we drink in faith but it is also because the this pouring out of the water at the end of the last great day of the feast of the tabernacles is done in the temple and the rock and the temple in the old testament are approaching one another closely

[02:11]

the Holy of Holies is in fact the spot where also that rock which signifies the center of the world is located and so the waters also are seen by Ezekiel as coming forth on the right side of the temple in the messianic time. Of course our Lord himself has called his body a temple And in that way, this word is fulfilled in his body as the temple. However, that leads us into the bigger picture, shall we say, of his mystical body and of the temple that is the church. And there is the fountain of living water and there is the place where we are told to adore the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

[03:19]

It means the unity of the temple. So the church also is that fountain and then we can go further and say a community like a monastic community. It is a little ecclesia, a church. and also then is the fountain of living water and there the angel points it out and he calls those two who come to here to adore God and then of course every individual that also is a member living member of Christ's mystical body and in himself also represents the Ecclesia. That is the beauty of the Ecclesia, that she takes part and has received these creative forces, their Holy Spirit, from the open side of the Savior, and is now then pouring it out over the world.

[04:32]

And that is also true of a monastery. Let us just dwell for a moment on that. Let us remind ourselves that we, the Mount Saviour community also, is called to be just that, a fountain of living waters where people may come and drink and where The angel points out, this here is the place to worship, to adore God. And that, of course, is a tremendous responsibility for us. Very often, not very often, but just the other day, Father Phelan came to us. And then they all asked, of course, about Mount Saviour and how Mount Saviour is doing. And then not only how Mount Saviour is doing, but then they said, now what are they going to do? What are they going to do? I said, we didn't have enough to do.

[05:34]

But the idea is, you know, now, because this is the foundation, the age, the heroic age, I don't know how heroic, comes the building age, you know, and that building age is now crossing fast and then everybody is taken up with buildings. and then something is going on everybody has that pleasant feeling of something going on stagnating and not um stamping on the same place but then what will happen then now after The building is over. That was our dear Father Desiderius' great concern. He had witnessed that in the breakfast after, you know. At least that was kind of lesson he grew from his stay there.

[06:41]

There was a great surge of... enthusiasm and zeal as long as this tremendous church had to be built by all but then when that church was built there followed a kind of a collapse people had to exhausted themselves wondering what now they didn't know now there is that's uh Yeah, I think it's a great danger. One is, of course, tempted, and we as a community are tempted that way too, sometimes, thinking, why, what are we going to do? There's always continuing divine office, you know, and the routine of the day without a little purpose. There we must always keep the right order of things. We keep that clear that what we are called for is to be in the church, the fountain of living water, means of the Holy Spirit.

[07:53]

And that is the thing. We move through. That is the thing that impels us. And that is the thing that fills us. And that gives us the realization of the reality goodness of our life. it's there that's also for the individual so important everyone a source of that living water of the Holy Spirit and that is that has to be seen clearly as the first thing as the fundamental thing that is keep I think one of the important, most important tasks of a so-called contemplative monastery, especially in today's world, a very special way in the American world, North American world, is to keep the right order of things.

[09:07]

And the right order of things is that the Holy Spirit And that is the fountain. There we have to drink first. And then one will see very often that the work and the question what to do so often is in danger to be a kind of escape. Just in order to avoid that inner, personal, constantly repeated meeting with Christ, that personal drinking from His side, that is what people shrink away from. There is something in our fallen nature that prefers to remain more neutral instead of becoming too personal. But we should remember one of the themes of this time after Easter is, I am searching, seeking your face, O Lord.

[10:20]

That is the contemplative vocation, to seek the face of Christ. And that's the first task in our monastic life. You see yourself constantly tempted to run away from that personal meeting in order to lose yourself, forget yourself in certain tasks, works. but that today is the great danger too many people also in the clergy those people who promote ex-professor the apostolate of the church they throw themselves into activities they ask themselves too soon what are we going to do and then they organize their life in relation to this purpose of activity and then what is necessary there unavoidable there is constantly water water of all kinds of things of

[11:40]

administration of economical thing, of money, of how to make money, of a technical question, how to do this. All that water has to be poured into the Holy Spirit, so to speak. And that original thing has to be watered down. Then comes the demand from the party. of the people, of the public. They want the goods faster and more of it. That demand, which is a necessary result of this day of ours, in which after the Second World War, the number of people increases so tremendously. And therefore, all public institutions are flooded with people. The flirt of new earth.

[12:44]

The babies who have now grown, you know, as it said the other day in the papers, will hit the schools soon. Two years from now, that flood will hit the schools. Why it makes you trust in English? That's fine. We're especially thinking about the monasteries. Why engage with schools? They have four million for two classrooms, you know. big dry. That's all water poured into the Holy Spirit, but in some way it has to be done. But you see then, faster and faster, in order to get it out faster, you can't give it the time that you gave it before. Therefore you have again pour something neutral into it, which doesn't then really come out of your personal inner contact, living contact with Christ as the fountain, as the only fountain.

[13:48]

There are all kinds of machines that come in between and that loosen that contact, immediate contact with Christ as the fountain. So then the output, the goods, are more and more depersonalized, more and more streamlined. And therefore people drink and drink and drink and consider and think and realize they are not getting in any way really the food that they expect because it's getting thinner and thinner. That's the great danger also for a monastery and the daily workings of the monastery because there are so many things there that have to be done that ask for competence and this and that. And therefore, there is that temptation for us just to run away into that neutral sphere of tasks.

[14:50]

But when we are asked, you know, now what are you going to do Let's always keep in mind our vocation at Mount Saviour is to follow that vision of the angel who sees the fountains of living water and says that here you should worship, here you should adore God. It's so evident. The more you will run into activities, and many people, I see that, therefore I don't blame anybody, are simply forced to run into them. But wherever you run into activities, they are also the spirit of worship was watered down. That hic deum adora becomes less and less urgent, more and more pushed into the background. as a time-consuming thing, a waste of time, and all these things.

[15:53]

So less and less opportunity, therefore, is given to the inner heart of the human person to seek the face of the Lord, to have that eye-to-eye meeting, and therefore shallower and shallower. What we give is thinner and thinner. are artificial substitutes instead of the real article, I mean the Holy Spirit. That's the danger. But if we, unperturbed as much as we can by the situations and the demands, keep to this thing and say to ourselves now, if this monastic community really And everyone in that community, because that's where the faith and the spirit of the role depends on, depends on the mentality and the attitude of the individual. If therefore every individual knows that, has that love for that inner

[16:56]

Hortus concludes us that closed garden, where the fountain, the sealed fountain of the Holy Spirit wells up, and where therefore that inner center and heart of our life can really be found. And if then we say, now if people and guests come here and they find that, this fountain of living waters, in the way in which we worship God, And in the way in which we continue that worship of God, that means the love of God, by the way in which we meet one another in our daily dealings, where we extend the love of God to the love of neighbor. And therefore, every time we meet the other one, think, now let us not run away into a neutral ground and clashes of competence and things like that but let us let us drink from that living world let us show christ to one another in our faces the way in which we receive the other one with a yes welcome

[18:09]

Then, of course, I'm absolutely sure that this place is the providence of God soon finds so many other and secondary things to do that we are, if we want, you know, and forget ourselves, could run around in circles just as everybody else does. So, therefore, to my mind, the question of what to do is a great, very secondary one. First, it has, during all the years of our existence, has always been taken care of. And it will be so in the future. But if we do that one necessary thing, therefore, let's ask the Lord, you know, to give us that and make our Savior that fountain of living water where one can worship. If you throw your nose between me and warming, they'll do everything.

[19:15]

If I should show you my tongue, I'll bend it. I received this place called Reyes, by the people of the Bonny Crasses. And I wanted to ask all very urgently to remember her in a very tragic situation in these days. Then, as time went on, they prevailed a little on this response race of the Sunday after Easter, the Sunday at the beginning of the apocalypse starts at the bravery. The pastor listened to the last conference. He right away came. and running to ask if he should change or continue the Acts of the Apostles for another week, so he was eager that we should get to Rome before closing that, and then go over to the heavenly Jerusalem.

[20:27]

It would be unfitting, so that's what we are going to do, and then the Apocalypse is just covered until Pentecost. But there was the angel pointing out the fountain of living. water then there is another responsory where the seer sees the porta the gate of the city which is turned towards the east and the names of the apostles and of the lamb are written on this gate and the angels are there to watch it and that again is one of those symbols that have this wonderful collecting, concentrating force in which the objective truth and powers of revelation and of grace are represented in such a way that we are immediately

[21:41]

in a very practical way also ourselves drawn into it that become a part of what we contemplate there you remember that in our little school we very often refer to the Christ as the doer and we are invited again and again to in our own spiritual life to not to use any other door but christ that he is the only door and that we should not in human arbitrary choice just try to climb over The wall adds any odd place to get inside into the fold or into the city.

[22:42]

So the symbolism of the door, and of course when we see here in this door the apocalypse, the heavenly Jerusalem, The name of the Lamb written on it means that this is the door, it's the Lamb. The Lamb is the only door because the Lamb has given his life and has offered himself for our salvation. We are all washed. in the blood of the Lamb, believing, accepting Christ's service unto death, His love unto the end for us. And then, as that is the way in which we may enter, into the fold, into the heavenly Jerusalem, the only possible way for us as members of the fallen human race.

[23:46]

So, at the beginning of the end, Entering into the realm of salvation is no other but our faith in the love with which Christ the Lamb has loved us from all eternity and is drawing us unto himself. So the door has many associations and ideas connected to it. It is the separating point and it's the point of union and connection between the holy sphere, templum, and the profane world outside. Therefore, the door certainly has the function to screen, select what is fitting to enter.

[24:47]

and what is not fitting to it, and it has to be kept outside. Therefore the angels watching there are custodians to see to it that nothing enters into the presence of the Holy One that is not prepared and fitted for it. enters into that wedding feast with the lamb only then when he has the wedding gown then this door also is turned towards the east and that again is so full of Beautiful symbolism, meanings. The door turned towards the east. The east is the direction of the rising sun. The door, the gate turned towards the east is the faith.

[25:55]

Our inner being open to the resurrection. Our Christian faith is not only in any kind of sympathy with the dying Christ, but our faith is really full of power and not, as St. Paul says, empty. As soon as its object becomes the risen Savior, the curious, the resurrection makes our faith powerful. and makes it a door through which the sun the glory may enter that is also the beautiful vision as you know of ezekiel in the last part of his prophecy where he describes as the The architect of the new Israel describes in the 40th chapter especially the door to the temple and the door towards the east through which then in chapter 43 the Kabod, the glory, the doxa of Israel's God enters.

[27:15]

There also has this door towards the east. It is such a beautiful symbol of our faith. There is something that is looking into the future. There is something that is looking towards the eschaton, the last things. towards that moment when from the east again the glory of God will enter and create a new earth and a new heaven. So this door towards the east is also a symbol of the function of the Christians here in this world as the third generation as people who point towards and are turned towards the future in that I wanted to wear a beautiful day like this full with the sunshine of the spring therefore full with hope and life also turned your attention to that a day like this is like a symbol

[28:30]

of that moment when the glory of God enters into our human realm in order to bring the new earth and the new heaven, accomplishment, the fullness of the messianic peace. And I think that's so important for the monk that allowed him to make a personal application to everyone that the monk is not somebody who is living with his face turned towards the past, simply continuing in a kind of rigid and lifeless way the customs and rules of the past, and that he is not a man who has turned towards the past in a kind of discouragement and letting the wings of his soul all hang down in looking at his past and looking at his origin from dust and ashes and all the encumbrances and burdens that accompany him from his earthly birth on and through the days of his earthly bodily existence here.

[30:01]

that he is a man who has turned towards the future, that he is that magnanimity, that he is high-minded, not in the wrong high-mindedness of pride, but in that high-mindedness in which he opens his entire heart to the infinite, power of christ sacrificial love which has remade him and constantly every moment is remaking him again and his love unto the end means to the last day when the gates of his soul also will be open and his entire being will be flooded by the glory that comes from the East. So let us also be people in our daily contacts, I mean, because the day, the day, the everyday day, the working day, is a day which is apt in our natural thinking to be turned towards the West.

[31:19]

rather than towards the East. And very often we do it that way. We turn the gate towards the West in our wrong, let's say, sometimes skeptical, sometimes cynical pessimism in our distrust to others in which we measure other people with our own measure stick in which we deprive them ourselves as well as others conflates of hope and now the possibility of development to higher and more beautiful horizons therefore let us in our dealings with one another always be a door turned towards the east, through which, therefore, the glory of God may enter, may enter not only into us, but also into others, and that means into the whole little city of this monastery.

[32:33]

Still another vision in faith. Sponsories of the third Sunday. After Easter, that is the vision of the angel. Vidi angelum Dei fortem volantem Per medium cieli voce magnum acclamantem Et igentem timete dominum Date caritatem illi adoratio Fice cium et terra Mare et omnia We saw the outside of the vision of the well of the fountain of living water.

[33:44]

Lord Jesus Christ his sacred body the temple out of which the water of the Holy Spirit flows the Kurios glorified Christ outside of the gate the entrance into the holy city on the name the name is written there the name of the lamb we have here that's a other group of not only one but a group really of visions in the apocalypse of the angels various angels one who shows the book and who announces that only the lamb is able to open it we have another Angel whose one foot is standing on the sea and the other on the earth and reaching into heaven and shouting with a strong voice, there is no time anymore.

[34:52]

Then we have this angel here in the 14th chapter of the Apocalypse flying through mid-heaven, medium surely, and also shouting with a loud voice. In the text of the Apocalypse it's said that he has the Evangelium Eterno, the eternal gospel in his hand and that he announces Hora Est Judici this is the hour of judgment therefore fear God and give glory to his name so those are, one may say, not the savior himself but the deacons of salvation those who as in the mass the deacon has and announces the gospel and he opens the book with the seven seals and he has that strong voice which he says time is no more it is the spirit of prophecy all those who

[36:04]

Down to John the Baptist where the forerunners belong to the entourage of the Saviour King and who want to impress upon mankind the urgency of the hour. Now the hour has come and therefore with a strong voice, the voice of the warder, a voice that wants to pierce the hearts of men, a voice that wants to arrest attention, wants to wake up people out of their slumber, wants to force them to listen, that they may realize the immediate need of conversion and of a new life that they have to take on in connection with the epiphany, the coming of the Saviour.

[37:18]

That certainly also is an important element in the monastic life. The monasteries for that matter is an apocalyptic world and we are more than The rest of mankind, that's one of the distinguishing notes of the monastic life, is that immediateness of a directness in which our life is orientated to the Lord who comes on the clouds of heaven. and its part should be part of the monastic spirit to have that awareness and that alertness to listen to the voice of the angel one who announces in that effort which one sees so clearly the divine effort to

[38:22]

Break through the thickness of human inertia to wake up the hearts to the coming of the Savior. So that one can call it the prophetical element, perhaps, in the monastic life. And that should also be a part of our whole attitude, that monastic life is saturated with teaching and with conferences, admonitions, right? from the postulancy and the novitiate on. There is the master of novices who has to introduce the young ones into the ways, laws of the monastic life, the spirit of it.

[39:32]

And it is the foremost, greatest virtue of the postural and of the novice to have that readiness to listen. But, of course, that never ceases in the monastic life. We always, Saint Benedict impresses so much on us, we all remain disciples as long as we are monks. So we have to keep up that spirit of docility and that inner elasticity to react to the teachings and admonitions that are given. In that connection too I wanted to call your attention to it that the many conferences, warnings and so on that are given in the course of a monastic life. I've said that before but it has to be repeated. all the time are apt to produce on the long run a kind of numbness and a lack of response.

[40:44]

I think that's one of the reasons why somebody like our Father Gregory, who is in the midst just of This kind of thing feels the burden of his office so heavily. It's very often the lack of response. One can say something in a chapter or at other opportunities. One makes that discouraging observation again and again that it is as if nothing had been said. Somebody asked to close doors with care and so, no reaction. uh somebody asked to go be careful and going up and down the stairs because that's such an important element not to get on other people's nerves we live so closely together day after day let's ask up in the saint joseph's to be very careful in closing the doors and those things are simply forgotten and that is

[41:59]

very discouraging brings into the monastic life that element of frustration and brings in a way a certain feeling as you all realize that the human element, the human's law prevails over the effort at newness and at renewing of one's ways. and therefore it alienates us from that spirit of prophecy, removes us from the immediate vicinity of the hour of judgment, and it gives the general impression that we are living as members of a country club just like everybody else with not thinking of tomorrow, not thinking even of today and of this very minute, while it really is one of the greatest blessings and most important things in the monastic life.

[43:13]

that we realize today when you hear his voice don't harden your heart therefore i wanted to ask everybody i realize it's not bad will it's just a kind of the heaviness of one's nature but please make a good resolution again in the future to give heed to those various admonitions that have to be given in the course of the community life. and the better the response is, the greater also is the inner joy of a monastic life, the mutual edification, and just that kind of obedience makes Christ transparent and makes him a present, the Lord, a present reality here in our life. While if that is not observed,

[44:15]

then the veil is drawn over his face, we don't see him, we don't experience his presence anymore, and we feel kind of helplessly and hopelessly ensnared in the weaknesses of man. like this, all in fact, this is really spiritual. John. For the mass of the classes and special work, for the class of the things connected with the orchard, Father John, the farm, Father Luke, the shop, Father Francis, the chores, Father Boniface, the housecleaning, Brother Gabriel of Weston, the guesthousecleaning, Brother Lawrence, special assignment, Brother Andrew, the laundry, Brother Thomas, the shop, Brother Christopher, the office,

[45:21]

Brother Joseph, the moving hay of St. Peter's Barn. Brother Jerome, the chores. Brother Vernon, first kitchener. Brother Gabriel of Mount Safer, the bus tree. Brother Daniel from Weston, the house cleaning. and our brother Daniel, the shop, brother Stephen, second kitchener, and brother Salzman and brother Penning at the house cleaning and the other work around the house here, Frank, the baskets, and Joseph, the translating. Let's just pick up again the threads of the genre. also a contemplative life before Easter during Lent. Now, the man who first puts the spiritual doctrine of the fathers into a kind of synthesis and system was, as you know, Cash.

[46:41]

for the West especially but he also was you know in close contact with the East and Gershon his institutions and his collations he distinguishes then three or if you want four degrees of Christians the one say two main groups the one the Psyche and the other the Pneumatic ones who live fully according to the law of the spirit and the others who have not reached that level fully and they are either transgressores legis or servi legis transgressors of the law in that the penitents the sinners of the servi legis and that are the

[47:44]

servants or slaves of the law, those who live in the world and live the married life. The married life, as you know, was considered in the early centuries by the fathers more as a concession to the weakness of man than an institution which really would flow out of the very essence of Christianity. To them, the married life, married status was certainly no sin, but it was not the perfect, complete answer to the Generosity of God, the Heavenly Father, who manifested the fullness of His love and gave Himself, the Holy Spirit, by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us.

[48:48]

The married state was not considered in that way the full, let us say, the perfect answer to that absolute generosity of God. But this perfect answer was only given by those who were considered as telion, or perfect, the men of the spirit. And they again are divided in two categories, one the Cenobites and the other the Agorites or Hermes. The Cenobites try to realize the full response to the Holy Spirit in what the ancients called the Vita Apostolica. It means that way of life which the Acts of the Apostles relate to us as the life of the early church, the first Christian community in Jerusalem.

[50:02]

And this vita apostolica, this light of the early church, that is considered as the life of the cenobites, that is considered as being continued in its essence, maintained in the church by the monasteries. And in that way, Cassian, I mean, I don't speak now about any historical accuracy of these assertions, but simply as a report on his opinion. And the monastic life really originated right in Jerusalem with the early apostolic church. Then later on, therefore, that the cenobitical life to Kershon was of apostolic origin. That is important that we keep that in mind. The eremitical life is not of apostolic origin.

[51:09]

It's not vita apostolica. there another idea comes in and that is the example in the Old Testament of Elias and Eliseus those two who are the patrons and the fathers of the hermitical line also Saint John the Baptist Elias, Eliseus, Saint John the Baptist and they are imitated by the Anchorites. But the general principle for the two, the Cenobites as well as the Anchorites, is the same, is that God, Deus sola beatitum, God is our only happiness. And this union with God, which makes God our only happiness, is achieved through constant union of the mind with God.

[52:16]

And that constant union of the mind with God is first accomplished, or let us say the stage for that, we can say, is set by the Vita Apostolica, the community life. But because the community life still involves many distractions many duties which may prevent at least temporarily this union of the mind this complete concentration of all our thoughts on God therefore the anchorite leave the permission of the authority, the palestra, the gymnasium, that gymnasium of the monastery in order to take up the battle with the devil alone without assistance, but only after he has learned the basic virtues and methods

[53:37]

of the spiritual life. So the synoptical life as its means to purify the mind and to lead the mind to that point where it can be habitually united to God as its only happiness means to that to reach this goal the community life offers the renouncement of one's own will through the obedience to the authority to the representative of Christ to the abbot hegumen the superior of the monastery through the poverty, renouncement of all particular goods.

[54:43]

In the apostolic community, the Christians had all things in common, because as soon as somebody claims this or that thing as his own, then naturally the concentration of a free mind On God alone is impossible. mind is then immediately divided. And also, the complete, pure obedience, renouncement of one's own will, also is made impossible. Therefore, poverty as an essential element, the possession of all things in common, nothing to call nothing, once open as cashier, already in one of these collation, collation 18 mostly points out, you know, to call anything, speak of anything as my thing, is really to the monk, for the perfectus, the tiras, a sin.

[55:56]

Then that is interference with the law of the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of the whole, and does not mix in that way of these particular possessions. And then the practice, positive practice, of course, of the fraternal charity in bearing with one another's burdens and being obedient to one another, loving one another. And then the common prayer as the apostolic church community went together and met in the temple for the work of God, for the hours, the canonical hours and breaking the bread in the houses and then the perseverance and the teaching of the apostles that is the obedience in the largest sense of the word so that are the elements of the apostolic vita apostolica and that is in the monastery the monastery for that matter is a the life in the monastery is still considered essentially as active life

[57:26]

only the eremitical life is in the full sense I emphasize that in the full sense contemplative life that distinction therefore is made in the ideal of perfection of active and contemplative life but the active life as you see by the way the active life is not conceived we must always remember that that's essential also for the understanding of the rule of Saint Benedict the active life is not understood as we understand it today as a life in the same what we would call the active service of the church in the Martha state that is an element too One element, I mean the practice of fraternal charity, the ideal of service, is one element in the community's synoptic life.

[58:36]

But it is not the decisive one. The decisive one element in the synoptic life is not the service of others, but is the renouncement. And therefore the service of others, say the, what we call today the active life, can only be one element and must in some way be in harmony or follow as a fruit the element of renouncement. the renouncement of one's own will, in obedience, renouncement of one's own possession, the right of possession in poverty, and so on. That is important because today, very often, as you know, the theory of the active life is quite different. And very often the idea is that the active life and the demands of the active life are the decisive element in the formation of your practical attitude.

[59:54]

So that in the service of your and for your practical tasks, you have to, let us say, own a certain amount of property. You have to have this. You have to have that. In order to be able to fulfill your practical tasks, for example, teaching or the care of souls, anything of these, the care of the sick, you have to have a certain amount of, let's say, supports and helps that you need. So that is not the idea of the syllabic life, of the apostolic life in the sense of and in the sense of the monastic tradition. Monastic tradition, the beginning, the decisive law is the renouncement. And then the service has to be a flower, has to be fit in.

[61:01]

into the general law of renouncements. The law of renouncements cannot be, say, watered down in the service for the practical purposes of what we call the active life. That's a very important principle. But active life is called, by Cashin and by the other, teach us of the monastic life that stage in the life of perfection, the beginning, the fundamental stage in the life of perfection in which the individual deals with its faults, imperfections, and learns the basic virtues. Therefore, the active life is essentially what we would call today purgative life.

[62:02]

It's that life in which, and also illuminative life. Those two, purgative and illuminative stage, they are in the synoptical or active life. The dealing, the fighting against sin, fighting against the evil tendencies in human nature, linting the purification of the soul. There's also the learning, systematic learning of the elements of the spiritual life, the elements of prayer, common prayer, mental prayer. of the elements of the contemplative life, holy reading, all that forms is part of what we call the active life as it is practiced under the guidance of an authority in the community of the brethren who strive after the same goal, and that is to adhere totally and completely with their mind to union with God.

[63:20]

And this, therefore, this monastic synoptic life is the only one for which one can legislate Because any legislation, any rule for that matter, a rule which is written down in letters and in paragraphs, such a rule is possible and needed only in that stage of perfection of the spiritual life where people live together in community under a common authority. Only there a rule, a regular, has a meaning. That is important, of course, to understand the rule of Saint Benedict. Saint Benedict is a legislator. But a legislator necessarily has as his objective community life.

[64:25]

and therefore Saint Benedict's rule legislates but for that stage, for the community life, that means for the active life. Only the active life has to be

[64:42]

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