Three from the immediate care were Those two things are so difficult to reconcile. Love always begins to give us a hope. Love is always the place of rest and it is the protecting wall which gives to the individual that calmness and that joy, which only love can give.

[01:02]

And then in opposition to that, care. Care is apt to kill love. Because in care we have just the opposite. We are thrown into, in some way, into the threatening, the swallowing. abyss of nothing. Care, all people are subject to care who are thrown into this life, fighting desperately against death, the unavoidable end of it all. We have heard that this morning in the gospel of this beautiful mass for the grace of a good death. And out of these caves we are snatched out and we are put into a home. And that home is given us so that we may freely surrender to the one aim and purpose of our life, to love God and to love him alone.

[02:19]

Now as much as we rejoice in this great gift, you may call the gift of the contemplative life, there are three things it seems to me which seem to, in a certain way, seem to spoil it for us. And these three things we want to speak about in these coming days. One is the rule. The other one is the contact with the outside world, especially as far as gifts are concerned. And the third, then, is the work that has to be done also in a monastery. These three things seem to be difficult to reconcile or to build them into a life which is dedicated to the art of loving God alone.

[03:34]

First, let us consider the rule this morning. The rule seems to be an obstacle for the art to love. Because a rule is always the position of an external form in some way or the other. But art, the art of love, let us better say love, is something that cannot be commanded. It is something which spontaneously rises. out of the depth of the soul. But if somebody comes and says, you have to love, and you have to do it, and this and that, well, then of course something acts against, something shrinks away. Seems it is as if a gush of cold air freezes

[04:45]

the art and make it impossible to give itself freely to that business of love. Now we consider the rule and the role and importance of the rule in monastic life. Why is it there? What does it want to accomplish? First of all, I think we have to consider actually look at the history of monasticism, it is absolutely true that monasticism exists in a great variety of forms. And this great variety of forms already in itself indicates that there is no, what to say, external or juridical common formula. for the monastic life. Monastic life arises spontaneously, and it arises usually out of the living spirit of a father.

[06:00]

Take St. Benjamin, take St. Anthony, take St. McCormus, St. Bathory, All these are fathers who, through the grace of God, have reached that state of maturity of the love of God. And that's what makes them fathers. But always in a very, I mean to say, personal way. The monk wants to love God alone. It won't consider us what that means. It means that this is a personal thing, really and truly a personal thing. The person, or let us say the heart, is involved, engaged. But this, our human heart, is always something of some individuality.

[07:04]

Every heart is a unique world. At first, God has spoken, and the Father has spoken. A glorious world, but a unique world. And therefore, every soul, every person, when it reaches the depth, already reaches out for perfection. In some way, it grows out of the average, of the ordinary, of that realm in which you can operate with rules and laws. It's too deep for that. The uniqueness, therefore, of love comes more and more the greater the love. And if a monk dedicates himself to this, to love God alone, he is engaged in the deepest uniqueness of his person.

[08:11]

And that is an individual dialogue between him and God. And God speaks to him again the word that is only for him. So then we'll go and see the reason why, assuming as, under the influence of the spirit, many Christians launch out into this striving after perfection, that then also the law takes a different character and a different form. As when the law has a different role, as the law has in the life of the ordinary Christian. In the life of the ordinary Christian, the law in some way has truly and really the structure to state a certain minimum of the absolute necessary to make it into heaven.

[09:18]

As you can see, for example, in the legislation, medieval legislation, concerning the reception of the sacrament of penance and of the Eucharist. Once a year. Now that's a lot. Because if you do it less, then you don't have a Christian anymore. So there's a minimal mistake. But you see, by the way, soon as the wings of the soul grow and it aspires to the fullness of love, a law like that has completely lost its meaning. That doesn't exist, has no role anymore. So therefore we certainly must distinguish between these two. the role and function of the law for the ordinary Christian which is there to set the limit or the minimum of what is required in order to fight and preserve the Church against the decay which laziness, lack of love would bring about in the Church.

[10:40]

So a certain minimum is stated. But in the monastic life, I repeat it again, a rule like that has lost its meaning in that world. It has a different role. So it is true, therefore, that monasticism exists in a great many other ways. And ways are wide. And things also change. I think one has to ask that too. Monasticism, I would say, is not simple and forever, as I say, finished with the rule of Saint Benedict and even less with various historical interpretations which have been given to this rule. But there is room, as time goes on, as to say the needs of the souls change.

[11:41]

The aspiration to hold me here with you here changes. As life goes on, why should there not be other forms of the monastic life? Take the whole question of, for example, of the, how the way in which St. Benedict has established the rule of one. That may be something which, as time goes on, may be varied, may be drawn in a different way. And St. Benedict himself will not, should not realize this. So, Therefore, there is always, there must be an anesthesia. There must be the possibility of new development. Why? Because monasticism simply moves in that realm where God and the individual person meet in that intimacy of perfect, wholehearted love.

[12:48]

And that is a matter which cannot be legislated, which is individual, and which therefore also has to be formed in many different ways. However, on the other hand, it is evident that synthetic makes, in its rule, a clear distinction between perfection reached and the way to get to it. So that is the one absolutely scientific contribution which Saint Benedict and the rule of Saint Benedict wants to make to the monastic life. Monastic life is, as I said, this invitation to perfect love. It is concentration on the art to love God alone. But of course, an art never falls, you know, in complete perfect form into some of his land.

[13:52]

But as we argue, in the state of palatial nation, we have to live. And there, Saint-Bendix had before his eyes the danger of a monastic anarchy. which is brought about through the obliteration of this distinction. Somebody makes himself a monk, and he thinks he is at the summit of perfection. And therefore, because he makes this decision to leave the world, give himself completely to God, he simply does it in the form of the early life. Because that is, if I may use that expression, the logical end to which the monastic life tends. So he starts with the end. And that is, of course, and has brought about then a great confusion and has done great damage to souls.

[14:58]

Because there is the danger that monastic idealism simply doesn't reckon with the realities of the everyday life and with the realities of the souls and of their needs and of their growth and of their imperfection and of all the possibilities of error that are involved if somebody wants to journal all over the world. the degrees in which he comes and right away wants to reach the absolute end. That's the intrinsic danger of the monastic absolutism, that somebody then, taken by this idea, starts with the absolute end and then is unable to cope with it, because he hasn't learned. So, St. Benedict makes that clear distinction between the end, hermitic life, the perfection as a status, and this perfection as a status, the hermitical life, the only law of the hermitical life is the respect.

[16:14]

There is no doubt. The hermitical life, therefore, doesn't need an external rule. So, but, until we get there, the school is needed. And that is, of course, the first function of a rule in the monastic life, as St. Benedict says, to establish a school. In this school, of course, by the way, there is an order, an order between the teacher and the disciples. And there is an order of authority. And wherever there is an order of authority, there has to be a rule. There has to be a rule for two reasons. One reason is that, of course, wherever an authority is established, the disciple should not be simply at the mercy of this authority.

[17:17]

But there should be a rule. And the rule has the function to be and to determine the action of both, of the teacher and of the disciple. So that is the general denominator on which teacher and disciple meet. So that the disciple, as I repeated, is not simply at the mercy of the teacher, of the other. Therefore, the rule binds there. the teacher and the disciple, and makes their position and their respective rights and their respective obligations clear. Because then immediately, if you go and you sit at the feet of a teacher, it is a contract. You do it, you know, in a certain common understanding. And therefore, that has to be formulated, and that has to be put down for the use of the tomb.

[18:22]

And that is one, therefore, one function of the rule. The rule is, I will repeat it again, establishes a school for the kings, in which, therefore, the disciple has to learn how to love God. Therefore, that is the first... Function of the rule that beguiles disposability creates that form in which the beginner, under the authority of a teacher, may know the first steps on the way to perfection. You can see that everywhere, and I just refer to the things that we have mentioned in the past, we have spoken about during this retreat. There is, for example, St. Paul.

[19:23]

St. Paul is and needs in that encounter, needs the cure. But they, St. Paul says, and ask the curious, what do you want I should do? And what then does Christ, Jesus, tell him? Go to this and this man, to another. In that, and that's true in us. And he is, of course, what does he represent? He represents the Ecclesia. He represents the Church. Now this St. Paul, who has been caught, as it were, in the net of the Savior, now he has to learn. Now he has to grow. He is still a child. He grows under the care of his mother. Who is the mother? The mother is in Christ, the Church.

[20:26]

Take St. Augustine. I read to you on purpose this beautiful passage in the third chapter of the eighth book of the Confessions, where you first see the encounter. St. Paul appears by the word of God, St. Augustine, in the depth of his heart. What does he do? Triumphantly, the first thing he goes to his mother, St. Molly. St. Monica for St. Augustine in the Confessions doesn't simply play the role of any good mother, but St. Monica represents a reality, the reality of the Eccles. Before St. Augustine's conversion, she wept and she interceded and she prayed for him. Now that is the role of the ecclesia, of the church, for all the saints, for all those who want to reach perfection.

[21:27]

And then she rejoices with him. And then the beautiful end that she and St. Augustine sit at the window of their apartment in Austria. And their minds together united rise from the pictures to the creator until they reach for a moment that purity of intuition, of contemplation. Together. That is typical. And that element, from that monasticism, can never be displaced. But you know, you must see, and that's the point I would like to bring to your attention, that the Egoica, that matter, is arranged, so to speak, by whom? By the Ecclesia, by the Bata Ecclesia, by the Mother, to the Motherly. And of course, what does this mother do with it when she arranges understanding the nature of the child?

[22:39]

I think that is also, just to say that as a little parenthesis, but it seems to me that that is also the role, or let us say one aspect of the role, of our devotion to our living. I'm so happy about this, that our birthday is the day in which the Church, or which the Church celebrates the Matamina Sun. the motherhood of Our Lady. You remember that, that Saint Augustine himself saw that so clearly when he spoke at the end after he had lost his friends and he had shown to us the whole dream and the chaos into which the death of his friend has put him. And then he ends in this wonderful chapter about the true friends. But this true friend, the word of God, and of course, as he mentioned, puts it directly and explicitly, taken form, taken flesh in the womb of the Virgin.

[23:58]

So that this eternal word that is given to us, is given to us through the mother, through the Virgin. And that is not only in the beginning the case, but that is the case all through in a special way after our Lord has left us according to the flesh and has returned into heaven. Whom does he lead here? Now, in the gospels, in the gospel of St. John, it is absolutely clear whom does he lead to us? His mother, disciple, My son, look there, your mother. That's the last word to Saint John who stands before as the disciple. The beloved disciple. So he gives the name of his mother, his own mother. But what is his own mother, of course? It is the Ecclesia. She is the incarnation, as it were, of the Church.

[25:02]

But still, also for us, in order to, as I say, to realize the mystery of the church, we need, as it were, the friendship and the affection of all of them. And that cultivates in our hearts, and that is today, to my mind, is one of the reasons why the Church emphasizes so much this devotion to our Lady, because she realizes that that today is one of the greatest things that the stiff necks of an enlightened world and of a world which has become completely exclusively manly in its approach. The difficulty that these still men, you know, should bend under a law and should do that in the field of religion, where everything, everybody thinks he can be completely free.

[26:04]

But who helps us and who interprets this law? It's Our Lady, Our Lady and the Ecclesiastical. So therefore also is this emphasis. And that should be for us as nuns, should be the same thing. We need the mother. But we look, we should then also look at the rule which is given to us. Just in that way, this is the mother's rule. There the word can be counted. There I learn the ways of love. And what does, after all, then, what is this food? What does the Mother Church offer to us? What does Our Lady offer to us? It's the Word. But I repeat again, the Word in God. What did Saint Benedict do when he wrote this book? Now, in the spirit of Our Lady, he listened to the Word.

[27:09]

And then, as I told you before, the whole rule of the event is nothing but the wisdom of God actually talking to us and interpreted and made understandable by the services and the culture of the Mother, of the Divine Mother of our world and of the Ecclesiastes. So that is for the function of the rule. It is food if we want, the milk for the children. There we are put as it were at the place of our mother, the Ecclesia, in the room. There to drink the milk of the world. Then another thing, the rule is given to us As I said before, that monk may not immediately, in his hunger for the absolute, jump from his initial first decision into the last perfection, leaving out the steps which lead to neglecting the whole process of purification of his life.

[28:32]

Now the greatest danger to the monastic life is somebody leaves the world and wants to love God enough. The greatest danger which he has to face is this, that he may become the victim of an illusion, of a deception. Because it's in his ears, that way, that man, especially for him, that he wants to be subject and subject and nothing but subject. He shrinks away from being exposed. You know that very well. Every man who has an idea shrinks away from seeing this idea and is exposed to the judgment and the criticism of superior wisdom, of a higher judge, He fears that defeat that may be convicted with.

[29:39]

And therefore he withdraws. You see, then the children, a child wants to be subject, hates to be dictated to. And doesn't want to expose. That's the reason why the child moves in a world of dream and moves in a world of talk. In a world in which the child, with all its helplessness, can still be masked. That's the whole, it seems to me, the role of daydreaming and the role of play. Somebody who really and truly is not able yet to face reality creates a dream world and there he can be served. without being exposed and without becoming objects. For a law, or for another person, or for any order, any command, anything that imposes it.

[30:47]

And that is the great danger. That is a man, and we are not able to see through ourselves. But very easily, this idea of the monastic life withdraws from the world. For what purpose? To be settled and not to be honored. And therefore, solitude alone with God, wonderful. To be settled and not to be honored. I can always say, nobody should read a field here, because this is me and God alone. a very dangerous situation. So one may, therefore, disturb the order, taking more something which is just maybe an unconscious drive for that subjectivism, and take it for perfect.

[31:49]

And as a wonderful holy title, to be for the rest of one's life this child that fell into tantrums every time that someone wanted him to do something which the child didn't want to do. Only so. Therefore, that is the reason why Saint Benedict put it up as a rule that if one has a solid is essentially the art of loving God alone, and not being alone with oneself, but loving God alone. This love has to be purified. This love has to be judged. It has to be distinguished. If what is self-love has to be alienated, it has to be put to a test.

[32:50]

as every gold has to be put into a furnace. And this furnace is the vita communis. It is the celibate. It is the community. There, the monk has to live with others. He has to face reality. He has to become an object. The meaning of the vita communis is not to lose one's own identity, But the meaning of the vita communis is to establish the wide balance between subject and object in one's own life. And in order to do this, the synoptic life, as such, again, needs then the rule. It needs it all. Many cannot live together as a society without the rule. without an opera.

[33:52]

That gives to the society, even one can say, their inner freedom, and their inner quiet, and being settled. Otherwise, a society would, all the time, as you know very well, from day to day, rangle about what to do next. And what order of things to follow next? Therefore, he said, a big lie cries and is not possible without a rule. Therefore, what then is the meaning of the rule? It is the test and the purification of the sincerity of the supernatural character of our desire to love God alone. And the access to this is large regret. Through the love of your brethren, you reach therefore that stage you should not have known. And then you can easily imagine the hermit who, after he has fought, in the as the Benedict puts it, the arcturus paternum,

[35:05]

This battle army of the community, if he then reaches solitude, then his reaching solitude and his going into a hermitage is not an escape. And he does not flee other people because he is not able to meet them. Because they interfere with his nervous tensions or whatever it may be. Then he goes there without separating himself from the capital, without separating himself from the goddess. Then it is absolutely true that the hermit who is far away from everybody is at the same time really, truly with everybody and close to everybody. But when that test is not there, then nobody wishes. One cannot wish. One is exposed to the illusions of the devil.

[36:08]

Then another reason why the rule, a regula, is necessary for the state of the monastic life, I mean the stage of learning, of the scholar, of the beginner. You see, that's another thing which is to me always great that you realize that, you know, is a great enigma or a difficulty. While then, you know, one absolutizes the statements of the Redeemer. That again doesn't seem to be right. Even though St. Benedict, that is true, says in his rule that we may persevere in the monastery until death. Well, of course he has to say that in the rule for the Redeemer. He cannot open all the doors in the right from the start. But what perseveres in the monastery unto death also in the hermitical school. Everybody who understands the hermitical life as the flower of the community, as the perfection of the community life, will never think that a hermit has for a moment left the monastery.

[37:23]

Even living in a cell does not mean leaving the monastery. But that is for the perfect world, you see. That's not for the beginning. So, but that is true, and that you can also see that that is our, and I wanted to maybe just mention that, you know, in our own position, I mean, in our community here, and with the possibility of making a new start, I think it's very important that we keep in mind That really and truly, although we completely recognize and acknowledge the necessity of the rule, still the liberty, the freedom of the spirit, that unique and personal element should not be overlooked. That is to be one of the reasons for the other institute.

[38:26]

Well, the idea of the other. The idea of the upgrade is not only that somebody is there who, let us say, cannot make the grain, you know, and then somehow he lives on the fringes. That is not the idea of it. That may be an individual case. That may also be somebody is not poor, that's the lie. But he wants to profit from living, to say, with the monks, and then offer his services in return. But then offering the oblate institute may also be a form in which a soul grows, grows into that perfection, which then enables him to become a monk. And the oblate status, the advantage of the oblate status simply consists in this, that he is not committed for that matter to any rule.

[39:29]

And that is the reason why the operators did run from the labor. In the lay brother, you make profession, and before the church, you are committed to a certain status, to a certain rule. And you cannot change it without dispensation, and if you want to change it, the common practice of the church is that if your lay brother wants to become a priamant, he cannot do it in his own monastery, he has to go to another monastery in order to do it. And of course, with that, you know, it is, as I said, clamped down. And the whole thing is frozen to a certain form. And that, to me, seems to be objectionable in this whole situation of the labor. And therefore, we try our best to avoid that situation. But then, you see, it gives, you know, a certain elasticity. And this certain elasticity, which I wish

[40:31]

Would we preserve, let us say, towards being beginners, let us say, something that is unbelievably ordinary and monastic level? That same elasticity should then also be preserved towards something that is above this innovative level. St. Benedict immediately leaves the door open for the army to come up. And that I wish from the bottom of my heart that we are able here this coming to leave that open. Because the celibatical life in last analysis has in itself the tendency to that hermetical perfection. And that's an old teaching of the church. That's part of the entry of the church's tradition. in the middle of life, for that matter, is the, objectively speaking, not subjectively, objectively speaking, is the highest form of the spiritual.

[41:33]

So the time has run out. We cannot continue this forever, but let us then tonight, you know, still continue. I am not sufficient to master and rule that thou shouldst enter in under the roof of myself. But since thou in thy lot winnest to dwell in me, I take courage and approach. Thou commandest, and I will open widely doors which thou beholdest to me, that thou mayest enter with compassion as is thy nature. that thou mayest enter and enlighten my darkened heart. I believe that thou mayest do this, for thou didst not flee away from the sinful woman, and with tears she came near to thee. Neither rejectest thou the publican who repented, neither didst thou cast away the thief who confessed thy killing,

[42:38]

Neither didst thou leave the repentant persecutor to be saved. But all those who had the fortune upon their knees, thou didst take in the company of thy friends. For thou wilt alone have blessed every world without end.

[42:55]

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