I must say, you've got a beautifully planned out monastery here. You can take a few steps and you can get around to everywhere. I congratulate you on the way it's laid out. My talk this morning, I'd like to begin with a little passage from the second chapter of Thessalonians. where we have the words, but though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare you the gospel of God in the face of great opposition. What struck me about this passage, and it is just one in many, was the realization of just what a great amount of suffering Paul had to endure.

[01:16]

And not just from those who were opposed to him outright, as we know reading his letters, even at times from those who had been converted to the message of the gospel caused him a great deal of suffering and as Christians and as monks there is always or there should be always the realization that when we think that we have got things right, sort of all is, to use a catch word, hunky-dory, whether this is within our own personal spiritual lives or even in our everyday work, we are often called upon to suffer.

[02:22]

Now, we know that very often Paul was writing his letters to sort out problems that had arisen or to correct faults that had come about. And in this same chapter, the second chapter of Thessalonians, about eight lines further on, Paul asks the people of Thessalonica to recall just what he had tried to do for them. Where he says, for you remember our labor and toil brethren, we worked night and day that we might not burden any of you while we preached to you the gospel of God. Now I think that it is important as monks that we should at times give thought or perhaps more thought to what the other brethren do for us.

[03:50]

I think if we did we would tolerate each other far better and express our fraternal charity far better and alleviate a certain amount of unnecessary suffering that can take place within any monastic community. Let me give you an example. I think I can say fairly honestly that I'm basically a cheerful person, maybe a bit too passive at times, thought by some to be a little impulsive, but despite what I said about Idi Amin,

[04:55]

the other day in the question time we had, I never really want to deliberately hurt anyone. I feel that I can honestly say that. In fact, perhaps I rather err on being too trusting rather than not trusting. And I certainly strive to show no malice towards anyone. And yet, some weeks back, we had all our telephone system changed at St. Anselm's. All kinds of things went wrong. The firm that was doing it got wires crossed and we were getting phone calls for the Carmelites, for the animal hospital and the school were getting Abbey calls and the Abbey were getting school calls.

[06:12]

In fact, there were quite a lot of grumbles going on within the community and doubts about the whole system. And Father Christopher, our treasurer, I felt had worked extremely hard in getting this offer, looking at it carefully, accepting it, realizing it was a good bargain. And in fact, the installation was nothing to do with him. He wasn't the one to blame, but he got all the flack. And I, in my cheery way, went into the treasurer's office towards the end of this hassle that had been going on and greeted him one morning by saying, good morning, Father Telephone. Now, I said it in jest, but the look that crossed his face

[07:17]

he knows there's no malice in me I realized then that it was the last thing I should have said to him because he'd had enough and then last Saturday at supper we have a talking supper on a Saturday evening pick up supper we just accepted to supply at a parish out in Virginia. And the first Sunday was to be the following day, where it was pointed out that they wanted us for the 9.15 and the 10.15 Mass to give our communions, and then to actually say the 12.30 Mass. And there was discussion going on how wouldn't it be more sensible if they had some ministers of the Eucharist?

[08:20]

Why bring a priest across to get up from a room and to go in at communion time and to give out communions and then go back? And a very conservative priest pointed out that in a parish he had been working on, they had 90 ministers of the Eucharist. So another priest, with a wink to me, started teasing him, saying, oh, I'm surprised, Father, that you go along with that, you see. And then I myself, keeping an absolutely poker face, turned to this priest who'd been doing this teasing and said, Father, would you care to go out tomorrow morning with Father X and help him give communions? You see, and there was a sort of silence around the table, and then Father Rex said, Father, you haven't answered Father Leonard's question, you see.

[09:25]

And we all laughed, and that was the end of it. But nine o'clock that night, my house phone goes, and Father Rex is there, obviously rather perturbed, and hoped that I wasn't offended When he didn't respond to go out, he thought that I was being serious by asking with a poker face, which I mean, if superiors ask you with a poker face, I mean, how do you read them? But it's just a reminder, isn't it? I'm giving you two personal examples of how careful we must be in the way that we relate within community. although as I say there was no intentional malice and I certainly as father X was winking at me over his teasing I couldn't wink back at him because I was teasing him and I couldn't wink at the other people because they'd he would have seen me winking but it was read wrongly and I what I'm really saying here is

[10:37]

This whole aspect of the way that we relate and can cause unnecessary suffering. You know, from half past six to nine o'clock at night was a considerable amount of time to be wondering, gosh, I should have responded and gone out with father tomorrow and helped him before I got the phone call. And I would say it's not just the superior relating to the community, this should be happening in all our relationship. You know, an awareness of what members of the community are doing for each one of us, things that we sometimes just take for granted. in all areas, whether in the church, whether in the kitchen, whether around the house, whether bringing in bread winning for us, whatever it is, that whole concern and it alleviates, I think, what I would call some of the unnecessary suffering.

[11:55]

But there is also other side to this coin of suffering and that is how are we to cope with our own suffering when we encounter it from others or from events. Remember the account of Hannah And the taunting she received just prior to the canticle that we had in the office this morning, that taunting she received from Pinar because the Lord had made her barren. And then even when Hannah's example of dedication to prayer

[12:57]

when she went up to the temple and prayed with tears and the vow of dedication that she made that day in the temple. Eli is in there and he comes along and rebukes her for being drunk. He gets it wrong at first, though I have to admit that I love the final words that he says to her on that occasion when he realizes that he has got it wrong. Go in peace. May the God of Israel grant what you have asked. Another little sort of side effect of this which I also think is important was that she got up and she went and she ate a good meal. and she was no longer sad. And isn't this an aspect within community life?

[14:02]

When we seem to be under attack, when suffering seems to be great, we just cannot cope with life. We stop eating properly, we stop doing everything properly. And so, happiness is very much part of what we should be striving for, real genuine happiness within the monastic content. And isn't there also a lesson further on, again with the story of Hannah, where her son Samuel was called. the number of times that he thought it was Eli. And Eli reproached, Eli responded by just telling him to go back to sleep. Eli didn't see it, Samuel didn't see it. And that is part

[15:06]

of our suffering search very often that we have to go into about our monastic vocation and what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. And I'd also emphasize that as monks too we must never think that we have all our problems sorted out because we never have and we never will have. Again, recall the disastrous defeat suffered by the Israelites at Apec, which served as a lesson for them that the possession of Yahweh's Ark was no magical guarantee of victory. And it's not just putting on the habit or taking vows or being so many years in community life that will suddenly make everything click together.

[16:12]

Alongside all this, we have, I think, a wonderful picture on which to hang on to, and that is the thrust St. Mark's Gospel, which was, as we know, undoubtedly motivated by the needs of his own Christian community at his time, who found themselves persecuted and under persecution and put to death under the Emperor Nero. And Mark in response to this, gives them the Jesus person, a very human Jesus. But he also gives them Jesus's mission. Jesus, the miracle worker, the one who can encourage them and help them, counterbalanced by what?

[17:26]

Jesus's suffering and death. And these two, the suffering and death aspect, I think is something that is essential to the whole idea of Messiahship. And if we are going to follow Jesus, we also have got to follow him with his suffering, in his suffering. I thought this morning the little passage we had from Hebrews where we had those words, for this reason Jesus also died outside the city in order to purify the people from sin with his own blood. And then, let us then go to him outside the camp and share his shame. And just as I had a sort of little side view again when we talked about Anna up there when she went out in it, again the whole sort of theme of what I've taken so far about community living and the whole aspect of sharing and deepening our respect and our love in Christ for each other,

[18:55]

Again in Hebrews today, it goes on, do not forget to do good and help one another. You have the suffering joined with Christ. How often do we do this? By doing good and helping one another. You see, if we're really honest with ourselves, if we stand back and look at our own personal monastic lives, no matter how long they've been or how short they've been, we have to say Christ has done some very wonderful things for us. And we should be able to say Christ will go on doing some very wonderful things for us. But we have to also be prepared to superimpose our sufferings, which is also part and will always be part of our life, in the light of Christ's resurrection.

[20:11]

There I see The whole question of the joy of life and the suffering in life has been something that is essential to any Christian, but perhaps in a deeper way to us as monks. And how do we do this? How do we cope with it? How should we look at it? I think that Thomas Merton, in the fifth chapter of that book, No Man is an Island, where he spells out 18 aspects of suffering, gives us a very wonderful insight into what suffering really should be in our lives. He's talking there about any Christian's life. but I want to apply it to the life of a monk. It's too long to read completely, and I'm sure a great number of you have read it, but I'd just like to touch on some of the aspects that he mentions, where he starts off, the word of the cross is foolishness to them that perish.

[21:35]

Yet among those to whom the cross was folly and scandal were ascetics and religious men who had evolved a philosophy of suffering and who cultivated self-denial. There is therefore much more in the word of the cross than just the acceptance of suffering. or the practice of self-denial. The cross is something positive. It is more than a death. The word of the cross is foolishness to them that perish, but to them that are saved, it is the power of God. Now, there's the basis for looking and accepting and understanding our suffering.

[22:38]

And then he points out that we must not only accept suffering, we must make it holy. Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering. How very true. And only the sufferings of Christ are valuable in the sight of God, who hates evil. And to Him, they are valuable chiefly as a sign. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross has an infinite meaning and value, not because it is a death, but because it is the death of the Son of God. Or again, even the saint is not one who accepts suffering because he likes it and confesses his preference before God and men in order to win a great reward.

[23:48]

He is the one who may well hate suffering as much as anybody else, but so loves Christ. back again to the prologue of Saint Benedict. Are we really seeking Christ? When suffering comes, to put the question, who are you? We must be able to answer distinctly and give our own name. Worth a meditation in itself. Suffering and the consecration it demands cannot be understood perfectly outside the context of baptism. There we are back to that other aspect which I brought in yesterday about Lent. For baptism is giving us our identity, gives us a divine vocation again to find ourselves in Christ.

[24:59]

Suffering can only be perfectly consecrated to God then if it is seen as the fruit of baptism. Useless and hateful in itself, suffering without faith is a curse. There it is in its reality. Suffering is wasted if we suffer entirely alone. Those who do not know Christ suffer alone. So how essential it is in our monastic life that we do discover Christ because we're going to have suffering. Heroism alone is useless unless it be born of God. Now, there's an aspect I think which we were touching on yesterday in some of the discussion of the mortification that went on in monastic life, which wasn't really looking at suffering very often or accepting suffering in the right way.

[26:19]

Even myself as a novice, when I was, or we as a novitiate, were fighting him, it was us against him. knowing that we would never win, but enjoying the fight, the whole motivation of Navishat, or what we were trying to do, or what he was even trying to do with us, was lost. I think on both sides, by us and by the novice master. To know the cross is not merely to know our own sufferings, for the cross is the sign of salvation. And no man is saved by his own sufferings. I should never have told you there were 18 of these. Some of you might be counting them. It almost finished. We reached 12, shall I tell you. The holy were not holy because they were rejected by men, but because they were acceptable to God.

[27:26]

You know the comfort that we often take, or we can take, when we sort of almost enjoy being humiliated or a bit of a rejection. We can sort of try and spiritualize it so we think, but in actual fact it blows us up into pride. We're being an awfully good monk at the moment because we're enduring this. And here's the emphasis, that shouldn't come into it. It's hard not to, but it shouldn't. The effect of suffering upon us depends on what we love. If we love ourselves selfishly, suffering is merely hateful. It has to be avoided at all costs. And there is the whole selfish aspect that Thomas Merton brings into that particular aspect of it.

[28:31]

That if we are a selfish person, we normally find we just cannot suffer. We will be intolerant of it. And this is something I think in pastoral, pastorally I have seen. It's so often the person who has been humble throughout their lives that can endure physical or mental suffering far more than the person who's been a selfish person. We have said that suffering has value in our lives only when it is consecrated to God. But consecration is a priestly act. And our sufferings then must be consecrated to God by his Church. She alone has the power to drown our anguish in the blood of Christ. And here I see a certain amount of submission within our living our life, whether as monks or within our lives in the Church.

[29:42]

times you know when we we think the superior has gone off his head or he's got it all wrong or that the local bishop doesn't understand us as a community or whatever it might be these are areas that are often can be areas of great suffering and there are two ways of looking at it this way of realizing that I am part of this church and I'm consecrated, I've given myself to God and this is God's church therefore I put up with it or constantly fighting and being niggly and being derogative also very often as a result of it. And then when is suffering useless? Merton says when it only turns us in upon ourselves, when it only makes us sorry for ourselves, when it changes love into hatred, when it reduces all things to fear.

[30:52]

And sixteen, the great duty of the religious soul is to suffer in silence. something that is very hard to do. And in order to face suffering in peace, suffer without imposing on others a theory of suffering. without weaving a new philosophy of life from your own material pain, without proclaiming yourself a martyr, without counting out the price of your courage, without disdaining sympathy and without seeking too much of it. Doesn't he give us a lot to think about when he finally sums up, in order to give glory to God and overcome suffering with the charity of Christ, suffer without reflection, without hate, suffer with no hope of revenge or compensation, suffer without being impatient for the end of the suffering.

[32:08]

There I feel that in light of what was saying about the joy and yet the suffering of our life as monks or even as Christians, we have a few thoughts to think about. Have you ever been taken through 18 points as quickly as that, Father? 18 points of suffering. What do you mean by 18 points? You might have only caught five of them. You might have only got five of them. Just 18 of Merton's points in his book on... It's always a great, you know, a discernment of discretion as to whether I'm playing marvellously or accepting of suffering or whether I'm just having a good time.

[33:22]

Of course, there's always a mixture of the two, I guess, if I go for alpha. It can be, you know, sometimes when you're in it, you get these waves of, you know, I'm perfectly foolish for doing this. But I really do believe, honestly, that in some way that it's almost impossible, or it is impossible, to teach one another directly that precise thing that Paul says, that for those of us that he sent were perishing in any kind of self-against-foolishness. We begin to see some sense of it again, which is God's love for us, His discipline. We had the other night the discipline of a father.

[34:25]

Somehow it's not vindictive. Anyway, that being able to see the difference and know that practically in one's life, You can slip in so easily to make that a project almost, you know, like a vacuum, so you've got all the suffering all over the place, or else you're ducking it all. And even sometimes you should be ducking it, because you really can't handle it. That's, it's a real key, I think, and that text, I think, is a wonderful one. Just to help us see there is a difference in the way that we suffer and what's going on and what would have occurred to us. When my brother died, very suddenly he was a priest in the Portsmouth Diocese and had just kept his silver jubilee of his priesthood and 10 days before his 50th birthday. I thought I could cope with it very well at the time but you know two or three weeks afterwards when I really felt his loss

[35:30]

because we were in the same diocese. Although we didn't see a great deal of each other, we were quite often in contact. I became very aware in my prayers that I was saying to the Lord, I wanted to love him and I wanted to serve him, but don't make me suffer anymore. I was actually sort of praying this. And I remember sharing with her a spiritual director who said, oh no, no, you've got to back off from that one. You can't start talking to the Lord in that way. You're only half saying what you're saying. You can't say you love him and want to serve him and then say, but don't send me any suffering. And I know there was a sort of a reaction, a bit of anger, I expect, at my brother being taken at this early age. And I picked up a lot of the aggro from the parish, who thought it was terrible that this good priest should suddenly be taken from them.

[36:35]

But... you know, how wrong I was to sort of start laying down to the Lord. I wanted to serve him and love him, but no suffering, please. And I still hope he doesn't give me too much, you know, there's that aspect about it. Only give me what I can take. But I don't think that's wrong. Because if we've got a relationship, a good relationship with God in our prayer life, we ought to be able to have a dialogue and say, you know, I'm not quite ready for too much at the moment. St. Teresa, doesn't she, the little flower, teaches us so much about this. I have a friend. He's back, lost his 12-year-old daughter. What do you think of this senseless accident? As a result of that, he lost his faith.

[37:39]

Not really, but to the point that from then on he went on cursing God. And to the point that it just tore my heart. I couldn't do anything about it. He would just reject everything and re-approach, and it took years and then he came back and he returned to God. And then we had a talk and he was telling me that he felt that God's shoulders were broad and he could easily, he could carry that. It's like a father It's a lovely insight that that came from him unless he was given it and the fact that he was able to share that to you.

[38:56]

Now how, just as a matter of community, how did you cope with that because it caused you suffering Did you never let go? Or, I mean, not of God, but of Him? Were you able to hold on to Him, Him into your prayer life? Yes, yes. I think he later on hurt me more the way he was hurting than, you know, than the And the actual, I mean the secondary thing I felt was even more severe. Because I know of a case from our Abbey in England where a young monk, he'd only been ordained five years and left the priesthood. And I think in a way he was a mother's vocation. He'd been sent to us from one of our parishes and had been paid through the school and encouraged.

[40:00]

And this was one of the reasons he gave for his dispensation, that when he came to 18 and a half, he'd had all his education paid for by his parish. He found it very difficult to say, I don't think I want to be a monk. So he just went on. But now, what happened when he left and we realized he had to leave? His own parents wouldn't allow him near the home. He could never go back to his own parish, although the parish priest was quite a... And in the end, his parents took it as such an insult, they left this town, which they'd been in, and their parents before them, and moved out. Because of this, well, one of the parents has died now and the father has been reconciled to the son, but the mother just went overboard. Now, imagine the suffering there, both in the boy and in the parents.

[41:03]

And it caused a great deal of pain. all through this thing I think you're touching off, that saying, God, you know, why have you done this to us? No, I've not read that book by Morse. I probably should sometimes. But it strikes me as usually very endorsed by John McCloskey, and Teresa that she's attached to this. And, you know, on a certain level, it's all true. I find that sense very vulnerable. It's not like nobody could ever accomplish it. And one of the things I find while living in this particular community, when we say all the songs, including the cursing ones, and I've been here a few years, I find myself really enjoying certain songs, because that's really how I feel sometimes.

[42:10]

Maybe that's part of that. I think there's songs that have been, it's occurring that in the Hebrew Bible, and I think it's more current in the Old Testament than in the New, At least what we're trying to say, it's alright to fight with God, because the soulless is doing it regularly. And you get the kind of peace Merton talks about only after that kind of fight. Yes, I don't mean have a biggest fight you want with God, but don't bring it into the community. Curse as much as you want in church, the cursing Psalms, but don't let it get out of your system. I mean, I'm not saying that altogether because we can't, but this is true and I think God is very understanding.

[43:13]

And, you know, I've had an amazing insight into Merton. With that new biography that came out on him, we read in the repertory, and I was... Horrified. What? Yeah. I was horrified. Yeah. That was my first reaction. You know, the cheek of this man, churning out all the spirituality, and there he was having sherry parties up in his so-called hermitage, you know, and running around. That was my first reaction. And then I sort of looked right round it, and I thought, fantastic, there's hope for me yet. You know? And I think that is the way in which we could look at it. And there's no saying, you know, there's no doubt about it, that his writing touches numerous people. They are moved by him, by the way he writes.

[44:15]

But I'm just saying that because I went through a period of, I'm not going to read any more of his stuff, you know, it's just, how can he churn that out? But it shows that he too was human. And he too was weak. He had many a battle with his abbot as we know. I think one phrase there where he ends up saying, oh, this suffering gives glory to God. And it seems like then such an easy thing to say for spiritual writers. I often wonder, do they know what they're saying, or is it just because that's the way you say it? My problem is, how is it in the glory of God? It's the union with Christ, isn't it? It's by being united with Christ that it's Christ that gives God glory.

[45:36]

And it's our sufferings united to Christ. And he was saying there, if we step aside of it, if it's not united with Christ, then it is. It's not glory. That's the aspect. It's uniting the whole of that suffering aspect with Christ, and it is resurrection. And I know it's glim, you know, it's easier to say, it's much harder to endure, but nevertheless it is a fact, you know, it's part of the faith, if you like. This is the only understanding that we can have about it, about suffering. Somehow we're trusting God and relying on Him. this, because something is happening by reason of it, which we don't know, but we can trust the fact that we're staying with it, and it's evidence of our trust in God and God's goodness that we may never know. It's almost like Job, you know, it's an angel or a god. He wouldn't do it otherwise.

[46:45]

I think it's in this, unless it was in something else, where he relates it to the Jobas, but I mean, I only picked out of those 18 the main headings. One aspect of it where he said it was suffering and death is a sign. He didn't carry that out, but I think a lot more could be said about that. You don't hear that too often. I think we have a word in this conclusion, fasting and mortification as being sound, not a symbol. It's just a symbol of what we're willing to do. [...]

[47:49]

It's just a symbol of what we're willing to do. [...] It's just That's something. You were reading this, Father, was it? Yes. I just picked it up there and I was looking under Jesus Christ and it, bringing out, you know, I just thought, I wonder if he touches on suffering. And he actually, Yes, he actually mentions this about the fathers. A mode of expression that was less bizarre and that showed a balance achieved through reflection was very difficult for the fathers because they regarded pathos, suffering, as a non-free external passive experience.

[49:06]

and even as an expression of human fallenness brought about by sin. Given such presuppositions, such pathe sufferings could be ascribed to God only insofar as he freely accepted them. with the result that in him they would not be the expression of finiteness, lack of freedom, and sinfulness, but on the contrary, an expression of his power and his freedom. Let's copy that out and add it on to that talk. It's an excellent insight. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

[50:16]

Amen.

[50:17]

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