in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. cannot be said often enough. We have to repeat it again and again that every Sunday as the eighth day is to us the becoming present again of the Kingdom of God. It is the manifestation of the glory the wealth, the sweetness of the messianic age, the fullness of the spirit.

[01:02]

And that is always the very evidence in all the Sundays after Pentecost. Each one of these Sundays brings us another aspect of that messianic fullness. And when we read and sing to Mars in Troy and wide away, It's the first thing that our eyes meet. Omnes gentis, plaudi divinis, jubilante deo in voce exsultationis. All ye nations or peoples, clap your hands, shout unto God with a voice of joy. For the Lord is most high. He is terrible, he is a great king over all the earth. So why did these enjoy twice you find that decisive word, the Pentecostal word, spiritus dominere plebit orbem taran, et hoc what continent omnia, the one who holds all things,

[02:21]

So omnes gentis, the whole fullness of the messianic kingdom is gathered around the king who is present among his people and whom we greet with that characteristic jubilation with which His glory is acknowledged, recognized, published. That means clapping your hands. That clapping of one's hands, that is the publication. Everybody who claps his hands recognizes and wants to acknowledge that thanks to this King and His glory He is in himself united, has found himself, and has found what he was looking for and longing for.

[03:33]

If one gives one's hand to somebody else, that means that he is welcome. One takes the hand is that organ with which we take possession of things. If a child wants to come in contact with reality, does it through the hand. The hand is our contact with reality. When we meet somebody and we acknowledge him, recognize him in his own value and goodness, We have confidence to him, rejoice in his presence, glad to have you here, then we give our hand. And so if one claps one's hand, it seems as if one would take one's own two hands and join them.

[04:38]

Here is what I was longing for. Here is the realization of my deepest desires, and it comes to me through this King. I shout to him in joy, the voice of joy. That is the characteristic note, again, of the messianic powers. And we acclaim God as the Rex Monarch. as the great king. I think I explained to you in former years that this, the greatness, in the Old Testament sense, does not mean what it means to the pagans. To the pagans, greatness is the greatness of power. It is the possibility to crush others. to establish one's own throne on the blood of others, through the blood of others.

[05:49]

The greatness in the sense of the Old Testament, and in which God is a great king, is not the great king as Alexander was great. If the greatness of Alexander is explained in the scriptures, then one says, and all the earth was silent before him. But if the greatness of God is explained, then one says, clap your hands, all ye nations, shout unto God with the voice of joy. So it's the difference, the greatness which is established on physical power of the tyrant, and the greatness which is established on the goodness of the God Yahweh, Dominus. This Dominus is the God of mercy.

[06:52]

He is the God who gives himself, that through him and in him in his divine glory and life, people may be happy. Excelsus Terremulis also, that is the other aspect. The one who is close to man, who is the friend of man, Yahweh, the God of mercy, he is at the same time also high and terrifying. But why? Not through a power which pressures and enslaves. But this same God, who is so close to man and is our Savior, bows down his ear to listen to our weak cry. This God is the Creator, is the Almighty.

[07:55]

He is therefore the source of all being and of all life, not an idol. That is what it means, excelsus terribilis. So now when that is the general description of the mood and spirit of the Messianic kingdom, of which we become conscious again, and I would better say, which we celebrate every Sunday. And you know well that this word celebration means entering into it. Not only a ritual, but a participation in the divine love. That is celebration. Celebration is a term which is taken from the realm of life. It is, as it were, a biological term. So this, the general description of the life of the messianic kingdom, omnes gentis.

[09:01]

Let us not forget that this omnes gentis, all ye nations, is in the mouth and the mind of the psalmist not only a description of the universality or of the numbers of those who are called into the kingdom of the Messiah, but it is also a description and a solemn statement of the fact that big and small that everybody, the hoi polloi, the men, this whole ocean of humanity is called into the fullness of the messianic age, and that the distinction of an aristocracy of blood, which is so marked in the Old Testament, has ceased. in the, let us say, democratic broadness of the Holy Spirit poured out, as I said this morning, with the words of the Prophet Joel, all for everybody, young and old, men and women.

[10:21]

So the universality of this messianic kingdom brought to our awareness in the intro, then comes in the Mass, and I think this time it is easy to see what is the theme of the Mass, because it is so evident that the Epistle and the Gospel this time harmonize, and harmonize in the same basic thought. is the thought that this life of the Messianic Kingdom is, now one can perhaps put it this way, not a superficial rhythm of external things, external emotions, not a matter of words, because you see that is what is said in the Gospel.

[11:26]

Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. See? The topic is, what belongs, what is the kingdom of heaven? The negative answer first, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, it's not a matter of lips, not a matter of external acknowledgement. or many words, something deeper. And that is what the Gospel as well as the Epistle expresses with their comparison and analogy, that this life of the Kingdom of God is not something superficial, just an expression and words, but is, let's say, a life And when we say life, we mean something which is an ontological reality in that organism which is a life.

[12:38]

Therefore the kingdom of God is an organism. The kingdom of God in fact is a tree. And that tree is thoroughly divine, thoroughly good. and therefore the fruits correspond to the very nature of that tree. That is the rhythm of life. It rises out of the roots. It is held up, built up by the stem or the trunk. And then the trunk divides and unfolds into the crown of the tree, into the branches that spread the leaves all over, and then the last result of the circulation of life, of the cycle of life, is the fruit. And this fruit is the product of this tree, and it is the best the tree has.

[13:50]

It's seen as an ideal expression of the life of the tree. But this fruit can be produced only by this tree. And this tree alone can produce and will produce that kind of fruit. So there is a deep, inevitable, inescapable unity, harmony, union, connection between the tree and the fruit. That is the essence of love. Life is a fruit. Fruit is the highest mature expression of life. Therefore, since the kingdom of God and the messianic age is fullness and is maturity, is essentially a fruit, then this fruit in all its beauty and maturity, where does it come from?

[14:58]

Now, it comes from above. It comes out of that inner cycle and rhythm of life which is proper exclusively to God himself, the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is the root. The sun is the trunk, the Holy Spirit is the fruit, and that inner light of the eternal life, that inner harmonic unity, that also is the inner law of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God as manifested in the Messianic Age is not the thinking of man. and it is not human words, it's not human desires, doesn't come out of the root of Adam, which has been spoiled, and which therefore brings forth evil fruit, poisonous fruit.

[16:16]

But it is out of another root, it is out of the root of the Father, and it is held up by the trunk of the Word incarnate that died for us on the cross, on the tree of the cross, and then the abundant fruit of the Holy Spirit is given to the Church. And that is what we rejoice in. That is the essence of our life. We ourselves are planted into this root, the root of the eternal saving will of the Father. Therefore, our Lord says so beautifully, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

[17:18]

See, it comes from above. The root is the eternal will of the Father. God is charity. That's the root. Out of that comes the Son, who does the will of the Father. And that will of the Father is expressed on the cross. There he offers that again, all-embracing, absolutely adequate, sacrifice that we find described so beautifully in the Overture, there is the sentence. There we see what is the will of the Father. where it is said, as in holocausts of rams and bullocks, and as in thousands of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be made in thy sight this day, that it may please thee, for there is no confusion to them that trust in thee, O Lord.

[18:27]

There it is, there is the sacrifice, there is the heart of the kingdom of God, There the fruit originates, and what we have to do is enter into that, be planted, act with Christ, His sacrifice. Where do we do it? We do it in the Holy Mass. There when we speak with the priest, and through him, this is my body, this is my blood, take it and eat, and as offered for you, drink it. In this center of the kingdom of God, we enter into the will of the Father by joining ourselves, uniting, and being united in this sacramental action. You see, you, all of us, all those who are branches of this heavenly kingdom, they're all united in this one trunk.

[19:32]

and the trunk is the priest, who stands at the altar, in the center of it, surrounding all the branches. And there he is, as the representative of Christ, there is the presence of the great monarch, the great king. The greatness of that king and the whole reach of his influence, the radius of his influence, he himself has described it when he said, and this blood, my, the chalice of my blood, is shed for you and for the many, for the remittance of their sins. They are the omniscientists, the hypanoid, The greatness of that king is the universality of his love with which he loves all mankind unto the end.

[20:40]

And so he is the king who does not establish his throne on the blood of innocent victims, But he established the throne on his own blood. This is the chalice of my blood, which is shed for you and for the many unto the remittance of sins. There is therefore the source, then, of our sanctification. And from there we can so wonderfully, deeply understand the words of St. Paul in the epistle. where he says, but now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, life everlasting. For the wages of sin is dead, but the grace of God is life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[21:44]

There we have it. The life of this kingdom is organic. It is, as we say, ontological, our very being. How does that come about? Comes about by the fact that this trunk, which is the Holy Trinity, rises out of the eternal roots of the saving will of the Father. He descends. He becomes man. God, the Son of God, becomes man. He is man. And being man, he offers for us this fat sacrifice of himself according to the saving will of his Father. and then gives himself, pours out his divine life in the spirit whom he sends.

[22:47]

And this spirit becomes our spirit. In this spirit then, through baptism, planted into his death and resurrection, in this spirit we cry Abba Father. We are children through the Spirit that dwells in us, that is given to us. In that way, the true nature of this Christian life is explained to us. It is grace of God, because it comes out of the free will of the root of the Father. It is life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord. life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is therefore not a matter of our human thinking, it is not a matter of saying, Lord, Lord, with all attention as an external observer, but it is a matter of being united, implanted into the trunk, the Son of God made man,

[24:03]

by dying with him on the cross and eating his branches. And these branches then bring with him and in him the fruits of the Holy Spirit. So, however, as I told you before, whenever we think about the nature of the new life that the Christianic age, his King, our Lord Jesus Christ, has given to us. And when we see and grasp what our Lord wants to convey to us and what he wants to inculcate is the fact that this new grace that we receive is truly ontologically a new being which has been poured into us from above through the charity of God, through the sacrifice of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

[25:13]

But at the same time, we must also and always, again and again, translate this, what we may call ontological reality. Every Catholic knows that grace is more than a mood, that divine grace is not a passing inspiration, that grace is not just an act of goodwill. That grace is nothing of any kind that we could mobilize with our own human nature, but that grace is given to us from above. It descends out of the creative love of God and therefore is something in us, a reality in us. We are not the same people before and after baptism. But at the same time, when we rejoice and we take that deep breath, and we say, thank God that our union with God is not based on the weakness of my own nature, because every man is a liar.

[26:24]

You cannot trust any human being as human being. And I certainly cannot trust myself. Therefore, as long as the kingdom of God would be based on me in any way, I could not rejoice, I could not clap my hands, because there is no reality that would be present and which I would grieve and in which I could rejoice. Joy is only there where God is present, living in me. there is joy. As long as religion would be a way of living with oneself, joy would have no place in it. But still, when that is clear, and when therefore the quality of reality which is essential to the new grace of the messianic age

[27:25]

If that quality is reality, still we should try and grasp now, if that is so deeply rooted in our soul, how does that depth express itself? Let us say again in psychological terms, what makes this new divine life really deep? And there we must say, there are, and that is expressed here, it's deep in me through and in the terms of the pascha, of the transitus, of the passing. And what is that passing? That passing is explained here also in the Mass. God is at the same time the merciful God, the friend of man, but he is at the same time also the omnipotent, the absolutely transcendent, not created in the image and likeness of man, but completely beyond our powers as a creature, and therefore

[28:47]

terribilis excelsus, high, unreachable to us, as one. And this fact of God's depth as the unique and only creator of heaven and earth is reflected in our souls always in the form of fear, the fear of the Lord. while on the other hand the joy of it in his gracious and merciful presence is reflected in the figure of the light, the manifestation. And those two things are so beautifully expressed in the gradual. Come, children, hearken to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Come ye to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be confounded.

[29:50]

That is the fear which rises out of the incomprehensible infinity of the Father as the principium, as the root. And that is then the light which reigns from the faith, from the Son, who is the manifestation of the unspeakable greatness and transcendence of the Father. And then it is also therefore those two things, fear and rejoicing, those two express in psychological terms in some way the depth of that. ontological life of grace which is given to us sacramentally through baptism. You see, what I'm driving at is always this. When you hear speaking about sacramental aspect of Christian salvation and of the ontological aspect of Christian salvation, then usually our imagination is kind of blocked.

[31:01]

We find it very difficult to translate, to see the connection between the solidity of our ontological connection with God and translate it into spirit. into terms of inner experience. But there it is, the fear and the joy, those two things as the reflection in us of the two things of the root and of the trunk that rises out of this root. That's one approach in which we can, let's say, translate into our terms this ontological There is another, and that is, of course, as you know, one aspect of the pasta, of the transitus, through fear into joy. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The other one is sacrifice.

[32:03]

Where the ontological reality of the kingdom of God living in us is tested and experienced is the spirit of sacrifice, the generosity of the soul. When we would speak as the apostles of the liturgical movement, of this tremendous new discovery that our life in Christ, you know, is, as it is said here, life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord, and then we speak about the vine and about the branches, you know, and then we try to give that answer to others, you know, and you're always interiorly feeling, yeah, but these are words and words and words, but where is the reality? Is the reality there? and backs it up. That is the reality of the sacrament. This ontological connection with Christ comes to pass only by being planted, not only into his joy, but also into his death.

[33:16]

And therefore I find it so beautiful that at the end of this wonderful Mass, when we then come to the trunk And when we then begin in Holy Communion and take the fruits from the branches, and each one takes the fruit, takes the body of the Lord, the glorified and risen Lord, and receives him, then when this ontological connection and this ontological nature of the Kingdom of God becomes most, one can say, tangible, visible, there it is. There is, as it were, the host, then bread, of which Christ said, this is my body, take it and eat. And I come, and I eat it, so I take the fruit, I become myself a fruit on this tree. Then when that is so evident, tangible to us in this sacramental process, sacramental action of Holy Communion, then at that moment the Church sings, and we all sing then, In clina auventum, accelera uderibios me.

[34:45]

Bow down thy ear, make haste to deliver me. That is the word and song, one can say, of the fear of the Lord. Bow down thy ear, make haste to deliver me. That is the voice of one of these humble ones, one among the humble, one among the honest Gentiles. And that is the way in which, in the presence of God, we clap our hands and we shout, Bow down thy ear, make haste to deliver me.

[35:25]

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