Let us take tomorrow's Mass the second Sunday after Easter, just as the Spirit gives it, so that our participation may be more fruitful. I have again called your attention that the mysteries of the church the public worship of the church is not a heartless thing so to speak is not the objectivity of an impersonal truth or institution, but the liturgical public worship of the Church is really a matter of the heart. I think one can see that in a special way on this second Sunday after Easter, which we call the Sunday of the Good Shepherd.

[01:08]

And in this Sunday of the Good Shepherd, we feel as the sheep, the lambs, newborn, that gumbole, is that a good word? over the pastures in spring. Fortunately, looking around here on the poverty hill, it's still going to be some wild hill. The fresh green is raining, but they only get a little bit better. So they have to do all their hoops with all the flowers and all the life, the beauty of spring. So, but we have it anyhow, spiritually, having passed through the Easter night, and there having died with Christ, now risen with him, and we walk now in the newness of that life which the Good Shepherd has given for us, not only as a ransom,

[02:26]

for us as a juridical kind of legal sum to be paid but really as a life that he has given us so for this reason the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord hallelujah and by the word of the Lord where the heavens may hallelujah hallelujah The earth and the heavens. The earth is what is below. The heavens is what is above. Both what is below and what is above has been made by God in the beginning. And all things were made. Heaven and earth were made. What is below and what is above. Therefore, the below as well as the above.

[03:28]

that the together of the two makes the fullness of God's creation and that is in itself a very beautiful and deep truth not only the heights of perfection but it is the gradation and especially the difference between what is high and what is low It belongs to the beauty of God's creation. Now the earth, that is what is below. And of the earth, it is said in the beginning, and the earth was void and empty. Void and empty. And darkness covered the abyss and the spirit hovering over the waters. so this earth what is below covered by the waters and by darkness that now is the Easter and we have heard it in the Easter night there the creation that's the meaning of Easter that the whole work of creation is started all over again and again the firmament

[04:52]

is built to divide the waters above from the waters below and the waters below are locked up gathered together or locked up in one place that the earth may be free and may appear and may be able then to produce life so this is the earth of which it is said here that this earth is full of the goodness of the Lord the earth which had been chaos the earth which had been covered by darkness and there is mankind in the state of fallen nature and there is the individual soul the soul of the one who has not been reached by the grace of Christ, also the soul of the one who has lost the grace of Christ.

[05:54]

All that is earth. But this earth is now full of the mercy of the Lord, misericordia, dominio. That is, in the Hebrew text, the chesed. There is... the covenant of love the sure love to which God pledges himself to the companion of this covenant the earth that is the church because that chesed that love is in the highest form fulfilled in the relation between husband and wife between God as husband, and his people, as his wife, God and Israel. But then, of course, between Christ, who left the glory of God and took on human form and died for us, that he may present his church without wrinkle and without spot in beauty.

[07:06]

This Christ, therefore, is the chesed love, the manifestation of that husband love. It's the wedding feast of the Lamb in which the chesed of the Old Testament reaches its fullness. And that is what we sing here about. The earth is the church, the ecclesia. And she is full of this chesed love. of this husband love of the Lord. The Lord here is the risen Saviour. The risen Saviour, the risen Christ, is the Christ who then with his entire being, as we have explained that before, his divine and his human being, His pure gift exists only for our salvation, or as St.

[08:11]

Paul says, ever living to intercede for us. That's really the essence of the risen Savior. He is not enthroned in a distance far away from us in unreachable majesty, But he is close to us. He dwells with us and among us. He abides with us, does not leave us orphans, and therefore sends his spirit, breathes on his apostles, and fills the whole house with his spirit. And that is all meant when we sing here, the earth is full of that husband love, that absolute faithful love, that Christ as the bridegroom has for the church as his bride, and naturally for every individual soul.

[09:11]

So you see right in the opening verse of this Mass that deep personal background which animates the worship of the Church and which forms our own interior life as Christians. To be a Christian is a matter of the heart. That is, as you know very well today, the great danger that people will flee from the heart into the affairs, into the causes. Just the other day I read a beautiful word of Gregory the Great, Oh, how do I long to Return to the heart from the causes, from the affairs.

[10:14]

Return from the affairs to the heart. We are all in the danger to be eaten up by affairs. We occupy ourselves with causes, good causes for that matter. They're all good causes. The good cause of social conditions. The good causes of making a living. the good causes of helping other people, the good causes of defending or spreading the truth, the good causes of educating the younger generation, teaching, all that are good causes, good causes, but they are causes. And therefore, if we are eaten up by the causes, we are still in the danger that we lose our heart. Therefore, St. Gregory, who, as a monk in the solitude of his monastery, had that, one would say, privilege and experience the beauty of being able to live for the heart.

[11:31]

And then, as a pope, was thrown into the affairs He who has experienced that dilemma then cries out in longing, how I long after the affairs to return to the heart. So the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord, of that love from person to person between husband and wife. in which man will leave his father's house and will cling to his wife. There is a great mystery, says St. Paul, but in Christ, it means he is the man, the Son of God, who has left his father's house to cling to his wife in the Incarnation.

[12:34]

And therefore it's also absolutely right to apply this word here. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Hallelujah. To apply it, first of all, to Christ himself in his divine and his human nature. There in the unity of one person, in the unity, I repeat, of one person, the divine and the human nature are united and through his resurrection his human nature is completely filled with the fullness of the divine spirit so that every kind of dualism or division between the two I mean between the spiritual and the material and between the invisible and the visible is the surpassed transcendent in the risen savior in what we call the curious in him his human nature is now completely

[14:02]

Filled with all the fullness of God, with what St. John calls in his gospel the plenitude of grace. And then he continues, and from that plenitude we all have received gift after gift. so that there is the source and the head. There is where heaven and earth are completely reconciled in the transfigured humanity of Christ. That is first of all the earth which is full of the goodness of the curious. But then this fullness That is, as St. Thomas explains it, this plenitudo gratia, which is in the human nature of the glorified Christ. That is then what we call theologically gratia capitis.

[15:10]

Gratia capitis. That means that is the grace of the head. The head is the source of life for the body. Therefore, from there, from this glorified humanity of Christ, we receive grace after grace. From there, we receive the divine life descends upon the church. First of all, through the sacraments. The sacraments are as St. Thomas says, the instrumentum separatum of the divine life, of salvation. The glorified humanity of Christ, that is the instrumentum conjunctum, that is the tool which is united to the first cause, that means to the divine nature in person of Christ.

[16:12]

And then the sacraments are the instrumenta separata. As I, my hand is instrumental coniugtum. That is the instrument which is joined organically to the first corpse. Then I take a stone and I throw that stone in order to hit some... What I am aiming, that stone flying away out of my hand, that is the instrumental separatum. And that is the way in which St. Thomas conceives the relation between the glorified humanity of Christ and the sacraments. The important thing is that the glorified humanity of Christ, this instrumentum conjunctum, there is for us the source of life, the source of the spirit.

[17:19]

As out of the open side of Christ, blood and water pour forth and are received by the church. and then by the church are handed elsewhere to the faithful. That is the sacramental life of the church then. It is an instrumental separatism. But all that, you know, through that the earth is full of the chesed of the love of the Lord. You see, all the sacraments, they all have the one purpose too, infuse into our hearts the fullness of that chesed love that bridegroom love that bridal love that is therefore the essence of our christian existence life and that makes the liberty of the from the law see the law

[18:25]

moves on the level of justice, attributive justice. But love, for that matter, lives on the level of not tooth for tooth or eye for eye, but absolute fullness. Why are your hearts crooked when I am good? And the Lord says that when he gives that dollar to those who have not worked at all or nearly not. They came last into the vineyard. And he gives them what they had never hoped for. And that is goodness. That's the essence. And of this goodness of the Lord, the earth is full. That's the essence of Christianity. That makes our freedom from the law. by the word of the Lord where the heavens may now that is the see that's the above the heavens the earth is the below and this below is fooled by the chesed because man will leave father and mother and will cling to his

[19:46]

And the Son of God did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but he descended, emptied himself, and became obedient unto death, the death of the cross. But by the word of the Lord, where the heavens may, that is the creation above, that are the Angelic powers, that's what we call the thrones and the dominations. Thrones and dominations, isn't that what we sing in the power sphere? Thrones and powers and dominations. See, then are the heavens, then are the things above, and they are made by the word of the Lord. That means they, those who have them, fullness of being, of spiritual being, the powers in comparison to whom we are little earth worms, you know, crawling in the ground in the darkness.

[20:54]

For them, what is the decisive thing? Obedience. By the word of the Lord, the heavens are made. That is the obedience. There is the obedience, which is really the consent there of these powerful and most splendid of God's creatures, his immediate court, as it were, the unfolding of his divine majesty and perfection. that they see the Word of God, the Son of God, taking flesh, descending to man, and to see that and to rejoice. That's their trouble. So then in the colic, for God, by the humility of thy Son, has raised up a fallen world.

[21:58]

in fili tui humilitate jacente mundum irexisti that is the humility of the sun that we know is humus means earth and the Lord's humility is his becoming man his taking on earth the earth of our human existence the dust who by the humility of thy sun has raised up a fallen world. So this humility of Christ is therefore not simply self-abasement only. because that is that caused the distortion that for example that say modern philosophers or somebody like Nietzsche of the of humility that humility is self-abasement means to

[23:05]

to become conscious and be always conscious of your inferiority. But that is not the true meaning of humility. Humility is Christian. Humility flows really out of the love that seeketh not her own and that therefore descends descends to those and to that what is below, but for what purpose? To raise it. Humility, our Lord's incarnation, his humility really is completed in his dying for us, but then his death for us is his glorification and our glorification. So that Therefore, the humility of the Lord really is the preparation for glorification, but for true glorification, a glorification in truth, a glorification which does not exclude worship, but which is worship, glorification of

[24:30]

So by the humility of thy Son hast raised up a fallen world, raised up a fallen world. Grant to thy faithful people the abiding joy that those whom thou hast delivered from the perils of eternal death thou mayest cause to enjoy endless happiness. So the fruit of this descending love, which saves and which exalts, carries back into the father's bosom, finds the lamb in the valley, but then takes the lamb and carries it up to the height. That height is abiding joy. So the end of humility is not some kind of pessimism, some kind of habitual depression, anything like that, but that humility is the door to the eternal joy which we receive as those who have been exalted through the death and the resurrection of Christ.

[25:54]

and who are made to throne with Christ in heaven, as we say. Those who died with Christ, they also now have risen with him. Therefore, we think the things that are above, where Christ is enthroned at the right hand of the Father. And he has considerified it. He has made us sit down with him. at the right hand of the Father. Now then there is the epistle from Peter the Apostle, who is the shepherd of the church. Peter is the Moses, so to speak, of the New Testament. He is especially in Rome. This is the Roman Mass. This is the Mass which was celebrated at the Roman Synod of the Roman clergy.

[26:57]

Therefore, the one who speaks here is Peter, the head of the church. Dearly beloved, receive me. That is the address again. See, it is the... bonus pastor who speaks. And the priest addresses those to whom he speaks as carissimi, that means objects of God saving agape. Caritas vestra. Carissimi, Christus passus est pro nobis, vobis relinquens except. Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps so that to see the death that Christ died for us is not, as I said before, simply and only the adjustment of a bill.

[28:08]

the paying of a bill, of a debt, a druidical event. No, the beauty of it is that in Christianity, the legal aspect, let us say, of sin, that means guilt and having offended God, that this legal aspect is not denied, justice is not denied, but is fulfilled so that the price which is paid to God, so to speak, is at the same time a new and divine life for those who are redeemed, redempti. So that the very word redeemed and redempti does not mean only people who have been paid for but that this redeeming this redemption being people that are reborn reborn by the very life that Christ has paid for them so that this death is a life giving death that should be always kept in mind against all those who

[29:29]

to make this futile attempt to consider the cross as an expression of, let's say, divine cruelty. That means as the result of a very inferior and very crude aspect or idea of God. Often one sees that, especially also in Jewish sources, you know, in explaining the Old Testament, the Paschal Lamb idea and things like that, that beset in that connection, you see, how impossible it is that God would want to send His own Son into death, like that, so to have His thirst for revenge, by that quench in the blood of his son, this kind of warlock ideas, nonsense.

[30:31]

The beauty of our Christian idea is just this, this is a life-giving death, the price which is paid and which in that way preserves really the majesty of God's justice. is, at the same time, a gift to those who are the indebted ones. So therefore, he says, dearly God, Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example. That means what he did is life. That's the form of life in which you now live. But how does Christ leave us this example? That's very important too, always to realize that. You must interpret Holy Scripture and the New Testament always, first of all, in the, one can say, sacramental terms, not immediately or exclusively in moral terms.

[31:39]

Because if somebody reads this and says, and here's that carissimi, dearly beloved, Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example. And then people get jittery, you see. He suffered for us, leaving you an example. So the next thing he will ask us is to suffer for someone. And then, in that way, shrinking away from that and realizing that one shrinks away from that, one says, oh my, this is worse than the Old Testament ever has been. But those things, in Thomas Merton's mind, when he wrote about this, that the cross looks not as liberation from the law, but as making it heavier and more difficult. the cross because that's obedience unto death that's absolute obedience blind obedience so to speak leaving you an example but how is that example and there you must always make that difference not an external example when I say an internal example what is our imitation of Christ

[33:03]

Our imitation of Christ as Christians is not possible without the sacraments. The sacrament is the first and basic imitation of Christ. Where do we first of all follow Christ's example? Assisting at the holy sacrifice of the Mass, participating in the sacrifice, being gathered together around the altar, and there giving our little thing as our token and then receiving Him, receiving Christ who died for us and rose for us and in Holy Communion gives us the medicine of immortality and that in that power That power that we receive there, that out of that participation of that sacramental imitation of Christ, then also follows that moral imitation.

[34:08]

But always, you see, the Christian idea is not a law, which is simply a letter. And therefore you have to do it. If you don't die, you shall die. That's not the Christian And the Christian idea is not, as some other people, let us say, liberal Protestant think, that Christ is a very good man, the ideal man, and that he lived, that we may take an example of him. It means a moral example, a moral relation. There is this ideal man, Now we have to live up to him. In both cases, if the law is an empty letter or if it is an equally empty example,

[35:10]

We are always thrown back on ourselves in our own impotence. That is just what Christianity Christ wants to avoid by dying for us and rising for us. Breathing into us then His Holy Spirit. He enables us through this power, this internal power, to follow His footsteps, but then enjoy in that generosity, in that joy, in that freedom, which only the Holy Spirit can give us. So the law is in the New Testament replaced by the Spirit of the risen Savior. Leaving you an example that you should follow His steps who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, nor were he reviled.

[36:19]

Did not revile. When he suffered, he threatened not, but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly. What is described there? What is described is the liberty of Christ, the absolute liberty of Christ. What is the essence of liberty? Superiority. The superiority of the Spirit. Fullness of the Spirit. That's the essence of liberty. In that fullness of the Spirit, Christ, the Son of God made man, simply did not enter into that Circulus viciosus, that vicious circle of give and take, that is the essence of the law. Anybody who is involved in that vicious circle of giving and taking, so to speak, and of answering or paying back in the same, how would I say, call,

[37:27]

paying back in the same coin. There he is. That's the law. He's lost. He has no liberty. It's so important in community life. As soon as anybody trying to live Christian community life, you know, gets on that line of, this man has hurt me. I shall not forget him. I shall come back on him. The opportunity offers itself. You feel it, isn't it? Prison. You are in a vicious circle. You turn around like the godless in a circle. And therefore, there is you. You are subject. You are fitted. Subject to the law. But here, Christ did not sin. Neither was guile found in his mouth. But when he was revived, did not revive. When he suffered, he threatened. but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly, who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice, by whose stripes you were healed.

[38:46]

That means in his wounds we were healed. So therefore those who live through this Christ, who died for our sins, in that absolute divine liberty and generosity, who accepts that, He Himself also forgives those who trespass against them. There is no other way out. But we can do it, and that's the important thing. and what the Church through her sacraments wants to teach us. Don't think if you, for example, if you are confronted with the commandments, so to speak, of the Sermon on the Mount, don't think, you see, that here you are in front of these commandments, kind of thrown back on your own resources. If you were, you couldn't do it. Or you would say that are the dreams of an oriental idealist.

[39:53]

And I, as a practical occidental, just don't believe it. That's not the case. Therefore, the church is not a police institution. The people and people in line, but the church is called the mystical body of Christ. Why? Because the church lives not through any human life of those who belong to it. They live through the head, you know, the gratia capitis. So that descends into the church. That's what the church gives. She lifts up the chalice to the right side, open side of the Savior, and there she receives the water and the blood. And that is what she gives the faithful to drink. And then, filled with that grace, misericordia, with that chesed,

[40:55]

then we are able to eat a misarrest, to go up. Caritas Christi urges us, presses us. That is the idea. But you see that right away. We cannot, in a way, never accomplish to say the imitatio Christi, in the sense in which we are asked to do it here, cannot accomplish that if we abstract from the sacraments of the Church, from the Mass that we celebrate every morning. Our imitation of Christ cannot be anything else but the constant remembering of the Mass. and the channeling of the graces which we receive from that chalice, from that body that we receive. The channeling of that grace into the various practical situations that we meet.

[42:01]

But that must then be done in confidence, in real confidence. a confidence in which we see before us Christ in his glory, Christ the conqueror, not ourselves in our weakness. You were as sheep going astray. Sheep are, as one knows, that kind of animal that has the least feeling or sense of orientation. I think those are our cows, actually. And one finds them at eight o'clock somewhere on the road here. They look so astray. But you are now converted to the shepherd and the bishop of your souls. Shepherd is the leader, bishop the episcopus, one who knows, understands.

[43:04]

It's leadership through understanding. And that is, of course, then the beauty of the gospel. Hallelujah. The disciples knew the Lord Jesus in the breaking of the bread. What is that? Knowing the Lord Jesus. You must always think Holy Scripture does never speak in that context of a theoretical knowledge. It's not know your faith, as we say today, you know, to a Catholic, well-instructed Catholic, well-instructed Catholic, know your faith. Not that theoretical knowledge. That is that knowledge which means intimate personal contact. which means, therefore, and which includes the vital relation between the vine and the branches. That's the way in which that knowledge is described, the relation between the vine and the branches.

[44:11]

Therefore, this knowledge here, again, is not what we call immoral or psychological or intellectual thing. It is what we say an ontological thing. The disciples knew the Lord Jesus in the breaking of the bread. That means when he broke it, gave it to them, they took it to eat it. That's their knowing the Lord. Holy communion is our knowing the Lord. That is the reason why we say in the communion versicle tomorrow, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep. and mine know me what does he mean when he says I know my sheep that includes all this that the son of man emptied himself and became one of us became man was obedient unto death that is all knowing my sheep and

[45:19]

Giving himself, breaking the bread, saying, this is my body, this is my blood, take it, eat it. You see, in this way, that is what the Lord calls his knowing his sheep. That means giving himself to them. That's his knowing. not looking there and say examining you know this what we sometimes think today if the lord we hear this the lord knows then especially when mother and father you know in younger years and so new can never hide from the eyes of god you know something like that he knows you know always that kind of thing, you see, that knows, you know, with the magnifying glass, or with the microscope. And then, you see, it's not that, you know. It's not that. That's not the knowing. The knowing is really becoming man, so to speak.

[46:20]

That is knowing man, becoming man. The Lord, the Word, make flesh. I know my sheep. And mine know me. Now what is there? That is then receiving him in Holy Communion. That is our knowing him. So we knew him, the Lord Jesus, in the breaking of the bread. What a one. I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and mine know me. There is the ovatory, and that maybe is also a, could be a good object of our meditation, that ovatory. Deus, Deus meus, ate de luce vigilo. O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day.

[47:21]

And in thy name I will lift up my hands. Alleluia. Now that word can have many applications, naturally. But at the oratory, where we come to the altar to bring our gifts, it seems to me that there one should maybe be very exact and see in the, let us say, go a little slow. I have the feeling if one simply reads this, deus, deus meus, ate de luce vigio, O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day. If one just reads that down like that, does one really get the meaning First of all, God. That is Elohim here. It's not Jah. It's Elohim.

[48:23]

That means here the creator of heaven and earth. The creator of heaven and earth. The Pantocrator. The all ruler. Oh God. But you know, my God. See? That means the God of the universe. The creator of heaven and earth. He is my God. In the Hebrew text of the psalm, that is clearly expressed. There it says, O God, that means creator of Elohim, you are my God. You are my God. O God, you are my God. That is what I said before, you see, that every, that Christian worship as such is always so deeply and absolutely personal.

[49:28]

Oh God, creator of heaven and earth, you are my God. How do I know that you are my God? Because the world was made flesh. That's why I know that the creator of heaven and earth, in whom all things were made, he became my brother. And therefore I say, oh God, you are my God. To thee do I watch at break of day. What do for you I'm looking? In the twilight, at the beginning of the first dawn, the break of day, when the night is not yet gone, the day is not yet at hand, and only dimly rise the various objects before my eyes, without my being able already really to know. A wonderful expression for faith. But for faith errs our as the opening of the poverty of our nature, that opening of our blindness, as it were, to receive the light that comes.

[50:43]

And in thy name I will lift up my hands. That lifting up my hands again, according to the Hebrew text, is that lifting up of hands who are ready to receive. That is the meaning of that gesture, ready to receive. And in thy name I will lift up, one could without any distortion of the text, but interpreting the true meaning, one could say, and in thy name I will lift up my empty hands. in thy name I will lift up my empty hands and that certainly is beautiful to say that and to sing that of the church at the moment you know where the offertory procession the procession with our gifts is in motion so And that is again so significant that in all this beauty and richness of the Easter season, misericordia Domini, plena ester, the earth is full with that husband love of God.

[52:01]

And still we know it's all grace and therefore sine prezio comparamus, without a price we buy. and that is our faith and the faith is the longing of the poor of the spirit for the good shepherd who will take them and lead them into the path

[52:25]

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