I hope that the Trinity icon meditation today was helpful for you. And I just gave it as something to spur you on to look for your own ways of prayer that work for you. St. Paul says, Jesus is the icon of the invisible God. And once you understand icons, that's a very meaningful phrase because an icon makes present the mystery it's representing. I think that the purpose of a monastic retreat is to stir the coals of our commitment. William of St. Thierry uses that image in the beginning of his little book, The Nature and Dignity of Love. Occasionally we have to stir the coals and arouse the fire. And so that I think this retreat, I had hoped it would help you increase your commitment and your enthusiasm and your practice.

[01:00]

St. Benedict says that the Holy Rule is a little rule for beginners. And I told that to our older French sister one time. And she says, ah yes, but the Holy Rule, she has one big yoga. One big yoga. You know, yoga comes from Yush in Sanskrit, which means a yoke, you know, something you take on and it's for pulling a load. So the holy rule, it's one big yoga. I gave a workshop for a formation group in Albany one time and it was about a five-day workshop. And there were maybe five or six different communities sending young people, postulants, novices, juniors for this workshop. And after about four days, I said to them, any questions? And one little daughter of charity raised her hand and said, what's the one thing you would say to us for four days? And I thought, my God, she's a Zen master.

[02:02]

But it's interesting what came out of me. I said, well, the one thing I would say to you is develop spiritual intensity. Develop spiritual intensity. Make that commitment and that passion you have for the seeking of God just to Mount and Intensify. Some of you may have read in the past Mystical Passion by William, what's his name, Backemeyer. It's a fine book, I think, you know, about that we have to have an intensity of desire in us that could mount and intensify and increase. But with the everyday stress and load that we have, those coals can get, embers can just get cool and covered over. So that's what a retreat should help us to do. I remember hearing a meditation that Fr. Bruno Barnhart gave one time, and I'm recalling it from memory, so I may not have it completely all together, but he said in Eastern Churches, the central image on the Econostasis is Christ, and on one side is Mary, and on the other side is John the Baptist.

[03:17]

And he said it reflects the two parts of our spiritual life, Mary representing the contemplative, the open heart, the holding in her heart, the pondering of all things in her heart, the receptive, the receptive. On the other side, John the Baptist represents the prophetic, the ascetic archetype. direct pointing, you know, he must increase, I must decrease. There's a wonderful statue of St. John the Baptist at Collegeville, which some of you may have seen, where it's a Doris Caesar carving of St. John the Baptist, and he's just holding one figure out, and it's a very, very lean, ascetic figure. Garrett Gavigny has a wonderful homily on John the Baptist, and I didn't bring it along, but it goes, you know, from Matthew 11. I wanted to go out in the desert to see a reed shaking in the wind, you know, that John is no, you know, just wishy-washy figure, you know, he's just this iron and steel, intense dedication.

[04:27]

And so those are the two aspects of our vocation. you know, to be, I wouldn't say passive, but to be receptive, and then to be intensely dedicated and troning. Last evening, I sort of skimped over the question of contemplation, and I'd just like to comment on it a little bit more. For Benedictines, I think the listening heart, the levishumaya, that's Benedictine contemplation, you know, cultivating the listening heart. It was Esther de Waal who in her book, Seeking God, helped us recover that sense of the listening heart as the key to our life. So it's not a method. It's not a laying out of steps or anything like that. I sometimes kiddingly say that Benedictines are allergic to method. We're not known for being very instrumental in our spirituality of laying out points and things like that.

[05:29]

That comes in. high medieval and later spirituality. We're not good on the instrumental level, but we teach a way of life. We teach a way of life that's solidly rooted in mainline Christian spirituality, scripture, liturgy. Contemplation for us as Benedictines is what I would call, to use a scholastic term, a habitus. It's a continual incarnation that we have always with us, something different from habit. It's deeper and more permeating, a habitus. The contemplation contemplative lifestyle is always with us. I think it's a little bit similar to the question of discernment, you know. We usually think of, well, the Ignatian tradition teaches discernment and lays out steps and a method and so forth. Some people think Ignatius invented discernment, but it goes way back in the Paul.

[06:31]

And the article in the French Dictionary of Spirituality about discernment is huge. I mean, it runs on for 50, 60 pages, a very small print. But Benedictine, I was asked one time when I was teaching a course with a Jesuit if I would talk about Benedictine discernment compared to Ignatian discernment. And I only had a week to prepare it. But what I came to is that What Ignatius added was the rules of discernment, which he distilled from the tradition, whereas Benedictine and monastic discernment is just this habitus, just this inclination, and more of a tradition of discretio, discretion, weighing things, but not so much of a method. I'd like to comment on chapter 72 of the Holy Rule, on the good zeal which monks ought to have.

[07:34]

When I was a young Benedictine, I heard about a novice at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, who was the table reader, and when he was reading the section on the rule for the day, he read, on the good zeal which monks ought to have. Emphasis on ought. I think that zeal is about fire. It's about intensity. It's about enthusiasm. And behind all of that is the energy of the Holy Spirit. Zeal is fire, intensity, enthusiasm, commitment, dedication. And scholars say that chapter 72, perhaps, they think, was intended by Benedict to be the last chapter of the rule, and that 73 was added later. Mary Forman says that chapter 72, on the good seal that monks ought to have, is Benedict's hymn to love, which is an interesting way to look at it.

[08:40]

She gave a course at Collegeville two summers or three summers ago in the summer program in monastic studies, just on Chapter 72, and it was titled, Benedict's Hand to Love. Chapter 72 says that we must practice with most fervent love, depending on the translation you're looking at. And interestingly, that came up in the New Engine, I think, today. And here are the elements of the fervent love that Benedict challenges us to do. First, to anticipate one another in love. That whole element of reverence that I talked about the other day, which in my list of Benedictine elements of spirituality, I put reverence first. Okay, it's so fundamental. And I think it's the liturgical spirit that teaches us reverence. So to anticipate one another in love.

[09:42]

Second, to endure one another's infirmities, whether of body or soul or character. I spent a long time when I was doing my dissertation studying the sayings of the Desert Fathers. And what most struck me in the teaching of the Desert Fathers, to me the central teaching was non-judgment, not to judge others. It just is all over. There's this wonderful story about some mob who had committed a sin or whatever, some sort of scandal. And the Abba hears about it and hears that the whole community was criticizing him and takes a bucket of sand and puts holes in it and walks in front of the community and says, this is what your Bassup is doing. It's destructive. It's going all over. Third, mutual obedience. Really listening to the other. Obedience means to listen intently.

[10:44]

Obadiri. And the mutual obedience. Fourth, the phrase which is very beautiful, to tender the charity of brotherhood chastely. Tender the charity of brotherhood chastely. Fifth, to love their abbot with sincere and humble charity. Sixth, to prefer nothing whatever to Christ, one of the Benedictine mottoes. Sort of puts it all together. And seventh, may he bring us all together to life everlasting. Honestly, when the tribes go up to Jerusalem, I'm going with the Benedictine tribe, and if there's Franciscans in the class, I say to them, they'll go up as a madcap group, and we'll go up in procession. They won't have any organization, and there'll be clowns and ranky beggars and so forth.

[11:47]

The Benedictines will go chanting in procession. Chapter 73 of the Holy Ruling, you know, Placidus A., in the article I talked about in the American Benedictine Review, when he talks about the little coda at the end of Chapter 7 on humility, he says the little coda points to Chapter 73, that the full observance of holiness is not established here. That's the chapter in which Benedict refers to the goal as a little rule for beginners and encourages people to go on. It's not very explicit about that. Again, it's not where there's anything really instrumental, except he gives a sort of bibliography. Read the Fathers and Basil and so forth. And I think that's important because classically monks have been readers. They say that the three most important rooms in the monastery are the chapel, the kitchen, and the library. They're all about nourishment. They're all about nourishment, body, mind, soul.

[12:49]

Chapel nourishes soul. The refectory nourishes body, and a library nourishes our mind, okay? And quite a little saying about a medieval commentator, he's not very well known, in the 12th century when monastic and scholastic theology were beginning to have attention with each other. And he was trying to explain to somebody the difference between monks and the new kind of theology, and he says, well, the monks pray and read. They pray and read, two things. The scholastics simply read. They don't pray. It wasn't a very kind comment. And I was at a conference one time with some theologians. I said, nowadays, they neither pray nor read. They just go to conferences. Maybe that's not very kind either. All right.

[13:50]

I want to underscore that Benedictine monastic life draws us to two wells. to wisdom and love. And that's pointed to in chapter 73, the last chapter of the Holy Will. This little rule for beginners, at last we'll reach the summits of wisdom and virtue. Now it doesn't say love, but Placide Desai sort of pulls that question of virtue apart. And he said, virtue, and I think he's probably reading a Greek translation of the rule, is dynamis, which means power, and virtue means power. And he says, the dynamis, the dynamis, the real dynamis is love. Love is the energy. So you could read that as the two wells being wisdom and love. Keep those two wells in mind, because I'm going to conclude with it tomorrow. I think that's important because, you know, the Buddhists say that enlightenment is wisdom and love, particularly the Tibetans talked about wisdom and love, and the transformation, enlightenment process, as they called it, the inner marriage of wisdom and love.

[15:07]

I'm going to talk about that in the conclusion tomorrow. So Placide Desai says that the little coda at the end of chapter 7 points to the prologue as we run away of the commandments our hearts expand with unstealable love and to chapter 73 of growing into deep wisdom and deep love. Tomorrow's conference I'm going to talk about the monk in the world, or monasticism in the world, and how the Holy Spirit fits into all of that. And I'd also like to have some discussion tomorrow, so I encourage you to think over tonight some possible discussion questions, reflections that you may have. I didn't get a bibliography together for you, but I'd like to eventually send you a bibliography. I don't know how soon I'll be able to get to it, but sometime within the next month or so, maybe I'll get to it.

[16:09]

And finally, I'd like to end with a poem by a sister from the College of St. Catherine, where I went to school. About the energy of the Holy Spirit and the freedom, you know, I said that 2 Corinthians 3.18 is sort of the key passage in the New Testament for me about transformation. Now, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with unveiled faces, are transformed from glory to glory. This poem is titled, When the Spirit Next. When the spirit next embrace me, catch me, bones and all, in her wild wing, I'll ride out bolder, older, in her half-mask, her universal love of love, her pinpoint stars, how free, how utter dark, her wheeling, light, how nearly laughing, unashamed. a little bit like E.E. Cummings, you know. But it's that freeing energy of the Spirit and the energy that nudges us forward.

[17:14]

One of the prayers we had at liturgy this evening, you know, about, you know, the concern about the world and where the world's moving, and that's what we're going to talk about tomorrow morning. When the Spirit next embraced me, catch me, bones and all, in her wild wing, I'll write out, bolder, bolder, in her how vast universe of love, her pinpoint stars, how free, how utter dark, her reeling light, how nearly laughing, unashamed. So we'll have the last conference tomorrow and have some discussion after it.

[17:53]

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