and about prayer, maybe, in some way, because I think the psalms, you know, are important for us because they are really a deep inner union of life and prayer. get older you realize how life of man is kind of suspended between heaven and earth. With our feet we stand on the ground and with our head we are up there, somewhere. And I think that's very important that the One used to express that, we express it too, you know, standing up and kind of holding up our hands, you know, in the form of a cross, that means that our entire life becomes prayer. One of the decisive words of the Psalter is, the Hebrew Psalter is, I am prayer.

[01:06]

I am prayer. And that's the keynote, I would say, to the whole Sota. I am a prayer. That means my entire life, in that way, is I pray my life when I pray. In some way, prayer is an act in which the entire life of man is condensed, you know, concentrated, and at the same time brought into fulfillment. because if you get you know if you consider your life it's everywhere in every direction it it goes beyond itself so strange for man but if you take for example you take joy take a day like this and you really enter into the moment then you realize that joy in man is something that gets beyond all limits.

[02:10]

As every moment has a depth which is without limits. For us eternity is not something that we expect, you know, for after this life is over, you know, in another life. What is the name for that? Jenseits. The other life or the afterlife? That's the thing, afterlife. Not for afterlife, but it's for now, at this moment. That was, shall we say, the great discovery of something like Saint Teresa of Lisieux, you know. Now, at this moment, to love with all my heart. in the love that Christ at this moment has for me, which is infinite. That is, that shows, you know, how much our life is tending and reaching out, as St.

[03:18]

Paul says, into a depth which is just unfathomable for us. That's the same, for example, in pain and sorrow. Man is at times so overwhelmed by pain and sorrow that again a kind of infinity is opening up before him. And then how can he, let us say, how can he I wouldn't say dominate this infinity, but how can he make this infinity his own? Only through prayer. And therefore one of the most important aspects of the Psalter is lamentation. Lamentation. Lamentation is something which the Anglo-Saxon world doesn't like too much.

[04:21]

But the Mediterranean world is full of it, you know, full of it. Lamentation, really cry out your heart, you know. In our well-tempered piano of life, you know, we, you don't go too much for these extremes of emotion. But they are there, you know, and they are, they are really humans. So in one way we have an abundance of joy, at the same time we have an abyss of sorrow. And in those two moments, those extreme moments, we feel, we just cannot help but react and plumb the depth of the moment through prayer. Where is the plumbing, the depth of the moment?

[05:24]

Now that all is very evident in the Psalms. So I thought today we might just take Psalm 3. It's a Psalm that I worked on a little during these days. Did you take, do you have a book there? I just read, you know, my Let us read the whole thing. How many are my foes, O Lord? How many are rising up against me? How many are saying about me, there is no help for him in God? But you, Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, you lift up my head. I cry aloud to the Lord, he answers from his holy mouth. I lie down to rest and I sleep. I wait for the Lord upholds me. I will not fear even thousands of people who are arranged on every side against me.

[06:27]

Arise, Lord, save me, my God. You will strike all my foes on the mouth. You will break the teeth of the wicked. O Lord of salvation, bless your people." Now you see right away the psalm starts with one can say with the lamentation and what kind of lamentation is it what would you say what what makes the psalmist at this moment and we what makes what what what ails him so to speak how many are my foes oh lord how many are rising up against me How many are saying about me, there is no help for him in God. What is he facing at that moment? Hmm?

[07:29]

Yes, but in which form? I mean, what is here the, what would you call, what is the the mood, what is the difficulty that he meets? Public opinion, how many? Yes. So it's the many, you know, that is true. It's the many. The many are the anonymous mass of people, you know. I would say what he faces here is the problem of alienation, you know. It's alienation. It's all the thing that you know from your own experience, you know. You get, for example, or you came, you know, if you get here into a place like this, there's always this feeling of alienation, you know, see. You feel in a certain way foreign, you know, or strangers.

[08:34]

You have this, this, at least I felt that very much when I came to to the monastery at first, you know, you meet a group of people who are kind of closely knitted together in some way. You feel that you don't belong, you know, that you are out of it. I looked at all these holy faces and I thought, oh my God, I really don't fit into this at all. And that is simply, that is a thing which comes over us, you know, so often. That we are thrown back upon ourselves. That we are kind of surrounded by anonymity. Strangeness surrounds us. Alienation, we call it. And of course, we suffer from it. It's always this, in Holy Scripture, that difference between the many and the one.

[09:36]

The many and the one. The many is the anonymous crowd. And you can never rely on this many. Because there is no specific direction there. The crowd is always apt to fall, to be under, for the There's victims under the spell of some agitators, you know, all this kind of element. There's power involved, you know, there's uniformity involved, all these things that frighten us, you know. And they are simply the opposite to what we call our home. The house, the home, then we have our root. where we feel understood, where we feel that we are protected, that we are living in peace, in a surrounding that is understanding, simpatico, sympathetic.

[10:56]

The mass of people is the opposite. The mass society is the big alienating factor in our lives today, one of the most alienating factors. Mass either has no real form by itself, no direction, it's unpredictable in reaction, it's subject to oppression, you know, the oppressors, the agitators, And it is always somehow completely skeptical. The mass in that way has no, let us say, faith in that way. It's not confronted with the One, with the Divine Thou. That's the reason, I think, in the root of all alienation, that man loses to see the I, my deeper self, can only develop

[11:59]

as long as I'm in contact and confronted with a Tao. Martin Buer has always explained and developed this thought so beautifully, of course on his foundation of the Jewish faith, because what is faith? Now in the center of the Old Testament, the same in the New Testament, faith is an encounter I meet I, myself. I meet the Thou. What can be, what only can be, is Thou to us. If you think about it. Never a he. Never an it. Only Thou is the real little thing, counterpart to my deeper self.

[13:01]

Why? Because when we say Thou, we enter our belief, it, fear, you know, and we enter the fear of the person, the living person. And this what makes the encounter between me, myself, and the other person, a real encounter between I and Thou, is love. And I would say it's always a love, and after that love, which does not seek your own. That means the specifically Christian love of Christ, who is the love, that means the man for other men. The man for other men. That's Christ. The essence of Christ. the Word, the Thou, the Divine Thou, that became flesh.

[14:04]

He is our Thou, you know. He is the mirror in which we find our own self. Why? Because we know He loves us unto the end. That means He accepts us as we are. He doesn't come before us and He demands But he needs us by dying for us. That's quite a difference. Any kind of a philosopher or ideal, let us say, Christian ethics man, you know, and so on, can come and can show his wonderful example of a composed and mature personality, and in that way be a kind of an example. But he's not yet in any company. The encounter is only then when the great man smiles at me. Then the encounter begins.

[15:06]

As long as you just can't, you know, with this very serious and solemn face, no encounter. When he stops smiling, yeah, then it begins. So therefore the vow becomes vow because the other one and in so far as the other one we meet takes the initiative to love and is not waiting for us to love him. You know if you meet other people you can always see that. They are those who are kind of ensconced in their position, and they wait until you show a sign of love, or something, or admiration, or mutual admiration sometimes. But that's not yet an encounter between I and thou.

[16:09]

Do you understand what I mean? And therefore, as soon as the other one wakes up, you can... This little Luke, is he still here? You know, the... Luke Medhurst, you know, the... Now, there you find you have a boy who was the victim of a terrible car accident. Was nearly killed. And mentally, you know, very much, I mean, disturbed and so on. And, uh... And if you meet him, you see, if you meet him with any kind of a son of it, there's just a barrier there, see? It's no approach. No approach. If you approach the other one with suspicion, then the other one is not a thou. He's an it or a he. But he doesn't have this inner person contact.

[17:12]

This is just what Christianity means, you know, that God, who never have, nobody has ever seen God. But he has sent his Son, and Christ, the Word made flesh, is the face of God. He is the face of God. And his face is not the face of a judge, you know. It's not the face that demands perfection before I can love you. That's what is wrong with all our father complexes. The father wants the son to live up to his standards. For example, the case here with our Luke. He doesn't live up to the expectations of the father. Now with some fathers, he's just finished. That's the end of it. And then, of course, you have a real, complete alienation.

[18:15]

And that's, of course, to a great extent, that is, let us say, the tragedy of all those encounters or all these reaching out for God, you know, where God is represented as the absolute power. as, who is it, Bishop Robinson also says, God out there, somewhere. And we down here, this kind of wrongly understood transcendence, or when people think about God in philosophical terms, you know, they think absolute perfection, therefore, no motion, you see, like Aristotle, you know, the immovable mover the one who does not love me because to love me that would be would bind him to me and God cannot be bound to anything God is absolutely transcendent immovable perfection thinking of his own thinking a closed circle in other words that's what the philosophers think

[19:41]

And then they make other conclusions. They say, you cannot pray to this God, because he knows everything anyhow. He is absolute perfection. To ask him for anything is nonsense, because he is absolute perfection. And all these things, you know, build up walls. They simply make it impossible to encounter God. They are all forms, I would say, of alienation. And that's the note on which the psalm starts, you know, it's the many, you see, this element of alienation, being alone. And then you see these two things, the foe or the oppressor and the savior, they are the two opposites, you know. The oppressor is the one who narrows down, the savior is the one who gives space for freedom. That's really what it means.

[20:43]

What is salvation? Salvation in the last analysis is freedom. But the freedom that love opens up for. You see, selfless love is for me, if I am the object of this selfless love, is for me space for liberty. It opens up a new dimension of life. I live on being loved, in that way. And I'm free as soon as I feel being loved, then I reach freedom. Then I know I'm accepted and I'm understood and I become my true self and that is freedom. And that is what this psalm is all about, you know, it says the It opposes the two things. These are the oppressing, oppressive effect of power, and on the other hand the freedom, the broad open spaces of salvation.

[21:46]

The other one, how many are rising up against me, that are those who follow the lead of the oppressor. The many, the ignorant. the masses that are the victims, you know, of the one who shouts the loudest. And then there's another third category, how many are saying about me, there is no help for him in God. That are the skeptics, you know, that are the things, oh my God, don't put your trust in God and so on. And you see, God is here, is Elohim, you know, And the Hebrew language has these two, let us say, concepts of God. Elohim, which is a generic term, you know, it means many, that means divinity. It's a generic term. Jahweh is a personal term. There are not this kind of things, there are not these fruits, let us say, of the carefully cultivated process of reconnection.

[22:58]

I would say that would not be, then, a prayer which comes, let's say, wide, you know, out of the heart. But the essential thing in prayer is that it is a word, address, if you want to call it that way, and I think that's fine, prayer is an address to God. but to God under and in his right name. Prayer is essentially our addressing ourselves as I, to thee, thou. Absolutely, to understand prayer under the right name. Which is, for example, in the psalm, in the Old Testament, the name of John you know they're saying when they saw Christ on the cross he says he is a he is a physician or let him get away from let him come down from the cross says he is the son of God all right now we shall see if God saves him because he won't save him he will die on the cross there is no help for him in God you see that's the the inner negative aspect you know the

[24:29]

the hatred which is always hidden in any enmity. But then the psalmist reacts, you know, and that's our reaction. They say there is no help for him in God. And how does the psalmist come around? But you, Yahweh, Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, who lift up my head. I cry aloud to the Lord, he answers from his holy mouth." You see, there is the reaction against the alienation. First there is this element of distance, and then against this distance rises just the opposite, but you, Lord. But you, O Lord, you are a completely different world.

[25:33]

The Thou, my Thou, the Divine Thou, is a shield about me. Not only a shield on one side or the other side, but it's a shield that completely surrounds me, you know, completely surrounds me on every side. That shield, therefore, is not an instrument of war, but it is the house, you know, the home that love builds for me, see? That is the shield about me. But more than that, you know, this Lord, this Yahweh, is not only a protection, a shield, but it is my glory who lift up my head. You see, their love, you know, the divine thou, shows its real deep inner character. It is glory. Glory is in itself, when we speak about glory, what do we think, what kind of idea do we have?

[26:41]

Splendor, you know, or pomp, or circumstance, you know. That means we are tempted always again to identify in our own alienated minds glory with power. But of course here glory is not identified with power, but glory is identified with the heart. You are my glory. Why? Only one can say that if somebody loves, you know. Only on the common ground of being loved and of responding in love does the other one become my glory, in the last analysis. Therefore, when Christ died for his Father and for us, then he glorified the Father. And the Father becomes our glory in and through Christ's dying for us.

[27:43]

Who lift up my head, therefore this true coming to yourself. Take courage, fear not. Keeping down your head, that is the expression of your being a slave, of your being alienated. Lift up your head. That's a sign of confidence. You have confidence in yourself. That's why you lift up your head. What gives you this confidence? God's love for you. So I cry aloud to the Lord. You see, I cry aloud. That means not in any way restrained. Not in any way cowed. What I cry aloud means in absolute confidence, aloud to the Lord. That is also the meaning why at the cross when our Lord is described, you know, as dying, and He says He cried aloud, so His last, the last act

[28:54]

that Christ performed on the cross is crying aloud. What does that mean? It's the expression that in this moment of his death he has absolute complete liberty and confidence before and in his father. He answers from his holy mount. this crying aloud that means this what we call parrhesia you know this prayer in absolute confidence that is answered by God see that is one of our problems today and also in the in the church as an institution may the Holy Spirit give us to know that that may change but so often you know when the inferior turns to the superior, he doesn't receive any answer, in many cases. And nothing is as alienating, you see, than to turn to something and not to receive an answer.

[30:01]

That's alienation. So he answers me from his holy mouth. What does that mean? From Zion. What is Zion? Zion is the place where God is present. And the Old Testament describes us how. With his ears, eager to listen. With his eyes, eager to be present, to see. And with his heart, eager to love. That is the essence of the holy mountain of Zion. It's the presence of God's love for us. So I lie down to rest and I sleep. I wake for the Lord upholds me. See that's the, that is the, that's the one can say the heart of the whole song. I lie down to rest and I sleep, I wake for the Lord upholds me.

[31:05]

To lie down and to rest and to sleep, that is confidence in God's love for me. Faith, our faith in God's love is our rest. If you read the epistle to the Hebrews, you know, the first, second, third chapter, you see it there. What is the essence of rest? to believe in God's love for me. That gives me rest. Then I can afford to stop running. I can stop running. I don't have to buy God's love, you know. It's very important. Most people, most Christians think they have to buy somehow the love of God. That's not true. We get it, the water, you know, of the well without price, without paying for it, as it says in Isaiah. And that is so deep. And that allows me to rest and to sleep in confidence.

[32:10]

That is the meaning of the Sabbath, you know, for the Jewish people too. The Sabbath day is the day in which the Jewish people realize they're being loved. They're resting without, you know, the necessity of working, they are resting in the gifts that God prepares for them. And then this kind of rest, this kind of sleeping, that then ends in waking up. And during this time, this kind of sleep, my powers, my inner powers, my life is being restored to me. It's another word of the Psalms, you know, God gives it to those whom he loves in their sleep. That is maybe sometimes a little opposed to our temperament again, you know, see, we're always active.

[33:18]

The sweet do-nothing of the Italians, the Dolce Faniente. Any German smiles at it. That's typical. That's the Italians. We work. We work. Therefore, as soon as we come into Italy and we see a station there, what is a station? How dirty it is. People don't work here. It doesn't mean they don't wash and they don't scrub, you know, like in Holland, you know, every stone is scrubbed and fine and nice. Now we leave it to them, as long as they don't overrate it. But that's always the thing, see, that anybody who works immediately overrates himself. As soon as Martha sees Mary resting at the feet of the Lord, you know, entering into the Sabbath, and doing nothing but listening to Him and rejoicing in His love, then Martha gets all upset and says, now, please, dear Lord, I am working myself to death here, see, that we have our meal on time.

[34:28]

Why can't you tell Mary just to come a little and help? That's our way. But I awake, for the Lord upholds me. That means in my sleep, my strength is restored. Why? Not by thinking, oh my God, it's wonderful how many things have I done for God. But by realizing that while I was asleep, God did things for me. And that's the way Love does it, you know. Do you understand what I mean? And then you come, you see, this here is the key thing, because that you can right away see that this here immediately brings to mind, now what does it bring to mind? I lie down to rest and I sleep, I wake for the Lord upholds me. You know, in this new bravery that I have here in its, let us say, trial form, this psalm here is introduced by a word by Saint Irenaeus.

[35:50]

Jesus slept and woke from the sleep of death. for the Lord, Javier, his father, upheld him. So you see, it's an illusion. We can't say that here we are and, for example, you take the psalmist, the psalmist which you pray your life. The essence of our life is dying and rising. That's really the essence of life. We are dying and rising, sleeping and waking up. And that is here, that's expressed, you see, the essence of our own life, our own daily dying and rising, our falling asleep and our waking up again. That is taken into here, into Christ's sleep and resurrection on the cross. He's sleeping and he's waking up. I walk for the Lord upholds And out of this, you know, of this inner being, let us say, knit to Christ, you know, at the very heart of my whole existence.

[37:02]

Because what is existence? Existence means constantly waking up. That is ex-sister. That means I get out of nothingness and I realize that I am beyond nothing. That's existence. But I realize that by waking up in the morning. That's the reason why Saint Benedict chose this psalm for the people, to open widgets. You get up at four o'clock, you feel not in the best of moods always, you know, but then you take this, your own, let us say, half asleep and half awake, you take it into Christ, you know, and then you realize, my, this is upon my participation this morning, Christ dying and rising. So I wake, for the Lord upholds me. I will not fear even thousands of people who are ranged on every side against me."

[38:04]

These thousands of people in the Hebrew are again the many, you know. I will not fear even thousands of people who are ranged on every side against me. That means the many, the multitude, with all their hostility, their enmity. I will not fear even thousands of people. That means I've entered into the very core of my own life and I feel and I realize, you know, that death is overcome. The last victory has become mine. Death is overcome. I rise into the fullness of life. in the warmth and life-giving power of God's love for me.

[38:55]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v004
@Score_JJ