It's always very difficult to get a specific date for Bishop Griswold to be here because of his other activities, so we don't know how it happened that this particular day was the day that he was able to come. But it's the day the church celebrates the Feast of the Visitation, that day when It's that day when Mary brought our Lord to Elizabeth and to John. And Frank, in a real sense, in the many visits he's had here at Mount Savior, has always brought the Lord to us. So on this particular day, we greet him not quite as John did. That is to say, we're full of joy, but I'm going to desist from leaping because something is Something is broken in the process. But anyway, it is a great joy for us to have Frank with us, and we're especially glad that all of you have come.

[01:09]

The union of the churches is something which our Lord longs for, a greater unfortunate prayer than we do, but this is a wonderful way. or two or three are gathered together, Christ is in the midst of us, not as a person in an empty chair, but he is us. He was the human face of God, now we are the human face of the incarnation continuing. So as I say, Frank has been like Mary in that way, and so this is a perfect day because it expresses beautifully what he has meant to us over the years. I've been given very strict instructions about how to use this microphone, how I'm not to turn to the right or to the left, but to look straight ahead.

[02:13]

And if any of you have difficulty in hearing me, I'm told that there are some dead spots in the chapel. Make some obvious sign, and I'll try to adjust my voice. I, too, am aware of this being the visitation. I'm aware that Mary bore the Word, and all of us, by virtue of our being baptized into Christ, become word-bearers as well. And I'm also profoundly aware that the Word is at the core and center of the Benedictine life, so I do see, as Father Martin does, a wonderful convergence in our being here on this particular feast day. I'm going to do a number of things. I'm going to be autobiographical, but I'm also going to ruminate, to use an ancient monastic term, ruminate upon the life of Saint Benedict and the rule that he produced that's guided me over the last 37 years of visits and retreats here at Mount Savior.

[03:28]

I came first in 1964 as a priest, hardly a priest a year, at the age of 27, and became an oblate of the community in 1968. And that is a very precious relationship to me that has sustained me through the various turnings of my life that have taken me from parish to parish and then to the Diocese of Chicago. and now taken me to the office of presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church. So I'm delighted that we are together on this occasion. And let me begin by drawing from the wisdom of a contemporary monastic, Matthew Kelphy, a monk of Gethsemane. who says that the monastic life is essentially a search for reality. And the paradox is that from the outside it often seems so unreal, with its costumes, its customs, its patterns of life that seem exotic and removed from reality as we know it.

[04:42]

I've known religious communities intimately since the age of 15 when I was sent away by the boarding school chaplain for spiritual direction at the hands of an Anglican monastic in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I continue to know that community intimately through my university years, and as a priest I've given retreats and spiritual direction to religious, heard their confessions and served as Episcopal visitor to a community of women and a community of men. And as such, I've been privy to the intimate joys and struggles, the failures and the victories that have marked the lives of these men and women. I've shared the anxieties of superiors, resolved conflicts, dealt with untoward behavior. celebrated moments of grace and fidelity, and labored with my monastic brothers and sisters to discern in various contexts the shape of their future.

[05:48]

What has impressed me and strengthened me along the way through these various relationships has not been the perfection of the men and women I've shared community with, but rather their persistence. And that's the thing that I think is so important, the persistence of those who perceive themselves called to the religious life. And I say all this because it's so easy to be sort of romantic about the religious life. You find your favorite monastery, and they sing beautiful psalms, and you come and sort of bask in it all. And the human struggles and all the stresses and strains are sort of offstage, so you only see one dimension of it. And the cost of persistence doesn't really get revealed in the outward manifestations that we so often see.

[06:53]

So that's why I mention my own associations, because there's absolutely nothing romantic about my respect and affection for those who espouse the religious life. Their heroism is very real to me, not because they avoid things, but because they face things. Paul in the fifth chapter of the letter of the Romans says suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. The suffering here is the suffering that happens when we are conformed to the paschal mystery, the pattern of dying and rising, which becomes the truth of our lives by virtue of our baptism and is lived in a very deliberate way by those called to the religious life.

[07:55]

It doesn't mean a kind of masochism, but it means facing into things and being dislocated in terms of one's own inherited realities. It means being disillusioned, which is very positive because it means illusions and untruth is taken away from us. It means confronting our poverty, being cracked open, as it were, by the paschal mystery. It means Coming to terms with ourselves, our actual selves, which are the sum total of all that we have lived, including wounds and scars that we carry with us. It means embracing that actual self and being disabused of the idealized self that we so often create for ourselves to offset who we actually are. We sort of structure the person we would like to be and struggle to become that thing, but it isn't necessarily who God is calling us to be.

[09:02]

And so in embracing the actual self, who we really are in terms of the life we have led, and allowing the ideal self, which is an illusion, to be shattered and overturned, we open the way to what we might call the real self. The real self, which is the product of grace working in us, and not our own self-construction. I think here of Paul, the Apostle Paul, who clearly had a self-constructed piety. He's very clear about that in the letter to the Galatians. He talks about outstripping his contemporaries in his own religious observance. I think he was trying to offset what he later describes as the thorn. in his flesh, but no amount of self-constructed piety could deliver him from that source of shame and embarrassment, that source of being burdened and incomplete and imperfect.

[10:04]

And so after his conversion, he prays to the risen Christ, take this away from me. He prays three times, we are told, and Christ's reply is no. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And so it is as we enter into the paschal mystery, either by virtue of life we lead as baptized members of Christ's body or as monastics, which is another form of living the baptismal mystery, we have to confront our poverty. Ultimately, we have to be taken apart. We have to be turned inside out. And we discover that dying and rising, losing and finding, being poor and yet rich are the paradox that doesn't make logical sense, but it makes existential and personal sense as grace embraces us and conforms us to the pattern of Christ.

[11:10]

I've seen many a novice and a postulant start off trying to be the ideal monastic, often judgmental of the senior members of the community for their seeming laxity or, in most cases, their obvious humanity. And I've seen them maintain that posture for a while, often with great strain, until suddenly they collapse and everything falls apart. often in some very humiliating way. They have a temper fit in the middle of the refectory or throw food or do something untoward and they're embarrassed and furious with themselves for having transgressed this ideal self they've been trying to create and live. But that's really a moment of truth. It's where grace can begin the costly and excruciatingly specific work of transformation.

[12:13]

It's where reality can grasp them and just as in the icon in front of the altar, yank them by the wrist out of their old constructions into the new life of the resurrection. And resurrection is sometimes experienced in a very painful way because it's not easy or pleasant to be yanked out of our stuckness or our limitations or our idealized selves and pulled into reality. I'm struck that Benedict at the end of chapter four in the rule, the chapter that deals with the tools for good works, which is a catalog of right behaviors and attitudes that could be used to reinforce notions of an ideal monastic self. He says two things. He says, place your hope in God alone. And I think he means here, place your hope in God's love alone.

[13:16]

And even more important, he says, finally, never lose hope in God's mercy. meaning simply that as you try to live this catalog of goodness and you fail miserably, instead of descending into self-castigation, open yourself to the love of God, the compassion of God, the enlivening mercy of God. I think here of Julian of Norwich, that very wise, wise woman of the 15th century, who said, in our sight, we cannot stand in God's sight, we cannot fall. As I see it, she continues, imagine the authority of saying, as I see it, both are true, but the greater truth belongs to God. We often see ourselves only as fallen and God in God's love for us sees us as standing.

[14:18]

And so part of growing into The authentic self is to make some room for that love of God which always seeks to embrace us and raise us up. Now, let me say a word or two about how I got here in the first place. I came here in 1964 at the invitation of a Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by the name of Thomas Lawler. He knew something of my interest in the liturgical movement and monasticism, and he said to me, Mount Savior is just the place for you. I had no idea what he meant, but I accepted his invitation. And so in May of that year, I came on retreat with a group of newly ordained Roman Catholic priests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

[15:20]

I believe that Tom Lawler had picked each one of us deliberately. We were all assistants or curates in some fashion, having difficult times with senior pastors whose views of the church were clearly out of sync with reality. And we had the answers. We knew just what the church should do and what the church should become, albeit in its Anglican or Roman Catholic forms. That first retreat was an overwhelming experience. Reverend Father Damasus gave two conferences each day and I was mesmerized by the breadth and depth of his ruminations. Father Martin at that point was the guest master. And I remember one day Father Damasus reading to us from the book of Revelation.

[16:26]

And he said, now listen very carefully gentlemen, and it's Christ addressing the angel of the church at Ephesus. And probably for members of the community, this is a very familiar passage, because I'm sure he didn't simply use it with a group of newly ordained clergy. And so Christ addresses the church at Ephesus, or the angel of the church at Ephesus, and says, I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance. And we thought of ourselves, patiently enduring, idiotic pastors with limited views. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers. You have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary." And we say, yes, yes, yes. That's us. Then he paused and a slightly unholy smile played across

[17:37]

His face and he took a deep breath and he went on with the next verse. But I have this against you. You have abandoned your first love. And with that he shut the Bible and said firmly gentlemen never become technicians of the sacred. Always live the mystery deeply and personally or your priesthood will become shallow and your ministrations threadbare. Those aren't exactly his words. I don't think he would have said threadbare, but anyhow, that's the gist of it. And I was convicted, as I think all of us were, and I've never forgotten that particular moment. And I go back to it again and again and I've used the same technique both with priests when I was a diocesan bishop and with the bishops when they've gathered together. And in all instances, it's a calling us back to a deep living of the Paschal Mystery, lest we become superficial and external and products of what Father Demas has called the Eglise Machine, the mechanical church.

[18:55]

In any event, that was a life-changing experience, and I remember in addition to the wonderful contemplative liturgy and the celebration of the hours that just drew us all in and opened the Somnody and the Scripture to us in new ways. I remember one afternoon, Fr. Demas is saying, Franciscus, come, we take a walk, sort of a declaration. So we headed off across the field to the west of the chapel. In those days, clergy on retreats wore cassocks, and I was in my snappy Anglican cassock made by Whipples of London, which doesn't have buttons down the front. It's double-breasted, and people would look at it and say, what order do you belong to? At one point I said, I'm an Anglican, and I said, well, we've never heard of the Anglican fathers.

[20:01]

And I said, no. I realized that I needed to be more specific. But in any event, I was honored to be invited to take a walk. And as we set off across the field, I constructed one of those artificial questions we sometimes ask to show how much we know. I think it was something about responsories at vigils because it was to show that though I was an Anglican, I knew a thing or two. In any event, I posed my question. He stopped. He looked as though he were thinking about the question. He put his hands on my shoulders and shook his head. with, what would I say, a slight smile and a slight sadness. And he said, oh, Franciscus, you are so very, very Anglican. And I knew I'd been found out.

[21:04]

And it was a mixture of insight and affection and made him my Abba on the spot. And subsequently, I remember coming on retreats and sometimes after Kaplan, he would say, Franciscus, go into the kitchen and get a corkscrew and come to the Casa Batsiale, which of course, as most of you know, was a rebuilt chicken coop. And there we would have a glass of wine and talk. It was a very, very special time for me and a very, very special relationship. When in 1968 I made my oblation, I did so in the crypt in front of a window that depicts the life of a monk. A window which, along with the others, has come to mean more and more to me over the years. because the windows together depict the mystery of time. I visit the crypt every time that I am here and I contemplate the windows.

[22:10]

The days of the week, creation and Sabbath rest, the seasons of the year, the hours of the day, the times of prayer associated with them, and the cycle of the life of a monk. And all of us, not simply of a monk, but of all of us who are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, the Paschal mystery depicted in the fourth window. And as I look at these windows and situate myself in these various dimensions of time, David's prayer comes to mind, the prayer he prayed after bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. Who am I? O Lord God, that you have brought me as far as this, yet in your sight this is still not far enough. A kind of looking back, a taking stock,

[23:11]

a realization that this is a resting place from which I go forth to a new season, a new sequence of days, seasons, hours of the day, a new dimension of living the paschal mystery. And so I find myself again and again reflecting on the Benedictine vow of stability. of place, the importance of place. And though it means something different, obviously, to the members of the community who live here, the very fact that when I come back they're here means a tremendous amount. And the very fact that the place is here in a familiar way, making it possible for me to sort of reground myself and look backwards and forwards is very, very important. And I realize more and more how much I can sort of appropriate what's going on in my life by virtue of the stability of a place I know and can return to.

[24:21]

And there reluctantly acknowledge that the name of the game is to be crucified with Christ so that it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. and that kicking and screaming and resisting all the way, it's possible that Christ is being formed in me and that I'm being conformed to the image of God's Son, as I hope is true of us all. And as I look at all this, I think it's a lifelong process of, to use the first word in the rule of Saint Benedict, it's a lifelong process of obsculta, of listening. Listening and being present, not simply to scripture or to sacrament, but listening and being present to the events of our lives. Because the events of our lives are in their own way words by which God addresses us. And over the years, three sentences have helped me listen.

[25:23]

The first is from Teilhard de Chardin. By means of all created things without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. I try to remember that when dreary things happen or hideous emails are brought by breathless secretaries into my presence. What are you going to do about this or that or the other thing? I think even this is part of how I'm being shaped and molded as much as I may resent it. And the second is an observation made by an Orthodox monk when asked by a layman what was the heart of his prayer for all the years that he had lived the monastic life. And he said, the very circumstances of your life will show you the way. That was his wisdom. The very circumstances of your life will show you the way. And so when I want to sort of fly away like the dove in the psalm and take my rest at some distant place and not have to deal with where I find myself, I think, no, these very circumstances are a part of God's way with me, even though I may not be able to see it right now.

[26:41]

And the last sentence comes from a disciple of Thomas Merton, James Finley, who says, a simple openness to the next human moment brings us into union with God in Christ. So these sentences help me to listen. To listen, I think, in the spirit in which Benedict invites us to listen. And I know that the fundamental stance of a person or a community of faith in scripture is, of course, one of listening. The great confession of our Jewish brothers and sisters, the Shema, begins, hear, O Israel. The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Every day, our Jewish brothers and sisters open their ears to hear. And then the last book of the Bible, our Bible, as quoted in the prologue, tells us that anyone who has ears is to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

[27:51]

And again, Psalm 95, which is an integral part of vigils, invites us to hearken to God's voice day by day. If you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts. So, osculta listening is integral to our fidelity, not simply as monastics, but as persons of faith baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. And with this in mind, this notion of listening as a way of being shaped and formed and conformed to the image of Christ, I've reflected upon the life of Saint Benedict as set out in the dialogues of St. Gregory, and see that really as an account of listening. Hupakuo, to use the Greek form, which means, which translates as obedience, but really means to put yourself under what you're hearing, to surrender yourself, yield yourself to what you are hearing.

[29:00]

So I look at Gregory's life of Benedict, which was written about 50 years after Benedict's death, and of course it's filled with miracles and has been discounted as real history, but I think probably the outline is fairly accurate. And most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with it, but I do want to comment on it and go through it rather briefly. Benedict, as a young man, went to study in Rome, was horrified by Roman life, and resolved to embrace the religious life. Turned his back on his studies and fled with his nurse, and then left his nurse behind and went off to a cave in Subiaco. where he was alone and concealed for three years. And I think what he was listening to at that point was the desert tradition. The tradition in which people went off as solitaries to caves and isolated places and there struggled with the demons and sought to yield themselves to the will of God.

[30:14]

As he continued his solitary life, He was ministered to by a monk of a nearby monastery who brought him bread and let it down in a basket. At length, Gregory observes, the time came when Almighty God decided to reveal Benedict's virtuous life to others. So how does God do this? Does God send a word directly to Benedict? No. he speaks to Benedict through others. In this case, and I think this is rather charming, there's a priest preparing his Easter lunch. And in a vision, the priest is told, how can you prepare these delicacies for yourself while my servant is out there in the wild suffering from hunger? So the priest is told to prepare an extra portion of Easter dinner and take it off and find Benedict.

[31:23]

So Easter is celebrated by the sharing of a meal. And the priest arrives and says, today is the great feast of Easter. And Benedict replies, it must be a great feast if you It must be a great feast to have brought me this kind of a visit. And then they say grace and eat the meal. And I think that's a wonderful way in which the Paschal mystery is proclaimed to Benedict. There's no liturgy mentioned, but just a great big meal. So, this is the beginning of being led out of solitude. The next thing that happens is some shepherds discover him and think he's a wild animal. And then they realize, oh no, he's not a wild animal at all. He's a servant of God. And so rather than pursuing him through the thicket, they sit down and listen and are edified by what he has to say. And this is God calling Benedict to speak a word out of the depth of his own experience of God in prayer.

[32:32]

And this is then the beginning of Benedict being turned toward the world. being taken out of his desert sense of himself into a new relationship with the human community. And we're told that many people came to visit him and changed their way of life because of his wise teaching. I sort of wonder at this point if a certain amount of ego gratification didn't sort of creep in here. You know, I mean, as humble as he was, it must have been in some way satisfying to have people come and say, oh, just a word of life, please. Oh, that's so helpful. So at this point, he suffers a violent temptation of the flesh. which I think knocked him down a few pegs and reminded him that he wasn't some sort of idealized desert father, but he was altogether human and had to deal with human realities, indeed even the flesh, in the form of temptations.

[33:41]

And so he rolls in a thicket and is victorious over sin and temptation and led to, we're told, a new maturity. But I think that new maturity didn't mean simply the conquest of the flesh, but rather the recognition that he was a person of flesh, that he made friends with the flesh. In a way, the temptation lost its power. I mean, temptation has its power when we're terrified and don't acknowledge its presence. so often we keep secrets even from ourselves and those secrets become a kind of power that can overwhelm us and it's by acknowledging our temptations, acknowledging our frailties and our humanities that we then can in many instances be set free from the oppressive power they sometimes have over us. In any event, Out of this new maturity, many place themselves under his guidance.

[34:47]

And Gregory tells us, with the passing of this temptation, Benedict's soul was like a field cleared of briars and soon yielded a rich harvest of virtues and the renown of his name increased. So here he's in a new place, wiser, more mature, people are coming to him, he's careful not to allow too much ego gratification to slip in to his ministries. And then some monks arrive from presumably the monastery in Vicovaro and say, Look, our monastery is an absolute mess, and your reputation is well known. Would you please come and be our abbot? And Benedict warns them. He says, if I come, I'm going to make some changes because your way of life and my way of life are not congruent.

[35:51]

And I say, fine, come. We need a renewal program. We need reshaping, rethinking our ministries and our charisms or whatever. So, he becomes their abbot, and they soon tire of his resolute style, his zeal, and so they take drastic measures and poison a pitcher of wine. that is on the abbot's table, but as he makes the sign of the cross over it before pouring it out, the pitcher shatters, and Benedict knows instinctively that it has been poisoned, and so he leaves them. He says, may almighty God have mercy upon you, and with that he went back to the wilderness that he loved. Now I think this is probably where Benedict learned something about the limitations of humanity in community.

[36:52]

He'd gone with all this reforming zeal. and had been, I assume, unyielding in his application of his principles, and hadn't made enough room for the human reality and the limitations of those under his care, what ultimately drove them to this drastic and extreme measure. So my sense is that out of that came a sense of prudence, leniency, that we certainly see reflected in the rule. And I think here of a story about Anthony of Egypt that some of you may be familiar with. One day a visitor from afar, who was on his way to visit the great Abba Anthony in the desert, came over a hill and saw Antony with members of his community playing with bows and arrows, obviously engaged in some kind of recreation.

[37:59]

And the visitor was horrified. that they would be engaged in anything this worldly and superficial. And so he went up to Antony and said, this is shocking, shocking that you would be out playing like this. You're meant to be men of prayer. So Antony was silent. That's always the way with the desert monastics. They were silent. And he said, pick up the bow. And the visitor picked up the bow, he said, now stretch it, put an arrow in it, let it go, now quickly put another arrow in it, now put another arrow in it, now put another arrow in it. And the visitor finally said, if I keep doing this, the bow's going to break. And Antony says, and so will the human spirit, if it is pressed too hard. So even Antony understood the limitations of our humanity, and I think out of that experience of Vico Varro, Benedict was led to a more temperate place in the application of his principles. In any event, at this point in the story, Gregory describes Benedict as coming to live with himself.

[39:08]

Abitare secum, sort of using the story of the prodigal son, the prodigal coming home to himself. The whole sense that out of this cumulative experience of being addressed through these various events and circumstances, Benedict was being matured and coming home to himself in grace and truth in a whole new way. And so we're told that Benedict now lives in the presence of his Heavenly Father. And I think coming home to himself, recognizing his own tendency towards zeal, recognizing other dimensions of himself, brought into a kind of self-awareness that made him now truly wise. And I might say self-awareness is a gift of grace. It's very different from self-analysis, which is something we do to ourselves.

[40:10]

Augustine of Hippo is very clear that self-knowledge is related to knowing God. How can I know God without knowing myself? May I know you? May I know myself? John of the Cross says that self-knowledge is the springboard by which we rise to knowledge of God. And really the two are the same. To know oneself in grace and truth is to know God. Because one can only know oneself as one is embraced by God's compassion and love. So I think Benedict sort of came home to himself and now was ready for that larger ministry. And so we're told that he now established monasteries, 12 monasteries with 12 monks in each, and each an abbot. And the only other thing that I would add here is the wonderful encounter with his sister, Scholastica. And this encounter is marvelously

[41:15]

captured in a fresco at Subiaco, in which Benedict and his sister are dining together. And Benedict is looking anxious, and Scholastica is looking sly and knowing. But in any event, the story is as follows. Scholastica from early childhood was dedicated to God, was a religious, and once a year she and her brother would come together to talk about holy things, to talk about the mystery of God. And on this particular visit, at the end of the day, Benedict said, I have to go home now to the monastery. And Scholastica said, but brother, dear, we have so much more to talk about in terms of what we've experienced of God. And he says, I really must go. I can't stay. I can't be away from the monastery.

[42:16]

So Scholastica turns her eyes heavenward, and suddenly, lightning and thunder, a storm that makes it impossible for Benedict to leave. And he says, sister, what have you done? And she says, well, you didn't listen to me. So I turned to God. And this is the result. And so they talked all through the night. And Gregory observed, she proved mightier since hers was the greater love. Three days later she died and Benedict saw her soul in the form of a dove being carried to heaven. So here, his encounter with his sister, I think, too, taught him something about human bonds, relaxing rules in favor of larger goods, and all the rest. So he was a learner all through his life, listening, listening, listening.

[43:19]

The various circumstances of his life showed him the way. And I think he listened to each encounter as the voice of invitation, the voice of God in Christ, inviting him, calling him deeply into God's will. And it's worth pointing out that God's will, the doing of God's will, which we often think of in terms of capitulation of some other person's plans, really has a very different meaning. The word will in Greek, fellow, means, among other things, to feel affection for. And so the will of God is God's affectionate desire for us, not just, will you do this by nightfall and therefore be obedient? It's not that kind of thing at all. The will of God is God's deep desire for us, just as I have a will for my children, which is their happiness, their fulfillment, their maturity.

[44:22]

And I agonize when they seem to go in a direction that I think is unwise, but I know they have to discover that on their own. And I rejoice when they do something or discover something that seems to increase them and bring them joy and greater personhood. That's what God's will is in relationship to us. It's a question of God's loving us. And the will of God is really an expression of God's affection for us. And it really is rooted and grounded, I think, in that baptismal experience of Jesus. You are my beloved son, you are my beloved child, my chosen one in whom I rejoice. In some way, God says that to each one of us, and that's the heart of God's will for us. And I think that's where the rule of Benedict leads us. I think that's where Benedict's own fidelity to listening led him away from a kind of crushing asceticism into a self-welcoming sense of God's own affection, which gave him a freedom that allowed him then to be a wise father, an encourager to his monks, not simply in his own day, but across the years.

[45:40]

So the rule, I think, is really the fruit of listening, listening to his own life, listening to the monastic and ascetical tradition that preceded him and was contemporary with him as it existed. And the rule is drawn, of course, from many sources, most notably the rule of the master. But it's also drawn from his own experience, his capacity, as it were, to live with himself. And as I look at the rule, there are several things that stand out. The first is the whole notion of conversion, conversatio moro, which the Collegeville edition of the Rulus and Benedict translates as fidelity to the monastic life. And a little article called Conversatio on the Rule of St. Benedict by John Lawyer and Cistercian Studies, the point is made that conversatio comes from a word conversio, meaning to turn around.

[46:50]

And it's a passive form of that verb and it means to be turned around. to be turned around frequently, and by extension it means to have dealings with, to live with, to be shaped by. And thus it carries several levels of meaning. Conversatio has to do with duration, something that is ongoing and habitual and lifelong. It's a process. And it has to do with dynamism. It's a verb of motion, of being turned. It means something is going on all the time. And it also has a social connotation. It is usually people who knock off our rough edges, who minister the word to us, the word that converts us and turns us around. The ancient monastics of the desert used to say, life and death are in the hands of my brother, or my sister." Meaning that through one's brother or one's sister, one's fellow limb of Christ's risen body, one is sometimes accosted, one is challenged, one is

[48:03]

supported and affirmed, one is encouraged, one is brought to a greater sense of awareness, one sees oneself more accurately through the eyes of another. And in that way we are changed, which is what conversion is all about. And so conversatio morum is really a lifelong process. It is, to use a phrase from an Anglican mystic, William Law, it is the process of Christ, Christ happening to us over time through others who share our life. And it's not, of course, restricted to a monastic community, though it's lived with particular intensity in a monastic community. But it has to do with all the manifestations of the community in which we live as members of Christ's body. It certainly has to do with our being configured in familial patterns as well. I've been profoundly changed by my daughters, who know me better than I know myself.

[49:04]

and can anticipate my every response before they even open their mouths. And I'm appalled at some of their insights that are humiliating. They begin, now, Dad, I know that you are going to dot, dot, dot when I say thus and so. And I think, that's true. How do they know? In any event, that process of Christ engages us all. And I invite you, if you aren't familiar with it, to look at the window that describes the life of the monk downstairs. It has an overturned city. with a swirl of water on one side and a city right side up with a swirl of water on the other side. And the swirls, I think, indicate baptism and are being turned over and upside down and inside out by the paschal mystery, by our being baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ.

[50:08]

And then, if you look across from one city to the other, you see a shovel, a ladder, and an altar. And the shovel represents work, the ladder represents Lectio, the rumination, the chewing over the scripture and the ancient texts, and then the altar represents, obviously, the life of prayer and sacrament. work, lexio, prayer, body, mind, spirit, and then above are arrows tied together, which represents community, that one discovers Christ in community. We are Christ to one another, as Father Martin said. And then below is a crozier, representing the authority of the abbot. And authority properly means the capacity to give life. And so the abbot who represents Christ is to be a life giver in the life of the community and is to speak the word of Christ in such a way that the community can hear it.

[51:20]

The abbot says Matthew Kelty, himself an abbot, needs a firm hand, not a hand that crushes, but a hand that protects the monk from the forces that fight against him, his own self-destructive urges. And I found that to be very true in my abatial life as a bishop. Often one is protecting people against themselves. One sees various rigorous patterns that can only be destructive and so one has to intervene lovingly, encouragingly in a way that liberates and makes possible an encounter with the healing Christ. So the whole rule is a exercise in structured listening. Yes, you listen to the... for the Lord's service, to use Benedict's phrase, in which I am still learning, in the words of the prologue, how to run the path of God's commandments with a heart overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love, a love which is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, a wild, unbounded, profligate love that exceeds all that we could ask or imagine,

[52:37]

or even begin to understand because it is God's love which overwhelms all fear, all self-judgment, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Thank you. I've gone on for an hour and I think that's the limit. But if there are one or two observations or questions and I would say please don't ask me about the Episcopal Church. I'm here under another guise though obviously I am who I am but I don't want to get into the intricacies of

[53:42]

ecclesial life, but if there are broader questions that have something to do with what I've said or an observation you want to make, I would welcome that at this time. Well, we will move to the reception, and if you have anything you want to say to me there, please do so. Thank you very much. I can't get to it. Subscribe. Oh, thank you, Frank, really. It has been a visitation, and you bring Christ to us. And I would even try to leap with joy as did John. Now, we're going to have Kaplan. You might want to stand up for a moment and kind of jiggle yourselves to rearrange things so that you can take another 15 minutes of prayer. We have, we have a very few books that are Frank's reflections, Coming Home, it's entitled, were reflections he gave at the 37th Episcopal Convocation a couple of years ago in the bookstore, and I put out a couple of sheets of paper if people want to order them, if you leave your name and

[55:04]

address or phone number, we could get them for you. There's a few of them down there. And then after Compline, we ordinarily, we always go down to the crypt, that is, you'd say the basement, where there's a lovely statue of Our Lady as Queen of Peace, and finish with a final antiphon there. Now some of you might not want to go up and down the stairs, that's one thing, so you don't kind of have to. The other, if you're going down, it would be well to take both sides of this stair case because there's a lot of us and it takes some time to get down there. And once you're down there, spread all over the whole area. Don't kind of cluster in just the steps where you come in. So you'd be most welcome to follow us down and you're most welcome to stay here. You'd hear us singing from here, I know. And then we would go to the monastic refectory or dining room which is out that door and along the link to your right.

[56:06]

So why don't you stand up for just about two or three minutes.

[56:12]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v004
@Score_JJ