As part of monastic life, in announcements and in effort for charity and friendship, I think now a moment comes to speak of the sacramental aspects of our life. where there is, as you know, a marvellous conciliation of the personal objective aspect and the ecclesiastical objective in everything in our monastic life. That's true of our prayer, even if monastic liturgical prayer is not specified, justified as a function of the Church, In fact, liturgy being a part of the sacramental life of the Church, in liturgy our contemplative prayer becomes worship, becomes a Church activity, having an objective value and efficiency for the whole Church, as well as for ourselves.

[01:18]

Now the same principle applies to an act of our sacramental life, which is confession. And I think we must consider this problem. One of the problems of monastic rituality today, so to speak, is how to integrate our monastic confession in our sacramental confession. And this sacramental aspect of our life is essentially a consequence of the ascetic meaning of our life. Namely, it's just the application, the consequence of this fundamental principle and fact that the mouth is a sinner. It was a definition of the monks, St. Bernard, when he writes, often says, Bernardus peccator.

[02:20]

And Peter Damian always gave of himself this definition, Petrus monarchus peccator. That's the definition of the monks. Not that the monks necessarily commit more sins. than other people in need of bigger things, or have committed that may have been, but that's not necessary. And normally, even in the monastery, monks commit probably less things than elsewhere. But they are more aware of the quality of sinners. And, you know, there is a famous vigorous page in Dostoevsky's Karamazov Brothers, where the starlet says, what's a monk? What's a hermit? And he explains bluntly that he's just a sinner. And sometimes we have the impression that Jesus was a sort of monopoly, and he still is, of the Eastern monastery.

[03:27]

But when we just take this little book which is our rule, we find that everywhere it's affirmed the same convictions. Just take for instance in chapter 7, degree 6. Nor of the evil thoughts that enter in his heart are the sins committed in secret, but that they humbly confess. Here we have the word confession. Confessed. Confessed to the Lord. And degree the sixth, that was fifth, consider himself a bad and worthless workman. I'm brought to that and I'm without understanding. Degree seven, consider himself lower of an office account than anyone else. And chiefly in degree 12, feeling the guilt of his sins at every moment. He should consider himself already present at the dread judgment, and constantly say in his heart what the publicans of the gospel said with his hands fixed on the heart, as, Lord, I am a sinner.

[04:37]

Here St. Benedict applies to the monks this evangelical word, I am a sinner, and not worthy to lift up my hands to heaven. And again with the prophet, I am bound down and humbled everywhere. And that's, you see, bound to the fact of contemplative life. Compulsion is a monastic attitude correlative to contemplative life. This compulsion of which I don't speak now, I think I already spoke about, and you know, which is this stimulus which God gives. God maintains stimulus, you see. to maintain this sort of tension I was speaking yesterday morning between what we are and what we want to be. between the fear, regret for our sins, and our desire for God and our joy already.

[05:40]

And on compunction clubs, you know, there has been last year, I think, in Worship, an article written by an American Benedictine sister, which was extremely good. I think it was in the pages 2, 3, 4, and so on. And this compunction, this feeling of compunction is correlative to contemplative life because in the world, even the religious are distracted from this conviction of being sent. There are so many things to do and to think about. The contemplative has just to consider God and himself, his relation to God, his personal union with God. And the more he approaches God, the more he thinks of God, the more he knows, he feels, he experiences that he is a sinner. And when you read the ancient monastic literature, either the ancient

[06:45]

the Desert Fathers, or the medieval ones, you have the impression that the monk is always confessing his sins. And if you look at the present legislation for monks, namely the rule and the present discipline of the Church, I think you find that there are five confessions of the monk. First, there is one private confession, to God in prayer, of which Saint Benedict speaks in chapter 4, instrument 56. Daily, means every day, in one's prayer, which tears and sighs can function, to confess one's past sins to God, and to amend them for the future. And here, the matter of this confession, private confession to God, there is everything, committed sins and readiness to sin.

[08:00]

And the purpose is to be forgiven, to be humble, and to thank for being forgiven. Then, secondly, there is a private confession. to the spiritual Father, of which speaks the Psalms, chapter 4, instruments 50 and 51, when evil thoughts come into one's heart, to dash them against Christ immediately, and to manifest them to one's spiritual Father. Here again the matter is everything, committed sins and revelation of thoughts, of tendencies, opening of conscience, spiritual direction. And the purpose is to be purified by their sins or truths, by saying it, saying them, and to be helped, to receive advice. Then there is a third confession which is public, of which St.

[09:05]

Benedict speaks in chapter 46, which we shall comment later. namely, the public confession to the community in the chapter, what we call the Chapter of Fall. And here the matter are the observances, namely, the infractions to observances, infractions which have been seen by others. And the purpose is to avoid the scandal, to manifest that we don't consent to these infractions we have done, we want to amend them. Then, fourth, there is a public confession to God, in public prayer. That is, our liturgical confitero at complete. And here again, the matter is everything. We are becoming nimis. Qualitatione, verbo et opere. And so, nothing excluded.

[10:05]

I'm able of doing everything. And probably I did it, some sort. And so, here again, the purpose is to pray, to be forgiven, and to thank for being forgiven. Then, five, there is the public and private confession, which is a sacramental confession, prescribed by the canon law, all religious, as you know. It's private, because it's made in secret, to a priest, but in public because it is made in the church, to the church. It is a public acknowledgement of a member of the church to another member of the church that is just a sinner. And here the matter are the inflections to divine and ecclesiastical laws. And so let's speak especially of this one.

[11:10]

sacramental confession. What is its purpose? It's not always very easy to say. This sacramental confession again may imply two elements of monastic confession. Namely, the monastic confession of humility and the sacramental confession in the church. And these two aspects may appear, for instance, in the vocabulary itself. One can say, to ask for an absolution, and that means the minimum necessary sacramental confession, to which all the faithful in the Church are obliged. But one can say also, to go on confession, and here you see it's the same sacrament, but the emphasis is made either on the sacramental absolution, or on the abomination. The important is not only the absolution, but also the avowal made in confession.

[12:22]

And I think it's good for us to renew our understanding of sacramental confession. Not because it's a law. The law helps us to practice our sacramental life, but the law could not be sufficient if we were not convinced of its validity. And so it is good for us to think over confession, not only in order to observe the law, but in order to observe it humanly, doing human acts. namely to understand, to realize why and how we must observe this knowledge and love in a world which is not necessarily a sensible devotion, but an act of faith, or of our faith in the sacrament.

[13:26]

Here again we could consider the history of confession. You know, there has been a, so to speak, pre-Christian period in the history of confession. And I think it is not useless to speak of it, because it may help us to understand, by contrast, the meaning of Christian private confession. On this point of non-christian concession in antiquity we have now an interesting book of Peter Grabauer, Seelenführung Methodik der Exerzition in der Antik, Jönick 1954. And you have also an article of Sandor Jäger in the Dictionary of Spirituality, the last issue, which is not yet in your library, at the article Examen, Examination. profane, pagan, Confucian, that, I mean, this work is not strictly above, deal with Stoics, with Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, Epictetus, Seneca, and others, and a little with Epicureans.

[14:49]

and explain the whole vocabulary of confession, meditation, premeditation, so on, through all these points, just mention the fact that in this confession the disciple acknowledges in presence of his master his weaknesses, his fears, his apprehensions, but not his sins. And this acknowledgement remedies to the patience of the soul. In a way, so to speak, similar to the methods used nowadays in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. But the disciple does not confess his sins and does not ask for absolution, does not ask to be forgiven. And here we realize, in contrast, what is the Christian confession owing to the light of the revelation.

[15:57]

For this profound, natural, psychological confession, there is nothing of a religious and sacramental penance. It's a confession without a vowel. and without regrets. It's a matter of merely psychological auto-suggestion, which may be highly educative, but which neither supposes nor creates or restores a relation with God. It may lead to a certain rationalization, interiorization, personalization of the soulless life, but nothing more. This remains within the limits of the relation of man with himself, with the world, with others, but not with God. On the contrary, what is essential in Christian confession is the conscience of a sin, the consciousness, I think you say, of a sin.

[17:10]

and the avowal to God of this thing. It requires the fact of becoming conscious, of getting aware of one's condition and state of sinner, with regret and suffering, and with forgiveness granted by God. And it brings a liberation which comes from God. not merely from the psychological effort of man, even if one is helped by another man, who acts just as a man. This profound confession was just a confidence, a confession without sin and without culpability. It just consists in telling oneself, not in accusing oneself. And of course, in fact, the way to accuse oneself, to accuse one's sins, is to say them, and sometimes, in some way, in some measure, to tell about oneself.

[18:29]

But the accent, accent in Christian confession is on the character of culpability, of guilt, of infraction to the law of God. Christian confession is not a confidence, it is an avowal, a self-accusation. And it is a judgment from the part of the church. and we must absolutely maintain and cultivate this supernatural religious transcendent sacramental view of confession. The sacrament of penance is a mystery of faith and confession an act of faith. Now, in the history of

[19:33]

Christian sacramental temptation. We must notice also the importance of the monastic experience. Here again we have some good indications in recent works. That's a problem now which is studied by different scholars, not just from the historical viewpoint, but we may Get something from that to understand better the monastic observances of today which result from a long tradition. You know that the first step in monastic confession was just the opening of conscience. To a senior spiritual father, an Abba, And on that note, we have now a wonderful book of Father Hauser, Direction Spirituelle dans le Bonachisme Ancien.

[20:40]

Because, you know, all these books of Fr. Rossell are extremely beneficial for us, of extreme practical benefit to us. How do you say it? Hausserl. We say Hausserl. Hausserl. Yeah, it's an association we use to benefit. We used to say Rossell, but it's Hausserl. The Jesuit, the professor of the Oriental Institute in Rome, he has a wonderful understanding for monastic life. Someone spoke about it in German and also in English. Then the second step in this history was in the Cenobitism, till late, in the time of St. Pecumius and afterwards, that this charismatic, so to speak, personal, private opening of conscience to a spiritual father became an institution, regulated by the superiors. That means

[21:42]

accomplished by different spiritual seniors, designated by the superiors. Of course, the communes with its thousands of monks could not, all the day we saw that, have had a couple with 614, so a commune with 4,000. So, there was more or less organized, regulated. And we still find something of that in the whole of St. Benedict, you see, to the abbot or to the spiritual father. The abbot is not necessarily the spiritual father of all, but he may designate, approve the spiritual fathers in the community. And this second step in the history of Thenobitism was the origin of what became the frequent confession in monasticism. which primarily was not a sacramental confession, and then became very early, as we shall see, a sacramental confession.

[22:50]

And from this monastic frequent confession derived what they call now the confession of devotion. It is a monastic usage which has been now extended to the light. As in many other films, we just said about the retreat, the retreat was a monastic exercise. And now, always more, the laity, many laymen in the church make retreats. In the same way, you see, the private confession was monastic. And yesterday in your library I found this wonderful book of Father Osprey is not a father, perhaps a son of a family. Gebhardt Ladner, The Idea of Reform, Harvard, 1959. And among other things, he says somewhere that he shows how the real meaning of the Sacrament of Penance as an act of compunction has been a discovery of monasticism.

[23:58]

Saint Basil, Saint Augustine and other fathers of that time insisted so strongly on the biblical and earlier ascetic conception that a true spirit of penance should extend far beyond gross sin in everything which is not pleasing to God. Because the first discipline of public penance was just for the gross sin. For instance, apostasy, infertility and so on. And then the father insisted that this propension should go further. And this was one of the great functions of monasticism, to demonstrate in practice that spiritual perfection and complete detachment from sin are ultimately one and the same thing, that the safest way are ultimately one and the same thing. Spiritual perfection and detachment from sin. And so the more we try towards perfection, the more we feel that we are sinners, as we saw in the Rule of Saint Benedict.

[25:04]

That the safest way, perhaps the only way, to cease being a sinner is to become a saint. It is in the ascetic monastic milieu, therefore, that the beginning beginnings of what today is called private penance, and even repeatable confession and absolution are to be found. There is a historical and theological problem of this repeated confession, exactly as for the mass. And you know now, theologians are studying this problem. For instance, Father Karl Vanner is preparing a large work on feel a mercy I offer many masses when sacrificed this multiplicity of masses and then also for the multiplicity of confession repetition of confession there is also a theological problem and you know also that according to tradition the ancient discipline of the church as it still appears in the liturgical books for instance in the ceremonial Episcopalians

[26:14]

for Ash Wednesday, Christian people should go to concession at the beginning of Lent in order to do penance, to make satisfaction during Lent, and the acts of mortification of penance prescribed during Lent were a way to make satisfaction for the sins confessed at the beginning of Lent. That's why the normal moment to make his paschal confession for Lent, the church is not the last moment before Easter, the last night, but the beginning of Lent. And that shows also that the acts of mortification were a satisfaction for the confession. And that explains also the meaning of our acts of mortification in monastic life. They have to be an expiation, a way of satisfaction for the confession made.

[27:16]

Frequent confession and frequent satisfaction. And very late in the Middle Ages, you know, the satisfaction, that means the penance, was made immediately after the sin, after the confession. You remember, for instance, of this story in the dialogue of St. Gregory, where a young monk couldn't stay at the prayer, and then St. Gregory, St. Benedict came and gave them to that Birgha. But the text does tell that. But in iconography it appears that at the same moment he was with the Birgha, you see, he imposed his hand on the head. I have here a picture, you see, taken from showing that, showing that, you see. And so, that was in the same way the absolution, because chastising without forgiving, without expelling the little devil who was there, you see, would not have been sufficient.

[28:20]

There must always been these two elements, you see. And here in another picture I have here, I see that it shows One lady who is doing his confession and just near the confessional there are two other people who just come out from the confessional and are flagellating themselves in order to make the satisfaction immediately or just to make an act of mortification which was flagellation in this case after penance, you know. And there is a whole problem of iconography also of that, you know. And of course, always more, chiefly in monasticism, this satisfaction became always becoming more frequent could not be each time a long pilgrimage or a long fasting and so on. So it became always more a way of prayer and so on as it is now. But sometimes perhaps it's good too.

[29:22]

It is still about the penance which the ritual forces and the the ceremonial process, you see, to give the different penance could be a pilgrimage, or a long fasting time, or whatever, a long penance. Sometimes, for instance, when I happen to hear confession, I say, not to monks, but do a pilgrimage, you see. So, it's a certain liberty. You can say people do to Fatima, or to Guadalupe, But you can say, do it! Thank you very much to the Holland Virgin, so that may lead to the next city. But you see, sometimes to break with this sort of routine of just doing a short prayer, which after all has also its meaning, right? Because it shows that it's mainly an act of faith. And I found in a story in the Exodian Valium, that means the history of the third generation of the Cistercian Order, and Saint Bernard had given to

[30:28]

a convert, a monk, just a short penance. In Jung said, ut pater noster tribus vicibus dicere. Just three paternoster, paternoster. And in suo proposito de inception usque ad mortem perdurare. That he had to remain in his propose, you see, all his life. But just to say, as an actual penance, three paternoster. Because this act of penance, which is the satisfaction, has to be manifested through a life. When a knight was to die, killed in the war, and there was no other priest, then he confessed, or no other Christian, they were laymen, they confessed to their horse, or to their sword, because that was not a sacramental confession, but that expressed the need of being, of making a confession. And I remember my master and friend, Etienne Gilson, told me that during the previous war, he was just a young soldier, and in the battle, a comrade fell at his feet and was to die.

[31:37]

And he said, come hear my confession. And Gilson said that, you know, I am not a priest, I can't hear a confession. He said, oh, that's absolutely necessary. And he began to make his confession. And Gilson told me, you know, you may imagine how moved I was to hear the confession of my comrade. You see, that shows that. And one day I was telling this Gilson story. in a group during a theological congress, and there was a Dominican professor in a theological faculty, and he said, I quite understand that, and myself, in the same case, I should do the same, because it's such a necessity to go and confession. Not to be alone with oneself, with one's things, but to have a witness in the church. And recently, last week, or the other week, we had a congress in Italy on hermeneutical life, and each evening there was a movie. To relax, you know, forget habits.

[32:40]

And one of the pictures was a scene of the last war and just it was a sentence and the story of six people who were taken and they know that the sentence they will be at six o'clock and at seven they will be killed. And so everything happens in the same cave, where they are enclosed, the same prison, and you imagine all the psychological situations, you see, hate, charity, forgiveness, regret, and so on, all the... just a conversation between... tenor, you see, and then at the end, in a few minutes, when they know, they have hope, liberation, but the allies don't come and so on, so at the moment when they know that in a few minutes they will be killed, each one goes to another and makes his confession. And that was not at all a Catholic picture, but spontaneously they had a certain need before dying to liberate their souls.

[33:43]

And I think, you see, that shows the importance of this sacramental act of confession for us. The necessity and how we must do it with humility and knowing that it answers to a very real exigency of our relation with God. to deal with God through the mediation of somebody in his church who represents him. Then the last stage in the evolution of monastic private concession was made, chiefly in the 12th century, when the monastic writers explained more clearly than before what we could call the eschatological Aspect of confession as an act of desire of God, as an anticipation of the last judgment.

[34:53]

As an example of this attitude, I'll just quote a text as an act of desire of God, you see. A text of St. Bernard. When St. Bernard speaks sometimes of that, and sometimes he says, he speaks of his confessor. He makes a certain brother, Humbert, died, and then he made the Spanish Duke, and he said that he used to go and confession to him, and he said how he did, and so on. But another time, he says, he speaks of the confessions he receives, and he says, And let your faithful friends, too, that they may, in their private confessions, be reconciled with the superior spirit of the tongue, and with the habit of the mind. quod dei scilicet alta atque subtilia penetrare necrion, quod de sua vitate spiritus augnil autr parum sentient, suspirant et inian spiritus sapientiae et intellectus." So here it is clearly spoken of private confession, in privatis confessionibus.

[35:59]

But St. Bernard doesn't say that the monk accuse themselves of sins, what do they do? Conquerees, to lament, to complain, and apparently even they accuse God. Conquerees, Soren, Superior, Cod, Dei, Shilichet, Altai, Suspiria, etc., Sutilia, Penetrare, Necrion. So they lament. But really, they acknowledge their lack of fervor, of spiritual intelligence. And the formula of St. Bernard is extremely vigorous, difficult to translate in English or whatever mother language. Arentis animi, arentis langore. They are absolutely without fervor, you see, arents. Ebetudo solidementis. but very strong, absolutely as a beast. They can't penetrate the highness and subtleness of the mysteries of God.

[37:05]

So we are all, you know. That's normal. That was normal in the time of Saint Bartholomew. The average monk had always been more or less the same. So we have not to be discouraged if we can't penetrate the sublimities of the mysteries of God. Quod desu avitate spiritus, aut nil, aut parum sensi. The sweetness of spirit, they feel nothing or burn it. Suspirant. And therefore, suspirant and inian spiritus sapientiae, the desire. This confession is above all of the lack of fervor, and so on, is just for them an occasion to make an act of humility and of desire of God. And that's already an anticipation of what will be the last judgment, you see. And many authors, especially Peter of Cell, have insisted on that. on this meaning of the frequent confession.

[38:07]

Confession as a means of anticipating the great public confession of the Last Judgment. As this Last Confession will introduce the elect into the happiness of heaven, so the spontaneous avowal here below and the grace of the sacrament will purify one's vision and prepare one for contemplation. And, you see, confession, as everything in monastic life, must be prepared to contemplative prayers, which makes us in the disposition to pray with humility in presence of God. The purpose of this confession, including soft elements of the traditional opening of cantions, is to purify the soul, in order to prepare it for contemplation. Now I think it's enough, it's not long.

[39:08]

Tonight, dealing with sacramental life, we'd like to finish with the matter of confession, and then to say something about the monastery priesthood. This money we have, it has to be called That's an aspect of monastic confession according to monastic tradition. Now, I think it's good to draw some indications as regards the practice of confession. I think we may distinguish two points, the matter and the manner. The matter of confession. The principle is that, according to the teaching of the Council of Trent, teaching of which has been recalled several times by Pius XII, the matter of confession must be what the Pope called transgressio legum, transgression of laws.

[40:26]

These exclude the imperfections. means the lack of perfection, as involuntary distractions in prayer and so on. These are remitted by the sacramentals for all Christians, and furthermore for monks by the regular penances, and this justifies the regular penance. And so, practically, what transgressions have to be the matter of the confession and therefore of examination of conscience. First, there must not necessarily be heavy, grievous, mortal transgressions. They may be light ones, venial ones. But then, second, transgressions of what laws? The laws of the Gospel and of the Church.

[41:28]

For instance, there are so many in the Gospel, not to judge how difficult it is, how rare. But then, sir, how to find these translations of which we are guilty? We may help us with the whole. Chapter 4, this series of precepts, which St. Benedict called the instruments of good works. To love the Lord, God, with a whole heart, than one's neighbor as oneself. Not to covet, to respect all men. And not to do, however, what one would have done to oneself. To deny oneself in order to follow Christ, and so on, no? Not to forsake charity, to do no wrong to anyone, and to bear patiently wrongs done to oneself, and so on. There are some general precepts, as this one, you know, and then some particular ones.

[42:35]

And we have also other precepts in the chapter 72 on good zeal. Most patiently endure one another's infirmities, whether of body or of character. Are we always irreproachable on that? no one following what he considers useful for himself, but rather what benefits another, and so on. And we may make use of this chapter of the rule for our examination of conscience. Not because these precepts are in the rule, since according to moral theology, nowadays, the rule doesn't oblige under pain of sin, but because the rule, our rule, is most evangelical. All these precepts are taken from the Bible, mainly from the Gospels, or inspired from the Gospels, so that we may have a real indication of the laws which we have not to transgress.

[43:45]

That was concerning briefly the matter of Confucianism. Of course, it's not always easy to find something very precise. Sometimes we would like to make interesting confessions, at least from time to time. That's one of the humiliations is to be just an ordinary sinner, nothing original. And I can say a lot of things and I can't invent a new one. So, you see, and that introduces us already to the matter of going to confession, you see. Because the monastic way of life enables us to observe more normally. the practice of confession, which is important particularly now to all religious and encourage to all systems. Of course, many things could be said, and have already been said in books and so on, on the manner of confessing oneself.

[44:54]

This will dispense me from insisting. I just mention some aspects of our attitude when going to confession. First, to do it with simplicity. without psychological complications. To do it like children. Also we are and must be or become psychologically adults. But this simplicity is not so much a matter of psychology than of spiritual life. This simplicity is an affair of humility. And I know it's sometimes difficult for some of us adults as we are, you see, to make our confession as spiritual children. And sometimes, not only we are adults, but we may be professors, priests, hearing confessions of others, directing different works, publications, and so on, the men with degree and so on, university degrees and so on.

[46:00]

And of course, sometimes It's difficult to avow simply that we also are ordinary sinners. Very ordinary indeed. Not extraordinary at all. Doing the ordinary sins of ordinary people. The little sins of small people. That's excellent, you know. That's a real act of penance and humility. But this act must be prepared favored by a state of compunction, exactly as the act of prayer supposes a state of prayer. In the same way, the act of penance supposes a state of penance. The act of contention supposes a state of compunction. But where would we find this climate of compunction better than in monastic life?

[47:04]

If the monk lives with this continuous conviction that he is just a sinner, always considering his sins, his ability to sin, his many occasions in which he does not do exactly all the evangelical precepts and all that the evangelical role of Christ, then he has no difficulty when going on to confession. And notice that the moment of compunction is not necessarily in which we feel compunction, it's not necessarily the moment in which we go to confession, but it may be It is during the week sometimes that at a certain moment we get aware of our guiltiness, our littleness, our need of above, that we are a sinner, you see? And then these moments of compunction in the week give their value, give its value to the act of confession we do when the moment comes.

[48:13]

Because, of course, there must be there also a certain regulation, as we have seen in the rule of St. Grosvenor, that was normally on Saturday, and so it must not be when everybody likes to do it, it must be a certain order. But you see, what gives its value to this act is the are the moments of contention in the weeks when we feel that. And then, when the moment comes, we simply do it, see, and it's not necessary to find each time very new things and very neither important or interesting, but just some examples, see, some symbols of our state of sinner. And therefore, secondly, confession must be made in a spirit of faith. Confession must be an act of faith, not only of faith in the ministry of Christ in the Church, not only faith in the mystery of forgiveness,

[49:24]

But, chiefly for monks, for contemplative, for sinners, professional sinners, so to speak, as we are, faith in the mystery of sin. It is only thanks to the light of revelation of Christ in His Church that we know what is sin, and that we are sinners, that we believe that sin exists and is in us. That was the difference with the Stoic and Epicurean confession of which I told some words this morning. And that has been the contribution of Christianity in the history of confession, to give to man the revelation of what is sin and of the condition of sinners, and therefore of the need of God. to be sinners, to be able to commit sins and to know it, is a privilege of the Christians.

[50:35]

I don't insist on this point. But as you know, we have in our French modern literature some wonderful pages of Peggy on that, on this dignity of the sinner, who one and only has a right to say, pray for us sinners. That's the title we invoke to be heard by God, you see. Ora pronobis peccatoribus. And you know, in the French translation, we used to say, ora pronobis, poor sinners, poor with pressure. And Fegi was protesting, what need to add this useless word, poor? Is it not enough already to be a sinner and to have the right and the dignity to say that to God? He says, there are many people who can commit crimes without the crimes being sins, you see, because they don't know what is a sin. They are particularly not responsible for the social laws, they are to be prevented and so on, but they don't know what is sin.

[51:42]

But we know. And the more we enter in the depths of the mystery of Christ, normally through religious life, the more we feel that we are sinners. And when the saints said that they were the greatest sinners in the world, that was true. They believed it, and that was true. It is just because we are not saints that we don't believe enough that we are sinners. But we must grow and progress in this way, you know. And it's a matter of fact that the more you are engaged in a state of perfection, that means, not in which you have already reached perfection, but we tend to reach perfection, the more the church requires that you confess your sins. For the laity, just one year, just once a year. For the priest, I think it's once a month about. And for the religious, you see, about once a week. And saints like St. John of Arc and some others, they went to confession every day. And in some orders, like the Carthusians, it's not an obligation, not a law, but it's a practice, a usage, to go practically every day to confession.

[52:50]

Because the more you are engaged in the state of perfection, the more you feel that you are far from being perfect. And then, as I said this morning in the bar, that the best way to cease being a sinner is to try to become a saint. And so, that's our dignity, to be sinners. And we must believe in that. And our confession is also an act of faith in this revelation, this point of the revelation. And you remember that in the litany of all saints, which we sing, for instance, in the relocations and so on, one of the titles we invoke in order to be heard by God is that we are sinners. Peccatores derogamus audinos. And often in the canon of the Mass I am, it strikes me that we also associate there the dignity of sinners with the dignity of servants of God.

[53:52]

Nobis quoque peccatoribus familis tuis. We are at the same time sinners and servants of God, family, belonging to His family, because we are sinners. We are sinners and we know it. And the church is at the same time the communion of saints and the communion of sinners. We are in this church in which it is essential to forgive sin. So sin is not a normal thing in the church, it's normal, it's for sin. That's why we have to ask forgiveness for it. And thus, third and finally, The very sacrament in which we are aware of our dignity of sinners is also, and therefore, the one in which we recover or enforce our dignity of sons of God.

[54:58]

And this shows that we must receive the sacrament of penance as a paschal sacrament, with a paschal spirit. a spirit of renovation as a second baptism, thanks to which we participate always more in the mystery of the death of Christ, owing to penance, to avowal, to humility, and in the mystery of the resurrection of Christ, owing to faith in his victory, in his glorious power communicated to the Church, thanks to hope and love, hoping in God and loving Him because we are forever His sons. That's our double title, to be heard by God, that we are sinners and that we are sons of God, and our Father will forgive our sins.

[56:04]

because they are sins of sons. That were some indications on the sacrament of penance. Now we come to another sacrament, order. I don't intend to deal largely with this topic. Remember I spoke here about two years ago and the paper was published, and then I had to examine again the whole history and theological interpretation of the problem recently, and that gave rise to a long paper which will be published in two different reviews in French. So I just sum up some indications which may contribute to stimulate our reflection on that. I have nothing particular to say, as I said at the beginning, on your particular problem of this house.

[57:12]

That's why I shall simply take something which I said elsewhere as objectively, I think, true. So don't think I am making any allusion to your particular problem, which I don't know and don't want to know, at least before I speak of that. But I just want to show the connection between this, the traditional element concerning this problem, and the traditional element concerning the other problems I spoke about. this conviction of the monk of being a sinner and monastic life a life of penance in the Church. The first monks considered the priesthood as a very honorable state in the Church, but exactly because of that, opposed to their state of life.

[58:22]

which is characterized by solitude and penance. That's why they said they had to distrust from bishops and women. As you know. Because there were two different dangers, you see. Two different temptations to go out of their life of penance, you know. But of the same gravity, you see. That way. And we have many facts, many texts, many stories, you see, showing this sort of spontaneous opposition of monks to priesthood, you know. Just quote one, Orsesius, the successor of St. Pachomius, he summed up the idea of all of them when he wrote to Bishop Theophilus, we are just lay people without importance. That's the common conviction of the monks of antiquity, you see.

[59:25]

And that's why, usually, they refused priesthood when people, especially bishops, wanted to impose it to them. Or, when they couldn't avoid it, they refused to exercise the acts of priesthood. Some of them have been ordained unwillingly. For instance, St. Jerome. We used to worship St. Jerome in the martyrology as Jeronimo's trespasser. But he never wanted to be presbyter, and he protested. You have an energetic letter, you see, to the bishop who ordained him, saying, you ordained me now, that they give trouble for me and useless for you. You have both to repent of that. And he never said mass. And we have many examples, you have an example, you know, a stylet, you see that, Stevie? Stylet, who was ordained unwillingly by the bishop, you know, during he was on his strudel. And then, at the end of the ceremony, the stylet came back and just communicated to others, and that was the last time he said Mass, you see?

[60:35]

Just the Mass of his ordination. Of course, we know that And some, even some, pushed by an excessive zeal, made a special, how do you say that? Sermon. To never be ordained. And that was excessive, of course. And then Saint Basil protested against that. And sometimes himself, when he needed to ordain some monks, he did. which shows that, since the beginning, there is no theological incompatibility between monastic life and priesthood. But there was, and there must still be, I think, a real psychological, fundamental monastic incompatibility between those two states of life. And why that? It is because priesthood, in antiquity,

[61:37]

appeared as – who was always considered as a ministerial priest, you see, prepared, engaging in a ministry, in functions, to execute as regards the Christian society. Now, monks were men who had left the society to find solitude. They knew they had another form of charity towards the society, which was praying, doing prayers in communion with the Church, without exercising the sacerdotal ministry. And when it was necessary for them to receive the ministry of a priest, then either they took occasion of a priest passing through the community or they called a priest to be among them the mystery of the church.

[62:41]

But priesthood appeared as contrary, as opposite to the Greek principle, the Greek monastic principle, according to which spiritual practices must find their expression and their guarantee in the corporal domain. interior humility may, in other people, accommodate itself with external honors. But, furthermore, humility had to be manifested by the fact of living in a humble state of The fact of watching has to be manifested in the vigilia. The purity of heart has to be manifested in fasting, and so on. Now, of course, we are accustomed to have the spirit of all the virtues.

[63:47]

We may be rich, but we have the spirit of poverty. We may be instable, but we have the spirit of instability. We may have the spirit of everything without doing many things. That probably is progressive in the way of interiorization, you know, for the whole Church. But there must remain some specialist in the Church of ascetical life, ascetical practice, for which it remains true that the only way to have a conviction is to live according to it, to do it. And so, priesthood was opposite to this sort of internal need for authenticity of life, you see, just expressing in our external life what we want to be internally.

[64:49]

And priesthood also required some qualities which those humble men didn't think they And finally, they also feared, very humbly, that that could become for them a temptation of Ben-Gurion. And we find all these traditional attitudes in the role of St. Benedict, which, as you know, deals with that in two chapters, 60 and 62. Two ideas characterize the teaching of St. Benedict of Bristol. First, a rarity of priesthood in the monastery. And secondly, esteem for priesthood. So you see, if the monks didn't want to be priests, it is not because they despised priesthood. On the contrary, they esteemed it so much that it was not for them. And in the whole, priesthood just appears as a ministry.

[65:52]

and in the world rather restricted, because it just consisted in saying Mass on the days of solemnity. That was not every day in the world of St. Benedict, and monastic confession was not involved in it, because it was not necessary to be a priest to exercise a spiritual fatherhood, and that is still maintained. Recently I was in a trapeze a day, and I heard by chance that I was speaking with an ancient monk, already a senior, who had some function, not a bishop, I don't know. And then he said to me that each time the guest house, they don't go very much to the guest house and so on, because of sorry for them, but when sometimes it happens to him, and then when he has a difficult case, he sends the person to the brother of the porter lodge. Because he says he will surely be able to tell a good word. And he does. He's a love brother who is a spiritual father for many people. And why not, you know? Too often in our monasteries we notice that people come to our monasteries not because we are priests.

[67:00]

I mean not because we are monks, but because we are priests, you see. And I think that's not exactly true. They come to us because we are monks, and we have a certain experience of spiritual life, and then if we happen to communicate it, it is not because we have received this ministry for which there are so many others outside of monastic life. And, in the whole, it's obvious that priesthood was considered as a very dangerous position in the monastery. And, of course, we can very well understand that, you see. To stand next after the abbot, and to give blessings, and to celebrate mass. That was a great privilege, a great dignity, a great occasion of pride. Stand after the abbot. The abbot, of course, is not supposed to be a priest. So they may do that, says St. Benedict, but only by order of the abbot, you know, insisting on obedience. Knowing that Shiite, and when St.

[68:03]

Benedict says Shiite, in the juridical meaning of the word in Latin vocabulary, that's an important warning. Knowing that he is subject to the discipline of the rule. Let him give an example of humility to all. The priest must be more obedient, more humble than others. And even in the same way in chapter 62, but let the one who is ordained beware of self-exaltation, or pride. And let him not presume to do anything. Presumption again, you see, one of the dangers, there are many, you see. vanity, presumption, pride, laziness, selfishness, disobedience, you see, all these temptations inherent to priesthood in monastic life, in this time. To do anything except what is commanded him by the Abbot, knowing, she-at, again, that he is so much the more subject to the discipline of the whole.

[69:06]

And you see, that was absolutely traditional, you see. The monks, the priests in the monastery were submitted more than others to the ordinary observance. They had to be more stable, more everything, more humble, more obedient, more working, and giving to all the example of humility. This humility which is the mark of the monk. An example of humility to all. That means the priest has to be more monk than the other. And so, As we see in the role of St. Benedict, and now all historians agree, I just quote here from Balthazar, but many others say the same, priesthood in St. Benedict remains entirely subordinated to the form of monastic life. It's just a function in the life of the monastery. And the position which results for this official function has to remain subordinated to the determined by a form of life, an integral form of life.

[70:15]

Whereas now, you see, after a very long and troubled evolution, What happened is that a monastery is like a parish in which all the parishioners would be priests. And of course now, in some way, you see, that reduces the danger of all these temptations of priests and benedicts, because of course, when all are priests, then they are all equal in priesthood, you see. But of course, in the houses where there are less priests, and you are trying to reduce the priesthood, then the temptation may occur again, you know. This warning of St. Benedict, finally, there, there I tell you. And you see, by the way, That's two chapters on the rule of which we don't care very much. We are often speaking of the rule, praising the rule, ensarging everything, you see, but then there are fundamental options of the rule of which we don't care, you see.

[71:21]

We have found another interpretation now, up to date, but I say, in this case, let's be logic and don't speak about the rule, you see, and sincerity, you see. That's fundamental, you know. no more priest than the necessity of the monastery requires. But of course, in the course of a long evolution, many things have changed. And the main changing happened not in the institutions, in the economic or whatever they are, conditions which led to a changing, but, and that was very late, only in the 14th, 15th century, not before, because even in the Greek period of the monastic middle ages, priesthood didn't have any role in the monastic spirituality, and even later, but in fact, they began to be priests. And what happened? is that they progressively lost the conviction of the practical incompatibility, because there is no, as I said, theological incompatibility, but incompatibility in fact between a monastic life and the life of apostolate, or of priesthood, even in the monastery.

[72:47]

They came to this idea that the monk is the man who not only has an ideal of solitude, of silence, contemplation, poverty. You see, I mean, for the ancients, for St. Gregory and the ancients, the monk was that, the man who not only has an ideal, but reduces it in practice, realized in a visible way, in the effective solitude, in effective penance, in the opus Dei, accomplished with all its exigencies in the monastery, realized this ideal. To be monk is to live in a concrete and real way to God alone. But now, in the course of a long century, they came very late, as I said, about the 14th, 15th century, to conceive the monk as a man who is separated from the world, less by a physical, real, material enclosure in space, than by an intention of poverty, obedience, chastity, with this intention and

[74:10]

propose which may well, very well be accommodated with a life of apostolate. And so monks become just synonymous of religious, a man who is given to God. But for the tradition, what distinguished the monks from other religions is that he realized, he, as we say now in French, he incarnates at the maximum what he spiritually lives. Watching implies vigili, humility requires a humble state of life, compunction has to be manifested by penance, purity of heart supposes fasting and abstinence, obedience to the will of God supposes that we don't know anything without permission, and so on. That's the logical way of being immortal.

[75:15]

A matter of fact that now always more people acknowledge that, you see, that not only the history but the whole trend of tradition should lead us to recuperate this sort of authenticity of monastic life, which is particularly difficult to come to, difficultly compatible with priesthood. And for instance, now very strong people like the Abbot of Discs, who is an old abbot, very He was novice master in Soler, so a very additional man. And now recently, in a little nice little book, you see, called Fundamental Values of Monasticism, he said himself that now that could be good, perhaps, to come back to the state of the beginning, you know. And you know that, of course, also St. Thomas admits that monks as such have not to be, are not necessarily priests, and so on. And what now leads different people, like the Harvard of this and so on, to this new view is the fact that the requirements of the Holy See in matter of clerical studies are always less compatible with monastic life.

[76:39]

And so now they begin to say, if it is so, then that begins to be a problem, that we should not all be be priests, you know? And you know that when the new Ratio Studio was published, the Carthusians said that in this case they would prefer either not to be priests, or just receive novices who would already be priests, in order to not be submitted to the Ratio Studio. and the Odyssey admitted and didn't impose to them the ratio, so that now they are going on as before, because they were courageous enough, they are convinced enough of their way of life to demand that. And it's also typical that the Carthusians are the monastic order in which priesthood was the soonest generalized. As a second generation of the Carthusians, practically almost all the Carthusians were priests. Why?

[77:39]

Because they were hermits. So each one had to do for himself everything, you know. And they are actually the only ones in monastic life who should not necessarily, but more logically be priests, are the hermits. That's a little bit paradoxical and unusual, but if you look at the history and you try to interpret it, that appears. And another example is my friend, Father van den Broek, who is the editor of a great, important liturgical review in Belgium, you know him. question liturgique, and he wrote a book ten years ago on the monk in the Church of Christ. Perhaps you have it in Ice Book in English, in French, and so on. And then recently, a monk of Marie-Alain wrote an article in the Marie-Alain Review, justifying in the usual way, you see, the monastic priesthood for all the monks, and so on. And he quoted Don Vandenbroek. And Don Vandenbroek took opportunity in his review, in the last issue, to make a public retraction.

[78:44]

He said, yes, I'm sorry that the good father thinks he has to quote me, but I changed my mind. And now I see that the reasons I gave ten years ago are not valuable at all. And he concludes so. Monks are Christians. who want to live for God alone in the Fuga Mundi. And their priesthood is only justified in view of the liturgical necessities of their community. That's the fact, you know, of the evolution. And now this evolution is going pretty fast. So I hope we shall see some sometimes at least one community in which there would just be the few priests necessary to send us and occasionally to a confession.

[79:48]

Also for that we could also ask for chaplains coming from outside, as do the nuns, you know, because it's more handsome to have them if we have them at home. But to the extent that would orient more or less monastic life towards a a sacerdotal conception of life, and then the right orientation and view of monastic life as a disinterested life would be compromised, then I think that would be another danger, and still the only solution would be to be absolutely radical, as do some congregations of of brothers, you see, just to call priests to help them in the liturgical matters. And you know that recently, for instance, some congregations like the Brotherhood of St. John of God and so on, asked and received the permission to have some priests within the congregation, you know, because formerly that was excluded.

[80:58]

But since they were in hospitals and they needed to have some priests, instead of always calling chaplains from secular clergy or elsewhere, so they came to see that it would be good for them to have a few priests among the congregation, but under the condition that these priests could never be superior. in order to maintain the real spirit of the religious life, which is not a clerical life. And there are now people who think that that would be perhaps a possibility again, you see, for the monastic life. I don't know if I have it, but I had a quotation of the abbot of Beaudoin recently saying that. And now the good father Van den Broeck wrote recently an article which was a paper he read last year in a congress about the diaconate, renovation in the diaconate in the church, you know, the problem which is to speak about the council.

[81:59]

And then he applied the same principle which I just mentioned. When speaking of priesthood, he applied it to the diaconate. And he wrote this paper, the Diakonische Aufgabe im Ordenstand, in which he says that in the monasteries it would be good that to have deacons, we would remain deacons. Deacons is not necessarily and traditionally, it was not just a step to become priest. But if it appeared that sometimes you have solemn vows and you need a deacon or two deacons, then you would have deacons. But just to be deacons, not to be necessarily priests. If somebody is interested, they may read that. Well, that was just fact, just thinking from the objective constitution of time. Now, I think we must first... Please, Father. It's German, yes. I can't read it. You see, I think a considerable amount of trouble in this field came from a certain confusion between two priesthoods.

[83:20]

And this confession began already in St. Thomas. And in this journal, I was giving this talk, we had a very good lecture on the sources of St. Thomas, on the theses of Christ. And it appeared that St. Thomas used a pontifical of his time, end of the 12th century. I think South France, Lyons, Pontifical, in which the high tradition of the ecclesiastical character of every sacerdotal ministry was already more or less disappearing in favor of a more personal conception of Christ as a personal Christ and so on. owing to the wrong source he used, and he was not responsible, he took the pontifical he used in the country he was teaching, already oriented theology towards a more individualistic view of priesthood. And that was still emphasized in the 17th century, chiefly in what they called the French school of spirituality, Salpicians and all the people, you know, who considered always more priesthood as a means of personal sanctification, instead of being a means of ministry in the Church.

[84:43]

But now, owing to the progress of biblical studies, of theological studies and so on, instrumental theology, always more theologians come to the conclusion that a priesthood is a public ministry where he is not ordained a priest in order to sanctify himself, but just to sanctify the other if he has this function in the Church, to communicate the means of sanctification. And you know, that's a big problem now also in the ecumenical field. among Protestants and Calvinists, you know, Schiffle, where there is in different churches, Schiffle, the Calvinian reform, there is a certain ministry, but no priesthood. And now there are always more studying this problem, this sort of dilemma, ministry and priesthood, and coming to the conclusion that ministry in the church includes necessarily, not for all the ministers, but necessarily a priesthood. And so, recently I heard a friend of mine who is a professor in the Protestant Faculty of Theology of Copenhagen, of Aarhus in Denmark, and referring to what he said in a, what they study in a theological congress among Protestants, and they all welcome

[86:02]

You see, they are rediscovering the ecclesiastical character of priesthood. And at the same time, owing to the study of the same source, we in the Catholic Church are also rediscovering that. And that appears in the liturgical movement, in which the liturgical leaders, and now the Odyssey took the initiative of this movement, you see. always emphasize, always more, the social ecclesiastical character of the liturgical functions asking us to sing, to participate, and so on. Not to be merely a personal, private devotion, you see, but to be a more congregational, conventual prayer. And so, that shows also, always more, the conventual character of priesthood. But this priesthood is the the priesthood of priests as ministers, but now all the Christians have to exercise another priesthood, which is the priesthood of the Baptists, you see, baptismal priesthood, which consists in uniting oneself to the sacrifice of Christ.

[87:17]

That's what we are initiated in the baptism, in the death and resurrection of Christ, and what we express at the maximum in the Eucharist, in participation in the Eucharistic ministry and Eucharistic communion. But it's obvious that it is not necessary to exercise the sacerdotal ministry to exercise this baptismal priesthood. For instance, it's obvious in the case of the consecration of the virgins that the person who is consecrated, who offers herself to God, is not the one who offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. without which his, her sacrifice would not be completed. So she needs a priest, but she does not necessarily need to be a priest to offer his sacrifice. That's an extreme case. Our lady, who never received the sacraments of baptism and ordination, but offered himself more than everybody.

[88:19]

on the other cross, and so on, you see? And during the whole life of Christ, since the triad of the Annunciation. That shows that, you see, to offer this baptismal personal priesthood of all the priests, it's not necessary to participate in the ministerial priesthood. So I just came up with a very complicated, you imagine, problem, you see, which I had to be... to be dealt with with caution and many nuances, but we have that time here and it's not necessary to you. I just sum up the conclusions, you see, and I think now always more theologians agree, you see, on that. Before the time these ideas enter in practice, you see, or reach the seminarians, the theologians, the bishops, and so on, it's quite some time, you see, but then it's necessary that there are also in theology some laboratories in which we live. another idea, you see, before they reach the other church.

[89:23]

You see. So I think it's typical in the church now that we are assisting, we are seeing a renewal of this real, authentic, traditional and continuous meaning of priesthood in the church and therefore in monastic life. Of course, we must avoid every absolute solution, no? Life is never abstract, absolute. So there may always be exceptions. Because first, there is no theological incompatibility between priesthood and monastic life. That would be an error to think that. There is no. So, historically, we see that there are some race-beings, some time-beings, some vocations, you see, exceptional vocations of monks, to which priesthood becomes a sort of help.

[90:26]

And the good sign, what usually, there was not the monks themselves who asked to be priests. the community or the superior thought that it would be good for this particular priest to become a priestess, but always exceptionally. So that I think it's obvious that the normal way would be a lay monastery, a monastery of laymen, in which the priest would be the exception. Whereas now in most of our houses, it's the contrary, you see. the non-priest are the exception. And instead of asking a dispense in order to not ordain a monk, we should better ask a permission to ordain a monk. And I think that probably will come. It depends upon us. It is not a speculative problem, a mere affair of ideas, but I think it's a matter of authenticity in monastic life and in the Church.

[91:32]

Of course, another problem involved in that is the relatively recent conception of the multiplicity of masses. of the so-called absolute value of each mass. That is again another problem of which we have no time to deal with, but that's here also, you see. We must maintain that each mass has a special value, you see. there may be, that's just abstract, you see, in abstract, but in fact, there may be many circumstances in the Church, and there are, in which the best way to express, to signify our faith in the ecclesiastical character of the Eucharist is not to say much. For instance, in different orders, as the Cistercians and others, you see, on the day of the solemn procession, in the day in which, if the prophet is a priest, you see, in the day in which normally he should offer himself in the Eucharist, he doesn't.

[92:39]

He attends the conventual Mass and receives the communion at this Mass. And the Carthusians, up to a few years ago, had still the use that on the Great Feast, they They were not private masses, they all assisted, attended the conventual masses, just to manifest, to show their communion, the community life in the maximum in the highest act of their life. And the things changed in a rather unethical way, because a Carthusian coming from another powder entered there, and then after a few years, without saying to anybody, he wrote to Rome saying, don't you know that the Carthusians on the day of Easter and Christmas don't say Mass? Oh, the scandals. Oh, the Cartusians don't say Mass, it presents itself. And so they sent an order, said, do say, don't say Mass.

[93:40]

But I know, and the novice master of the good chapters told me myself, they hope that with time they come back to the ancient Jews. That shows, you see, that there may be, and there are, just put some examples, circumstances in which The best way to procure the higher glory to God and good to souls is not to say Mass. And so that's what we are progressively rediscovering in the Church, and the fact of monastic priesthood, the emphasis on monastic conventual Mass, is another manifestation of that in the Church. But as I said, there may be exceptional vocations, and as I said, the most normal of these exceptional vocations would be hermits, then have to be priests, because normally, not necessarily, they have to be able to say mass alone, and so on. And so that was just a consideration. And I repeat to conclude these words of Fr.

[94:43]

Vandenbroek, monks are Christians who want to live for God alone in the Fuga Mundi, and their priesthood is only justified in view of the liturgical functions of their communities.

[94:57]

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