Yes. On a Thursday, therefore, pointing back to the Holy Thursday as well as to the Thursday which preceded it. See, very back to it. And that reminds us of the fact that also with the Easter Sunday, we entered into the Pentecost day. into those 50 days in which we celebrate the exaltation of the Lord and which are a symbol among us of that heavenly eternity that our Lord's resurrection has given to us. Nevertheless, in these 50 days we still make a distinction. As we had 40 days before Easter, before the Exaltation, as a preparation to get ready for the Paraskeve, so we have also 40 days after the Resurrection.

[01:12]

so that within these 50 days which the church celebrates the 40 days are distinctly set apart and I think that is an indication for us again a sign a sign of great wisdom and of great recognition of the fact that although the Lord is exalted and is throning at the right hand of the Father, And although we are risen with Him and are enthroned with Him, nevertheless, we also still are here on this earth. And as members of the Church, we also carry still the burden of the 40 days, of those 40 days of preparation. Today's gospel seems to indicate this so clearly. Again we find the same figure Mary Magdalene who was so prominent in the 40 days before the resurrection as the personification of the repentant sinner.

[02:29]

her supplication of the one who was eager to have his sins remitted, who therefore was deeply attached with her whole heart and all her feelings to the Lord who had descended and who allowed her to wash his feet and to anoint his head for burial. So after the Easter we find her again. As we read the other day, Father Stanley, about the significance of the various apparitions of our Lord and various things. Also the difference between Mary Magdalene and St. Thomas. I think one should think here that Mary Magdalene is a woman. as a woman represents the status the whole gospel of saint john those who appear there the persons who appear there are types they are not only individuals because they are shown to us in all their reality historical life a concreteness but nevertheless they are types they

[03:58]

They point beyond their personality, historical personality. So certainly St. Mary Magdalene is in time, and so St. Thomas is in time. And the difference between St. Mary Magdalene and St. Thomas, I mean that the one, St. Mary Magdalene, was forbidden to, as really it should be translated, to cling to the Lord. So St. Thomas was invited to put his hands into his open side. But it seems to me that this difference results from the difference of the type which is indicated and incorporated in those two. Because St. Mary Magdalene, as the woman, is the one who is deeply and unconditionally attached through a bond of affection of the heart to the Lord in his sacred humanity.

[05:05]

And her whole attitude at the sepulcher shows that she is lost in the Lord. Where did they put my Lord? She identifies the Lord with his body. And she identifies the Lord with the dead body. So this identification had to be transfigured, had to be transformed. That human attachment to the humanity of Christ, to the body of Christ, had to be lifted up to a higher devotion, devotion of the risen and transfigured Christ. Because one can see that so clearly that St. Mary Magdalene after she recognizes the word of human affection in the sound of that word, Miriam, which brings all the memories of the past back to her, that her clinging to the Lord means simply that her faith, her faith, say, in the return of the Lord, rests on the human level.

[06:24]

that she now greets the Lord on the same level as she had greeted him before Easter. What she believes, what she recognizes, is that she has her Lord again as she used to have him before the resurrection. And therefore, that has to be lifted up. There we see the deep justification of a rightly understood, I emphasize, rightly understood difference between what we call the historical Christ and the transfigured Lord. So clearly indicated. Saint Mary Magdalene was lost, as it were, in the historical Christ. But the Christ of the resurrection is the curious. He is the Lord. who is the one who is enthroned at the right hand of God. He is the one who is really known, has to be recognized and believed in as the Son of God.

[07:32]

I, today, I have begotten thee. These words that we saw the other day interpreted in the Acts of the Apostles and applied to Easter, to the Resurrection, the Lord says to my Lord, today I have begotten thee. That shows that the resurrection of the Lord is the manifestation of this divine sonship. That therefore Mary Magdalene's earthly affection had to be lifted up and had to be transfigured into the full acceptance and the full love of the Lord as the Son of God. And that is then the glad tiding that she receives, together with that wonderful assertion to my father and to your father, that this lifting up doesn't mean in any way, let's say, the killing off of her human affection, but only the fulfillment of her human affection.

[08:45]

Just as Christian virginity, that means to become a child of the resurrection, as the monastic life shows us the way, that that life too is not a killing of human affections. The transfiguring is a fulfillment of human affections. Just as the virgin in her consecration that she fulfills now and lives the full reality of the mystery of the married life. What is in married life only a sacrament is in the life of Holy Virginity full reality. But both are wedding feasts. Both are wedding one the shadow of the true wedding feast and the other the reality of the true wedding feast and so also Saint Mary Magdalene who stands there that is what seems to me the whole story indicates who clearly is so alone one cannot the richness and the wisdom and the

[10:05]

The wealth which is contained only in a chapter like the 20th chapter of the Gospel of St. John is just so infinite and so tremendous that one just cannot say it all in one word. But anybody who reads it, and how much we should read it in this Easter octave, he will realize that That St. Mary Magdalene was the first to see that the stone was moved away, was rolled away, and that they have taken the Lord, and we don't know where they have laid him. There, St. Mary Magdalene is still in the company of the women. But at the scene that we face today, St. Mary Magdalene is absolutely and completely alone. Completely alone. She never says we. She says I, I, I, my Lord. I know not where they have laid him.

[11:07]

Before they said we don't know where they have laid him. So all these nuances, all these differences have a deep spiritual meaning that one should ponder over each one of them, each word, because St. John doesn't use any words. So there she is completely alone, absolutely. But then, why is she alone? Because she only has that inner and earthly affection to the Lord as her friend. And now she is being lifted up. Don't cling to me. Don't cling to me. I am ascending. It's not I shall ascend, but I am ascending. This is a process. And Mary Magdalene is taken into that, into that process which, say, fills these 40 days until the ascension, say, becomes a manifest final fact.

[12:15]

I am ascending to my Father and to your Father. and therefore into a new community, into a new family. The whole longing of St. Mary Magdalene, lonesome, we can say lost, so lost in her sorrow. A new family, a new community is shown to her. That's the community of those who live in Christ's Father, and Christ's Father becomes our Father. That's the new family. And that is where all longing for affection is fulfilled. And that is the beauty of this gospel. The forgiveness of sins has touched, or let's say has cut Mary Magdalene's heart. She realized that in the world, when this great humaneness

[13:19]

And this deep understanding for human weakness was her friend and the good physician of her soul. This same one then also wants her to lift her up until she is enthroned. There where he is enthroned at the right hand of the Father. And that is the reason the early church has understood that so deeply. And that is the reason why the early church, feeling that the church, the ecclesia, is Mary Magdalene, is that woman. And therefore, always in the apse of every church in the antiquity, the risen Lord always ascended. Not to make the Christians feel that Christ, Jesus, is so far away from high above them not to make them think that majesty divine majesty represents a completely different world which has nothing to do with their life here on earth on the contrary to show them that the full majesty of the Lord is with the church but is with the church of course only in her Easter

[14:46]

in the recognition and experience and knowledge of the resurrection, of the transfiguration, of the glory of Christ. That seems to me is one of the most fateful misunderstandings in the history of devotions and of Christian piety, to think that the majesty of the risen Lord is high above, away from us. so that we need other mediators in order to fill that gap. That is, it seems to me, against our Lord's words, I shall always be with you. And he is with us in the power of his majesty. But for what reason? In order to lift us up into that same power and majesty. so that we may sing these words, that we sing at the moment when we receive Holy Communion, where we all know theoretically that we receive in Holy Communion Christ in His majesty, as He is living and enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

[16:07]

And because we do that, therefore we sing. With today's communion, people whom God has purchased declare the virtues, alleluia, of him who has called you out of darkness into his admirable light, alleluia. And the light, that is seen by Mary Magdalene. She goes and tells the disciples he is risen. Let's go back here. Because Father Masterjee was last yesterday evening on the season, the history of the season between East and West, I think everybody who heard it would not feel but sad over such a story of human shortcomings and human failure.

[17:25]

to live up to the great and eternal designs of god and preferring to the new life when the new horizons that christ's resurrection has opened to us the old dough the vitus fermentum And that vetus fermentum destroys, destroys and eats up the unity of the churches and despises Christianity of its renewing power. And I think we as monks, we have a special obligation to Ask God that in our own lives this Novakman spares you, that we may be the new dawn in that is a mission, God entrusted mission, of the status of the monks, of the contemplatives in the Church.

[18:31]

Why are we, say, in a certain distance from action? That we may not be too involved in the narrow and short-lived tactics and aims, ambitions and ideas of the day. but that we may rise up to the height of the Holy Spirit, to that newness to which Easter is calling us. We see that so clearly. Why do we celebrate this Easter week in all the beauty also which is reflected, for example, in our little sanctuary here in this chapel? in the octagon with those flowers and those lilies and the sun filling it as this morning and then not only the sun filling it but the sun of justice rising

[19:35]

dying for us in Mysterio, in rising for us in Mysterio, and giving us a share of that new life that flows from this open side, that means from the Agape, from that new love that he has shown to us when he died for us and took upon himself the judgment and the punishment in order to give life to us, blessedness to us. and that is the spirit that's a new beginning he loved up to the end and that loving unto the end that is for us in the possibility of a new beginning we are expected celebrating these mysteries remembering our own baptism and that we in baptism have died with Christ but for what reason that we may rise, as we say in the chapter, to the newness of life.

[20:40]

And that newness of life, that is the life which God has given to what we call, in a term which was so cherished by the Christians of old, the third generation, the third generation. this third generation which is beyond the circumcision and the uncircumcision, the non-circumcision, between the circumcision of the law of the Jewish people and the license, licentiousness then, of the pagans. Beyond these two there is the third generation And that third generation is the product not of the corrupt will and desires of fallen human nature as the uncircumcision.

[21:42]

And it is not the product of the law. of that fearful slavery to external commandments which characterized especially the late Jew days and what we call Jew days. That religion which prevailed among the Pharisees and among the high priests at the time in our Lord Jesus Christ came to Jerusalem. But this third generation is the generation of the children of the Heavenly Father, who has sent his Son to become one of us and to dwell in us, who would be our garment and covered with him and living in him. and through him we would have access to the Father. That is the third generation. That's the new horizon.

[22:43]

But lo and behold, the devil succeeds in the history of the individual as well as in the history of the churches and of Christianity to take on all different kinds of desires in order to deceive people. and very often in the name of religion again make them slaves of law and slaves even of their own personal desires. We could see that in yesterday's talk with Fr. Master, the reasons for what are in last analysis the reasons for the schism. The political thinking is that pride which gets hooked on a certain cultural tradition of which one is proud, and for which sake, comparing it with others, one is full of contempt of others. That's one. And then there is the pride of the race, of the nation, of the blood, which again is always, and that is the oldness of it, the vitustas of it.

[24:00]

That makes it, belongs to the selectus mundi, to the old age of this world, of hopelessness. And that is the pride of the race. If somebody hasn't much reason to be proud of himself, then all these thousands and millions of people who have nothing else, at least, can take pride in their blood. And then develops that collective pride, which is even more dangerous than the individual pride. And we as Christians, we are called to transcend that, go beyond it. We know that furthermore, the religion itself becomes, through delusions of the devil, the sacred and holy title with which people again follow their vetus fermentum, the old dogma.

[25:07]

and that is, for example, for absolutizing the accidental, making accidentals the great and big thing, which decides, you know, over orthodoxy, for example, liturgical customs are being blown up into tremendous differences by ignorance again and by pride. because it may be and is perhaps the most dangerous form of pride to be proud of one's orthodoxy. Consider one's orthodoxy as one's own personal privilege and possession and therefore again make orthodoxy a pretext for contempt of others. And again the work of the Holy Spirit is blocked because the humility is lacking Orthodoxy becomes the shield behind which pride, human pride, common human pride again goes hiding.

[26:16]

So the Orthodoxy which suddenly stiffens in certain formulas, orthodoxy, losing the humility, losing also the sense for the tremendous mystery and the infinity of the truth that is given us in divine revelation, things that one generation or one person has it all and knows it all, or one part of the church has it all and knows it And therefore one part of the church can go ahead, leave the other part of the church, and so on. And in that way, schism and divisions arise, and the church loses that fullness that Christ himself, the Easter Christ, the risen Christ, has entrusted to that church. So let us be that a warning to us.

[27:19]

I think church history is for all of us a field of contemplative attention to read. let's say, between the lines of human failings, the will of God, so that, as we can see that in the case of this system between East and West, the past becomes another burden, another weight. It becomes the perpetuation of discord and the remembrance of the past. It seduces people to get more rooted and more stuck in their own ways. Why? Because they always point out what has been done wrong by the other one. Therefore, it's a spirit of revenge. It's a spirit of judging instead of a spirit of repentance.

[28:19]

It's a spirit of saying tuakulpa instead of a spirit of saying meakulpa. and that perpetuates the injustices and the sins of the past, as if a collective could live on other laws as those on which the individual lives. Not knowing and not realizing that it is just the essence of the church, it's just the essence of the third generation, that the law of individual sanctity is not different from the law of collective sanctity. That's the new thing. That's the third dimension that Christ has opened to us. I am sometimes asked, especially in the past, now why should we have here a church, a chapel of the Eastern Rite? That answer is easy to give. One of the reasons certainly is that the Eastern Chapelist would be for us and should be a constant warning of their terrible wounds and their terrible sins that have been committed in the story of this system and which have inflicted untold damage and harm to souls all over the world.

[29:36]

So that monks, contemplatives, who are devoted by the nature of their very vocation to the unity and to the universality of the church, I would say even more than any local church organizations are. Why are we exempt? We are exempt from the local church organization, not to be able to do what we want, that we serve even more intensely and more in a more pure way to the unity of the universal church. And therefore, for monks and in a monastery living according to the rule of Saint Benedict, and therefore with their roots deeply rooted in a time which precedes the schism, in which the unity of the church was still there. And we have heard yesterday, and that was one of the most warning, and also one of the most distressing points, and that was that the schism, instead of during time, to say healing, because it becomes old, has more and more deepened.

[30:48]

And that was what was in the beginning considered as, let us say, separated by charity, as St. Bernard formulates it. Now there are worlds, absolutely, that separate us. Worlds. We are more hostile towards one another than we ever have been, even at the origin of the system. What a sad situation that is. But if we look at the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict, there you see Saint Benedict right away saying, but if you bond to what I have given here, that is just a little beginning, a minimum. See, that is, I would say, the voice of the West. But that's the true voice of the West. That's the voice of humility. St. Benedict saying, in the practical Roman way of a Roman, saying, what I give you here is just a little practical tool, because that's where the Romans were great in that, a practical tool to make a solid and sound beginning.

[32:01]

That was the Roman mission, one can say. But if you want to go on to the higher thing, Then read Saint Basil, there is the great teacher of the East. Go to the traditions of the old monks, and they are all in the East. Monasticism is the gift of the East to the West. I wish so much that under the spirit of the risen Christ, to whom all power is given, and who teaches us and not only teaches us but who has given us the sacraments in which he dies for us and rises for us and in which he is with us for all the ages that this christ who is the triumph the triumphant christ who is beyond that way human death and human life who is the head of the third generation that he may gather round himself his monks as those who are first called to be most close to his spirit

[33:13]

as the third generation then of those children of God who really deeply understand the Father's mind by being so closely united to the Son, being children of the resurrection, that is the meaning of our monastic life, that He may inspire us, that He may give us the power, that He may lead us to the third horizon, in which we then, as members of the Western Church, in this next future, in preparation for this ecumenical council, following the intentions of the Pope, who with purpose, absolute clear purpose, calls himself John, John who was the eagle who represents the third generation. John who was resting at the rest of our Lord and who is our ideal. The eagle that rises above the various contradictions which fill the lower regions of this world.

[34:23]

that we may then, following Christ in the Spirit, also may, as it were, give back to the East what the East has given us. And that is the meaning also of this chapel. In some way it's a gift, that out of the freedom and of the abundance and the bona voluntas of the third generation, we as monks give, as it were, in veneration, in love, to the Easter Church. from whom we have received our monastic life, our monastic vocation, one can say. In that way, because this is not only a theoretical thing, it's also a practical thing, because I told you before, it's just in this country, which in many ways is so extremely Western, but through God's providential guidance, Just in this country we have today the relatively strongest body of Eastern tradition still alive.

[35:31]

So therefore in that way I would consider this Eastern Chapel for us as a constant reminder to live more intensively and more gratefully the spirit, the spirit of St. John is always considered the spirit of the Eastern Church. We for that matter also remaining and being good soldiers under St. Peter. But still there we have St. John with us because that's our calling. We are called to be contemplatives. We are not called, and therefore St. Peter's temptation, to draw the sword. But we understand, we should understand, what our Lord says. Peter, put your sword away. This is not the hour of the sword. And therefore he says to John, who rested at his breast, I want him to be the way he is until I come.

[36:35]

See, that are the perspectives that must be alive in us. But don't misunderstand me at all, because I'm fully aware of the fact that they are also in the course, especially of the history of these last centuries, there are many attempts being made, but to my mind, by human self-will, to pierce through the old contradictions and to find somewhere the third dimension. Many attempts of that kind are being made. Think of all these attempts in modern times to reach, to say, now an armistice between the various churches and attempts that are being made at toleration, mutual tolerance, or attempts that are being made on ecumenical meetings to find a more comprehensive formula, or a formula, say, of compromise, in which the various churches could agree, that, to my mind, those attempts clearly bear the stamp of human making.

[38:00]

of human origin. We cannot be third generation if we don't follow Christ, who alone is the door into a new age. That we should always remember. It's only Christ who is the door into a new age. Therefore, following his teaching, being imbued with his sacrament, And living in his presence, in the presence of his power, that alone can be the way into a future, into a Christian future. That is the way we are called as monks, not the way of human wisdom. but only the way of the infinite creative power of Christ, who died for us, who loved us unto the end, that we should every day make a new beginning, a new start. But I would like to add this too.

[39:01]

Don't be deceived. Just as we will never reach any kind of agreement between the collectives, before the individuals have understood what it is all about. As nothing will ever bear fruit on a big scale of church politics if there is not a new spirit living in the hearts of the faithful. Just as we said that yesterday and heard it yesterday. The time is past in which the reconciliation of the church would be a matter of some high officials making some agreements. That's impossible. It has to be done at the grassroots, in the individuals. But there I would say, my dear brethren, if we aspire to this with our whole heart, to the third generation, to a new horizon, in which the foolish human contradictions are transcended in a newness of life, we have to start it in our own life first.

[40:12]

We have to be willing to do everything we do by going and passing through Christ as the door. All the conflicts and all the contradictions that we find in our own lower nature, all the rebellion against Christ, all the temptation against His love all the susceptibilities of our own nature all that has to be transcended in us and we have to transcend it and can transcend it only by remembering Christ and using Him as the door in our own spiritual life otherwise we can't do it so that's for example the reason why after each prayer hour, we make a little pause. What is the meaning of that little pause? Not to get impatient and wiggle around and ask oneself, why haven't we been long enough in church?

[41:15]

No, it's that pause in which we just take a breath and say now before we start you know let us say to throw ourselves again into that into the labors of peter let us just think you know that we want to do it in the name of the one whom we have called upon right now in this divine office that we do it and carry the spirit of the Alleluia and of this heavenly garden which our church represents, that we carry that wherever it is, into the office, into the laundry, into the kitchen, into the wherever we work, that we carry that piece of paradise in our heart, carry into it so that We constantly live out of what we receive up there in that octagon, in that picture of the world of the third generation, the world of the risen Christ.

[42:20]

Just the other day, I think you're all familiar with it, but I saw it in a picture, is that wonderful, moving picture A group of sculpture in the Cathedral of Strasbourg, they call it the Pillar of Judgment. And in this Pillar of Judgment is one of these Gothic pillars rising up and carrying the high walls of that beautiful cathedral. And there you can see the judgment. There are the apostles who are called to be judges. There is above the apostles, there are the angels. It's called the pillar of the angels. And these angels, they are the contemplatives. They have and look and read in the book of history as it is spoken by the Lamb of the ages. And they, you know, just put, you know, in the act of putting their trumpets to their mouth, and they are just waiting for the last word, the word of judgment, to announce that there is now no time anymore, but only time for God's judgment.

[43:42]

Sum up the whole meaning of history. But before they do it and start blowing that sound, that clarion of the end, one last glance of mankind, one last stop, one last opportunity to think and to remember. And that is our pause here. I would say it corresponds here on Earth to that pause that the angels make in heaven before the trumpet signal of the end of human history sounds. Because our going, so to speak, into the active life is going into judgment. That is the judgment. Therefore, when we pass from the adoration of Christ's victorious power and from the Alleluia into the toil of the day, let us just stop for a moment and think everything we do now is judgment.

[44:52]

So in that spirit, let us work our own sanctification and let us pray for the whole of the church, but I say the whole of the church, so that the spirit of the one to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth, that means our Catholic Lord, that his spirit also may be alive in Catholics here on earth. I don't know. I don't know. Nice. It's the last day of that blessed octave. It's unbelievable that we are already at the end and it's the day of Perseus. Alleluia, alleluia. It's morning.

[45:55]

It's time. And in order to understand the Gospel, today's Gospel, the, how's the description of Saint John of the, how the first, what shall we call it, spark of faith rises in the heart of the privileged disciple of Saint John. So it's The birth of the faith in resurrection that the Gospel describes today at the end of this octave, which is devoted to the deepening in our hearts of the faith in the resurrection of Christ, who is the Son of God.

[46:59]

Perhaps one can understand it a little better if one sees just for a moment the various groups or phases, people, that in the course of this 20th chapter of St. John are confronted with the fact of the Resurrection. It may be one looks at the way in which the deeds and the work of redemption that our Lord has worked for us, the way in which that is reflected or the answer or the reaction, let's say, which it provokes in the hearts and minds of those around him we can see that Saint John takes puts great importance and takes great care to describe how in the narrative of the passion of our Lord the selfishness that surrounds him descends

[48:24]

And while he comes to the end, the glorious end of his complete surrender to the Father, and while he, our Lord himself, leaves this world and returns to the Father, saying, consummatum est, everything has come to the desired end, That means union between him and the Father. Those around him and those responsible for his death, they move in the other direction. Selfishness descends into apostasy and suicide. We can see that in Judas Iscariot. We can see it in the Jews, their apostasy.

[49:29]

We have no ruler but Caesar. Also the apostasy of Pilate, abdication, self-abdication in his role as a judge. washing his hands, that is the public declaration of his absolute failure because he has no truth back him up. From there we see apostasy, selfishness leading to apostasy. The story in which Saint John describes the effect of the resurrection on thee those around him there he starts with those who love him and he shows how that love of the lord ascends with him and there we have then several types and several ways of loving him there is first saint mary magdalene

[50:41]

The one who loves the body of the Lord, his human nature. Then there is in today's gospel, there is St. John and there is St. Peter. And as you notice, both are characterized as the disciples whom Jesus loves. It was John the disciple and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, Peter. So both have the affection of the Lord. Both are bound to him, united to him in bonds of special affection. So these three are in today's gospel. And we see how their love reacts in different ways. As St. Gregory says so beautifully in this explanation of today's gospel, that everything that St.

[51:46]

John relates here has not only a historical, but has a mystical and spiritual meaning. And that spiritual meaning is already, I cannot emphasize that enough, part of the literal sense. And the exploring of the literal sense itself is seeing the spiritual sense. Without the spiritual sense, the literal sense is not discovered. That's especially true in St. John's Gospel all over. And very much here, in this case, where very early in the morning, when the song is not yet fully, you know, it's not yet, then the women go. And, of course, of these folk, the attention is focused on St. Mary Magdalene, who is the representative here of the genus feminino, the weaker sex.

[52:49]

And then she sees, and she sees something, only that the stone has been rolled away. We see that gradual initiation into the signs. She sees this one thing. And right away from this first looking at the sepulchre, she draws conclusions in that precipitation which is characteristic of a mind which is deeply upset and which therefore doesn't think quietly. One can say that with all the kind of love that Mary Magdalene has in her heart, For the Lord is not the deep love of the heart, of the inner center of the person. It's an affection. It's what we call an emotion. Her action, her way of acting, is dictated by her emotions.

[53:57]

So characteristic of the woman. but of course also the woman reflects part which is essential to every human being and therefore it's not only a lesson given to women but it's a lesson given to all and therefore she is right there with the conclusion they she doesn't know whom she is talking about and she says they have taken him away But it's quite definite still. They have taken him away. Who it is, the enemies, thieves, nobody knows. They have taken him away. And we do not know where they have laid him. We, that means the group she is with, the group of the women. And with that message of perplexity and of panic she comes, she runs to the two apostles, those two disciples who are, I say, like her, bound to the Lord with bonds of deep affection.

[55:16]

One notices here that in the Greek text the word philae is used. Feline, which means having that inner friendship, bond of friendship, to distinguish this from Agapan, which is the deeper love of the, let us say, one can say the being. Feline is more an emotion, Agapan is more a being, involves the entire person, the center of the person. And then they run The younger and the older, first those two are clearly characterized, set off against each other. St. John the younger one, St. Peter the older one. The one has the elasticity and the enthusiasm of the youth. St. Peter the older one, he can't quite keep pace.

[56:20]

But that, of course, again is, as also St. Gregory points out, deeply significant. I wouldn't say, I mean, of those things one is never quite sure. St. Gregory goes into an explanation of the synagogue, the ecclesia, the church of the Gentiles. It seems to me that one should just keep in mind that in the literal sense, one thing is evident, and that is the distinction of age, the younger and the older one. The younger is there first, but he looks They stooped down but seized there also those clothes that covered the humanity of Christ. But in reverence, fear, he does not dare to enter.

[57:26]

That means he is struck seeing these people bandages with which the Lord's body was covered. He senses, as it were, the mystery, and he is struck by this in awe and reverence. So we have there this eagerness of this personal love of the Lord, and the alacrity of the youth, the enthusiasm of the young soul, ready to storm, as it were, into a new future. And then you have that reverence stooping down and being struck by the mystery, the sense of awe, reverence, and not daring to get, let us say, rush immediately

[58:29]

either upon a conclusion, not even rushing about the whole evidence, not even inquisitive, but stopped in that sense of awe. And that's of course the other necessary phase of real faith, I mean solid faith. Eagerness must be there, the readiness that new horizons may be open. the eagerness of love, but also that sense of reverence for the Mysterium, and that holding back. Real faith, really, is always, as we can see that in the whole history of the Old Testament, it's the result of looking twice. One never sees it at first glance. And here is St. John, the one who looks twice. St. Peter, the older one, coming there right away enters.

[59:35]

He is not, as it were, kept away or inhibited by any great sense of mystery, but he wants to look what it's all about. He comes in that attitude of the one, the older one, the one who has to take care of this situation and cope with it in the right way. So he goes right in and looks around, gets the whole evidence. But strangely enough, the whole evidence and that inquisitiveness and that looking about as one who is in control of the situation does not lead him to that believing, at least not at this moment. But he sees it all. He sees not only the first evidence of the bandages, he also sees that napkin which covered the head and which was laid aside in a careful way.

[60:53]

He all notices that. But he doesn't take or doesn't derive from it the conclusion of what has happened. But he evidently tells Saint John about it, what he has seen. And then Saint John goes in. And then he sees it, but more recollected with that sense of awe and reverence And then seeing the whole sign. You notice the sign, the whole sign is composed of three things. As the stone is taken away from the tomb. That's what St. Mary Magdalene had seen. And the tomb is empty. And there is these bandages. of the body, and there's the napkin that covers the head.

[61:56]

That are the three signs. St. John then sees it all, but in a recollection, that sense of mystery. He sees, therefore, and perceives also the, one can say, atmosphere of absolute calm, and of deliberateness and one can even say of order and of greatest care that his eyes meet in the sepulchral itself. There is no sign of haste. There is no sign of violence. Nobody evidently has broken in. Nothing human has been done there, one can say. Nothing that either friends or enemies, human beings, would have done. They would have taken either the whole body, certainly, or they would have ripped it open and so on and left everything in disorder and chaos.

[63:13]

Nothing of that. But here is all, it's marked by this, feature of greatest order and care that means a divine plan has reigns here divine commands have been obeyed in this whole act and therefore this is the consummation of the father's will and those who minister And therefore St. John, out of this and seeing that and perceiving that in the recollection of his own heart, awed by the mystery, he then believes. But St. John still leaves it in, one can say, in obscurity. What he believes, what is that life?

[64:16]

But it is enough for us. The light has been kindled in St. John's heart. He sees that here is a divine sign, divine intervention. And therefore, in all what he sees there means life. It means a new life, victory over

[64:41]

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