Let me review a little bit. Last time we talked a little bit about the rule and about the different stages of development of the Kamau base constitutions. You each have a copy of it now. I think it is the latest ones, which are the ones of 1968 and 1969. We refer to them as the constitution of 1969, the post-radical two constitutions. Now, you remember we had declarations and constitutions. And the declarations were usually interspersed among the chapters of the Rule of St. Benedict. Whereas the constitutions were the juridical elements which were put at the end. And a lot of them were just plain structural legal elements. They were not spiritual elements at all. But the other ones that were introduced, interspersed in the Rule of St. Benedict were partly spiritual and partly juridical. At present, they're divided into 10 schemes, like the documents of Vatican II,

[01:02]

which were called schemes when they were first introduced in the Council. And then they had different kind of classifications. Some were apostolic constitutions, or what did they call them? Others were decrees. And they had different grades of importance, those documents. These are still called schemes. And I don't know whether that's permanent or not, but they'll remain that way. We will, as a matter of fact, get into those of Vatican II documents in a bit. Because we need to review the background for the present constitution to represent a big change when it's necessary to justify, in a sense, that change, or to show the motivation for it. There are collections of Vatican II documents in the library. There are two editions. The first edition is headed by Abbott. Is it Walter Abbott? It's not the same, right?

[02:04]

Yeah. It's not the same Abbott as the other, the other historians. The second edition is more complete, and it's by Austin Connelly, O.P. And it's got other documents subsequent to the Council. And it came out only a few years ago. So it's a marvelous thing. It's got 1,000 pages. Very useful. Packed full of Church documents. For the time of the Council, and then subsequent documents, which had to do with executing the renewal. Now, what we're interested in, of course, is only the renewal of religious life. There is one document of Vatican II which is specifically on that, and it's called Perfecta Caritatis. Is it a constitution? It's in here, starting about page 620. Decree.

[03:11]

It's got the rank of decree. On the up-to-date renewal of religious life, 28th of October, 1965, towards the end of the Council. The first documents that came out were the one on the liturgy and the one on the Church itself. Then the one on Holy Scripture. Those were the four major documents. This is among the lesser documents. It deals with a particular part of the Church's life. The major ones deal with the whole life of the Church. They have the rank of constitution. I don't know of the decree. It doesn't mean that this one is unimportant. Well, this decree on the renewal of religious life takes it into account, affirms it very definitely, that religious life needs renewal. And then it tells how the various communities are to go about doing it. In other words, the Church doesn't try to renew the religious communities from the top. But from the top, it tells them that they have to do it themselves. It's this peculiar interaction between

[04:13]

the structure or the authority or the hierarchy and the grassroots. In fact, they instructed the various congregations to enlist the participation of all the members in trying to renew themselves. And this is something new. I don't think they ever did that before. Tried to interrogate all of the members of the big religious order in order to renew the constitution. So usually they'll do those things with groups that are elected or appointed. And so it was quite a cumbersome process. Nevertheless, it was done. So we had questionnaires sent to the community. And each of the members of the community has to respond. And then the community has to talk those things over and send back their conclusions, their results and suggestions, back to a committee which had been set up over in Italy for the drafting of the new constitution. And this went on for a couple of years. And they had two general chapters. One in 1968, which was what they call

[05:14]

an extraordinary general chapter. It was called just for that purpose. See, usually you have a general chapter every six years. That's the ordinary general chapter. And then there's what they call a consulta, which is in the third year in between. So in the middle of the period, between two general chapters, you have this lesson, meaning that in which you don't have so many delegates, it just matters. But this was an extraordinary general chapter, called especially for the purpose of revising the constitution. And then the second part of it was done, the second part of the work was done at the ordinary chapter in 1969. See, we've had ordinary chapters in 69, 75, and then this last year. Now these constitutions were put out, were published, had experimented, on a trial basis for 12 years, which is the period of two further general chapters. And at the end of the 12 years, they're supposed to be finalized, put in definitive time,

[06:14]

and then sent to the Harrison for approval. So last fall, our constitution for review was a long work that had to be read out, and questions and comments and suggestions were talked over, and decided whether the reason as they were were to make changes. And there were not too many changes, right? Basically, there was a kind of inertia that happens at the end. You don't want to go over and over again. There's a kind of weight on the side of things. That's right. It goes back up above for final approval. And that's where our constitutions are now. See, they've gone back to Rome. After the general chapter revises them, and then every article is voted on, not individually, but you'd have a number of articles, and then a vote would be taken.

[07:17]

And usually the votes were unanimously in favor of accepting the article, because by that time, you've ironed out the difficulties, the tensions have been settled, and so on and so forth. That was usually the case. Then when the whole thing has been approved, and you take a final vote on the whole text, it's sent back to Rome for approval by the sacred foundation of the ages. So we don't have that approval. They might make some suggestions for change, but it's virtually certain that they'll accept, substantially, they'll accept the constitution, because they already were accepted for experimental use. And there are not many changes. Okay, let's look at the, just briefly, at the church documents which dictated this renewal. The first one, as I say, was Perfecta Caritatis, which you'll find in either in Abbott or in Plano, if you're interested in reading it. It's not one of the more groundbreaking documents

[08:19]

of the Second Vatican Council. It tends to reassert principles rather than really saying something new. But it does dictate that a renewal is to be made. Let's see. There are a couple of numbers of it that are of particular importance. I'm going to read number two, number three, and perhaps number seven, because the whole document is worth reading sooner or later. As usual, it's a very dense document. All of these documents are dense, and it's hard to read for that reason. It's hard to pick something out because it's just packed full. One point is exerted right next to the other without any space in between, and it's hard to get a grip of. There must be a particular technique for reading these documents. I think it's good to have a commentary or some way of getting your mind into it. I've always found it difficult. Number two. The up-to-date renewal of religious life

[09:23]

comprises both a constant return to the sources of the whole of the Christian life and to the primitive inspiration of the Institutes, and their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time. That's a marvelous article, telling you what renewal means. See, renewal is not just adapting things to the present moment, making the changes you have to make, to suit the world of today. At the same time, it's going back to the beginning. And you see how it goes back and tries to grab the Gospel, and grab the original inspiration of monasticism, and then at the other end reaches up to grab the situation of today, and then the religious life is to stand between those two. It's really to be itself a link between the original Word of God or the original grace of the Holy Spirit given in the Testament, the original movement of the Spirit which started monasticism in the 3rd to 4th century, and the situation of today,

[10:24]

with no sort of temporary structure having absolute authority in between those two moments. So that's a very audacious move on the part of the Church. It's a kind of prophetically inspired statement of that. And we find that coming back again and again and again. You move forward, or you move out to meet today, but at the same time you move right back to the beginning, right back to the way that it was in the beginning. And it's the things that tend to grow up in the middle, in between the beginning and the present situation that are very carefully to be looked at. They're not to be thrown out, but a lot of those things are subject to change, subject to development. And then the Principles for the Renewal. 1. A. Since the final norm of the religious life is the following of Christ, that is, is put before us in the Gospel, this must be taken by all Institutes as the supreme rule. So the supreme rule is the Gospel, and whatever doesn't agree

[11:25]

with the Gospel somehow can't stand as a rule of religious life. That's critical. It's an abstraction just there, but as soon as you bring a particular principle or code or law next to it, and the sparks fly, because you see how hard it is to keep other legislation fully in conformity with the Gospel, how hard it is to keep it from sort of sliding back into that codification that describes in the Pharisees and the high priest the very law that Jesus comes to liberate men from, how hard it is to keep the freshness of the Gospel, the liberating power of the Gospel in a legislative code, and yet there has to be a legislative code. B. It is for the good of the Church that Institutes have their own proper characters and functions. In other words, they're not all the same, and the people who know the charism of a particular community are the best of the people in that community, for instance, are the people who have received the grace of that vocation.

[12:25]

Therefore, the spirit and aims of each founder should be faithfully accepted and obtained. Indeed, should each Institute sound traditions for all these constitute the patrimony of an Institute. So first we have the Gospel, then we have the charism of the founder and the sound traditions. In other words, development is allowed for them. Now, that's going back, all right, back to the beginning, back to the beginning of Christianity, of the Church, back to the beginning of the rest of the monastic life, with attention to our own founder, but also to the tradition which goes beyond our own founder. And you know, with us, that happens anyway, because as soon as you look at Saint Romneau, you see Saint Benedict behind him. And as soon as you look at Saint Benedict and Saint Romneau, you see Romneau going back behind Saint Benedict, in a way, to the earlier monastic tradition, the early medical tradition that came first. So it's harder for the commodities to stop at one place, at one point in history, in going back to the source than it is for a lot of other Benedictines. We're sent to go back

[13:27]

to the rule and then stop there. Because that's when they find the rule and they think, well, we're from earlier monasticism, and we don't want to cross that. C. Talks about the life of the Church and how the communities are to be aware of the work and activities of the Church and share in it. This is more for the active religious communities, not entirely, not only, but mostly. D. The Institute should cease to it that their members have a proper understanding of men, of the conditions of the times and the needs of the Church, so that they'll be able to make wise judgments about the contemporary world in the light of faith and able to help people more effectively. So theirs are moving forward. See, that's the other principle, after the principle of moving back. And then finally, E. It says that

[14:28]

the basis of religious life is union with God by professional counsel, so no renewal will be any better unless we have a spiritual one. So research the primacy of the spiritual, which for us also research the primacy of the contemporary, so that we understand them better. And then it goes on with articles about the particular kinds of changes that have to be made. This starts on page 611 in Flannery's edition, Abbott's edition. This is Flannery. I can put this on the shelf. Table of Contents is in the front. Basically, see there's a lot more in this book. There are a lot of other documents in this book, but the basic counsel documents, the twelve of them, are in both books. Number three.

[15:30]

The manner of life, of prayer, and of work should be in harmony with the present-day physical and psychological conditions of the members. This is a surprising thing to turn up in. It seems obvious at one point, but it's very hard to accept, and this is the moving forward, I should say. In other words, you can't know exactly the same as they did in the 6th century. It should also be in harmony with the needs of the apostolate and the measure that the nature of each institute requires. Less, of course, for contemplative communities. With the requirements of culture and the social and economic circumstances. This should be the case everywhere, but especially in mission territories, because they're thinking, I think, that sometimes you have a vast disproportion in a place like Africa or Asia between the level of the people, the economic level of the people and the economic level of the religious world. You could have monks, or you can have missionaries living in a palace where other people live, and they sit among the crowd.

[16:32]

A mode of government of the institute should also be examined according to the same criteria. There have to be some structural changes. For this reason, the constitutions, directories, books of customs, of prayers, of ceremonies, and such like, should be properly revised. Obsolete prescriptions being suppressed and should be brought into line with conciliatory documents. So that's a strong shot, you see. And later on, the documents are going to say, well, every community has to revise its constitution. So get busy. The second document, the other numbers that are of interest here, are number seven on the contemplative life, and number nine on the monastic life. I'm not going to read them because we're headed straight for the constitutions. The second document we're interested in is called Ecclesiae Sanctae. And actually, it doesn't come from Vatican II. It comes from Pope 46. And it's on the implementation of perfected

[17:38]

caritables. So how to execute, in a more detailed way, how to go about executing the caritables decree for renewal and mandate for renewal of religious life. The first part tells how to set it up. The second part tells how to revise the constitutions. And typical, which is the expression for the eastern equivalent of constitution, is very unavoidable. And third, the criteria for renewal and adaptation. And then, there's another part which gets down to specific things. I just want to read you a little. This starts on page 624. I want to read you a little bit about how the communities are to go about doing the renewal. This is background for a lot of the constitution. It is, number one, it is the institutes themselves, institutes, communities, congregations, which have the main responsibility for renewal and adaptation. They shall accomplish this especially by means of general chapters. The idea is they want to enlist the participation

[18:39]

of as many of the members as they can, as much from the ground level and the grass roots as they can, not just from the top. There are a lot of things that reflect this in Vatican II. Another one is collegiality, the revival of the notion of collegiality of bishop in Vatican II, broadening the voice, as it were, in the church so that it's not completely directed from the top. And also the principle of subordination. Subordination means that you favor the authority of the people who are in touch with the thing itself, and you favor the maximum of freedom or authority on the part of the person lower down on the ladder. Okay? You don't favor removing all responsibility from the person at the bottom of the chain. Speaking authority-wise, you try to maximize the responsibility,

[19:39]

so you decentralize. Instead of accumulating all of the power and responsibility and decision-making capacity at the top of the pyramid, you try to leave as much of it as you can down at the bottom. And then you only relegate the necessary decisions, the indispensable kinds of decision and power up to the higher echelons. As long as it doesn't fly apart, because that's the risk of decentralizing. There's a centrifugal force which can blow everything up, which can make it split apart. As a matter of fact, the Church has become very centralized. In the 19th century, in the early 20th century, because of the things that the Catholic Church was up against, it became decentralized. This is the first Vatican Council back in 1870, something like that. Is there some area

[20:40]

of that form of freedom and universal diversity? Yeah, sure. Form and freedom, too. That's always in question. The same thing appears in many different ways. Even though there isn't a word in the freedom, in the for freedom. But there's exactly the same, those pairs of terms. You have to be careful and equate them. It's one thing to say structure and freedom, it's another thing to say bigness and smallness or center and periphery. They're different, they're subtle relations between them. The task of the general chapters is not limited to making laws, they should also foster spiritual and apostolic vitality. The cooperation

[21:41]

of all superiors and subjects, we still use the word subject here, is necessary for the renewal of an unreligious life, the preparation of the spiritual and unreligious chapters, and so on. Now here we get to the particular steps. Number three, in each institute, in order to put renewal and adaptation into effect, a special general chapter is to be summoned within two or at most three years. This was done in 1966, our first general chapter was in 1963. This can be the ordinary general chapter or an extraordinary one. We had an extraordinary one followed by an extraordinary one. In preparation for this general the general council must arrange by some suitable means for an ample and free consultation of all the subjects. We have questionnaires. And we sent back our answers to the group. Number six,

[22:50]

the general chapter has the right to alter temporarily certain prescriptions of the constitutions by way of experiment, provided that the purpose, nature, and character of the institute are safeguarded. Experiments which run counter to common law and they should be embarked upon with prudence will be readily authorized by the holy council. see is the need arises. So, in the time before the constitutions are finalized, the communities through the superiors were given the power to change things, to make changes, to experiment doing things differently, even when those things went against the existing constitution. And the general council was given the same power in between, because you don't always have a general chapter in session. The general council continues, as it were, the role of the general chapter in between chapters. The general chapter is the prior to the is the prior to

[23:51]

the constitution. Let's see. Let's suspend our questions while we get into the constitution committee. I don't know if we're to go Because I didn't have a single computer back then. Um... Nothing. Oh, yeah. Well, they had an operating program before that. The ecumenical thing wasn't possible at the time. So that kind of thing. Okay. Yeah. That's it. In fact, in the spirit of the time, it would have been very difficult to do it.

[24:52]

Let alone the laws themselves. It would have been... In the spirit of the time, it would have been impossible. We'll run across some of those exceptions. Those temporary exceptions. Number 12. The general laws of every institute, that is, constitutions, etc., must generally speaking contain the following elements. Now, this is important. A. The evangelical and theological principles concerning religious life and its incorporation in the church. B. The juridical norms necessary to define the character, means, and means employed by the institute. Do you get the idea? There are two kinds of things in the Constitution. There are supposed to be. First, the spiritual principles or theological principles. And secondly, the laws themselves. So it's not just law. And it's not just theology. And it's not just exhortation. It's not just, you know, kind of...

[25:53]

It's not like a homo or a pious exhortation. But it's not simply legalism. It's not simply a code of prescriptions telling you what to do. It's supposed to have both. As a matter of fact, our constitutions, I think, are kind of a masterpiece of combining those two elements. In a way, which is really interlocked. If you look at earlier constitutions, you'll also find a union of those two elements. It's not always quite so fortunate. Do you remember how wide those two things went in the Constitution of Jezebel, of which we just had a sample last time? On the one hand, you'd have a very spiritual kind of meditation, which you wouldn't find anymore in our constitutions. Do you remember the meditation of Blessed Rudolph on the Blessed Virgin? Or the woman in the desert? And then the meditation on Moses at the Horn of Persia?

[26:53]

And then, you'd never find that in our present constitution. That's a kind of sapiential theology, which is left for conferences or individual meditations. That kind of literature doesn't come in our constitutions anymore. Somehow we're too rational, we're too mean-minded to accept it, small-hearted to accept it. On the other hand, remember how detailed those legal prescriptions were, correct? The legal prescriptions went right down to the point of telling you what to have for supper at a certain time. And in between, you have legal prescriptions of a very necessary kind, like telling you about fasting, telling you about the cloister, all of the separation. So you have essential ones, and then on one side you have a kind of literary expansion that you wouldn't find anymore, and on the other side you have these detailed legal prescriptions, which descend really to the very small things. And then we could look at the constitution even of 1957, at the end of that long chain of development, in the same way.

[27:59]

You don't find a lot of meditative embellishment, and you might miss it in those constitutions. They're pretty sober, but juridically they're very, very heavy, the constitutions of 1957. And this has been true for most of the history of the Constitution. Number 13, the combination of both elements, the spiritual and the juridical, is necessary so as to ensure that the principle codes of each institute will have a solid foundation and be firm, not like air. Huh? Be permeated by a spirit which is authentic and a law which is alive. Care must be taken not to produce a text either purely juridical or merely auditory. That's really pretty good, what's being said there. See what the mixture is? It's a mixture of the interior and the exterior, in a sense.

[29:05]

A mixture of trying to render, trying to convey the spirit by theological principles and also by a kind of spiritual genre, whatever that would be, the spiritual language. And on the other hand, giving you very clear-cut prescriptions of what to do and of the structure of the congregation. And it recognizes that two-fold nature in the Church, called the institutional nature, which expresses itself from the laws and norms. And then that comes spiritual reality. And the way that they have to relate to one another. Fourteen, from the basic text of the rules, one shall exclude anything which is now out of date or anything which may change with the conditions of time or which is a purely local application. A purely local application. I'll tell you, if you look at the constitutions of Joseph Rudolph, even those of 1957, there are certain things which are appropriate only to denominate. Certain things, I think it tells you how many folks were named Rudolph, things like that,

[30:07]

which really don't have an overwhelming spiritual power for you if you're not living in California. And you don't have the same kind of bells. If you get those things mixed in with the serious things and the important things in the constitution, it's not that they're bad, but what they do is they weigh down and diminish the power and the value of the text itself. Because then you have a mixture of sort of clay and gold. These norms which are linked with present-day life over the physical and psychical conditions or situations of the subject should be entered in separate books, such as directories, books of customs, or similar documents, whatever they're in. Okay, so you're going to have a level of prescriptions which really shouldn't be in the constitutions because it's too detailed, either for time or for place. Time because it's suited to people nowadays.

[31:10]

Say something about medical insurance or things like that, which are relative to a particular culture and situation. Or things that relate to a particular place. You shall not go beyond a cloister in the direction of East or West or something like that, which are geographical and local in nature. Or pertain to the customs of a particular house. If you've got a monastery 800 years old, you're likely to have certain customs or certain devotions, not to some of your local saints or something like that, that don't belong in the constitution. You should be kept in local books. So it's a clear mandate given for these new constitutions. Any questions about that? Well, it depends on what you mean by then. What time would you select? Okay, 1957. What's the difference?

[32:13]

Gosh. Okay, first of all, this is going to come up as we go through the constitutions even briefly, okay? Because whenever you get a reference back to the original constitution, you begin to see a contrast springing up. And I'll be pointing those things out deliberately so you get an idea of the difference. One big difference is there's a much more ecclesial... Oh, here's the one that came to mind. There's a more ecclesial sense in the new constitution because they begin with a push on the part of the church as a whole, which manifested in the general council, okay? Which is a very unusual event in the life of the church. So these constitutions are riding, in a sense, on the wave of Vatican II, of the life of the church. And so they're much more ecclesial and general and sort of open-eyed than are the previous constitutions, which are all sort of inside the house. They're all concerned with your own thing and not looking out in that respect.

[33:21]

And there's much more theology in the new constitutions, which means much more of the universal doctrine of Christianity and of monastic life than there was in the earlier constitutions. The earlier constitutions are like a traditional passing down of a certain way of looking at things, which basically doesn't change for centuries and centuries and centuries. And is really concerned only with your own life, only with your own way of life. Now this follows the move of the church itself in Vatican II. It's sort of turning out towards the world and saying, oh, the church exists for the world, in the world, in some way, not only sort of for itself. Now here I'm exaggerating on this. It's a parallel movement to that, which opens the monastic life up to the church and even to the world outside the church, in a sense. Especially since they put an ecumenical article in the final report. They just did that last year. It wasn't. I don't think there was anything about humanism, even in 1969. What do they mean by that? It's very broad.

[34:23]

Because it's not only limited to fellow Christians, but it goes even beyond that. Simply because, partly because, similar people are involved in the religious dialogue as well. You have to be very careful there that you make distinctions between different levels of the humanism. Classically, the humanism has meant the relations and working communion between different Christians. It's basically about the same life. So when you extend it outside, that's what you get. But the way it's been put in, it has been left open to that larger, more universal sense. Then, in 15, 16, and 17, they give the principles on which these things are to be done. First of all, based on the council documents. And not only Perfecta Caritatis, but also the other ones, especially the one on the church. And then, the study and meditation of the Gospel and the whole of Holy Scripture has to be incurred.

[35:26]

Then, the doctrine of religious life has to be examined and expanded on various aspects. Do you see how this follows that basic structure that was given before? Return to the sources, the source of Christianity in the Scripture. And also the source of religious life. So you have to go back into history and dig out the origins and find out what really was there at the beginning. Thirdly, for the good of the church, institutes must seek after a genuine understanding of their original spirit. So that they will preserve it faithfully when deciding on adaptations. Will purify their religious life from alien elements and will free it from what is obsolete. That goes in the same direction, back towards recovering the original spirit. Seventeenth, those elements are to be considered obsolete which do not pertain to the nature and purpose of the institute. And which, having lost their meaning and impact, are of no further assistance to religious life. Notice there's a continual returning to that. Evidently, the Council of Fathers felt that there were a lot of obsolete elements that had been sort of left floating in the legislation of the religious communities.

[36:31]

You have to realize also that the women religious, the nuns, particularly the contemplative nuns, have particular problems. In some way they have less opportunity to determine the shape of their own life than other religious. Active religious women, it's different. Especially since Vatican II, of course some of them have kind of blown up. Some of the congregations are phenomenal. Others, however, have been able to work things out in a realistic way. They have an advantage over the contemplative nuns in that way. There's a difference between the two. At the same time, they're up to lose their reach. Okay, any questions about that? I don't want to spend too much time on these documents. I'll get back to you. There are also some subsequent documents on the religious life, and I'm just going to mention them and not go into them. The first being Renovaciones Causa, which is a document on formation in religious communities issued in 1969.

[37:38]

And what it has in mind is the adaptation, the revision of the militia, constancy, and those things. The formation structure and the manner of formation. Part of the idea being to lengthen the formation phase, so that before you get anybody to the point of permanent, solemn incorporation into the community, he's had a very long phase of preparation, education, initiation, and also taking over. Another thing that was introduced was that promise, remember, that not only do you have the possibility of progression, because the only thing you have up to that point is you can make a promise, which is lighter, and which permits a person to leave without quite so much of an onus as if he's made vows to God and his visitors one by one. However, as they say, that promise is going to disappear. The second one is Venite Seorsum, which means come apart, come aside.

[38:41]

Remember, it's in Gospels when Jesus and his disciples were pregnant, they decided to come aside, depart into a quiet place, and rest for a while. And that is specifically on a contemplative life and on the enclosure of nuns. It's got a beautiful spiritual theological part, which was part of the idea that it was put together largely by our Father General, Father Benedict, together with John McGrath. And then the second part is actually a juridical prescription, which climbs down from the devil. The third one is Evangelica Testificatio, 1968. Is that right? No, 1970, 71. Which, that was still proposed, I suppose. That's on the religious life in general. Kind of general, uh, exhortatory document on the religious life. The fourth one is, I don't have the Latin, because most of the letters are in Latin,

[39:42]

but this I have in English translation. It's not in Plenary. All the others are in Plenary. I don't know if they're in Abbot or not anymore. Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life, from 1980. So this is quite recent. And this has two purposes. This last one is to clarify the contemplative side of the active religious life, and then to give a boost also to the visibly contemplative community, to clear up certain confusions, and especially that dichotomy between contemplation and action, which keeps interwoven. So trying to understand how the two really can be related, can be synthesized, or, in a sense, can be one. It's a brief document, but it's essentially incisive. I haven't studied it, I just picked it up again this morning. I haven't seen it before. Well, this is talking, of course, to communities, that is, to institutes,

[40:48]

so it's a little different from talking to the individual, but nevertheless, it's a good point. This is the conclusion. The contemplative dimension is the real secret of renewal for every religious life. This was introduced in Theracotta. It vitally renews the following of Christ, because it leads to an experiential knowledge of him. This knowledge is needed for the authentic witness to him by those who have heard him and seen him with their own eyes, quoting 1 John 1. The more open religious are to the contemplative dimension, the more attentive they will be to the imaginative dimension. It's mostly for active religious, who are always losing their contemplative dimension, or leaving it behind. Don't get afraid of it. Evangelica testificatio. We have a separate brochure form of that, and then it's also in Planner, starting on page 681.

[41:52]

It's quite a file. We went through it one time, I remember, when it came out. I used to send it back. Okay, let's turn to the Constitution, unless there are any other questions. Just preliminary things. First of all, the general structure of the Constitution. For this, we could have it on hand, so we can have it ready to put together. There are ten schemes, and that table of contents should be corrected, because when it was originally typed, it was wrong. First is the preface, second nature and structure, third unity. Fourth, not monastic congregation in the choir, but the monastic community in the choir. That's the fourth scheme. Five, regime. Six, not extraordinary general chapter, but prayer. That should have been corrected.

[42:53]

Okay, now notice that they really fall into two great sections. The first includes schemes one through five, which are structural, theological, and largely juridical. In other words, it's giving you the framework. Whereas schemes six through ten tend to be more spiritual, and sometimes more detailed, considering specific sectors of life. Scheme one, however, is a general basis for the whole structure. Now there are some abbreviations that we have to deal with. Turning past the... You really need the text with you. Next time, Francis. If anybody needs one, I can move on. I've got some more over in my cell.

[44:05]

There's some abbreviations that we have to deal with. They turn up mostly printed fully, at full length, in the early pages, and then they use abbreviations afterwards. Some of them are for declarations and constitutions. The key to those is on pages one through five. Page three. DECL means Declaration. CONST means Constitution. These you'll always find in parentheses after a particular article. Now, see, these were made on the basis of the Constitutions of 1957. So those references are to the Constitutions or the Declarations of 1957, respectively. Now, when it just says CONST number one, that means it repeats that article. So some of the articles are taken straight from 1957. Where it says CF, CF means CONFER. That means compare or look at. So that means compare this with the earlier article of 1957, but it's not the same.

[45:13]

This is on the top of page three. So Constitutions and Declarations, always referring to 1957. If it's other than 1957, that will be made clear. And when there isn't any reference, let's see. There's no indication given at all the article is new. So it wasn't in the 1957 edition. Then you have some commodity sources referred to. And those, a number of them you'll find on page two in that note at the end of the preface. The example in the Doctrine of Holy Father Ronald Leach is principally through the writings of St. Bruno Bonapartio, author of The Life of the Five Brethren. Okay, that's one basic historical text. The other basic historical text is The Life of St. Romuald. St. Peter Damian who compiled his life. So The Life of Vita Romualdi by St. Peter Damian.

[46:15]

Now both of these we have in English. They're not published, but we have them in a typescript form. Then the Customs of Ponte Avalona by St. Peter Damian, which actually are in two editions. There's Opus 14 and Opus 15. And he's got another monastic rule that he wrote for St. Albert. And those we've got. We've got at least Opus 115 in English. I'm not sure it's, I think it's there. And if Blessed Rudolf were drafted the first custom of the Holy Hermitage in Canali, we looked at those. There's very little information on it. We looked at it in a special study. And perhaps it's less important. If you have any questions about those sources, feel free to ask me later on. I'll try to find them.

[47:16]

Vatican II. The Vatican II documents are referred to sometimes by fully quoting. You know those words used for referring to documents, to church documents, the Latin words, which are the first two words of the document. And those first two words are chosen in some way to have a significance to and convey in some way the meaning of the whole document. Like the one thing we were talking about. So you've got abbreviations like LG, or Lumen Gentium, which means the light of the nations, which is the great constitution of the church. And you've got SC, which is Sacro Sanctum Congelia, which is the document on the liturgy. Vatican II. You've got GS, which is Gaudium et Spes, which is the document on the church in the modern world. You've got DV, which is Dei Verbum, the document on Holy Scripture, the Word of God.

[48:23]

You've got PC, that we already referred to, Perfecta Veritatis. And ES is Ecclesiae Sanctae, and not actually a council document, but a post-council document. And then there's some other documents like Eucharisticum Mysterium, which was a document on the Eucharist by Paul VI, which is sometimes referred to in the poem, sometimes only by abbreviation. And those come up if they bother you. Just ask a question about them. If you want to get the Latin titles, look in the Table of Contents of Planner in the front, and he quotes the full Latin title for each one, and then the English translation, and what it refers to. For example, number one, the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and he gives it to you. Okay.

[49:28]

Let's take a look at the first scheme. The first scheme is the preface to the Constitution. Now, its predecessor was appended to the prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict in the earlier Constitution. It's on page 6 in the 1957 edition. It's interesting to compare the two. Notice how this one, the new one, starts out with the beginning of monasticism. Now, this is one of those points of difference, which goes further than just this particular article. It starts out with the beginning of asceticism. Monasticism manifested itself in church even from the beginning, and that vocation followed communally by groups of ascetics and aboriginals. Now you're getting back into the second century or something like that, okay?

[50:32]

I'll then look at the Constitutions and Declarations of 1957. Okay? So you see how the focus is much smaller. The focus is much narrower. Now, this is true not only chronologically in time, but it's also true theologically, okay? So the focus, the view, is a lot more constricted in the earlier Constitutions, whereas in the new Constitutions it widens up to the whole of monasticism. It goes back before St. Romneau, it goes even back before St. Benedict, and then looks sideways laterally also. So this is a basic difference. Now, people would find fault with the new Constitutions. For instance, a number of people in or around the chapter found fault with them because they didn't put St. Romneau in the prominent enough space. In fact, some people would say,

[51:33]

well, we're not interested in that respect. Why don't we talk about our own things? Why don't we talk about what would come out of this tradition? So there was that tension between the specific element, the desire to put all the attention on that, and the wider focus. And typically, at the time of Vatican II. Okay, so this is very carefully structured, this preface to the Constitutions. And the first paragraph is on pre-Benedictine monasticism. In fact, it's pre-monastic monasticism in a sense, because he didn't call it monasticism in the beginning. The second paragraph is on St. Benedict and his position in history. He's the patriarch of the West, in our monastic tradition. Looking at it from a certain perspective, it starts with him. Certainly constitutionally, it starts with him, because we have this rule still. And this rule is almost universal in the Western monasticism.

[52:35]

By the way, this little book of David Noll's is a very useful book, called From Proconius to Ignatius, this constitutional history of monasticism. I suppose there's a time in your life where you're reading those things, but it's really fascinating. It's an external history of monasticism. It doesn't try to talk about the spirit of monasticism, hardly at all, but it's a fascinating book, because of the way in which the exterior development reflects the interior things, and it fits together with so many other things. It's a very incisive book, a series of lectures that he gave, back in, I think, 1966. Paragraph three. Now, here we get to a kind of critical look at the rule of St. Benedict. The rule of Holy Father Benedict is a synthesis of Christian spirituality, as it issued from the experience of the monastic life of the first centuries, composed, first of all, in things from the Gospel, secondly, integrated into the historical and cultural context of his times.

[53:36]

So, besides the perennial doctrine, the sanctity and prudence of St. Benedict are adjoined some spiritual and juridical elements which are bound to his time, and therefore contingent. Now, that is a lot more weighty than you may think, because instead of accepting the rule of St. Benedict even as an absolute, it looks at it in a historical way. It puts it into a historical context, and then says, well, even everything in the rule of St. Benedict is not absolutely valid for today. It's important to recognize that step in the Constitutions. Now, the earlier Constitutions probably wouldn't say that at all. The Constitution of 1957 wouldn't dare do that. It tends to take a text as an absolute and just point to it with reverence, but not look at the other side of it, the fact that some things in it are contingent. I'll read an article from the prologue of 1957,

[54:46]

just for a kind of contrast, even though this would fit later on in our second scheme. The hermitage has ever been considered as the gem and ornament of monastic fellowship, and the true paradise of delights, where the scarlet of the rose of charity, the lily white of chastity, the exudation of the myrrh of perfect mortification, and the incense of prayer continually rising to God make a pompous display. The word pompous, I mean. And that's taken from St. Peter Damien in one of his opus poems. Now, that reminds us very much of the spirit of Blessed Rudolph, doesn't it? There's a big contrast between the presentation of the hermitical life there and the kind of 20th century presentation of it, though with respect that you'll find in the present constitution. The kind of very critical and very sober presentation of it. Not that kind of flowery spiritual treatment, and not just the cold, juridical treatment, but a kind of movement between. Third, fourth parable.

[55:52]

Holy Father Romulus, who lived and worked in the 10th and 11th centuries, remember he died in 1027, actuated in himself the fullness of the spirit of the rule and wisely interpreted its precepts, actuating the solitude of the hermitage. Notice that this is very nuanced. It's a very careful treatment, balancing the old with the new, balancing that which is accepted with reverence, with that which must be revised, must be changed or relativized, something like that. Very carefully put together. There he desired that there should be greater simplicity. Simplicity you can interpret in terms of poverty, but not only poverty. It's a more comprehensive attitude than poverty. More penance and more intense contemplation. Correcting and changing freely some juridical and physical structures of the synovium and of the anchorotism which existed before. Actually the anchorotism maybe didn't have that much structure, but this has to be said in one paragraph. To respond to the exigencies of souls and to the voice of the Holy Spirit

[56:56]

which presided in his conscience. So he's seeing Saint Romulus as a renewer already, seeing Saint Romulus in the light of Vatican II as one who already does a kind of adaptation. And Romulus also moved back beyond, behind the rule of Saint Benedict, remember, to the early anchorotism. Paragraph five. The special fruit of his great and varied monastic experience as reformer and as originator, as the reformer and originator, is the commandolis hermitage. That's a particular kind of structure which retaining some elements of the cenobitical life offers the possibility of a greater individual isolation, greater interior liberty, extending even to reclusion. So here's a kind of pyramid or a spectrum of commandolis life from the cenobitical to the aromatical, semi-aromatical, really in the distinctive commandolis hermitage. And then finally within that hermitage to reclusion.

[57:58]

Paragraph six. The commandolis congregation, thus named from the holy hermitage of commandolis, founded by the same Saint Romulus. The commandolis is a place name. It's a local name. Proceeded to develop as a body with a foundation in the aggregation of hermitages and monasteries. I think that the commandolis constitution of the congregation officially began about 1113 with a papal vote. 1113 was a papal vote. So we can check on that and do a better test here. And which is well, see it's almost a century after the death of Saint Romulus. So he can't really be called the founder of a congregation in the strict sense, but he's the father of the congregation. The aggregation of hermitages and monasteries, often that happened in order to reform them. In order to straighten them out, they'd be put under an observant house. This happened in a massive form with Cluny, which became the head of a monastic empire just about. Reminds you of the Old Testament. They'd bring the kings in and subject them to chains

[59:05]

and cut off their thumbs and make them vassals of the great kings. Because they made all of these monasteries priories. They were abbeys before. In order to reform them, they made them priories of Cluny. And the abbots were demoted to priors. And then the abbot of Cluny was kind of a monastic emperor in a sense. And they had four saints in a row that were abbots of Cluny. So it worked. For 200 years they had holy abbots. So this thing grew because of the spiritual power that was being added. But it became a kind of feudal mountain of organization. That was the monastery of Cluny, the organization of Cluny, which was a great Benedictine synagogue in France in the 10th century, just before.

[60:05]

See, St. Romeo can be considered as starting from the tradition of Cluny, but instead of their long offices and their very, very cenobitical regime where they were always together and very often in choir and had a lot of property and so on. It got to be a monstrous, a massive monasticism. He goes in the other direction, as it were, goes into the woods, you know, with a very poor and solitary monasticism. He goes back towards the beginning. He sort of shakes off this great organization which had grown up. The same thing happens over in the Russian church, I believe, with Nils Sorsky and the Aramidical movement reacting against the great, wealthy, landed, powerful monasticism of, who was it? Theodor Stuhl. But it was John Apollo Kalamst, who was the representative. I'm greatly simplifying things now. Yes.

[61:13]

Well, the Hermits did that, too, but they did it in another way. They did it in their individual selves. It wasn't so much that continual, it wasn't even a continual choral prayer or divine office that they reacted against. They were doing it all together in a massive way, in choir, in organized, structured, communal way. But when they went into solitude, they tended to say the Psalter repeatedly and they'd be singing to the Lord, too. Solitude, poverty. It doesn't work smoothly, so that you get a kind of synthesis, a mainstream that flows down the middle, but it tends to surge from side to side, action and reaction. I don't know why. Paragraph 7. With filial devotion, the congregation esteems the doctrine and the spirit of the Holy Master, that is, of Saint Romulus, as ever valid and considers as always in the past the same holy hermitage as its head and mother. So this is a gesture of reverence towards Saint Romulus,

[62:16]

towards commandole, which is called kaput and mater. And that's a classic phrase that's been passed down through the centuries, similar to the role of Rome, or the role of Saint John the Ladder, as the mater, something like that, the mother of all scriptures. Mother, historically, and head, politically, because commandole really is the head of the congregation, but the spirit resides there. Paragraph 8. On the constitutions and declarations themselves. These constitutions and declarations to the world, drafted according to the directors of the Second Vatican Council, intended to interpret humbly for the present time. The word humbly is explicitly put there, because there's a kind of humble realism in these constitutions. The experience and teaching

[63:18]

of Holy Father Romulus, as well as the tradition, now a thousand years old, of his work, nearly a thousand years old. Okay, that's enough for today. Next time we'll go on with, through the schemes, each one briefly, but giving a little more attention, I think, to the structural elements, so that you have an idea of the shape of the congregation. Any questions? Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

[63:51]

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