Oh incomprehensible creator, true fountain of light and only author of all knowledge, grant we beseech you to enlighten our understanding and to remove from us all darkness of sin and ignorance. You who make eloquent the tongues of those who want utterance, direct my tongue and pour out on my lips the grace of your blessing. Give us all a diligent and obedient spirit, quickness of apprehension, and the powerful assistance of your holy grace, so that what we hear we may apply to your honor and to the eternal salvation of our souls. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Saint Benedict, pray for us. Saint Luke, pray for us. We should have left it at 7.15.

[01:02]

The caterer didn't show up with the soup until about 10 minutes to six. So there you go. Tell God about your plans. But got out of doing the dishes. from the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Now, this is how the birth of Jesus came about. When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, an upright man unwilling to expose her to the law,

[02:10]

decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream and said to him, Joseph, son of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife. It is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived this child. She is to have a son and you are to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. All this happened to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet, the virgin shall be with child and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, a name which means God is with us. When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had directed him, and he received her into his home as his wife.

[03:20]

One Sunday afternoon, after attending the Eucharistic adoration and benediction at their local parish, a family was leaving church and the little third grade son asked his parents, what is a most chaste spouse? The mother replied, a chaste spouse is someone's husband or wife who is good and pure and holy. Why do you ask? Our prayers in the church, he said, called Saint Joseph a most chaste spouse. So his mother asked, well, what do you think it means? The boy answered, well,

[04:33]

I thought it meant that all the girls chased after him, but Mary got him in the end. In the wonderful and classic and timeless children's story, Through the Looking Glass, the white queen advises Alice to practice believing six impossible things every day before breakfast. I would advise that each Christian would do well to take the same advice. Not just at Christmas, but every day. because it is at the heart, really, of the Christian message, and it is the basis for any reformation of life.

[05:39]

Faith that allows you to believe things which, on the surface, don't really make much sense. How else are we to read or understand, if indeed we do understand, this preposterous story of how God decided to abandon heaven for earth. How the almighty, incomprehensible, omnipotent God traded his power and his omnipotence, his majesty and his might for diapers and a teething ring. And how do we understand how his mother could not say how this happened exactly?

[06:42]

And the mother's husband knew for sure that he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. St. Joseph, Matthew tells us, was a just man, and I suspect a very kind one as well. And whatever he believed about his young wife, he wasn't willing to shame her, either by putting her on public trial or by muddying her name only to clear his own. So, Saint Matthew tells us that he decided to divorce her quietly without casting blame. And just when he was on the verge of doing precisely that, an angel, another one of those angels,

[07:53]

started to whisper in his ear in the night while he was asleep. And the angel gave him several impossible things of his own to believe before breakfast. You talk about an earful. And of course, like for Mary, so for Joseph, Life was never the same again. His whole sense of what is right and what is wrong, his whole understanding of the order of the universe is now completely lost in the divine shuffle. His righteousness has to give way to God's righteousness. He believed what the angel told him. And as a consequence, he took Mary home as his wife.

[09:00]

But what did that make him? A father? A stepfather? The head of a household? Or the appointed guardian for God's own son? Joseph, after this, seems to just disappear after the incident of the finding of the boy Jesus in the temple when he was 12 years old. And we never hear from Joseph again. Actually, we never hear from Joseph, period. He doesn't say anything in the Gospel. But he sort of disappears from the scene entirely. He's not even mentioned again. And that, I suppose, lends some support to the belief or the tradition that Joseph was already an old man when he took Mary in.

[10:09]

That is a legend, by the way, that I do not believe. But we'll go with it for the sake of tradition. Much of our religious art would bear it out. Joseph is usually depicted as a sort of grizzled old man who has lost most of his hair, dozing off to the side with his chin on his walking stick, while the whole world admires the young Mary and the baby. In some paintings, He sits near her with his shoe off and his foot bare, snipping away at an old woolen sock to make a little blanket for the baby. In another, he sort of cups a slender candle in his hands, protecting its fragile flame from the wind.

[11:19]

while his wife and his child seem to glow with an interior light. Joseph's earthbound light is feeble against the heavenly radiance of the woman and the child. And he seems always to be lingering just beyond the edge of a golden sphere that envelopes Mary and Jesus. The kindly old man in the dark, a sort of extra in the divine drama starring Mary and Jesus. As in Saint Luke, as we saw this morning, in the scene of the Annunciation, It is just Mary and the angel.

[12:22]

Mary, the tender girl dressed in blue, clutching a white louis to her breast as the bright angel bursts in upon her. Hail, oh highly favored one, the Lord is with you. But in Matthew, it is Joseph who holds center stage. sort of old man in a brown homespun robe, asleep on his pallet, with his mouth slightly open, as the angel whispers in his ear, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

[13:31]

This is really Matthew's version or Matthew's equivalent, if you will, of the Annunciation, huh? If the Messiah is to be born the son of David, then it is to this man that he must be born. because the prophet said so. And Matthew goes to great lengths to persuade us that what the prophets foretold must come true, must come to pass. There is no Mary here. There is no Lily. There is no Magnificat. There is no let it be done to me as you say. Joseph has his own part in the divine drama. And here, Mary has no lines.

[14:32]

And so, according to Saint Matthew, the whole grand experiment hangs not on Mary, but on Joseph. If Joseph believes the angel, If he accepts the message, then everything is on. There is a green light. It's a go. The story can unfold. Mary will have a home and a family and her child will be born son of David. But if Joseph chooses not to believe, then everything comes to a grinding halt. If he wakes up from his dream and sort of shakes the sleep out of his head and goes to the courthouse to file the divorce papers, then Mary becomes an outcast forever.

[15:43]

A woman of ill repute, disowned, by her family, abandoned for disgracing them, and left to scratch out a living to feed her illegitimate child the best she can. You see, the child is Joseph's until he says otherwise. Whether or not his own seed is involved in this, he becomes the child's father the moment he says so. Because this is not a matter of biology. It is a matter of law. The Jewish law said that if someone attests, this is my son, then it is so attested.

[16:46]

So will Joseph claim the child? Will he believe this impossible tale and give him a home? Or will he stick to what makes sense and let the miracle go by the boards? According to Saint Matthew, Joseph's belief is as critical and essential as the story of Mary's womb. It takes both parents to give birth to this remarkable child. Mary to give him life and Joseph to give him a name. Jesus, son of David, from whose house the Messiah must be born. Now in our own age of people who conceive and bear and raise children without the benefit of marriage, the issue of legitimacy sounds a bit quaint and old-fashioned.

[18:09]

But the heart of this story is much bigger and far more profound than the question of legitimacy. Because the heart of the story is about a just man who wakes up one day to find his life wrecked. Wrecked. His wife is pregnant. His trust is betrayed. His name is ruined. His future is revoked. It's about a just and righteous man who surveys a mess that he had absolutely nothing to do with creating and decides to jump right into the middle of it.

[19:18]

to believe God and to believe that God is present in that mess. With every reason to disown it, to walk away from it, to opt for a cleaner, more controlled, comfortable life with a much more conventional wife. But Joseph does not do that. He doesn't walk away. He claims the scandal and he gives it a name. In other words, he owns the mess. He legitimizes it and the mess becomes the place where the Messiah is born. That is the mystery of incarnation.

[20:20]

Do I need to say more? The reformation of life is God's doing more than our own. He's the one that's turning everything upside down. He's the one creating the mess. And He's asking us what we're going to do about it. If anything, the quiet old man on the margin, the one with the missing sock and the candle wax on his sleeve, he's the one to watch. Because he is the one in the story who is most like us. Isn't he? presented day by day with circumstances beyond our control.

[21:23]

Isn't that how we find life most of the time? Why 9-11? Why don't families seem to work anymore? Marriages broken and end in divorce. more regularly than not. Why do children kill children? Joseph is perplexed and frightened as we often find ourselves perplexed and frightened by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our own personal lives at times, but certainly the life of our society, of our world. But Joseph doesn't stay paralyzed, and that's the point.

[22:26]

He does what he can. There is a Buddhist legend, I think. I'll check this out with Bertrand later, whether it's accurate. But there's a legend that the Buddha returned one day as a little parent who was flying above the forest and suddenly there was a great storm and a lightning struck. hit a tree strike, hit a tree which then burst into flames and resulted in a huge conflagration. The whole forest ablaze and all of the animals frightened and running for their lives. The little parrot didn't know what to do. He saw that there was a stream and he began to fly to the stream and dive into it.

[23:32]

and then getting himself all wet would fly above the fire and shake these little droplets of water on this huge fire and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth he went while on some cloud some regal birds like eagles were having tea. And they were watching this little episode and making fun of this stupid little parrot who kept thinking that he could put out this fire by shaking these few drops of water. So one of the golden eagles went flying down to try to reason with the parrot and to tell him that it was hopeless. It was useless to spend his energy trying to put out this fire when he didn't possibly have a chance of accomplishing it. But the little bird would hear nothing of it.

[24:34]

And he said, I don't need somebody to give me advice. I need somebody to pitch in and help. But the eagle just shook his head and began to fly away. And the little bird kept going back for more and more water. Finally, the eagle had a conversion and thought to himself that this was such an inspiration that he wanted to help that little bird. And so he began this stream of tears which ultimately put out the fire. And the little bird said, now that's more like it. He did what he could. And that's what Joseph did, what he could. Not only did he take Mary into his house, but he arranged for her to have the child.

[25:39]

He fled with her into exile when Herod was threatening to kill the child. Yes, he was frightened. Yes, he was confused. Yes, he was perplexed. But he was not paralyzed. With lives we would never have chosen And often we are tempted to divorce it all. When the angel whispers in our ear, do not fear. God is here. It may not be the life you planned, but God may be born here if you permit it. If you permit it. The if is a real shocker because what it says is that God's yes depends on ours.

[26:53]

That God's birth requires human partners, a Mary, a Joseph, a you, a me, willing to believe the impossible, willing to claim the scandal, to adopt it, to accept the whole sticky mess, and rocking it gently in our arms as Joseph rocks the infant. There is a wonderful story in the dialogues of St. Gregory about St. Benedict. He tells the incident of St. Benedict sitting at the door of his cell, absorbed in reading sacred scripture, again a very quiet and tranquil contemplative scene, into which

[28:02]

comes this brute of a barbarian dragging some poor peasant shackled in ropes behind him. And he rudely interrupts St. Benedict's reading and says, this guy says you have money that belongs to me in your monastery. It's in your keeping and I want my money. Benedict is completely unfettered and unfurled by this rude interruption. He simply looks up from his book and he looks at the barbarian. Then he looks at the peasant with great compassion and miraculously the ropes fall from the peasant and he is freed. and unfettered. The barbarian is tremendously moved by this great miracle and has a great conversion.

[29:10]

Now you see that is a snapshot, if you will, of what the monastic and the contemplative life is really all about. It is the monk the oblate, the spiritual seeker, absorbed in prayer, absorbed in the Word of God, and looking out on to the corrupt world, which is represented by the barbarian, and looking with love and compassion, and through that converts the world. our lives, our losses, our Lord. And not just each of us alone, but all of us together. We survey a world that seems to have run amok. And we proclaim over and over again to anyone who will listen that God is still with us.

[30:21]

that God is still being born in the mess and through the mess and within and among those who still believe that angels tell them in their dreams to do what God has asked. When Joseph awoke from sleep, He did as the angel of the Lord had commanded. He took Mary home as his wife, but he knew her not until she had born a son and named him Jesus. When we can believe impossible things before breakfast, we have the possibility of doing the same. Lord, I am afraid of saying yes.

[31:35]

Where will you take me? I'm afraid of drawing the long straw. I'm afraid of signing my name to an unread agreement. I am afraid of the yes that entails other yeses. And yet, I am not at peace. You pursue me, Lord. You besiege me. I run after noise for fear of hearing you. But in a moment of silence, you slip through. I turn from the road, for I have caught sight of you. But at the end of the path, you are there waiting for me. Where shall I hide? I meet you everywhere. Is it then impossible to escape you? But I am afraid to say yes, Lord.

[32:42]

I am afraid of putting my hand in yours, for you hold on to it. I am afraid of meeting your eyes, for you can win me. I am afraid of your demands, for you are a jealous God. I am hemmed in, yet I hide. I am captured, yet I struggle, and I fight knowing that I am already defeated. For you are stronger, Lord. You own the world, and you take it from me. When I stretch out my hand to catch hold of people and things, they vanish before me. It's no fun, Lord. I can't keep anything for myself. The flower I pick fades in my hands. My laugh freezes on my lips.

[33:45]

The waltz I dance leaves me restless and uneasy. Everything seems empty. Everything seems hollow. You have made a desert around me. I am hungry and thirsty. and the whole world cannot satisfy me. And yet I love you, Lord. What have I done to you? I worked for you. I gave myself for you. Oh, great and terrible God, what more do you want? Son, daughter, I want more for you. and for the world. Until now, you have planned your actions, but I have no need of them. You have asked for my approval. You have asked for my support.

[34:48]

You have wanted to interest me in your work. But don't you see, son, daughter, that you were reversing the roles. I have watched you. I have seen your goodwill, and I want more than you know. You will no longer do your own works, but the will of my Father in heaven. Say yes, son, daughter. I need your yes, as I needed Mary's and Joseph's to come to earth. For it is I who must do your work. It is I who must live in your family. It is I who must be in your neighborhood and not you. For it is my look that penetrates and not yours.

[35:51]

My work that carries weight and not yours. My life that transforms and not yours. Give all to me. Abandon all to me. I need your yes to be united with you and to come down to earth. I need your yes to continue saving the world. Oh Lord, I am afraid of your demands, but who can resist you? That your kingdom may come and not mine. that your will may be done and not mine. Help me to say yes. Oh incomprehensible creator, true fountain of light and only author of all knowledge, grant we beseech you to enlighten our understanding and to remove far from us all darkness of sin and ignorance.

[36:58]

You who make eloquent the tongues of those who want utterance, direct my tongue and pour out on my lips the grace of your blessing. Give us all a diligent and obedient spirit, quickness of apprehension, and the powerful assistance of your holy grace, so that what we hear we may apply to your honor and to the eternal salvation of our souls. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord. Saint Benedict, blessed Paul VI, pray for us. Good morning. The stalwarts lasted to the end. Very good. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of listening to myself talk. from the prophet Isaiah.

[38:01]

Hear me, O coastlands. Listen, O distant people. The Lord called me from my birth. From my mother's womb, he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow. In his quiver, he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory. Though I thought I had toiled in vain and for nothing, uselessly spent my strength, yet my reward is with the Lord. my recompense with my God. For now the Lord has spoken, who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him.

[39:13]

And I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength. It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel. I will make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the very ends of the earth. no one knows for sure who this servant that Isaiah is talking about really is. Because Isaiah had a way of getting so wrapped up in God and so wrapped up in what God was giving him to say that he all but lost track of who he himself was.

[40:21]

I suppose he was like an actor who loves so much the play that he's in, that he can recite every line and he can jump in and take any part. And that's sort of what you get the feeling of with Isaiah. He sometimes says, I, as if he is actually speaking about himself. Sometimes he's speaking for God when he says, I. And more than once, he's speaking for this unidentified servant of God. Someone who is chosen by God and who suffered a great deal for having been chosen by God. Now, for us Christians reading Isaiah, We identify, of course, the servant of the Lord as Jesus, who is the man of sorrows, the one acquainted with grief.

[41:36]

But Isaiah sometimes calls him the servant Israel without telling us whether or not he means an individual named Israel or whether he means the whole nation of Israel itself. And so when we come upon this servant in this 49th chapter of the prophet Isaiah, he is in deep despair. Nothing seems to be working for him. Everything he touches seems to break. He knows that God has called him from his mother's womb. He knows that he is God's beloved child. But that knowledge and that realization seems to only intensify his grief because he is convinced that he has wasted his gifts, that it's all been for naught.

[42:50]

There is a school of spirituality that teaches that God punishes us with his love. That he loves us so much that that love is so pervasive and so deep that when it finally dawns on you, you just feel so completely unworthy of it. And it's almost like a punishment. I don't deserve this kind of love. Why is he loving me when I am such a terrible person? I fail at everything. I know my own evil demons within. Why? Why does God do this? It is a punishment in a way to be so loved by God. God, the servant says, has made his mouth like a sharp sword. But as far as the servant is concerned, his words don't seem to be able to cut through anything.

[43:59]

God has made him like a polished arrow. But as far as he's concerned, he's not able to hit the target. He keeps missing the mark. Why? I have labored in vain, he says. I have spent my strength for nothing, for vanity. The description is sort of like a painting. And the portrait that emerges is this figure of God's suffering servant. God's chosen one. And yes, primarily we do understand this in capital letters, The Chosen One, Jesus Christ. But, in a very real sense, God's Chosen One speaks to us.

[45:05]

It is about us. And it refers to all God's servants in the world. You and me. And whether we like it or not, And let's face it, oftentimes we don't. Whether we like it or not, every one of us is a full-fledged chosen one of God and a deputy, as it were, of God's kingdom in the world. It's true, some of us are better at it than others. and some of us seem to end up doing more harm than good, but none of us is excused. From the moment we were baptized, we were made Christ's own. We were set apart as God's servants in the world.

[46:09]

A chosen race, a holy priesthood, a nation set apart as we prayed in the preface at this morning's Mass. And the fact that we are still hanging around seems to testify that we haven't completely thrown in the towel yet, even though we may not feel up to the task. sort of know that as God's people, as his chosen ones, he expects us and we expect ourselves to somehow be different. And so there's a little bit of pressure in being God's chosen one. We expect ourselves to be more generous, to be kinder, to be more wise. We recently had somebody send us one of these things on the email.

[47:12]

I don't know who thinks these things up. They're amazing. But anyway, this one was about a man who was driving a car. And the traffic signal began to turn from green to red. And so at the yellow light, he came to a stop. Well, the woman driver in back of him was furious because she was in a hurry and she wanted to run the light. And now she wasn't able to run the light because this guy stopped. And so she's in her car and she's flipping him the finger and she's honking the horn and he could see her in the rearview mirror. You know, she's freaking out and going crazy. All of a sudden, a policeman taps on her window and he arrests her. and takes her in to the station. And he lets her sit there for some time. And after a while, he comes back and he says, oh, I'm very sorry, ma'am.

[48:15]

There has been a mistake. He said, you see, I saw how you were acting in that car. But then I also noticed the bumper stickers. Pro-life. Practice random acts of kindness. peace, love one another. So obviously he said, I thought you stole the car. So no more parking in the handicapped places. You see, you get the idea. We're supposed to be better. People want us to be better. You are God's own people. And God's people are expected, after all, to be extraordinary. Don't you feel extraordinary? Extra thoughtful, extra friendly, always available, extra nice, extra involved.

[49:23]

And so most of you are. You do, and you do, and you do. You volunteer. You join. You serve this committee, that committee. Soup kitchen, parish council. You listen. You give. To every single organization that sends the appeal. Because you feel guilty if you don't. You leave home early and you come home late. You take on other people's problems and burdens like they're your own. You put the other person first. You invite them into your homes. And of course, then they try to take your coat. And you end up giving them your shirt as well. You burn the candle at both ends.

[50:28]

discovering that the great reward for a job well done is simply more work. You begin to get, feel like you're getting taken advantage of, huh? And you begin to wonder, is it really God I'm serving? Or is it my own ego? You snap at somebody all of a sudden who doesn't deserve it and you sort of are startled at your reaction. Where did that come from? Why am I so irascible? Why am I so grumpy all of a sudden? You start to get tired earlier and earlier. And finally there comes a day when you don't even want to get out of bed. I have spent my strength for nothing, for vanity.

[51:33]

I suspect that's what Isaiah's servant is feeling. And I suspect that all of us have been there. Maybe we're there right now. We've had it. It's classically called, I suppose, burnout. But it's also sometimes been referred to as compassion fatigue. Just worn out because you can't live up to everybody else's expectations. In fact, you can't even live up to your own. And so this servant of the Lord that Isaiah is talking about, you know, he expects to be fired. He wants to be fired. He wants to be replaced by someone who is more up for the role. He tells God, I've accomplished nothing.

[52:36]

I am nothing. I deserve nothing. Don't make me your servant. Now, when he gets to this point, It's really a moment of grace. Don't feel sorry for him. Don't feel sorry for yourself. It's a moment of God's grace. Because God does not accept the resignation. And what God says is that my idea of success has never been the same as your idea of success. So you don't have to put on that kind of pressure. God has a better idea. I will make you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Now there's some divine logic for you, huh?

[53:42]

Fell at a large task and you're given an even bigger one to do. produce hardly a little spark, all of a sudden you're called to be light of the world. It's either a case of divine irony or that God knows something we don't. That success does not depend on the chosen Success depends on the one who does the choosing. Success does not depend on the chosen one, but on the one who does the choosing. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta often said, God does not look for success. He only looks for fidelity. In the hand of the Holy One of Israel, the sharp sword cannot fail to dazzle and the polished arrow cannot fail to miss its mark.

[55:03]

The only way that we can truly fail is if we remove ourselves from God's hands to let our own poor judgment make us quit our relationship with He who has chosen us because we feel unworthy, that God couldn't love us. And so we disqualify ourselves from God's service on the grounds that our efforts are not good enough. That's an excuse. Our skills are not fine enough. That's an excuse. our scores are not high enough. It's an excuse. And we love excuses. Have I told you the story about the soldiers who were given leave for the weekend and told to be back for roll call at seven o'clock sharp Monday morning?

[56:15]

And so roll call came around. No one's present. About an hour later, the first one comes into the commanding officer full of apologies. I'm so sorry, Sarge. I really tried my best to get back. But you know, I was in town. I had a date. I lost track of time. So I hired a taxi, but the taxi broke down. So then I bought a horse, and I was coming in on the horse, but the horse had a heart attack and died. And I had to run the last five miles on my own, and I just made it, and I'm here as fast as I can. The skeptical sergeant sort of said, don't let it happen again, and dismissed him. But then, in short order, Seven more showed up, all with the same excuse. Was in town, had a date, lost track of time, hired the taxi, the taxi broke down, got a horse, the horse had a heart attack and died and ran the last five miles.

[57:26]

Finally, the ninth and last soldier comes in. And of course the commanding officer says, are you going to tell me that you were in town and lost track of time and hired a taxi? And he said, yeah, that's exactly what I did. But there were so many dead horses in the road, I couldn't get here. Excuses. Yeah. We disqualify ourselves from God's service on the grounds that our efforts aren't good enough or our scores aren't high enough or our skills aren't fine enough. But you see, when our own ideas of success get bankrupt, when our own notions of servanthood are exhausted,

[58:32]

Only then is there room for God to give us a new vision of ourselves, of who we are. And this is critical to one's reformation of life. This is how God makes reformation of life possible. There's a story in the Desert Fathers of Abba Lot and Abba Joseph. And Abba Joseph goes to the old Abba lot and says, Abba, to the extent that I am able, I follow my little rule, I say my prayers, I fast, and I do my work. What else must I need to do? The old ancient Abba holds out his hands and each of his ten fingers become columns of fire.

[59:38]

And he says to Abba Joseph, why not become like one of these? To become on fire with God and to radiate God's light from within. It has nothing to do with tasks. It has to do with who one is at the very core of one's being. And this is what God is trying to do for us and in us. For Isaiah's servant, the vision was one of light, an epiphany of being set on fire as God's beacon in the world. He previously had thought it was enough for him to simply do his duty. To do the particular tasks that God had set before him. Tasks at which he labored and labored and labored until he had no strength left.

[60:44]

And so he comes to the end of his rope. He admits his defeat. And that is when God gives him the promise that he can be a light for the nation. Stop doing a job, God said, and start being a light. Stop doing your duty. Start doing mine. Stop worrying about whether or not you have done a good job. Start leaving that up to me. Because you cannot see it the way I see it. Just let your light shine and I will take care of the rest. It's not an official translation, of course, but what if? What if the real measure of our success is not how much we accomplish or how hard we work or what it is that we do.

[61:54]

but to the extent that whatever we do, we radiate the light and the brightness of God, because He has sent us as a candle into a dark room. It's just an idea, of course, but if there's anything to it, then there is no such thing. as laboring in vain. And I think at the end of a retreat, when it is time to go back out into the world, it's important to be reminded that our first call is to be a candle in the darkness. The Holy One of Israel has chosen you has chosen each one of you from your mother's wombs, gave you a mouth like a sharp sword, and has made you a polished arrow.

[63:06]

If only you would believe it. It is not up to us to decide whether we have succeeded or failed. It is not up to us to decide whether we have labored in vain. Our call, if you accept it, is to stay as close to God, to Him who is all light, so that our service is not simply performing or playing a role or meeting other people's expectations, but it is remaining in relationship with the one who is able to make an epiphany out of each one of our lives. This is the great call to be a servant of the Lord.

[64:12]

May he support us all the day long till the shades lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed and the fear of life is over and our work is done. Then in his mercy, may he give us a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last. Amen. To officially close then the retreat, I'll ask those oblates who have already made their final oblation to renew it by repeating after me. I renew my oblation as an oblate of Saint Benedict for the community of Mount Savior Monastery. and promise again to serve God and all people according to the rule of Saint Benedict.

[65:32]

Let us pray. God, most compassionate and loving, strengthen me in my commitment to follow you in the way of Saint Benedict. Through our daily prayers and work, may we be inspired to live in Christ and to bring his love to the world and his peace to all hearts. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord. May almighty God bless you, keep you from all evil, and bring you to everlasting life. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[66:10]

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