of prayer because whatever we do when we serve God and one another with the talents that God has given us, it really is a prayer. So we're enormously grateful to see so many of you and we're equally grateful that David Burrell was able to be with us. And as you know, we don't give long invitations. Some of you have heard this, but Father Demetrius Dumb was here once and he said the best introduction he ever had was with a group of Quakers when they were all in the room and the person who was in charge simply looked at him and said, we're ready, are you ready? Now I know Father David is ready and the question is are you ready? Thank you very much Father Martin and all of the community here at Mount Savior.

[01:05]

I haven't gotten here often in recent years but every time I come I realize how much a part of my life this monastery has been and it helps me to give thanks for that life as God has directed it. The title that we decided on and that ended up in the brochures and which I undertook because I wanted to learn more about her was philosophy to poetry, faith as a way of knowing in John of the Cross and Edith Stein. So that's what I would like to speak about this evening, about the draw of John of the Cross to Edith Stein as the natural evolution of the Christian faith. Faith as a mode of knowing means it's a personal relationship to its source, who is, of course, Jesus. And one's life becomes more and more one of praise and thanksgiving. Praise, of course, Elizabeth the Trinity, thanksgiving, Thérèse of Lisieux.

[02:06]

And if all of one's life is a gift, then one's actions are no longer one's own. That's what I want to focus on. for John of the Cross and John of the Cross whom Edith Stein discovered towards the end of her life, which was so tragically cut short. What John of the Cross did was open her to an appreciation of the uniqueness of the relation of the creator to the creature. He did that through, of course, concentrating, as he did, on the union of lover and beloved, which already implies the distinction between creator and creature, a distinction which fairly exemplifies the big difference between separation and distinction. We'll talk about that and can display in the hands of a poet as accomplished as John of the Cross the uniqueness of this distinction of the creator. with the creature because, of course, the creature can never be without the Creator.

[03:11]

So we are never separate from God, although we are distinct from God. John of the Cross already talks about a union in the nature of created things, a union of the creature with the Creator, which becomes intentionally so in those who permit the interior transformation by the Holy Spirit into images of God become images of Christ, the interaction of human and divine in each one of us. So that's what I'd like to explore this afternoon. We are gifted with teachers and guides, companions and friends present to us, whether currently living or not, who shape our lives by giving us the courage to live and to love. As a matrix of such relationships, this monastery offers a microcosm of living into and out of the perennial source of nourishment that we call tradition. In this often cacophonous reach for symphony, many voices contend, each bringing something needed, though not always appreciated.

[04:21]

The letters of Edith Stein as daughter, student, companion, teacher, and then as Teresa Benedicta of the cross, testify to a person replete with friends nourished by relationships which she herself cultivated. Responding to the initial invitation of another Teresa to collaborate in the reform of Carmel, John of the Cross devoted the bulk of his life as a religious to that work, carrying out assigned duties in the orders despite acute and recriminatory opposition from his own, yet never allowing any of it to displace his vocation as a spiritual guide. Indeed, his two most lyrical works, the spiritual canonical and the living flame of love were composed at the behest of friends who had come to accompany him in the spirit, Anya de Jesus and Doña Anna de Peñalosa, respectively. The plot thickens as Ada Stein also called forth in the journey which led her to become Sister Teresa Benedicta by her encounter with Teresa of Avila.

[05:27]

devotes what were to be the final months of her life attempting to understand John of the Cross, as she puts it, in his life and works, considering him from a point of view that enables us to envisage the unity between life and works. Occasioned by the upcoming fourth centenary of the saint, this philosopher would seize that opportunity to penetrate to the unity of John's life and works, incorporating, as she puts it, an interpretation offering what she believes a lifetime of effort to have taught her about the laws of intellectual and spiritual being and life. So she will not hesitate to expound her theories on spirit, faith, and contemplation, specifying that what she says on ego, freedom, and person is not derived from the writings of our Holy Father John, for only modern philosophy has set itself the task of working out a philosophy of the person, such as is suggested in the passages. that she mentions.

[06:29]

So this relationship of master-disciple, sustained by the family of Carmel, extended over space and time, allows the apprentice, Edith Stein, to exercise her own experience coupled to philosophical developments achieved in the intervening four centuries. So the relationship between these two, a poet with an exquisite grasp of matters in philosophical theology, and a vigorous philosopher brought through her interior life to a refined sensibility for the poetics of love, can epitomize our thesis about the fruitfulness of lives lived in so rich a community of prayer and inquiry. It was particularly a book by Mary Giles entitled Poetics of Love, Meditations on John's Spiritual Canticle that really inspired my reflections here. So in attempting an appreciation of the homage of this philosophical spirit to her poetic guide and predecessor in Carmel, I'm going to utilize a treatise that she did on finite and infinite being, which was a study of Thomas Aquinas after she had spent her time translating his disputed questions on truth.

[07:41]

But let us first try to evoke the rich person of this scholar who found herself so drawn by truth as it was unveiled to her as well as drawn to those with whom she shared this adventure, friends and students, many of whom quickly became friends, alike. Gifted with a thoroughly intellectual temperament, her advice to a colleague, Fritz Kaufmann, reveals as well just how centered she already was at 28 years old. This letter was written in 1919. I'm worried about seeing how, for months, you have avoided doing purely philosophical work and am gradually beginning to wonder whether your profession should not lie in a different direction. Please do not take this as a vote of no confidence or as doubting your ability. I only mean that one should not use force to make the center of one's life anything that fails to give one the right kind of satisfaction. Equally drawn as she was to scholarship and to guiding others to cognate goals, she could be utterly forthright in critique of another's work, as evidenced in her response to a former student's dissertation comparing two German philosophers.

[08:49]

I am convinced that if you have an opportunity to work for a few years longer at this systematic philosophy, you will yourself experience the need to go beyond this work. not merely take an independent position on the problems you have touched, but to tackle the interpretation from the basis of clearly established final principles. Without that, no actual comparison of what is meant as systematic philosophy is possible. From the start, I missed a sharp delineation of what Brentano and Husserl, on whom she did her dissertation, understood as the real and as essence, and several other matters. Imagine getting that letter from a good friend, right? To be sure, this communication begins gently. Undoubtedly, this work demanded a great deal of effort from you. It is very neat and conscientious and will sure be of lasting use for anyone who will study the relationship of Husserl to Brentano. But its author cannot have failed to discern, in her friend Ada's words, that she had rather miss the point philosophically. In a more personal vein, to another former student who was herself discerning a vocation to religious life, Edith writes, God leads each of us in an individual way.

[10:01]

One reaches the goal more easily and more quickly than another. We can do very little ourselves compared to what is done to us, but that little bit we must do. Primarily, this consists, before all else, in persevering in prayer to find the right way and a following of that resistance, the attraction of grace when we feel it. Whoever acts in this way and perseveres patiently will not be able to say that his efforts were in vain. But one may not set a deadline for the Lord. Among the books you got as a child, do you have Anderson's fairy tales? If so, read the story of the Ugly Duckling. I believe in your swan destiny. To yet another former student, now teaching in school, also discerning religious life, she writes, to contend for souls and love them in the Lord is the Christian's duty, and actually a special goal of the Dominican order. But if that is your goal, and if the thought of marriage is farthest from your mind, then it will be good if you soon begin to wear appropriate dress.

[11:04]

That will make it clear to people who it is they are dealing with. Otherwise, there may be the danger of your misleading others and your behavior being misinterpreted, and your achieving exactly the opposite of what you desire. I would not be surprised if, without your being aware of it, that has not already happened at times. It should be clear how those associated with this woman could be assured of hearing the truth as she saw it. Yet at the same time, many seemed ineluctably drawn to her as she reminds her colleague Fritz. The circle of persons whom I consider as connected with me has increased so much in the course of the years that it's entirely impossible to keep in touch by the usual means. But I have other ways and means of keeping the bonds alive, meaning, of course, union in prayer. Early on, Edith had been thwarted from pursuing her second doctorate in Germany. You have to get a second doctorate to teach in a university called the Habilitation Schrift for the simple reason that she was a woman. And her remarks, again to Fritz Kaufmann, on the academic politics surrounding the matter were unyielding.

[12:10]

Yet within two weeks, she finds herself consoling him. It's terribly dear of you to be so zealous on my behalf, but I must tell you that things have gone very well for me in the past weeks, and that I am no longer the least bit furious or sad. Instead, I find the whole matter very funny. After all, I do not consider life on the whole to carry so much weight that it would matter a great deal what position I occupy, and I would like you to make that attitude your own." She perfectly realized that she would never be admitted to university teaching without the second doctorate. Yet service was already more important than a career, so she soon immersed herself in secondary teaching at a Dominican sister's school in Spire in Bavaria, soon after her baptism on the 1st of January 1922 at 31 years old, a position she held for nine years until she resigned to complete her translation of Aquinas. All during this time, she traveled

[13:12]

widely giving lectures on the place of women, especially in Catholic circles, remarking in 1931, during my years in the gymnasium and as a young student at the university, I was a radical feminist. Then I lost interest in the whole question. Now, because I'm obliged to do so, I seek purely objective solutions. Fully engaged in teaching on women, she made their concerns her own, yet in a quite disinterested way. This vocational commitment was, if anything, intensified in her next post at the German Institute for Pedagogy, from where she continued to lecture on women's issues until 1933, when the National Socialists insisted that Jews be deprived of teaching posts. Writing at the end to Fritz Kaufmann, she's able to say that the Umsturz, which was the name for this Nazi Nuremberg laws as they were applied, the Umsturz was for me a sign from heaven that I might now go the way that I had long considered as mine. After a final visit with my relatives in Breslau and a difficult farewell from my dear mother, I entered the monastery of the Carmelite nuns here last Saturday and thus became a daughter of St.

[14:23]

Teresa, who earlier had inspired me to conversion. In that life, she would be able to pursue her interior vocation intellectually as well and be prepared for the ultimate test to come in less than a decade. From what we have seen of Edith Stein, we would be hard-pressed to read her move to Carmel as leaving the world, but rather as intensifying her presence to a world gone mad. Indeed, her letters from Breslau to her friends on the cusp of entering Carmel invite them all to visit her there, while reflections on an earlier letter to a Dominican sister friend help us to read the move more accurately. Immediately before, and for a good while after my conversion, I was of the opinion that to lead a religious life meant one had to give up all that was secular and to live totally immersed in thoughts of the divine.

[15:24]

But gradually I realized that something else is asked of us in the world, and that, even in the contemplative life, one may not sever the connection with the world. I even believe that the deeper one is drawn into God, the more one must go out of oneself. That is, one must go out, one must go to the world in order to carry the divine life into it. The only essential is that one finds, first of all, a quiet corner in which one can communicate with God as though there were nothing else, and that must be done daily. Furthermore, it is essential that one accept one's particular mission there, preferably for each day, and not make one's own choice. Finally, one is to consider oneself totally as an instrument, especially with regard to the abilities one uses to perform one's special task, in our case, intellectual ones. We are to see them as something used, not by us, but by God in us.

[16:26]

My life begins in you each morning and ends every evening. I have neither plans nor prospects beyond it. As we shall see, it will be difficult to find a better formula for describing a life pattern on the transformation outlined by John of the Cross. Edith seemed to have been prepared to move quite naturally into Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. While she did not complete her constructive monograph on the unity of John's life and work until her final days, we can easily discern her pull to Carmel, first in her attraction to Teresa of Avila, and then in her affinity for the purity of John of the Cross's presentation of the inner dynamics of a life of faith. John is disarmingly forthright in identifying the goal of that journey, the union and transformation of the person in God.

[17:31]

as well as the means, faith alone, which is the only proximate and proportionate means to union with God. He is a pains to distinguish this intentional union from the union between God and creatures, which always exists, by which God sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially. By it, he conserves their being, so that if the union would end, they would immediately be annihilated and cease to exist. So John will presume the uniquely founding relation of all creatures to their source, which Meister Eckhart elaborated from Aquinas' distinction of creator and creature, and does not hesitate to call it a union, indeed, an essential or substantial union. This grounding fact attends all creatures, hence it is natural and found in everything. While the intentional union is supernatural and can only be found where there is a likeness of love, such a God's will and the person's are in conformity.

[18:40]

Let us attend first to the internal connection between faith and union, which John confidently asserts. What makes this sound so startling is our propensity to confine such talk to mystics while reducing faith to belief, holding certain propositions to be true. John of the Cross Elaborating some key assertions of Aquinas cuts through the debates, however, which often polarize intellect and will in the act of faith. First, Aquinas. Faith is a sort of knowledge in that it makes the mind assent to something. The assent is not due to what is seen by the believer, but to what is seen by him who is believed. The one who is believed is, of course, the Word of God incarnate, Jesus, as mediated through the scriptures. So this peculiar sort of knowledge is rooted in an interpersonal relationship of the believer with Jesus.

[19:44]

It is that relation at the root of faith which John of the Cross sets out to explore, quite aware that what results from it will, in Aquinas' words, fall short of the mode of knowing which is properly called knowledge. For such knowledge causes the mind to ascent through what is seen and through an understanding of first principles, whereas our ascent comes from our relationship to the one who sees, indeed, who is the Word of God, incarnate. More positively, Aquinas will characterize faith as an act of mental assent commanded by the will so to believe perfectly our mind must tend unfailingly towards the perfection of truth in unfailing service of that ultimate goal for the sake of which our will is commanding our mind's ascent." Now that's a very tough phrase. Let me read it again. Quinas will characterize faith as an act of mental ascent commanded by the will, so to believe perfectly our mind must tend unfailingly towards the perfection of truth in unfailing service of that ultimate goal for the sake of which our will is commanding our mind's ascent.

[20:58]

Unlike ordinary belief, then, faith must be an act of the whole person, involving a person on critical quest for a truth which outreaches our proper expression. John will focus critically on our concepts. Nothing which could possibly be imagined or comprehended in this life can be a proximate means of union with God. End of matter for John of the Cross, since nothing created or imagined can serve the intellect as a proper means for union with God. Indeed, all that can be grasped by the intellect would serve as an obstacle rather than a means if a person were to become attached to it. So much for people who think they know in matters of faith, right? So following Aquinas, we must be able to let our ways of thinking lead us on by the hand as John does, to a goal which transcends them. That goal, we recall, is union and transformation of the person in God. And it is already intimated in the sort of faith of which Thomas Aquinas and John of the Cross are speaking.

[22:06]

As Augustine had worked it out, Christian faith differs from ordinary belief in being a response to an utterly gratuitous invitation which could never be initiated by the persons themselves. Yet the demands of that journey of faith, which John outlines, are utterly rigorous. We shall explain how, in order to journey to God, the intellect must be perfected in the darkness of faith, the memory in the emptiness of hope, the will in the nakedness and absence of every affection unrelated to the goal of union. You can see how something like that would appeal to a person whose mind was so clear as Edith Stein's. A poetic characterization of that intentional union is offered in his Living Flame of Love, where we can cite the initial stanza of John of the Cross's poem together with statements from his own commentary.

[23:08]

Oh, living flame of love that tenderly wounds my soul in its deepest center. Since now you are not oppressive, now consummate. If it be your will, tear through the veil of this sweet encounter." John's commentary begins. The soul now feels that it is all inflamed in the divine union, and that in the most intimate part of its substance it is flooded with no less than rivers of glory, abounding in delights, and that from its bosom flow rivers of living waters. which the Son of God declared will rise up in such souls. Accordingly, it seems, because it is so vigorously transformed in God, so sublimely possessed by Him, and arrayed with such rich gifts and virtues, that it is singularly close to beatitude, so close that only a thin veil separates it. He goes on, this flame of love in the spirit of the bridegroom

[24:12]

is the spirit of the bridegroom, which is the Holy Spirit. Such is the activity of the Holy Spirit in the soul transformed in love. The interior acts he produces shoot up flames, for they are acts of inflamed love, in which the will of the soul, united with that flame, made one with it, loves most sublimely. Thus, in this state, the soul cannot make acts, because the Holy Spirit makes them all and moves it towards them. As a result, all the acts of the soul are divine, since the movement towards these acts and their execution stems from God. Hence, it seems to a person that every time this flame shoots up, making him love with delight and divine quality, it is giving him eternal life, since it raises him up to the activity of God in God. There's no hint of distance. between creator and creature. Here, I would suggest, because Dran presumes that unique metaphysical relation of the person, he uses the word soul, to its source, which Meister Eckhart develops from Aquinas, a relation best captured in the Eastern Hindu phrase, non-duality.

[25:29]

That is, we are not separate, but we are distinct from God, yet always connected. Sister Teresa Benedicta had become attuned to that unique relation of creatures to their creator in her study of Aquinas on eternal and temporal being, which led her into the presence of, in her words, the great mystery of creation. That God has called forth each being into its differentiated being, a manifold of beings in which what is one in God is there separate. Yet the subsistence of creatures is no longer that of a portrait over against the one portrayed, or of a work over against the artist doing it. That would be separation. Earlier thinkers had likened the relation to that of a mirror to the object in the mirror, or of refracted light to its pure source. Yet these remain but imperfect images for what is quite incomparable. She then goes on to compare the creator-creature relation to relations among the divine persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.

[26:34]

The entire divine essence is common to all three persons, so what remains is simply the differences of the persons as such, a perfect unity of we. which no community of finite persons could ever realize, yet in this unity, the difference of I from you remains, without which no we is possible. Indeed, the we as the unity of I in you, I in the Father are one, is a higher unity than the I, for in its most perfect sense, it is the unity of love. Now love as assent to a good is possible in the self-love of an eye, but love is more than such an assent, more than a valuing. It is a gift of oneself to the thou and in its perfection on the strength of manifold gifts and existential unity. Since God is love, divine being must be an existential unity of a multiplicity of persons While the divine name I am is identical in meaning with, I give myself totally to you.

[27:41]

I am one with a you. And so also identical with we are. So while the we of human lovers may offer an image for divine triunity, it will always fall short of that eternal unity. Yet the very relation of creatures to creator defies representation. So the unity with God to which humans can be elevated by grace must be likened to that within the triune God, even though the one can never replace the other. What is incomparable can nonetheless be compared. That is the paradox into which the analogical metaphysics of Aquinas invites us, and to which the poetic genius of John of the Cross will give its most proper expression. For his poetry gives voice to the utterly unique distinction of creatures from Creator, which we have seen John already call a union in the nature of created things with their Creator.

[28:43]

and one which becomes intentionally so in those who permit the interior transformation by the Holy Spirit into the images of God become images of Christ. In this way, the interaction of human and divine which characterizes Jesus can be bestowed upon human agents who have been turned into lovers. So Edith Stein becomes Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Trace the divine becoming so aptly described by John of the Cross in her life and works as he had limbed it in his so that her apprenticeship to him reflects ours to them both. In the continuing emulation which characterizes a community of revelation, For such friendships sustain each of us in our search for truth as we attempt to incorporate that truth into the truth of our lives.

[29:50]

So what I've tried to do in somewhat condensed fashion is help you to see how it is that our lives are so dependent upon one another in this journey of faith by taking two very exemplary people, Edith Stein and John of the Cross, and showing how Edith Stein, who many of you may have come to know in one way or another, if you admire her, then she will say that what I have learned, I learned from John of the Cross. And so it is in our life of faith, I think, continually, and why it's a joy to give this at a monastery, because a monastery is a microcosm of that community that we call church, and the source extends beyond those who believe in Jesus to people who are other believers as well, that community of faith which allows us to sustain ourselves in the midst of the horrors of the world around us as she was sustained in the midst of Nazi Germany becoming a totalitarian state in which her life was soon at stake and before long brutally taken.

[31:11]

So as we walk our way through a history in which our lives have been transformed in the past two months, one of the upsides is that we've been invited to join the rest of the world. And as Father Martin reminded in his presentation, I've been spending a lot of time for the past 20 years with Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land. My heart, half of being in Jerusalem, that half's been broken for the past year and a half. So it is that we continue to walk in faith, but the only way we can walk in faith is to be animated by those who have discovered how profoundly the union with God in faith unites us with God in Jesus and unites us with one another. So the kind of friendship that we discover in faith is an image of the union of the persons in the Trinity and we have that on the authority of two saints, two profound thinkers, a daughter and a son of Carmel.

[32:32]

Thank you. So David, thank you very much. Now speaking for David, he's ready to answer questions. I'll get out of the way. Does anybody have any questions or additions or subtractions or so forth you'd like to... Don't be embarrassed. David is very kind. He won't shred your question at all. If we're getting ready, I'll get a cup of water. Yes, ma'am. You want to stand because... Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein.

[33:45]

You know, the big divide in this world is between philosophers and historians. Historians know a lot. We philosophers know nothing, following Socrates, you see. So what did I say? She was 31 in 1922. So you can figure out when she was born. And she was taken to Auschwitz in 1942. She grew up in a Jewish family in Breslau, which is a part of Germany, now part of Poland, when Poland recovered those eastern provinces that Germany had annexed between the wars. And she was a brilliant student of Husserl, who's a very important modern philosopher. She was reputed to have been babysitting with some friends who were Catholic and picked up Teresa's life by herself and read it all night and put it down the next morning and said, that's the truth.

[34:53]

So as you can tell from the excerpts of the letters, which I thought gave us a wonderful window into her as a person, as a woman, As a thinker, as a teacher, as a caring person, she was a person who would never let go of anything. And she was removed from Germany to Holland. And when the Dutch bishops objected to the wearing of the yellow star, the Germans retaliated by picking up all those, including Christians, who were of Jewish descent. And she was in that dragnet. And she and her sister were sent to Westerbork, which is the staging area for Auschwitz, and then trained to Auschwitz. Now, Father David, if I could get one important part in her life, and that is that her spiritual directors for a long time were a couple of Benedict and Abbott and some others.

[35:55]

And for some reason, she missed us. Now how do you explain that if she was so holy and intelligent and bright? She didn't miss you at all. You were part of her whole formation. You can tell that. She begins my life each morning and ends it each evening. That's perfect monastic pattern. Yes. She had Dominican influence as well. Right. So she's a pluralist. Right. Right. She's the perfect model. Yes, sir. You know, I can't recommend it. I undertook this task because I didn't know much about her, but I was very attracted to her. So I'm no expert, so to speak, but I'm still very attracted to her the more I know about her.

[36:57]

But I would think videos like that would be very powerful. The collective works are being translated slowly into English and published by the Institute for Carmelite Studies in Washington. And she had written a life of herself before her conversion. And it tells about growing up as a Jewish girl in that period, et cetera. But there are no personal statements other than what you find in the letters, which are highly personal after her conversion. Yeah. I did this with a community last evening. Yeah. The greatest hope for the Middle East happened on September 11, ironically, because the United States joined the world in the wake of that atrocity.

[38:04]

And in joining the world, may well have recognized that nobody in the world except the United States was thoroughly uncritical in its support of Israel. including many Jews in Israel and increasing number of Jews in this country, they've been carrying on an unconscionable occupation and squeezing of the Palestinians. They are not, the whole situation is extremely opaquely and unfairly reported in our American press. It's fair to say that everyone, you don't have to be in the Arab countries, everyone outside of the United States considers the Palestinian battle to be that of freedom fighters and not of terrorists. So we have a very skewed view of that situation. But we're going to be drawn into it, and we're going to have to become honest brokers, because we're going to need a coalition of Muslim countries in response to this.

[39:10]

Palestinian percentage of Christians in Palestine is somewhere between 8% and 12%. The Christians tend to be better educated because of the presence of Christian institutions, which came in the last quarter of the 19th century, educational institutions, healthcare institutions. So as a result, many Christians emigrate because they're better prepared to do so, but emigration is no longer a one-way street, so people are returning to the country. So my hope had been that peace was inevitable, it was moving in that way, nothing I find out in history is inevitable. But those, the right-thinking people, both who are Jewish, Christians, and Muslims, know that the only way to end the violence in the Holy Land is to end the occupation. And so a viable Palestinian state will have to be accorded to the Palestinians.

[40:12]

It was not accorded at the end of Camp David. So-called best offer that could be given was not a viable state, and therefore it could not be accepted. So Arafat didn't refuse it. He simply couldn't accept it. But again, we were misled on that terribly. So, you know, the world is turned upside down after September 11th, and one of the ways it's turned upside down is that we're going to have to understand that there really are two sides, and two very human sides, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and we're going to have to start describing the Palestinian one as human beings as well, and of course they are, as are the Israelis. So my hope is that we can find our way through that and that, as Clausewitz said, diplomacy is war carried on by other means. We might get tired of, you know, finding no more targets in Afghanistan and engage in diplomacy in the Middle East, which will very much defuse the situation on the street in the Arab world.

[41:23]

That's my hope, but we need to pray hard for it. Yes. I did too. I hadn't known that either. I had read a lot of her stuff on women. Very thoughtful, her things on women. Very thoughtful.

[42:24]

And she was, of course, don't forget, she was barnstorming among the Catholic world in Germany in the 20s and 30s, which was, as Father Martin reminded us, a very avant-garde world. I mean, Beuron, wasn't she? Or Mariella? Beuron, I think. It was Beuron. Beuron, she was who her spiritual director was, which with Mariella, of course, directly connected with this monastery as one of the spearheads of the liturgical movement, And the youth groups, the Catholic youth groups, which were unfortunately soon infiltrated by the Nazi youth and that kind of thing, however, had already gotten started there. So much of the sense of we are church, which was communicated to us in Vatican II, had already begun in the 20s and 30s in Germany as it had in France. So she was very much part of that, a very forward-looking person.

[43:28]

At the same time, you know, if you get into any of those villages in Germany, particularly in the Catholic villages in Bavaria, there is nothing more high-bound and traditional. So she was having to speak to people who didn't want to hear new ideas. But I think the force of her person and of the clarity of her thought probably helped move people in another way. Yes, ma'am. Oh, okay, sure, sure. It's not easy to describe. Twenty years ago, I became rector of an ecumenical institute between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which our then-president of our university, Father Hesburgh, had started at the behest of Paul VI. It was an ecumenical institute which Paul VI was inspired to start when he had a bear hug with Athenagoras at the top of the Mount of Olives.

[44:33]

Athenagoras was about six feet two and Paul VI was about five eight, so it was quite a sight. He said that he wanted to start an ecumenical institute there where we were all once one. So Father Hesburgh set up a board of Orthodox Catholics and Protestants to get this institute going and found a benefactor to build it, et cetera. It happens to be right on the border now between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, such that our southern wall is virtually an international boundary. And the Palestinian workers from Bethlehem who get daily work in Jerusalem stand out there in the corner to be picked up by people that work so they can feed their families. If they don't have the papers to get through the checkpoint, they come through our property. It's kind of a safety valve for the West Bank. Everybody knows about it. So it's one of the fringe benefits. But having been there as rector of that institute and having taken part 25 years ago now in a summer program at this institute with Jews, Christians and Muslims, I became very attuned to

[45:36]

to not only to the importance of the connection that we have with Jews, with whom we share a book, even though our interpretations of it may vary widely, but also with Islam. And the amazing thing about Islam is that, is that the Muslims seem to have a palpable sense of the presence of God. I mean, if you and I make plans to have lunch tomorrow, we'll say, well, I'll see you tomorrow, and we always end up with Inshallah, God willing, as they do in the west of Ireland. You know, the same kind of sense of our lives being in God's hands. So once one lives in a Muslim society where one constantly experiences that kind of hospitality which seems to spring from this connection of creature with creator that I talked about from Thomas Aquinas is felt very deeply by Muslims that we are in God's hands. Then I think I end up going there every spring semester with our students when we can take them.

[46:42]

We haven't been able to last year, nor will we this year. But I'm there in any case to be present with my Palestinian and my Israeli friends and to pursue what has become the actual goal of this institute, which is namely to bring Jews, Christians, and Muslims together. So starting out as one Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, they got there and they realized, my gosh, there are Jews and Muslims there. Imagine that in Jerusalem, right? So the goal of the institute has been transformed. And the former rector, a wonderful man named Tom Stransky, who had been very early on in the ecumenical and interfaith movement, Tom Stransky, who had been instrumental in the Nostra Aetate statement about the Christians and the Jews, for Rector for 10 years, created it as the place where Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Palestinians, and Israelis can talk to one another and feel at home. So it's a marvelous place to be. It's a very, very conflicted area right now. We happen to have ringside seats on the

[47:43]

on the very unequal exchange of fire between Gilo, which is a part of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian village, Christian Palestinian village of Bejjala. You know, they get used to it, and so... Those of us who try to be with them try to do it too. So I'm spending each spring in Jerusalem ostensibly with our students when that's possible, but otherwise simply to be there because we want to keep our connections with this institute. Because when peace does break out, inshallah, God willing, its location is utterly prescient and it is the place for people to understand how we need to get along together as Jews, Christians and Muslims in spite of the current violence. So that's part of why my heart's there. Right. Yes.

[48:54]

It's exactly right. Exactly right. And the best example is that when, you know, Israelis are killed by suicide bombers, we get a vignette in the description of the people. And Palestinians are killed by Jewish settlers running rampant on the rampage with the IDF standing aside. We either don't hear about it or we're given numbers. No. No, the 9-11 situation had nothing to do with the Palestinians directly.

[50:05]

That is, they are not part of it. The roots of that are actually much deeper. But what I'm saying is that in our response to that, recognizing that we needed to do it together with Arab countries, and some of which have a strong Muslim majority, that we would have to attend to the fact that our participation, which has been very strong in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has not been fair. Has not been fair. And any fair-minded judge of that will say that. For example, Arafat did not want to come to the Camp David meeting a year plus ago in the summer. He said it wasn't ready. It was on Clinton's timetable because, of course, Clinton wanted it on his record. And Barack couldn't follow Clinton's timetable because we give Israel $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country every year, right?

[51:09]

So Arafat finally agreed to come. on the condition that he not be blamed for its failing. Yeah. Muslim women. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Sure. No, I understand. Right. I understand. That's a tricky topic. I'd rather have a Muslim woman respond to it. But let me start with one thing. And this is good that we get into this topic. Let me start with one thing that's terribly important, that we have an optical illusion with regard to the Muslim world.

[52:09]

We think that Saudi Arabians are Muslims and Muslims are Saudi Arabians, OK? First of all, 80% of Muslims are not even Arabs. They live in South Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan, and in Bangladesh, which is South Asia. Secondly, what The kind of Islam you have in Saudi Arabia is a weird kind of Islam. Its only best description is Puritan kind of Islam. And it's not weird from my point of view, it's weird from the point of view of all Muslims whom I know, right? And unless they were sitting on Mecca and sitting on oil, no Muslim would pay any attention to them. But they are very smart. They know that if you're in a big family and you're a rich uncle, you're very generous. So they build mosques and they do pre- and postnatal care, and they also try to spread their form of Islam. I told the monks last evening, my best story is when I teach in Bangladesh, which is a delta country.

[53:10]

And the people say to me, oh, father, you know much more about Islam than we do. I say, look, I've studied it. You live it. What's the problem? Well, the Saudis come, and they tell us this, that, and the other thing. I said, look, what they're trying to tell you, in essence, is you can't be a Muslim unless you live in a desert. You tell them we live in a delta, and we're Muslims, right? So Islam has many, many faces to it, depending upon things like climactic conditions, right, and cultural history, and all the rest. Muslim women in Saudi Arabia, and again in Iran, which is another strange form of Islam, in relation to the vast majority of Muslims, are extremely restricted in their movement and that kind of thing. In most Muslim countries, all of the professions are open to women, education is open to women, healthcare is open to women, doctors, nurses, law is open to women.

[54:13]

The one thing that Muslims, and I'm speaking now of Arab Muslims whom I know in this particular, they don't like women in business because they do business very intuitively and they'll lend you $100,000 on a handshake and they don't like erotic business getting in the way of that. So business is a male preserve. And also in the Arab world particularly, the Arab world functions by these large families. And the role of the male in the family is to extend the family. Families are business enterprises as well. So you extend the family into plastics or extend it into Uruguay. The role of the women who, mind you, come into the family from the outside is to hold the family together. So to that extent, the woman's job is in the home. But it isn't the, you know, the suburban nuclear family. It's a very, it's a networking thing. And I learned this especially because when I was rector at Tantur, and this is true of Christian Arabs as well, I would be invited to lunch on Sundays with my Christian Arab friends.

[55:17]

I hate smoke, and the men would be sitting in the front room smoking, so, you know, I exercised this thing that priests can do, you know. Went back and talked to the women in the kitchen, you know, sort of. And I found the kitchen to be a much more interesting place than the front room, you know, where everybody knew each other. And the women in the kitchen were engaged in the most complex politics imaginable because they, coming from all sorts of different families, had to find a unity and keep it together. The reason they had to keep it together is these guys aren't capitalists for nothing. They've been capitalists for a long time. If the family splits up, then they're no better off than us. They're competing with each other. Whereas if the family stays together, they have a kind of access to markets and mutual trading and things. So the strength of the Muslim world generally is the family connection. The weakness of the Muslim world generally is the family connection. Because one of the reasons they haven't been able to put together a civil society, democratic one, the way Israel has is that My family pretty much takes care of me, but my family is not your family.

[56:23]

So you have these divisions where they really ought to be able to have unities, and that's going to take some time to develop in that world. But the role of women is essentially connected with the role of the family. Although, as I said, women are All of the professions, the law, medicine, education, are open to women. So there's a whole spectrum of difference with how women engage in public life from the Maghreb, which is where the sun sets in the Arabic word, from Morocco all the way to the east to Pakistan and Bangladesh. For example, where I teach in Bangladesh, half of the philosophy faculty in University of Dhaka are women. But the woman's role in Dhaka, in the city, will be very different from the woman's role in the village, probably about two centuries different. So you have these incredible kaleidoscope, kaleidoscopic thing about the role of women.

[57:30]

And let's face it, for every society, Women sort of have the neuralgic role in the society. When something goes wrong, women are blamed, you know. Something goes right, they're seldom given the credit for it. So it's one of those tricky things that is especially exacerbated in Arab countries and in Muslim countries, I should say. I keep making that, keep using those two together when I shouldn't. I mean, I have to remind myself and you that we're talking about the heartland which all the Muslims in it are Arabs, but if you go east of that to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, you have many Muslims who are not Arabs, so it's a different world there. Yes, sir? Those are real crude.

[58:35]

They thought so. Absolutely not. Education's open to both sexes, although I'll tell a funny story about Saudi Arabia in a moment. But the Taliban are root crew villagers, you know, and they've already been, the ulama, the religious authorities in Pakistan, who even supports the Taliban, have not supported that dimension of their life. A famous story about right after the second war when American consultants was a consultant to I think one of the Saudi princes about education. Again, Saudi Islam's pretty tight, Puritan Islam. So he said, well, he said, now I realize you want your education segregated, but, you know, girls should have the same education as boys do. And the Saudi prince looked at him and he says, why? Well, they should learn how to read and write, right? To whom? But, I mean, that, unfortunately, even in Saudi Arabia, that, or fortunately, even in Saudi Arabia, that attitude is, they're overcoming that, yeah.

[60:12]

But as I say, I should really have a Muslim woman answering that question, but thanks for asking it. But CNN is probably the least, unfortunately, the least, reliable for international news. They are so Amero-centric that it's impossible. You watch CNN outside of this country and you wonder who they're talking about. So BBC is much better if you can get it. Okay. All right. Ask him too. Sure. Okay. That's very good. Okay. That's right. And it has to do with the structure of Arabic, but I won't explain all that to you. Islam is like Christianity, and Muslim is like Christian.

[61:15]

So Islam is the noun, And Muslim is the adjective. So you talk about a Muslim faith or you talk about the world of Islam. So you talk about a Christian faith or the world of Christianity. And the reason why the one begins with an I and the other begins with an M is the structure of Arabic language, right? Does that make sense? So you don't see a guy walking down the street, you don't say, there goes an Islam. You say, there goes a Muslim. Moslem is the person, and Islam is the religion. I got it! That's good. That's right. That's better than the way I said it first because it wasn't clear the way I said it first. Muslim is also a noun. It isn't just an adjective. You're right. So it is the person. Thank you.

[62:17]

That's better. Now I can say that to other people. And Islam is the relation. That's what happens when you teach too long. Right. Yes, sir. I was wondering if it's helpful to think of the early years of our country when we had people who wanted a theocracy. And the difficulties with that, and then looking at some of the Muslim countries where Islamic countries, Muslim countries that also attempted to oppose, this is one of America's greatest theocracy. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That is helpful. As a Catholic, we could not have survived a Massachusetts Bay Colony. The only one of the first colonies that had freedom of religion was in fact one run by Catholics, Baltimore, right? Maryland, the province of Maryland. So that's a very important thing to remember.

[63:18]

The beginning of our country where a city built on a hill, theocracy was a thing. Another thing that's important to remember, sadly enough, when you think about the callous disregard of human life in this action that was carried out, You have to remember that when the Crusaders came into Jerusalem, the chroniclers' reports were that the blood was as high as the stirrups on the horses. Now, that was probably an exaggeration, but they killed every Muslim and Jew in sight, as well as Orthodox Christians. So we did that. We've forgotten about that, of course. We've laundered it out of our history. But the Crusades were a very violent thing carried out in the name of Christianity. We want to disown them now, but these people's, it's a very violent thing carried out in the name of Islam. But as we were constantly being reminded, and our leaders have been good on this too, that it's not Islamic.

[64:19]

Now that's another word, Islamic. See, that's a third word. Okay, I didn't want to confuse you. Good. When you talk about the culture, you can use the broader word Islamic as the adjective, but you could use it Muslim too. Okay. Yeah, now that's very, thank you for reminding us of that. Yeah. I've also been reminded of the divisions within Islam, which we have within Christianity. Of course. Very good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a rich thing. As I say that I wish I could One of the things that's happened, I think, providentially is when the president, in his very first talk, said we can't scapegoat Muslims, that we have Muslims living in our midst, and some schoolchildren, their friends are Muslims, and so parents get to meet the parents. And one of the things I've found, I think we are entering a very new era. in which we are finding, and if we reflect on this, it's amazing, we are finding that we can share with people who have a different faith more than we can share with our friends of no faith, because they are people of faith.

[65:42]

And I think we're into a new period in which we are sharing in difference. Now, that sounds weird. Normally, we think we have to have communal things to share. And I was trying to work this out, and I suddenly thought, wow, you know, most of the people in the world are engaged in a project which is sharing in difference. It's called marriage. There's... Now, you know, a lot of people aren't very successful at it, et cetera, but they keep trying. And I tried this out on my married friends, and they said, well, look, just make sure those are three words, sharing in difference, and not two. But I think it's a whole new era. There was a symposium in 1999 in May. at the Library of Congress. Now the Library of Congress, you know, they kind of take care of books and stuff.

[66:45]

They aren't big symposium givers. So the last one they gave was 1899. So, so, and you're supposed to reflect on the last century and look forward to the new one. And Jim Billington, who's the Librarian of Congress, looked at the thing for 1899, presuming he might get some clues as to how to run a symposium, I guess. And And he noticed that there was nobody from religion and nobody from the arts. Now think about that for a moment. The end of the 19th century, science was going to solve all our problems, right? Now at the end of a century in which more people have been murdered by pseudo-scientific ideologies, you name them, you know, Marxism, secularism, one sort or another, Nazism, than all of human history, Jim Billington said, we better get somebody from religion and somebody from the arts. So they asked Cardinal Francis George, who's the new Archbishop of Chicago. And he gave this talk reflecting on the last century, quoted one of our priests, which made us feel good.

[67:46]

And then he has said only one prognosis for the new century. He said he thought the dialogue between Christianity and Islam would be the most important thing facing the church in the new century. And we found that out within a year, how important it is. And I can assure you that in cities where there are a number of Muslims in America, Chicago especially, which I'm involved in, and Indiana as well, and particularly in countries throughout the world. The White Fathers have a wonderful institute in Rome where they train people to serve in Muslim countries. And so the church is really very active. This Comunitat San Egidio in Rome just called on the spur of the moment a meeting of Muslim and Christian leaders in Rome last week. And it was a very powerful time for people to get together and reflect on it. So I think a whole new chapter is being opened in interfaith relations. unfortunately triggered by the events of 11th of September.

[68:51]

Yes. A Muslim. Okay. Mm hmm. That's right. When I was studying in New Haven, a mixed marriage was one between an Irish and an Italian. But no, what you say, and there's the Canadian bishops have just worked out a very, very comprehensive plan on intermarriage between Muslims and Christians.

[69:55]

Exactly. Five times a day. Right. Yes. Yeah. [...] Kind of like our fundamentalist Christian friends? Amid Islam has no corner on fundamentalism, for heaven's sakes. The Jewish settlers are, you know, Jewish fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is a big word And it means a lot of things, but there's a quick and dirty definition of it.

[71:04]

Namely, if you think there's a solution to a complex human situation, and it can found in a book, right? That you don't have to think about it, et cetera. No, you're absolutely right. There's a strong commentary tradition in Islam, which adapts the Quran to each, to different cultural circumstances. And so you do need someone as well versed in it. It's like a Catholic reading canon law, you know, without a canon lawyer or something. You get some bad conclusions that way. Yeah, that's true. The Quran is actually a very beautiful book. And it has to be read in Arabic to get its flavor, which is too bad. But it's very amazing. Yes, ma'am. Isn't that a wonderful question? Would it be possible for us Christians to accept Muhammad as a prophet? Students ask that, and of course I used to teach in Islam.

[72:06]

I said, I'll tell you on the last day. Someone was asking me the other day, what do you think the importance of this? Let me put it, it's important to see this in context. we feel closer to Jews because we share a book. At the same time, Judaism is for Jews. Period. You convert if you want to marry a Jew or something, but it's for Jews. Islam is a revelation given, they believe, to the whole world. So is ours a revelation given to the whole world. Someone described Christianity as bringing, as preaching the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the nations, right? To everyone. So, in that sense, Christianity and Islam are on a collision course, right? Because we're both preaching to the whole world. Now that collision course has been attenuated because of geographic separation. But since Islam came to long last, they have a place for us.

[73:10]

They respect the fact that we received a book from God as the Jews received a book from God. They think their book is better, but they understand that we might not realize that. So benighted as we are, they respect our faith and the book that we receive. Here's the difference between Islam and Christianity. And it's so simple, it's disarming. We believe that Jesus is the word of God made flesh, made human, right? They believe the Koran is the word of God made Arabic. So the connection is not between Jesus and the Koran, it's not between Jesus and Muhammad, but between Jesus and the Koran. So for them, the Koran is the revelation, right, of God. It was given to Muhammad. And they look at us in the same way. They say, well, God gave Jesus a book, too, the New Testament. So the picture is that Jesus comes from God carrying a book with him, you know?

[74:12]

Well, we know it was the other way around, right? So our revelation is in a person. Their revelation is in a book. The result of that is that when they meditate on verses from the Koran, it's like us receiving communion. It is that intimate, the verses from the Koran, the words of God. So, I don't know what position, I can't take any position on whether or not the Koran is the word of God, right? I believe that Jesus is the Word of God. Did God also reveal that to Muhammad? Well, I can't speak for God, right? So, in that sense, I think we have to leave the question open. We can't affirm it, or we'd be Muslims, because it did come along last, and so therefore supersedes ours. We can't affirm it, yet at the same time we can understand them affirming it. And the important thing for us to remember is we can never say, Mohammed said in the Quran, uh-uh.

[75:14]

Because for them, Muhammad did not write the Koran. He was the world's perfect secretary, right? Didn't make a mistake, right? Guy was dictated to him by God, is one way of putting it. So for them, what you always have to say now, what does the Koran say about this? So remember, you focus on the Koran. They focus on the Koran. We focus on Jesus. So I think we have to respect, obviously, we have to respect their faith that this is a revelation from God. And the last thing I'll say is this. How do we know when a revelation is truly from God? There's only one test we have from our perspective, namely, it produces holy people, right? That's the test we have. The, you know, the revelation of God in Jesus has produced holy people. The revelation of God, the gift of the Torah to Moses has produced holy people and the Koran has produced holy people. So, that much evidence we have that it's from God, right?

[76:19]

But more than that, of course, we can't say. There's no way we could say it, because it's a bait statement. Yes, sir? Oh, true. So, since they come along last, They have place for us, and Jesus for them is a prophet. And Jesus was conceived in the virgin birth, but that doesn't mean Jesus is divine, nor do we connect those two, really. I mean, virgin birth is a sign that his origin is divine, but it's, you know, Jesus could come in an ordinary birth and could still be divine. So they believe in the virgin birth. Mary is very, very strong with them. They have a deep love for Mary. But the Jesus whom they admire, don't worship as we do, is one of the prophets and he has a special role in the second coming when God comes and judges the world, etc.

[77:29]

So Jesus, Isa in Arabic, they have great respect for Jesus. No, no, that's right. There's a curious thing. This is good. See, this is why this interfaith stuff is interesting. It makes us realize how weird are the things we believe, right? And, you know, the cross, well, I mean, you know, we get used to seeing it, but it's a horrible thing, right? It's a horrible death. And of course, what Paul had to do in the early catechesis was just drive that home to people. Jesus, the Son of God, crucified on the cross. How do you put those two together? That's the paradox. So they say, look, if Jesus was this great prophet, I mean, he couldn't, that couldn't have happened to him. So it must be that somebody took his place at the last moment, et cetera, et cetera. So in other words, they start with this fixed idea that if Jesus really was God's elect, this could never have happened to him.

[78:31]

We start with the fact that it did happen to him, so it gives us a whole different picture of God. So that's good. Yeah, that's good. And so that's part of what happens when you come to respect another person's faith and see how they live it. Part of what I was saying about Edith Stein and John of the Cross is also true in Islam. That is, Sufi Muslims have a deep, deep sense of union with God and carrying out their life in response to God's call. As a matter of fact, the way I would define Islam, now this is Islam, right? The religion. The way I would define Islam is returning everything to the one from whom you received everything. It's a long phrase for one word, but the usual definition given lexically that get in the dictionary is submission. Well, that sounds pretty, you know, master-slave stuff. I like to expand it because what it really stands for is the way that's given us to return everything to the one from whom we received everything.

[79:38]

Well, that's a pretty good description of the path that's laid out for us. as Christians, right, in our worship in the church. We're trying to learn how to return everything to the one from whom we received everything. Life is a gift. Our very life is a gift. Our salvation is a gift. I think that's maybe enough. So, David, what do you think?

[80:18]

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