I'm happy to be here with you, but sometimes I dread giving retreats and giving talks. But once I get into it, I think it's okay. But there's always a certain amount of dread there, I suppose. And I don't know if some of you feel that way or not, but it's always nice to experience new communities, new Benedictine communities and the spirit that's there. And so I'm really looking forward to being present here with all of you during these days. I don't know if you want to hear a little bit about our background or not, if that would help from Blue Cloud. We're a foundation from St. Mindred. The abbey itself was founded in 1950, the monks that founded the monastery itself. But actually, the monks from St. Mindred were out in the Dakotas way before that. The first abbot of St. Mindred, Martin Marty, who eventually became bishop, He was the first to have a St. Minor, and he came out in 1876 to work with the Native Americans, and he just loved it.

[01:03]

There was a real strong love relationship between the German-speaking people in Europe and the Native Americans, and I guess that was part of that, too. So there was four Indian missions already out in the Dakotas before Blue Cloud got started. So the mother house came after the daughters, which is a little bit backwards. But that's how it works. And that caused a few little political problems, but not too many. And anyway, I came from southern Indiana, Evansville. And I joined Blue Cloud in 1959 at the age of 20. So I've been out there for a few years. And we also founded a monastery, a priory in Guatemala. And I was down there for a couple of years as well. And that was still going. The others we backed out of. We turned them over to the diocese. So we're no longer really directly in Indian work in the Dakotas. We're pretty much just concentrating.

[02:06]

We do very much what you do here, do retreats and try to stay close to the soil. I always think that's probably the most important part of being Benedict and staying close to the soil. Manual labor is a good part of it. Not that intellectual labor is not valuable too, but we need a balance there. But I think our spirit at Blue Cloud is very much like your spirit here. You center on retreats and work the soil. And we're a relatively small community as well. There's about 19 of us. I don't know if any of you have any questions about any of that. As we go along, you might. A monastery is a monastery. Often, I like to start off with a little story. There's a story you told of St. Peter at the pearly gates. He had been watching the pearly gates for close to 2,000 years.

[03:08]

Jesus, being... socially conscious and realizing that his workers needed a few days off, decided to give Peter a day off from guarding the gates or watching the pearly gates of heaven. So Jesus was there at the pearly gates and up this bright, cloudy road to the gates of heaven came this old man bent over, long white beard, leaning on a cane. And Jesus ran out to him and he said, do I know you? And the old man said, well, maybe you do, maybe you don't. And Jesus, well, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? He says, the old man said, well, yes, I can. I was a very famous carpenter. And not only that, I had an even more famous son. And one day the son left and never came back. And Jesus looked at the old man and said, Joseph? And the old man looked at Jesus and said, Pinocchio?

[04:11]

Anyway, I sometimes start off with that. Sometimes I break the ice. Actually, as the monks know at the monastery, I'm very much, at least in my talks, into show and tell. I obviously won't do this at every talk. But at least in this opening talk, I like to use some visual aids. This particular visual aid is post-toasties. And I don't know if any of you remember years ago the advertising for post-toasties. But I thought it really captured my imagination, captured my attention when it said, because there's so many varieties of cereals out there, it's practically impossible, you know, to figure out which ones you should eat or pick or whatever. But Post Toasties, I think, or Corn Flakes came up with this really interesting ditty for its advertising. And it said... taste them again for the first time.

[05:14]

It's like, you know, all of these other cereals, you can go through them all, but this is the old, original cereal, and it still has value in it. It's still as good as it ever was. It was one of the very first ones that came out, and all it said was, taste it again for the first time. And so I thought, well, that's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea to talk about So I talk about the holy rule and I say, taste it again for the first time. And I think it's important that we do that for our retreats or for our lives. Because a lot of us have been around for quite a few years in the monastic way of life. And sometimes we need to taste it again for the first time. We need to go back to that original fervor and ask ourselves, why did I come to the monastery in the first place? You know, what drew me? Certainly there was a love relationship there between your own spirit, your own life, and the Benedictine way of life.

[06:22]

And we do that, I know marriage counselors do that with marriages, when the marriages are on the rocks, not that your vocation is on the rocks, but... But sometimes when they just start getting dull and dreary, marriage counselors will tell the couple, why don't you go back to your original engagement when you first fell in love? What drew the two of you together? And I think we need to ask ourselves that same question as monks with our monastic way of life. What drew me to the Benedictine way of life? What was that that really attracted me? And it keeps me here and where I continue to persevere. And so often more reason why I think we need oftentimes in our daily life as monks to recapture that first fervor, to recapture that first taste of post-hosties, the first taste of the rule.

[07:25]

that original flavor that we tasted in entering the monastic life. And really what that means is, I think it's drawing us back to the simplicity of the Gospels. Really, because the rule is based on the Gospels. There's no question about that. And the simplicity of the Gospels is reflected in the rule. because the rule is a very simple rule in a good sense of that term. And like I mentioned to you about the varieties of cereals, if you've ever been into a grocery store, and I'm sure some of you have, go shopping, but I mean, there's aisles and aisles of cereals. There's aisles and aisles of different kinds of Coca-Cola, I don't know what you call it out east here, a soda pop or soft drinks. We call it soft drinks. But what do you start?

[08:28]

What do you pick up? I remember Bishop Hoke, he was the bishop, two bishops before. Well, we don't have a bishop right now. Three bishops before the one we don't have now. But at any rate, he came one time to the monastery for breakfast and they brought him all these cereals speaking. This thing's turning into kind of a cereal talk here. They brought out those little packages. You know, there's a dozen in a package of those little cereals, different varieties. And he sat in there and he says, he says, gee whiz, I can't even sit down to breakfast without having to make a decision. There's a lot of truth in that. But I'm sure you have noticed also, too, in the various electronic equipment that we've got, it's gone from basic simplicity to complexity, and it just boggles my mind. If I go home sometimes and visit with my brothers and their TV sets or whatever they've got, but you've got two or three remotes with 100 buttons on each one, and you need one remote for this and one remote for that, and

[09:43]

And I remember one time going to a rectory, and I got up in the morning to fix myself some coffee, so I went to the microwave, and I put the cup of water in and punched the button and said, hi. I thought, holy cow. They've got a talking microwave here. I said, they're really getting sophisticated. So I said, hi back, which is stupid. Hi to you too. So I'm talking to a microwave early in the morning. And then I happened to punch another button and it said low. So it was really high, low. So it wasn't talking after all. I guess it was, but at any rate. But I think in order sometimes to recapture that original, the freshness, try to approach the rule with fresh eyes and a fresh mind and fresh heart, I think... I think it's important that we look to the Oblates, the lay Oblates, who join our monasteries.

[10:47]

I'm sure you have some Oblates here. We have them at Blue Cloud. But I've always been very impressed with the Oblates. They tend to be older people, a little bit past middle age maybe, and some of them are not Catholic, but they feel drawn to the Benedictine life because it's kind of pre-Reformation. Christian living, the monastic way of life. And so they're not caught up in all those divisions that came in the Middle Ages with the other churches. So it draws a lot of people from other denominations as well. And they really help us to, I think, at least to revisit the rule for ourselves and to see what richness we have as Benedictines and And oftentimes we take it for granted, I think. But I hear the comment from some of the oblasts, you don't know what a gift your monastery is to me.

[11:47]

I'm sure you've heard that from people that have come here. It's so peaceful and prayerful here. And I say, yeah, hang around a while. But basically it is. I mean, you have to admit that. We do create a peaceful... A prayerful environment for the people that come here. You know, certainly there's struggles that go on within the community, but that's normal. And one of them said, which really struck me, he said, it's a comfort to me knowing that all the monks are praying around 7 o'clock in the morning when I'm driving to work and I can join them in spirit. And I thought, golly, I didn't even think of that, that they see that. I mean, here we're praying four times a day. They know that. And so wherever they are, they can join us in spirit, whatever they're doing, if they're driving to work or if they're at work or whatever. There's one particular oblate that many of you are familiar with, I'm sure.

[12:51]

very famous woman, a Presbyterian, by the name of Kathleen Norris. She was very much... Actually, she came to the Benedictine life out in the Dakotas, so I guess we can always feel a little proud of that, but... She was very much connected to the Assumption Abbey in North Dakota. But she also was connected to us in another way too. She passed through on her way to St. John's or come and visit. And she and our brother Bennett are good friends because they're both writers and they both publish books. But what she said was interesting. She said about the rule of Benedict, few books have so strongly influenced Western history as the rule of St. Benedict. And I'm sure from reading her book, she knows she's an extremely intelligent and perceptive woman. And so when she says things like that, I think we need to sit up and listen because she is well-read and very knowledgeable.

[13:57]

She says, it is a brief, practical, and thoughtful work on how human beings can best live in community. The true power of the book, as with the Gospels, it is based on lies in its power to change lives. And she says about herself, it has changed my life so profoundly, I hardly know where to begin. That's a powerful statement. It has changed my life so profoundly, I hardly know where to begin. So people like Kathleen Norris wake us up from our monastic slumber if we happen to be in one or from our monastic ennui. Because we can. We can slowly slip into a monastic rut without knowing it just by living day after day. We can take our Benedictine life for granted. We can take our prayer life for granted.

[15:00]

We can take our community for granted. And worst of all, We can take God for granted if we don't watch it. You know, I sometimes image ourselves like this, the energizer bunny. You know, we just put in the novitiate, we put in our little Benedictine battery and we just keep pounding away, just keep going through life, just praying and working and praying and working. And all of a sudden we find out that we're not conscious anymore of what's going on about us. not as conscious as we should be. So we go on and on and on without much thought and reflection. So Benedict talks about perseverance, of course, and perseverance is good, but when you think about it, perseverance without reflection and conversion is deadening because then you're just digging yourself a rut, a religious rut, and we become religious robots.

[16:01]

It's like spiritual suicide sometimes, like those lemmings, those thousands of lemmings that run into the ocean, heading to the sea and drowning. There was a far-side cartoon about those lemmings running to the ocean. I don't know if you've seen that one or not, but you saw all these little heads of these lemmings heading that way, and they're very serious, and they're all looking in one direction. And all of a sudden, in the middle of all these... Hundreds of lemmings out there. There's this one lemming that's got his head up and is looking right at you and he's got a nice smile on his face or kind of a smirk, smirky smile. And he's just looking right at you. And you look a little closer and he's got an inner tube around his waist. So he's going to survive. He's not going to drown. In some ways, that's the way it should be with us. We need to put an inner tube around our waist to know that we're going to keep floating. But conversion of life is really one of, for me, I think it's probably one of the most important vows that we take as Benedictines.

[17:10]

Because each day when we get up, in a sense, we have to renew that vow for sure. Because each day should bring before us something that we probably have to change in the way I think, or the way I talk, or the way I act. something little, sometimes it could be big. But that conversion is important, the change in our life. There's a story told about Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, our retreat director told it to us, and we just finished our retreat a couple weeks ago, so I was taking notes so I could plagiarize a little bit. But this lady, this mother, brought her seven-year-old boy to Mahatma Gandhi, And she said, Babu, Babu, tell my little boy not to eat sugar, that it's bad for him. And Mahatma Gandhi just looked at the little boy and then looked at the mother and said, come back in one week.

[18:12]

So the mother was really disappointed. So she took the boy and left and came back in one week. And so she brought the boy to Mahatma Gandhi. And... Mahatma Gandhi took the little boy aside and looked intently in the eyes, and he says, Now, you know, you should not eat sugar. It's bad for you. And the mother says to Mahatma Gandhi, Babu, well, why didn't you tell him that a week ago? And he said, Because a week ago I was still eating sugar. Ha, ha, ha. So for Kathleen Norris, the rule really spoke to her. The first contact she had with that was with a group of Benedictine nuns in a parish in North Dakota when she was going from school to school teaching a class on creative writing or poetry or something like that.

[19:21]

So she stayed at the convent there, but she was petrified about that she would... do something wrong or say something. She said she had this nagging fear she would say or do something wrong. And so one sister said, well, would you like to read our rule? Then you'll know if you've done something wrong. So she just handed her to the rule. And she said, I'm always a sucker for a good book. And that did it when she read that book. talked about the prologue and it's how it's so appealing in its familial tone you know listen my son to the precepts of your master she said he is refreshingly realistic in his understanding and acceptance of people as they are as he says in the prologue the souls of all concerned may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and safeguard love he doesn't say a whole bunch of strictness

[20:27]

or a huge amount of strictness, but a little strictness in order to amend faults and safeguard love. There's a lot of meaning in both of that. In one way it's a negative thing to amend faults, but really the whole positive element there is to safeguard love. And she says the language of the rule surprises people. It's not the kind of ether that often wafts through spiritual books. And I think what she was referring to is, you know, a lot of times we can pick up spiritual books that just kind of float around. I mean, you can't get a handle on them or they really don't say much. But she says Bendix writes simply and concretely. The practicalities are always a spiritual concern for him. She says, many communal ventures have failed over the question of who takes out the garbage. There's some truth in that.

[21:30]

And then she talks about common property and common meals. Everything is owned in common. Common meals are a good thing. And it's a... In many ways it should be, but it's oftentimes not. It's punishment to eat alone. But in our society we tend to sometimes, maybe it's a punishment to eat with others. But she said, I've been amused to find that Benedict devotes roughly the same amount of time to discussing meals in common as Augustine in his rule for monasteries devotes to the reasons why men and women shouldn't look at each other. And then she goes into the rule as being countercultural, especially the 9 to 5 workday that people are locked into. Well, actually, they're probably locked into more of a 7 to 10 at night workday or something like that.

[22:39]

People put in long hours, but I think that's part of what we can be countercultural. I mean... How we can be counterculture to that kind of workaday world, that workaholism that is very prevalent in our world today. Where our life is based on nature, really, when you think about it, we pray morning prayer when the sun comes up. And we pray evening prayer when the sun goes down. We pray vigils when it's dark, when it's night, in the night hours. So we're very much rooted, our life and our prayer life is very much rooted in nature. The liturgical life wakes up the morning sun with psalms of praise and sings the world to sleep in the evening vespers, as she put it. And St. Anthony of the Desert was, he's often pictured withholding a book. And for him, people think that was the scriptures, but really for him it was the book of nature that he read.

[23:48]

Not that he wasn't versed well in scriptures as well, but the book of nature. He says, my book is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God. So both nature and the words of God are important. And then She goes on to talking about sex, poverty, and being countercultural. Monastic celibacy in its true context as part of the... She sees it in its true context as part of the vow of poverty. Sexual consumerism is rampant in America. There's no question about that. You turn on any TV sitcom or trying to find a decent movie or... the lyrics and music or the magazines. I mean, we're sexually saturated in America. There's no question about that. And she says, monastic people reject sexual consumerism among other forms of consumerism. They reject the culture view of sex as power.

[24:50]

As St. Benedict says in, I think it's chapter four, in the Instruments of Good Works, no one is to follow his own heart's desires. Monks should have a healthy respect for the power of sexuality. And then she goes on to talk about, she's drawing this out of the rule. Death is being countercultural. Death and being countercultural. As St. Benedict always said, he says in the rule, keep death daily before your eyes. And it's interesting because just this past week, we had... Two young men, one was a young priest and a friend of his who lives close by in the little town of Milbank. They came up and made a retreat, and they called it a casket retreat. They made caskets, their own caskets. And I was supposed to be the one to help them, because I work in the carpenter shop. Luckily, we have an associate there who's even better at work than I am, which is thank God.

[25:53]

But I kind of turned them over to him. But they spent the whole week building caskets for that very reason, I think, so they could be reminded of their own mortality, which is a good thing for all of us. She quoted Dr. Johnson, Samuel Johnson, who says, The prospect of being hanged wonderfully concentrates the mind. And it's true. But today's philosophy really is sort of like the... Glorification of the body, especially people that are in extreme exercise regimes. The right diet and the right exercise, and you'll gain immortality. And she says, it's like heading for that great tofu in the sky. Have you ever had tofu? You can't taste it. There again, it's a balance. I think for monks, too, a balance between overdoing that or underdoing it.

[26:56]

I think we had a monk on the other side who was underdoing it. He pretty much always had his nose in a book, but he could be extremely funny, too. He would throw workshops for just about anything at a drop of a hat. But this particular monk who just hated exercise at all costs, physical exercise, he started Exercise Anonymous. And he says, this is how it works. It was kind of funny. He says, you know, whenever you get an urge to exercise, you call up your sponsor, and he invites you over for a cigar and a good shot of scotch. Ha, ha, ha, ha. So much for his exercise regime. And then work as a countercultural thing. We are not defined by what we do, even though the world does define people by what they do.

[27:58]

And how often we say that, you know, when you're talking to people. What do you do? You know, as if this is really the important thing. Instead of, well, of course, you don't want to say, well, you know... what's your spiritual life like? You don't want to go into that too quick, I guess. But Benedict was well aware of our tendency to take pride in our talents and artists are not to get puffed up by their skillfulness. But not just artists, but anyone who thinks he and his particular work or job is indispensable. I remember one time I was talking to my spiritual director, and I must have been working along that line, that my work was indispensable. He says, whenever you feel like you're indispensable, just go down to the cemetery and look at all those indispensable people that are down there. So I thought that was pretty wise. Okay, okay, I get the point.

[28:59]

I get it. Then she talks about the words that breathe, particularly the psalms. She says, just by reciting the Psalms out loud for her, even when she prays alone. She would pray the Psalms out loud. My life changes for the better when I follow Benedict's advice and read the Psalms aloud daily, chewing the words, which is, of course, Lectio. She says, so oftentimes religious language gets misused, like Jesus is my best friend coffee mugs or toothbrushes with cute little quotes on them, something like that. So she says, the words of the Psalms breathe in and out over and over, are words literally brought to life. Well, I think we should know that here.

[30:02]

We're praying the living word of God. And that's another place where we can all get into a rut. can't we? When it comes to prayer, you open up our psalm books or open up our office books and within the first verse of the first song, our mind is out in the carpenter shop or in the kitchen or trying to fix something or work out something. It doesn't take long for our minds to go, does it? So it's important that we try to be present where we are. If we're prayer, we need to be at prayer. If we're eating, we need to be eating and so forth So that's a long introduction to what I want to talk about. But the rest of the retreat is going to be based on what I call, and that's why if we can get that board tomorrow, I like to draw things to the, well...

[31:03]

I'm not exactly the top-rate artist in the world, but you'll get the idea maybe. The five steps to a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. I came by this years ago in the early 90s when I was prior down in Guatemala, and I had to give a talk at one of the retreats, and my Spanish was not all that great. I was still stumbling through it because I couldn't remember it. Or the most embarrassing one was, well, I was appointed prior. I had three months of Spanish, basically. And then I had to go become prior at the monastery. So my Spanish was not very good. And I remember talking to them at table and stumbling along in my Spanish. And all the monks were sitting there. And they asked me how long I'd been ordained. And I tried to, I thought I told them I'd been ordained 25 years. And they all looked at each other, and they all started laughing. And then one of them put his legs up on the chair, and I said, well, what did I say?

[32:07]

And one of them tried to explain to me that, who knew English, he said, you just told us you'd been urinating for 25 years. Gosh, that's all I needed to say. I felt like I'm not going to speak Spanish anymore. That's it. I'll keep you humble for sure, but... But anyway, at this retreat, I developed what I consider five essential steps to reach a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. And so there are going to be steps. Step one is number one. It's the most important. It's foundational. Step two builds on number one and step three and so forth. But we need them all. If you pull out one of those steps... I personally don't think you're going to have a well-rounded Benedictine spirituality. So I'm going to take those five steps with you, starting with number one and building up on that. Because a lot of times what happens in our Benedictine life, we might have step three, but we might have missed step two or step one, or we don't think much about it.

[33:14]

So I hope to focus on each one of those steps and then let you decide maybe which ones in your own Benedictine life, you need to concentrate on or to work on or to reflect on a little bit more. But what might be a good exercise between now and tomorrow afternoon's talk is just for each one of you to sit down and ask yourself, in the order of priorities even, what's the most important step first for me? If I want to arrive at a vibrant... Benedictine spirituality. What's the first step I need to take? And then what's the second? And what's the third? And so forth. And you might come up with the different steps. And this is okay, too. If it worked for you, fine. Because that's the important thing. If these steps will bring you to a vital and living Benedictine spirituality, then good.

[34:18]

Hopefully I won't trip you up on the way up the steps or you won't get tripped up on the way. So just during this retreat, if you can, just again reflect on the beauty of the rule of Benedict and that it really is a treasure that we have. It's the most translated book outside of the Bible in the Western civilization, which is interesting. It says a lot about its popularity. But also all you need to do is go to religious bookstores, particularly religious bookstores, to find out all the books that are being written on the rule of Benedict by lay people, a lot of them who are oblates. But a lot of them just are reflecting on that rule and seeing the value of it for whatever role they're in in their life. So taste it again for the first time. We could do it in the morning.

[35:29]

You could. I don't know if I could. Have a nice night. See you in the morning. Oh, we do? Oh, we're supposed to go to eight. Is that it? Kind of? We're with you animated our Holy Father, St. Benedict, that filled with that same spirit we may truly love what he loved and practice what he taught through Christ our Lord. Amen. Well, what I'd like to do in this conference, this second conference, is just a brief overview of the five steps that lead towards a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. But first, a little story.

[36:30]

This took place in San Francisco during the days of the hippies, probably back in the 60s. Anyway, these... Two hippies were walking down the street in San Francisco, and they saw this nun coming towards them, and she had her arm in a sling. And so they, being friendly as they were, they stopped her and said, Well, sister, what happened? She said, Well, I had a bad accident last night. I was taking a bath. I slipped in the bathtub and broke my arm. And they said, Oh, that's too bad. We're sorry to hear about that. And they commiserated with her. And then they walked on, and then one hippie turned to the other and said, hey man, what's a bathtub? And the other one said, I don't know, I'm not Catholic. This is a true story. It took place in St. Minard. One of the German brothers, after Compline, when it was already dark, had the custom of going back to the Virgin,

[37:40]

shrine statue there, and Our Lady of Einstein, and saying some prayers. And he'd go back there, and he closed his eyes and was praying to the Blessed Virgin. And while he was back there, they turned out all the lights in the church. And then he opened his eyes. He couldn't see a thing. He says, Mein Gott, mein Gott, ich bin blind. My God, my God, I am blind. And he thought he'd gone blind because he couldn't see a thing. Sometimes that's where we're at, I think, with our monastic values. Sometimes we have blind spots or we can get a little blindness in our eyes in trying to discern what are the basic Benedictine values that we really need to keep in focus. And what I usually like to do, I think a retreat is sort of like a pair of binoculars, which I borrowed from down there in your... Room down below. Father Martin, help me. But a retreat is sort of like a spiritual pair of binoculars.

[38:42]

You know, what we need to do, of course, you know what binoculars do anyway. If you're looking for birds or monks or whatever, They tend to bring things up close. They focus. Especially if you're a bird watcher, you're going to look for a certain kind of bird. Or if you're out hunting, you're going to look maybe for deer or whatever. But binoculars are very handy for that reason because they really can bring in to sharper focus these distant objects that we're trying to look at. And I think sometimes our monastic life, again, our retreat can be like a pair of binoculars where what we need to do is some of those values that have gotten a little distant or out of focus or maybe sort of turned around when we look through the opposite end of the binoculars, which put the values way out there. A retreat can or should help us bring into focus into our own personal lives those particular values monastic values that we just simply can't let go out, that we have to hold on to.

[39:44]

As some people would say, these are non-negotiables. And in a sense, for me at least, these five steps, and I'd like for you afterwards to share your own, or if you have five or three or two or whatever, but I'd like for you to, if we can talk a little bit after the conference, or after my conference, on what are your... particular values, monastic values, that will lead to a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. And this has a lot to do with vision. In the early days of Blue Cloud, maybe not so much in the early days, but over a rather extended period of time, there tended to be a little bit of murmuring or grumbling about the abbot, this abbot or that abbot, I happen to be the fourth abbot, and they're probably still grumbling a little bit about that. But the abbot didn't have any vision.

[40:47]

I mean, it wasn't articulated. Well, oftentimes, I think monks sometimes can mix up vision and goals. A goal in a monastery is one thing, and a vision is something entirely different. A goal is very tangible. You can have immediate goals. You can have remote goals. Like here, for instance, you can have a goal of developing a bigger herd of sheep, but I don't think Brother Pierre would care about that too much. But you can have a goal like that, or developing a more vibrant retreat center here, or whatever. Those are goals, and they're very tangible. You can get your hands around them. And sometimes they can be realized, sometimes they can't be realized. But a vision is something entirely different. A vision is really an intangible spiritual element that animates the very soul of the community. And in that sense, I think an abbot should try to, or a superior, should try to articulate for his monks the vision.

[41:56]

A vision for this particular community. What will really animate and give life to the very spirit or the very soul of the community itself? And basically, besides these five steps, which I think would really summarize my vision, not only for myself personally, but for the community, my vision for Blue Cloud, and probably, I guess it could be maybe for any... monastic community would be to make blue cloud like a spiritual magnet. I envision it a spiritual magnet that draws people to deep spiritual values, things that they're really searching for and longing for in their own life that will feed those deepest hungers in all of us. the blue cloud would become that kind of spiritual magnet for a given area where people would come and be refreshed and renewed and to be able to go back to their own work or their own life in the world.

[43:15]

So, the five steps towards a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. Vibrant and addictive spirituality. How do we reach that? Well, like I said, there's five steps. Number one. And these steps, they build on each other. Like probably... oftentimes in our own monastic journey, those steps are not necessarily in order. We might have accented one over the other early on in our life. But these steps, steps one, two, three, four, and five, ideally they're to build on each other.

[44:29]

One is foundational. If you don't have number one, you're going to get tripped up on the other steps. You just will. And everything will just be out. And if two doesn't flow out of one, in other words, if you have one and then you jump to four, it's not going to work right. It just isn't. At least I don't think it will. So number one is what I call from the book entitled I thou from Martin Buber. An I thou relationship with Jesus, with the Lord. An intimacy with the Lord. In fact, he uses that phrase to signify that intimacy, that warm intimacy with Jesus. An I thou relationship with God.

[45:33]

And the prayer forms that help support that intimacy with Jesus, at least in our monastic life, the prayer forms that help support that are meditation, lexio, basically those two things are contemplation, meditation and lexio. And this is extremely important because Extremely important. Because when you look at the life of Jesus, he had a lot of relationships, and so do we. But if you look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, the most powerful relationship he had that dominated all the others, and it was like the magma, the core of the earth, which is that hot burning center in the earth they call a magma. For him, that was his relationship with the Father. And John does that better than all the other evangelists as far as describing and accenting Jesus' intimacy with the Father.

[46:46]

And it's over and over again. And I've come to do the Father's will. And so with us, that relationship with Jesus has to be primary. And it's interesting. Actually, as we all know, the two... most important books in our life. We can get a plethora of spiritual books, but if we don't have the scriptures and the rule as the foundational for our reading, then we're chasing the wind. But in the rule itself, the prologue in chapter 73, that Benedict talks about the singular person, whoever you are, who, you know, listen, my son. He doesn't say, listen, my sons. He says, listen, my son, to the precepts of your master.

[47:48]

And so he talks, it's this relationship between God and the individual person in the prologue, as well as in the very last chapter of the rule as well, chapter 73. Again, he uses the second person singular you. It's not the plural you, but it's a singular you in the Latin. So both in the prologue and in the last chapter of the rule, you have this, in a sense, you have this I-thou relationship. So that should tell us something, even in the mind of St. Benedict, how important that is in our monastic life, that intimacy with the Lord. And then, okay, as a person is drawn, first of all, to Jesus and that intimacy with Jesus, in order to keep that alive and to support that,

[48:51]

What do we do? Actually, what this amounts to is that from chapter 58, where Benedict talks about, do you truly seek God? Basically, that's what it's about, too, the God-seeker. Hopefully, all of us here in any monastic life are God-seekers. And we have to do that, in a sense, individually. We, as an individual, have to take that step... into that intimacy with Jesus. But we know we can't do it alone. At least I know I can't. We know we need support. And oftentimes I talk about the community being a sin anonymous group. We talk each other out of sin so we can be more virtuous. But we have to keep encouraging each other to transcend our own selfishness and sinfulness so that we can become saints. But So we need a support group. And the next step up then is that, okay, let's get together then.

[49:54]

We get together in community. We form a community of God-seekers. We form a community of I-thowers, if you want to put it that way. We're called to follow Christ personally, but we do that in a group. We need the support of others. We can't do it alone. No man is an island. We're not called to the married life. We're not called to the single life. We're not called to be hermits. We're called to be Cenobites. And that's why chapter 1 is a rule written for Cenobites. And even the word itself means koinos bios, common life for all of us. We're called to common life. And as we all know, living in community can be a crucifixion and a resurrection. Hopefully it will always lead us towards the resurrection, but at times it can be very much of a cross, living with others, and they have to live with us.

[51:04]

We always think that, you know, it's a cross for me. Well, we need to think it's a cross for others to live with me as well. So that's the second step up then. a community of God-seekers, a community of people who are I-thowers. Then the third step, which builds on the second step, is if you're going to have a community of God-seekers, the primary activity for that group simply has to be prayer. There's no other way. In order to sustain our own intimacy with Christ, in order to sustain the community of God-seekers, we have to gather together in prayer. That's indispensable means for a community of God-seekers. So the daily office and the Eucharist are extremely important.

[52:09]

Of course, they are, as you know, in the rule of Benedict, prefer nothing whatever to the work of God. But he only uses that phrase twice. Prefer nothing to the work of God, which is number... But he also uses it, prefer nothing to the love of Christ, which is number one. She's interesting, that phrase. But really what that amounts to then when we gather in community for prayer is that we are celebrating the Benedictine sacrament. I know I'm making it a bigger definition than the seven sacraments. But for the Benedictine, it truly is a sacrament. It's an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace, which is an old definition for the sacrament. But for us, that's an outward sign. When we gather visibly as a community in prayer, we are making real things

[53:10]

our community, the deepest part of our community life, that relationship with God. We're making it real, we're making it visible, and we're actually sustaining it that way. We keep it in existence that way. And people who come to the monastery, I don't know, I'm sure they'd say it here too when they come, but they'll, you know, we think when people come to the monastery for a retreat, they're always got to give them a a great conference, or if they want a private retreat, we have to prepare them and get ready for certain passages from Scripture or whatever, their journey. Really, the best thing we can give them is say, just come to prayer. Just come to prayer. Pray with us. And people, they themselves say that. That was the most rewarding part of my stay at Blue Cloud was to pray. to pray with all of you monks, and to know that you guys do that four times a day, every day.

[54:15]

You gather for prayer. And you've been doing that here in this place for 50 years. And that makes an impression on them. You can tell I'm getting older. I don't want to admit it, but I... And then the fourth step... After step number three is, of course, work. Then we get back to the Benedictine model of praying work. But you notice that model doesn't come into play except after you get to step three and four. But like St. Paul says, if they don't work, don't let them eat. We have to work. It's part of our life here on this planet Earth, right after the fall of Adam and Eve, after the first thing that came to Adam, the first, more or less, curse.

[55:17]

But hopefully we don't look on work as a curse. It can be a hard task for us at times, but we all need to work, and it's a very healthy thing. healthy component for our life and a necessary component. As I tell people, I mean, people who even don't have a job, they still have to work. They have to find food. They've got to find shelter. They've got to find clothes. So even street people have to work in a sense. And as we know from the model, work is the flip side of prayer. But it always has to take a back seat to prayer. It can never dominate our life. Prayer has to dominate. And there's really two extremes here. You know, people oftentimes say, oh, well, you hear not necessarily, hopefully not Benedictines, but other people, oh, my prayer is my work. Or my work is my prayer. Well, if my prayer is my work, then we end up in quietism and that type of heresy where you do nothing but sit around and pray all day long.

[56:25]

But if my work is my prayer, then you end up being a workaholic. And then you lose direction in your whole life. So those two extremes need to be avoided. A quietism in our spiritual life or a workaholism. And finally, the final step, and it's an important step, at least for us as Benedictines, is what I call holy leisure. Just time. Time that's... And leisure is not useless. Michael Casey talks about how important leisure is. He oftentimes uses it in the context of prayer or lexio or reading. But here I'm using it more in the context of recreation, social life, gathering together.

[57:25]

as a community and our hospitality would be part of that too. A good example of it was what we did this afternoon at the noon dinner. I would consider that leisure, holy leisure, our gathering, socializing with others or with our own community. And it should be, first of all, with our own community, but being sociable and enjoying a good time too. having a party occasionally. That would really be part, I think, part and parcel of our life as Benedictines. And the two extremes that need to be avoided here, just like in work, is the extreme of always socializing with others, always being with the guests, always wanting to recreate or to... or to be sitting with the guests and that kind of thing.

[58:29]

Or the other extreme would be to be a total recluse of not wanting anything to do with the guests at all. So the retreat then, this particular retreat, I'm going to address each one of those steps in the conferences ahead. But I wanted to give you an overview of it so you have some idea of where we're going. and what I'll be talking about. So the next conference will be on that very first step, which I'll probably spend two conferences on that because I think it's so important that if we get tripped up on that first step, we're going to fall flat on our face for the rest of them. It's just not going to work. So that pretty well brings to a conclusion this particular conference. What I'd like to do now is, of course, open it up to... to all of you and maybe talk, listen to some of your views on what you consider some essentials in your monastic life.

[59:34]

I know Father, Brother Bruno spent wakeless nights figuring out his five steps. What were some of the ones you came up with? I mean, because this is just because they're mine. It doesn't make it Right. Well, let me just start out by saying, Philip, if you didn't know, I think that I sleep till 12 last night. I was a little upset at Father because I thought, what did he say that is keeping me awake? And it wasn't until I was reading the first reading at Mass, the actual first reading, that came to me when the third time Samuel was called, and it just says at the end, You know, it doesn't say what God's doing, it just says in the end. And everything from that onset did not fall without effect or something like that. Mm-hmm. Which came across to me as, thank you.

[60:38]

He found out it was God calling. Like, you know, Pope God was calling me all night long. Yeah, he called me last night to, you know, help out reading the rule for the first time. Mm-hmm. Which he did last night. Mm-hmm. That way, yeah. Well, I did four steps, thinking it was four steps. Then you told me it was a fifth one. I actually have a fifth one. The first one is exactly like yours. I have Jesus, and I wrote in parentheses the gospel, the scripture, and the trinity. I did not have, well, you can get a relationship with the Father, but to me, well, trinity is a mystery, so the way I'm going to get anything out of it is to meditate on it and to listen to the word. That's what I had in the first one. And then I stuck next to that, humanity and creation, because it's God's. The second manifestation, I have in parentheses, it's in parentheses, and the reason I have it in parentheses

[61:51]

is the next thing I have after that, in parentheses, is the Father. The Father is in quotation marks. And out of parentheses, I have the Messiah. My point is that he's number two, or that person is number two. And can I see in the other person, whoever is speaking to me, the Messiah? Do I just listen to Well, I want to be the father of the community of what represents for me Messiah. Messiah meaning the anointed one at this point in time in my life. Okay, at this point in time as the father of the community also. But I also want to make it... So what I'm trying to say is he can also be another brother. My third thing was I wrote Mount Xavier.

[62:53]

Which probably ends up community in a way. Well, the third one is more. More than? I wrote Mount Xavier. And I just put in quotation marks, the brothers, or excuse me, my brothers. And then out of quotation marks, I wrote my first commitment. Meaning by that, other people can be, you're committed to two, put your first commitments to the One of them are not used. My fourth one was the rule of Benedict. And I'm sort of cheating on this one, because we normally call the rule of Benedict in Latin it's regular. But somewhere along the line, I saw the word regular. They use, I don't know whether. And I believe, I always thought that meant rail. which, you know, like the side wheels to a ladder.

[63:54]

And I was seeing the rule is not law, but as guide. And I wrote after that, for nothing to the love of Christ and to anticipate my brothers. I was trying to quote, is it in the last chapter? Second last, probably. Good zeal. Good zeal. I think 72. It struck me. And the fifth one, the one I left out, which I can see I wasn't going anywhere where you were going. I wrote me. And I wrote the inner self. Meaning, after I listened to it, you know, If I really was listening to the other three or four, hopefully, I'm also at the same time, you know, a little like what happened to me this morning.

[64:57]

How was that? What's going on? God's trying to tell you, would you please pick up the rule and read it? And so, let me see, that's where I am. So that's where I... Well, I'm glad you put some sight to it, though. You really did, yeah. A lot of thought to the point of losing sleep. No, I didn't lose sleep. Well, had I done it back at 10 o'clock at night or 9 o'clock at night, I might have been a much more relaxed person. I couldn't figure out why at 20 after 12 I was tied as a tightrope. And it wasn't until I realized what God was saying to me, all of a sudden it felt like a whole ton of something went out of me. I said, well, all right, okay. All right, Lord. You're telling me I've been wasting my time, or wasting your time. But anyway. Thank you. Well, any reflections or observations or some other additions or subtractions?

[66:01]

In French, la règle. And règle in French is a yardstick. It's a memory, but at the same time, you would receive the from the teacher. Give me the bang. You call it the ruler, huh? The ruler. Actually, the homily this morning, which I thought was very good, very many points to ponder, was that very first step in many ways. Well, he said, too, the very first reading with Samuel, are we listening?

[67:08]

Of course, that's the very first word in the rule, too, to listen. I think it's one of the Probably one of the most important elements in our society today is quiet. There is so much noise out there. With all these electronic gadgets, we've got iPods and all that, whatever they do. Record a lot of music, I guess, or whatever. But, you know, people, it's always puzzling to me when they go out, you know, out in these beautiful forests or walking lanes and they've got They're plugged into some music or something. Instead of just listening to the stereophonic sound of nature. I mean, it's all around you. Oh, the cell phone. Oh, the cell phone. I've written a lot about the cell phone.

[68:10]

I mean, both my message and the calendar was about cell phones. I mean, the only cell phone I really need is a cell phone of prayer where we can... Have that always available? Actually, I think some people are, I think their cell phone is stuck to their ear. I think they've got super glue on it. They hardly ever take it away. They're always going around with this cell phone, wherever they are. I think a doctor could make a killing by operating having cell phone implants where you wouldn't have to worry about holding it you'd just be implanted in your side of your face some place I was struck by what was the practice the Skype textbook for one that

[69:20]

Is it the rabbi or someone? Recognizing the Messiah in the other person. I'll share this one because that's what's going through my mind is someone once said to me, I tend to, as a child, still to rebound, tended to look at how I felt about things. And I said to somebody once, I always felt abandoned when I had to go to boarding school on Sunday. I went to boarding school and lived in the Bronx, and suddenly I had to take the Long Island train. Well, my mother or my father would drive me to the train, and looking out the window, feeling abandoned. Someone once said to me, do you ever think about what your mother is feeling as she's looking at her son? It really struck me, you know. What other people go through? or what your parents go through, I guess, is the way I should say that, you know.

[70:25]

And, you know, my father had to go an hour and a half to drive me to school, and then sometimes it was bad weather or fog or whatever, snow, and an hour and a half back with two hours of traffic. And, you know, you think what other people gave for you. And it blows me. I was somewhat making that my theme for the retreat somewhat. Mm-hmm. to realize that God, what God does, has done with one, to other people. So I don't know. What I wrote in the room, because I forgot it, but I'm recently listening to a tape of Raymond Brown, as she gets out of three epistles, what the early church had needed, and the first thing it would be stability, that's what they first came up with.

[71:33]

And for example, the requirements for a bishop with it, he's only married once, and then if his wife died, before he was a bishop, he was in college, I wanted to stay a reliable person. The person I wanted was a reliable person. And so if we use something which you should welcome them to the guidelines and so forth, then we need that kind of itself, that stability. That's the first thing you have somebody promised, or you know, the kind of guy that's coming home was, was it absorbable? Or is it stability? Then there's also, and these weren't three, so I gotta go back and listen to the tape and get them, because they were well brought out. But anyway, the second thing is we have to have people who can change. That means people who can, and change the circumstances, can carry your vision, vision if you want, over making modifications.

[72:47]

So you've still got the vision, but you've able to drop off things that were obscuring it now in new circumstances and this whole thing like that. So that you had the same thing that would be other, certain aspects of your life and all would be different in order that you achieve different. And the third thing would be a personal relationship with Jesus. And we have that, and we all have, we have that more, we have those capacity, more or less, and that in the community, you have some people who are more stable in a good sense, not rigid, but where you can keep this sort of stability, and certain people who see when there's some need to change, or that you can survive, and sometimes in our day, people survive, but the way things change so rapidly, but to change it without changing the whole place, that's not going to make it a new thing.

[73:49]

keeping that writ eligible. And then for all of us, the reason we're here, basically, was relationship with Christ. It touched us in some way, and we should read. I've often asked myself, what is my relationship with Christ? And having talked to people who were, say, engaged, or even married people, and you talk to one And then the other person comes in and talks with that many, and they're gone to two different planets at two different times in history. And they couldn't be farther apart. And one thing that's a great relationship, and the other is suicide. And so I'm never going to say Jesus is my friend, but I'm a friend of Jesus, rather, or something like that. It's always a mischief attached to it. Yeah, and I've come down with my friend. I can't get the lover or the coach or whatever.

[74:52]

As he said, you know, I call your friends. But a real deep friendship, we should expect and want. And I think, you know, at least my own life, that's what I would hope it would be. But then with that kind of relation, you're not a servant and all these other kind of things. And you are in a way, but I mean, basically. A deeper knowledge of him and what he wants and expects. And it really is love infection for us. That's the other thing. You know, you think of helping people in difficulties and even people cause a lot of trouble. That doesn't disturb you enough for me to concern them. And you rather, if I do that, what does Christ do? I mean, they've already killed me, but hasn't given up.

[75:55]

You're still knocking yourself out. What others can I do for this character? You know, it can help me. So he never gives up on this side. Of course, his love follows into hell. Now he is hell, and we can't return, but... So those three things, a certain degree of stability, a capacity for change, well, that carries over the original vision, and the whole thing basically on relationship with Christ. I think it's like you're trying to get out of here. Yeah, that's... And it takes a time while I'm praying. What's your name, Sebastian Moore, to me? Yeah, I liken that very first thing very much to friendship, that intimacy with Jesus, which is what he says in John, in the Last Supper,

[77:10]

You know, I no longer call you servants, but friends. And one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament, in fact, one of my favorite personages in the Old Testament is Moses. Because in Exodus, Jesus says, don't you know you're my intimate friend? He actually uses that phrase. I think it's in chapter 32, 33 of Exodus. You know, you are my intimate friend. And I mean, I guess... Maybe that's probably the reason why I appreciated Moses as a personality, because he was the meekest of all men. And then Jesus, or God, Yahweh rather, calls him, you are my intimate friend. And then he says, well, if I'm your intimate friend, then why are you treating me this way? Why did you give me this people? And first of all, God says, you know, your people have gone astray. And then Moses turns around and says, no, it's your people.

[78:12]

It's kind of a play on words there. But God gives Moses the responsibility of taking care of your people, Moses. And Moses says, no, they're your people. But that intimacy between Moses and God, it just really hit me. It's chapter 38. 32 or 33 of Exodus. In fact, I marked it because I thought, gee, that's... I've got to... I've just got to keep reminding myself of that. But it really is that friendship, I think. And then you get back to, of course, when you talk about friendship, what do you need to sustain a really deep friendship? Well, time. You've got to spend time with your friend. And you're getting into this whole time of meditation and like seal that's all time with your friend and if if that friendship is the most important thing in your life the most important relationship in your life especially the friendship with Jesus and then there's certain elements if the very first thing you do when you get up you gotta start you gotta be open to that friendship you gotta present yourself in a sense before the Lord or at least say hi to your your most intimate friend

[79:31]

The very first thing you get up, the last thing you do when you go to bed. Moses said to the Lord, this is 33, chapter 30. Moses said to the Lord, you indeed are telling me to lead this people on, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, you are my intimate friend. And also, you have found favor with me. Now, if I have found favor with you, do not... Do let me know your ways, so that in knowing you I may continue to find favor with you. Then too, this nation is, after all, your own people. I myself, the Lord answered, will go along to give you rest. Moses replied, If you are not going yourself, do not make us go up from here. For how can it be known that we, your people, and I have found favor with you except by your going with us? Then we, your people, and I will be singled out from every other people on the earth. The Lord said to Moses, This request too, which you have just made, I will carry out, because you have found favor with me, and you are my intimate friend.

[80:43]

So just within that short space, he uses that phrase several times. Wow, that's neat. So I want to be like, imitate Moses. When I was here, he gave us some, it was very helpful to me. He said, Jacob, that's a real character. And he said, well, God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the chosen. That's okay. You can start with zero or below. So that didn't work kind of hard. But something happens anyway. That's right. Well, I guess we can get ready for, we have Vespers at 6 then, is it?

[81:49]

At 6, yeah. Then tomorrow, tomorrow's conference, is it? 8.30. 8.30. Okay. We do it with Vespers. We do it on Thursday. Our Thursday schedules, we change. The Thursday schedule is that I always have the Mass on Thursday as the abbot, and it's a special community Mass. And then afterwards we have kind of like an agape. We sit around and have wine and cheese or visit with each other, and then we don't have vigils that night. Hopefully they'll do their own vigils. Because we are going to have vigils in the evening after supper at 7.30. We have a black seal at 6.30, 7.30, then vigils. But on that particular night, Thursday, we change the schedule around and kind of have an evening of visiting with one another and relaxing, having recreation in that evening.

[82:59]

It's kind of nice. Works good for us. It's a nice break from the regular routine. Thank you.

[83:11]

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