The retreat is in one way a withdrawal, and that kind of withdrawal that we practice in entering into a retreat is made necessary because of all the, let us call them, centrifugal tendencies of life. We are constantly being pushed to the periphery. out of our own depth into the periphery by the rut into which we easily get following the law and routine of our work, the activism which necessarily fills our life to such a great extent in our days, and then We spend ourselves constantly and at times we may not even have the opportunity to feel the inner substance of our supernatural life and therefore we need really at times this withdrawal and the silence which is connected with it and I would also recommend that very much to you.

[01:22]

during these days just to keep the silence, because otherwise later on you have the feeling that the days have passed and you have really wasted them, lost the opportunity to allow God really to speak to you in the very depths of your soul. But the retreat is not only in this negative way withdrawn, but it is also a recollection. It means a positive activation of these centripetal tendencies in man, our longing for quiet, longing for an opportunity to come into our own, to be ourselves. And that, of course, for us as Christians and as priests to be ourselves means to live in actual confrontation with God in order to give room for that immediate and absolute love which caused Mary to sit down at the feet of the Lord.

[02:49]

And that certainly has to be done in a retreat, that positive recollection, which consists, first of all, in listening to talks, listening and reading the Word of God, then the pondering, that means to give an opportunity to the word which is being received be it through the talks or through reading to give it an opportunity to take roots in our heart and then the words that we received in that way in a loving way then wants to be expressed in prayer And the prayer, especially when you make a retreat here with the monastic community, also consists in your taking part in the divine office, which then naturally dispenses you from saying your own office, and you assist here at the office of the monks, but also, and certainly to a great degree also, in private prayer.

[04:14]

which is really the breath of the soul. And that art of private prayer really could be practiced and learned also in a retreat. But not only this, I think then also the retreat is a preparation for that what follows. We have to return, we have to go back to our field of work, and in that way a retreat should be a kind of rearmament, a spiritual rearmament. It should be something constructive. It should be something that looks into the future. It should help those who make such a retreat towards a better integration of their life, of their activity, of their whole inner mind or spirit to the demands that are being made upon us, the concrete demands which the life of the Church and our function in that life of the Church ask of us.

[05:28]

Christianity in that way is, one can say, a dynamic conformism. Dynamic conformism. Christianity is a certain form And that form is given, is given by revelation in faith. It is given through the sacraments in the form of action, sacramental action. It is given for our community life in the church. All these are forms, forms which exist before we get into it. Forms, therefore, to which we have to conform, and not only in a passive way but in a dynamic, active way. The church is a house, it's a temple, and our Christian life consists in this, that we become living stones in that temple.

[06:39]

As St. Peter, the great and first shepherd of the universal church says, be you yourselves as living stones built on the stone that is Christ into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. that you may proclaim the perfections of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That verse from the first epistle of Saint Peter shows clearly what is our Christian vocation. It's not the expression of our unbaptized self, but it is our being formed as living stones so that we fit into that spiritual temple with Christ as the cornerstone or the headstone.

[07:52]

And our function in that house is to proclaim the perfections of him who has called us, the perfections of the risen Saviour. all those perfections which we see, especially in this time after Easter, so clearly put before us in the mystery of the Ascension and then in the mystery of Pentecost, where these perfections become ours in the form of the Holy Spirit that penetrates and enlivens our hearts. So that is the reason also why I was glad to receive your request, you know, that we should have this retreat on the mass, because the mass is that framework, one can say, that mould into which we have to fit, into which this dynamic

[09:05]

Conformism is really activated in the very centre of our life through the celebration of Holy Mass. Christ as a living stone is really active among us, through us, in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice. And that this offering of the Holy Sacrifice should be a good as a foundation for a retreat. I think that follows from the fact that the Mass really, as a sacrament, has a unique character. It is the sacrament of Christian living. Baptism is our initiations, our dying with Christ and then rising with him. Confirmation is the sacrament of our spiritual maturity, but neither in baptism nor in confirmation does that life that is given to us, the perfections of the risen Saviour that we have to proclaim, they are not, as it were, in these two sacraments, baptism and confirmation, really unfolded.

[10:32]

the unfolding of that new life really takes place in mass. The mass is instituted by our Lord as a meal. A meal is that act in which the central act of any human life, in which our energies are restored and they are restored in such a way that really men who take part in it, you know, sit down around a table in community as a body, and then the meal in itself is like an image of the entire life. The reason why we always accompany the meal or should accompany the meal with conversation with a good word, with an exchange of thoughts, so that this meal really represents and is a picture of the totality of our human life as bodies and as souls.

[11:50]

It's not only in that way the Holy Eucharist instituted as a meal but also as a sacrificial and basically as a sacrificial meal. The sacrifice cannot be separated from this mystery because all Christian life comes out of death. Christian life is the fruit of the Pascha, just as we cannot enter into the 50 days after Easter, between Easter and Pentecost, which is a picture of the happiness and fullness of life in which we participate and in which symbolically really the meal is the preponderant symbol. We cannot enter into these 50 days of the Alleluia, as St.

[12:57]

Augustine calls it, without having participated in the 40 days of Lent and without having passed through the celebration of the death of Christ in Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and the Easter Vigil. So the happiness and the fullness of life which is represented in the Mass as a meal can be reached only through the participation in the Mass as a sacramental renewal of the sacrifice of Christ in the Canon of the Mass. Only passing through the Canon Are the mayors celebrating the Beata Passio, the blessed life-giving suffering of Christ, are we able to approach that unity and union which is expressed in the meal and is begun with the prayer, Our Father who art in heaven?

[14:10]

But the Holy Mass is not only, and that I think is an additional reason too, for the beauty of the Mass and its aptitude to form the foundation of retreat. It is not only an action, but the Mass is also the proclamation through the Word of the Perfections of the Risen Saviour. So the Mass also represents that, let us say, intellectual aspect, better the aspect of faith. The Mass is really, and I think that's again completely in inner harmony with the essence of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, as the sacrament of Christian life. It sums up in itself also the other sacraments. the sacrament of baptism, confirmation.

[15:13]

The Mass is an illumination. It renews the graces that we have received in baptism. And not only that, it also takes into its very structure the sacrament of penance, the element of repentance. So that in that way, the virtue of repentance The strengthening of our faith leads us into that full sacramental participation of the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, and the participation in that union which is represented in the Holy Eucharist as a meal. And there naturally also is and must be the cause of a retreat. In the beginning of a retreat we have to seek, as it were, for a common platform on which we, retreat master and retreatants, are able to meet, where we understand one another.

[16:23]

And that platform naturally is repentance, because the ordinary condition, of our Christian life, especially at the beginning of renewal of our life, is the realization of our failings, how much or how little we really live what we believe, and how little in our own life we realize what we do in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. And then from there, from the sacrament, From repentance we are led to the light of the Word, the promise, the good tidings of our salvation as they take place in the Epistle, in the Gospel, first in the Mass of the Catechumens, and then we are ready with a renewed and deepened faith

[17:29]

to enter into that sacramental action which then starts with the offertory, the giving of our own earthly substance so that it may be consecrated. So that seems to me the reason why it is really not only for priests but also for all Christians such a good way to make the Mass the foundation of a retreat. Now, the approach and the way we do it here would be that we dispense, especially in the beginning, let us say, with a theological exposition of the Mass, but we simply enter into it as we celebrate, we enter into its ceremonies, into the external form, because that is the easiest way.

[18:32]

A sacrament is a visible sign. So it is in that way, it appeals to us and it approaches us in certain ceremonies and forms and words which are relatively easy to understand and into which we can easily penetrate, and so that then we may be able better to understand at the end the very, let us say, theological essence of what we are doing. And so let us do it then in that way. Let me start this morning just with a little meditation on the prayers at the foot of the altar, because there in these places at the foot of the altar, really, we are all gathering together, you know, this whole first part of the Mass, we can say, down to the collect, you know, is really devoted to that, that we become one, that we gather together.

[19:48]

and say the psychological constituting of forming the church, deliberately gathering around the altar. This gathering around the altar begins with this appeal to the mercy of God, because that is the thing that first and immediately unites us as Christians, is the appeal to the mercy of God, really in the celebration of the Mass as we have it originally, the Kyrie eleison. The Kyrie eleison is the great and basic and simple acclamation which the whole crowd gather together in the church shouts out, I would like to say, spontaneously, and with this cry expresses all that the crowd at this moment has in, let us say, interiorly, in the heart, and all attitude in which the crowd approaches this celebration, approaches the altar.

[21:13]

Curia laison, Lord have mercy. Whereas as priests in the celebration of the Mass, the prayers at the foot of the altar have been added, but they really follow the same function. You know that they consist, you know, of these three elements. There's first the psalm Judica, which is originally the psalm that the neophytes were singing on their way from the baptistry to the basilica. After their baptism, they were conducted in solemn procession then to the basilica, to the altar, because what else is baptism but the initiation for to enter into the service of God, which naturally centers around the altar. So this psalm, Judica, was sung on that way, from the baptistry to the altar.

[22:15]

And that, again, you know, also makes it so useful and practical for us because when we approach the Mass, our starting point must be baptism. Without baptism, we cannot approach the Mass. So that before entering into the celebration of the Mass, we remember our baptism. In Turibua Tartare Dei, I enter into the altar of God Why can I do it? Because God is the joy of my youth. How is he the joy of my youth? Because in his overwhelming mercy he has put his hand upon me and his hand, creative hand, has refashioned me so that I have been reborn in the grace and glory of Christ. I am young because I'm a baptized Christian.

[23:22]

The baptized Christian means to be the child of God. The source of our eternal youth, the foundation of our youth is God's fatherly love for me. I put my hand upon you. I call you by a new name. That is the basic fact upon which our Christian life rests forever. We have been sealed, and we have been sealed for eternity by that sacramental action of baptism which was conferred upon us, and we are not able to walk on our own feet. carried as a little bundle of human misery, maybe crying to the baptismal font by the hands of those who represent Christ, walking not on our own feet, but on the feet of those who carry us there with their faith and with their love of Christ, representing Christ for us.

[24:43]

So in baptism, without any merits of our own, we simply have been taken over, as it were, by God's love for us. So that that is, you know, and that I would recommend that very much also to you at the beginning of a retreat, you know. There is no other beginning. any renewal of our spiritual life, except by surrendering and giving ourselves in absolute confidence into the hands of God's fatherly saving love. That is the first thing. My dear children, believe in charity. That's the summary of the whole Christian life that St John the Evangelist has put upon our lips.

[25:50]

It was his last will and testament. My dear brethren, dear children, believe in charity. So many people have, sometimes one may say, not the courage to believe that, that God really loved us first, before we loved him. And that, as St Paul even points it out and puts it in a more pointed way than St John in his first epistle, not only that God loved us first, before we loved him, but that, as St. Paul says in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, he died for us when we were still his enemies. That is the basic fact.

[26:50]

That are the good tidings, the glad tidings. We are by nature children of wrath. We are, according to our earth, birth, we are earthly. From the earth, earthly, as St. Paul said. And no human power can in any way pick us up, you know, we cannot pick ourselves up and get, as it were, out of that mud, you know, to be reformed. That can only be done by the merciful hands of our Heavenly Father, who bends down from heaven and takes that clay, that little mass of dirt, and fashions it into his own likeness,

[27:51]

and then kisses it, breathes his own breath into that piece, so to say, of helpless dead matter. And that is the beginning of our salvation. But naturally you can see that this beginning of our salvation, because salvation is communication of life, it's not simply... moulding or fashioning a piece of clay, but it is the communication of life. And that communication of life naturally can take place only with our cooperation. But what is our cooperation in the beginning? That cooperation is nothing but faith. Faith is the porta salutis, the door into salvation. That is the tremendous basic importance of faith.

[28:58]

Faith not only as the acceptance, let us say, of certain truth, an intellectual acceptance of certain truth on the authority and in the, what we call theologically, evidencia credibilitatis. But faith is that inner surrender of our whole being to this truth which is being revealed to us in and through the virtue of faith. And that truth which is being revealed, what is it? It is the truth, I am the way, and I am the truth, and I am the life. So since the object of our faith is not a series of sentences, of propositions, but is a living person,

[30:08]

the Word of God, the Son of God, made man, who says to us, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, the resurrection and the life. Therefore our ascent, our act of faith, It cannot simply be an external intellectual acceptance, but it must be the surrendering of our entire being to that person. Because how could we as created beings constitute and establish any contact with a person which meets us with these words, I am the way, the truth, the resurrection and the life, how could we without a total surrender?

[31:14]

Because this is not a little piece of truth, this is not one opinion outside of other opinions, this is not one person, and one leader and one philosopher or head of the school next to other philosophers and heads of schools and teachers, but this is the way and the truth and the life. So total, absolute, confident surrender of our entire being, our whole person, of our whole heart, only is able to establish that contact. And of course, since every act of faith on our part is always something passing, that act of faith on our part has to be transcended by God's everlasting mercy, by God who wants to establish an eternal covenant with me.

[32:23]

this act of our passing, hesitating faith, this jumping into the dark, as it were, then has to be transcended, then has to be perfected, then has to be translated into the realm of eternal being by the sacramental action. the opus operatum, as we say. But those two things, that our inner total surrender and God's sealing this our total surrender by his opening, one can say, the right side of Christ the Saviour. Put your hand into my side and be not an unbeliever but a believer.

[33:26]

That is the sacramental act, that is baptism, the opening of the side out of which water and blood flows, faith and love, baptism and the Eucharist. And we stand there, and that is the essence of our faith, that we take the empty vessel, the chalice, of our faith, because what is our faith? It is only the open hand of our heart. It's the chalice that we hold to the open side of Christ. And then from there, the blood and the water are being poured into our chalice. And that, you see, is the beginning of our Christian faith. of that inner relation to Christ. And that has to be renewed, as it were, because we constantly, as human beings, we are constantly again thrown into the periphery.

[34:33]

What we see in one valid moment is forgotten in the next moment. The light of a valid moment is followed by the darkness of invalid moment. We have seen it, and then the lights go out. We don't see it anymore. So at the beginning of a retreat, we have to, again, you know, come to the light, see it again. The light is there, but we don't see it. Therefore, we have to open our eyes. How do we open our eyes? We ask ourselves if we don't see it, if everything around us is dark, if our souls are numb, if we find ourselves in a state of spiritual aridity, acharya, if there is much sadness and darkness in our souls, what do we do?

[35:40]

we ask one very simple question, and I would invite you to really do that at the beginning of your retreat. If you find yourself in just that situation, I don't see it anymore, the lights went out, I find myself in a state of spiritual dullness, how can one, what can one say? Ask one question, what has changed? Has the love of God for me changed? I may change. I'm constantly changing. But what do we do when we feel, you know, that we are not able to see it? Whose fault is it? It's our own fault. So what do we have to do? We have to turn out on the light again. How do we do it? Asking us this question, what has changed?

[36:42]

Has the love of God for me changed? In that attitude of absolute trust in the complete and eternal loyalty of God to us, With an eternal love I have loved you and I have drawn you to my heart. That is the foundation of our salvation. And that we have to remember. And that's exactly what we do in the Psalm Judica. I enter, I enter, I ascend to the altar of God to God who is or will use the joy of my youth. And then we ask, we say, Judica me Deus, judge me, O Lord, and separate my cause from that of an unholy people and from a sinful man.

[38:00]

Judge me, O Lord. You see, we say that too, and I think that is so, so important to think about that. We cannot penetrate into or to the one who is the truth without being eager to be saved from all untruth, from everything that is lie in our own life. We have to rise into the clearness of truth. But it is difficult for us to do that. We know that any, and you know that very well from your own experience, every preparation for receiving the Sacrament of Tense and then the examination of conscience, we realize how little we really penetrate

[39:03]

into the depth of our soul, how often this examination of conscience remains a routine. How often do, let us say, the routine questions which we ask ourselves in such an examination of conscience, how often do they not hit really the vital and decisive spot in our life? You know that as priests very well. You have heard many confessions of many people, and very often I am sure you have asked ourselves, or you have even prayed to God, O Lord, if you would only open the eyes of this person to what is, let us say, really wrong with him, that they are really entering into the, and really start there where absolutely they have to start.

[40:07]

Instead of that, routine questions are being asked, you know, and so often these routine questions, I say, just more or less cover up sometimes even form an obstacle to the real decision and the real breakthrough that such a person would be asked, really, of such a person. So, judge me, O Lord, you know, really is that longing of our part to see ourselves fully in the light of God's truth. But there I would add one thing, and that is that in this our desire for truth, and you know that, I mean, how often do we think as priests, you know, that there we stand with our vestments and there we stand in our alp, and there we have said all the words that belong and accompany the putting on of these vestments,

[41:15]

and there we go to the altar, and there we say the words, and there we do the things that we are supposed to do, and at the same time we feel, you know, how different we are, and how often, you know, also that what we do on our part subjectively constitutes and is a certain faking what we are. and how often our personal reality really contradicts what we are doing there in the vestments and at the altar. Therefore we may, and I say that just as a warning, we may sometimes be tempted by the devil. The devil may use our desire to break through into the absolute truth. And especially we are, say, of a scrupulous nature, of a timid nature, and very often he may cause us to examine ourselves before him and in the devil's light.

[42:31]

The devil, do you know, is Satan, that is the advocate, but it is the advocate who looks for our weaknesses, who glories in our weaknesses. The advocate who looks at us in the light of hatred. Hatred, you know that from your own experience too, may be a good light, you know, an excellent light to discover the weaknesses of the one whom we contemplate, as it were, in the light of hatred. How often do we do that? It sharpens our eyes to the weaknesses of the other one. It does not heal, does not heal. If we look at ourselves in the light of the devil, and as I say, we may just sometimes be tempted, you know, to do that.

[43:33]

And we say, now, we want to know the truth about ourselves. We want to really know. And then, for example, we ask ourselves this question, now, do we really love God? And then we continue and then we kind of poke around in us. We kind of try to stir up all the mud that is there at the bottom of our human character. And we begin to doubt. We say, now, do we really love God? And as I say, in this kind of diffident, diffident attitude, in which we analyse ourselves. I don't know to what extent priests take refuge in our day to psychoanalysis.

[44:33]

I'm not against psychoanalysis. There is an attempt being made to go to the depth of our human character. Now, if we, also studying our own character, and studying our own, as I say, psychological limitations, or also, as I say, psychological, how could one call it, twists, you know. No human being is absolutely straight, you know. We are all built, you know, in many torturous little twists, you know. In that way, we are all sick. and the devil may just push us into that unwholesome curiosity about ourselves, our own nature, our character, then he will, into that our curious and diffident self-searching, he will inject an element of...

[45:46]

scepticism, an element of self-mockery, self-irony, or something like that. And in that way, the joy of our salvation may be taken away from us. But that's a great danger, and that's what I say. We come to the altar and we say there, really, in truth, Judge me, O God! and separate my cause from that of an unholy nation. Let us do that and let us remember that if we ask that, we appeal to God, who at this very moment, where we stand in front of the altar, is really enthroned on his judgment seat. but that judgment seat is the altar.

[46:50]

That judgment seat is the cross which rises above the altar. So that, what does that teach us? It teaches us that the one to whom we appeal for judgment is the one who died for us. Therefore, it is not the one who wants to kill us. That's the devil. That's Satan. That's the adversary. But the one to whom we turn for judgment is not the adversary. It is the Lord who is mercy. It is the Lord who died for us. It is the Lord who died for us when we were still his enemies. the Lord who died for us while we were unable in any way to approach him. So that is the one who judges us, the one who died for us.

[47:57]

What does that mean practically, for example, for our own examination of conscience, which should certainly take place in the course of a retreat and in the beginning of a retreat? What is it? I repeat it, that we don't examine ourselves in the light of the devil, but that we examine ourselves in the light of God the Father's love for us, who has clothed us in the new garment, and that new garment is his Son. So that we examine ourselves in the light of the one who loves us, not in the light of the one who hates us. That means, you know, that right at the beginning of any examination of conscience and even before we enter, let us say, into the details of any kind of searching into ourselves, that we do what every child does.

[49:05]

When it fell on the street and when it was wounded, you know, and hurt himself, what does the little fellow do? He runs to his mother. And then when the mother, when he feels safe in the mother's, on the mother's lap, in the mother's arms, then he looks and he sees now what is wrong, see. Where are the wounds? Because then he has that inner confidence and that inner peace and that inner courage and the hope. Because there is the healing assistance of his mother. So whatever his wounds may be, they will be healed. And no matter how deep and how devastating these wounds are, They will be healed, because certainly Christ the Saviour did not die for the venial sins alone.

[50:12]

He really descended into the entire misery of sin. So therefore, that is what we should do too, right? We should do two. We should, before any examination of conscience, we should not, let us say, approach ourselves in the kind of unbiased indifference or something like that. No, we should first throw ourselves into the arms of God, whom charity, love, has made a mother, as Clement of Alexandria says so beautifully. And then being sure of God's love for us. Because even if we had done worse things than we have really done, still he loves us, still he wants to save us. Even more he wants to descend, because he is the God who, although he is enthroned over the cherubim, still he looks into the abyss.

[51:25]

And that look is a creative look, not just a speculative one. So therefore, in that inner security, God loves me. That's the one absolute certain fact in my life, the only one. In that light, I say, judge me, O Lord, and separate my cause from that of an unholy nation. So those were the first thoughts I wanted to put before you for your consideration. And then maybe we come again together. When could we come?

[52:10]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_94.62