That sounds like the sound of the trumpets. The joy of the Lord is our strength. At the same time, we realize that in today's Mass, there is a very striking contrast between the Lessons and the Gospel. In the Gospel, we see the unfortunate youth power of the devil. Even the disciples are incapable of doing anything about it until the Lord, who alive and dead, the risen Savior enters the scene and then he conquers and later on gives to his disciples the secret Only this kind can be driven out, only by prayer and by blessing.

[01:05]

The lessons are of another tone. They command that they announce the joy of the Lord on the feast day and they invite to the meal they bite, to drinking the fruit of the vines that are now in the fall are ready, and in that way to rejoice in the abundance that the Lord has. This feast of tabernacles here, it echoes, it has prepared for us. But then we also realized that all these invitations for the feast and for the joy are directed to Israel and to the sons of Jacob by the God of Jacob.

[02:08]

And there we remember that. The sons of Jacob and the God of Jacob are the one who has mercy on his son Jacob. Jacob is really the one who always lay, the one who lives, the one who wrestles with God in prayer. and in the spirit of repentance and all these anxieties and fears that come upon him from the realization of his own failing, his sin that he himself had committed. So there is a deep inner union between the two, and I think we, as monks, we can realize that so very well. We are, in a very special way, we are the house of Jekyll.

[03:09]

Our God is the God of Jacob in a very special way. We take into this consideration also the works of the instruments of good works that were read to us today and were nothing human. crime of any kind is impossible to us. It's all here with us somehow, out of the people and the sons of Jacob, the monks. And we should realize that also in these days, especially where we have so many reasons to recognize our own weakness and our helplessness. And we should use prayer and fasting as the ridge, as the way in which we pass through the sea of God's love into the glory of His resurrection, into the meal, to all that joy that is really and truly our strength.

[04:19]

So let us enter, in some way, this is like a beginning of a new year. Do you know that tomorrow is The Jewish New Year is the, for us too, it's really this end, this is the running out of the old year, the in-gathering, and it is at the same time a new beginning also for us, marked by the fact that in these days we are celebrating the feast of the exhortation of the cross the same spirit reflecting the same spirit as here this beautiful mass of today and we have begun a new year the year of the monk in a special way and we also have today the beginning of the new school year. All these things really go together. Nothing that is done in the monastery is that way without that labor, without the

[05:28]

the prayer and the fasting and recognizing recognition also of our own weakness. Let us rejoice that year after year the Lord gives us this possibility of a new beginning. We also accompany especially the school year, beginning of the school year with our prayers we realize what a tremendously important part really of our life that is or not only the studies formal studies for those who are then going on for the priesthood but also the studies into which the whole community enters during the winter season as we are looking and searching and longing for the light of wisdom, for all the warmth that this divine wisdom is able to shed in our hearts, because it's the wisdom of God's love, and therefore it is really a fire which warms our hearts.

[06:44]

Thank all those who give their time and their efforts to this part. You can realize that in the new building which we put up, which is so much a library building, where we have expressed that, the great importance of that divine wisdom for our kind of life. The monk retires, really, withdraws from the world in order to get into the warm sunshine of the Word of God, and in that way to participate in that feast that really The divine wisdom prepares for all those who make course into the city of Jerusalem. There it has prepared the abundance of spiritual fruit. And therefore also the view of the two... say a special word also, thanking Fr.

[07:54]

Benedictus, Fr. Schole, Fr. Basil, Martin, all those who help in the cause and give their time for this so important purpose to build up that part of our life. That's really the true source of our joy. The monk has to have something that really makes his heart tick, and that is really this wonderful leisure that our life gives to me. Always not enough leisure, of course, but it gives really to us and those who enter into it in the course of the year. And year after year they will find, you know, that monastic life opens a tremendous perspective just of this diving into the riches of the Lord, into His wisdom.

[08:57]

And that certainly has a tremendous transforming power. for all of us. It's not a matter only of the intellect, but it's also a matter of prayer. The source of prayer, the fruit of it, is prayer and thanksgiving. So let us be glad, you know, that the Lord has given us this possibility to also to take care, to plan a building which has the purpose to be geared to that inner concentration a recollection that is necessary in order to listen to the Word of God. What a wonderful picture there is given to us today in the epistle of the Israel that is listening to the Word and how they all say, Amen, Amen, then lift up their hands in order to Elevatio Madomira, the lifting up of my hands is the readiness to do

[10:03]

What in a word we are told to do. It is a real Torah, it's a real direction for our life. It's not something simply theoretical, but it is a level which penetrates them slowly but surely, penetrates our lives and our actions. This connection, I also wanted to say, just a word of greeting of the 11th and 12th of this year. No, of course. And the importance of dates, births, and ages. Right. The state of... thoughts maybe from the beginning of the day we have these last days just just shears of thoughts the words come to uh what's attention in the course of the day and yesterday there was the word from the gospel of saint john the first chapter of the verse the

[11:19]

Those who receive him, those who accept him, to them he gives the power to become sons of God. That is an opportunity to think a little about the so important way in which people in a community and also in a monastery meet that is the uh the relation of the giver giving and receiving giving and receiving to those who receive him gives the power to become children of god so it is in this whole exchange of giving and receiving is not only the receiver who needs the giver, it's also the giver who needs the receiver.

[12:21]

It's a mutual relation. Sometimes we come across a new attitude, which the other day I did a reflection on. psychosis of doing good. Psychosis of doing good. Certain people have that psychosis today. We can see that in all of us. They are respectable people and usually people who are very conscious of the gifts that they bestow And they are eager to bestow these gifts. Why? Because it's a certain satisfaction that it gives to them. It's a way in which they taste their own wealth, their superiority in relation to others.

[13:26]

It gives them a certain pleasure to do good and to be the giver. One thing that I think is so important in this giving and receiving and this basic relation between the people is that the giver realizes that the way he needs the receiver, that his gift is really not complete simply because he gives it to him. but it becomes only complete because it is accepted and that he in some way a giver is also a beggar and he begs for acceptance that specific blessing say of this gift Only through the acceptance and the free acceptance, the grateful acceptance, can there be a good giver, can we just push our gifts down the throats of our people, so that we force them to accept our gifts.

[14:48]

the way in which we activate our innate attitude of full nature to lord it in some way or the other. Also, if we have that attitude, then we are always terribly offended if the gift is not accepted. It deranges us sometimes, you know, just makes us furious. So we have to... That's one thing, I think, that we all have to keep in mind of this, or I mean it's just one little aspect of this giving and receiving relation. First is that the giver realises his poverty. Really, poverty, I think, is the inner mystery, one can say, of giving as well as of receiving. Poverty of the giver, one aspect of his poverty consists in this, that he really depends on and needs the one who receives.

[16:04]

He is himself not simply the rich one, is not simply the one who endures it, but he is the one who receives by giving. And he gives because he realizes that he needs that receiving. But in all humility, all inner realization of his poverty. that as soon as one realizes that and thinks about it, and also, of course, the way in which one gives, you know, takes on that certain, let us say, the respect for the one who receives, the inner feeling of true humility that the fact that a gift is received is really and truly a blessing.

[17:05]

And it's always, it's a thing that always strikes me in reading the, uh, the, uh, Psalms of Rachel, or the Old Testament, and so on, is that, uh, that really in the exchange even and that is the point on which the just the piety of the Old Testament is so conscious of I think it's true that the God gives he is the father he proposes he gives the good gifts of creation to man and man but He does not in any way impair the liberty of man. The one who really and truly receives here on earth is man in his liberty.

[18:09]

He can accept and he can refuse. If he accepts it, Then by doing it, he says, Blessed be God for the giving. So that the receiving even of the poor human creature before the almighty creator still is a blessing, so to speak, for God. There exists the mystery of what they call the barakot, the blessings, the role it plays in the piety of the Jewish people in our days. We make our giving, our receiving, it's really a way in which we praise God.

[19:12]

So that by giving, the one who gives is blessed by the receiver. He's really and truly blessed by the receiver. I just wanted to put that as a little thought before you. And as I say, it's one little aspect of this relationship between giver and receiver. So let us all remember that. Those who give, they do it with that deep respect for the one who receives. And we are the ones that thank God that their gift is received. They are really and truly being blessed. Therefore, the whole poverty in that way is enriched. How much? Eight hundred and seven cents.

[20:14]

This is already quite good, isn't it? Brother Ambrose is very, very efficient in learning Hebrew. He knows it better than I do. His vocabulary is much greater, much bigger. And the others do not yet speak the language, but they're also very anxious to learn it. And Brother David. so i ask you also for your prayer and now seeing your community just that wonderful namely i see so many things which are much more beautiful here, the beautiful church you have. Of course, I may say you probably know it, we are now also starting, we hope still, to still do it this year, to get it at least roughly finished, the enlargement of our chapel.

[21:48]

And once we do that, we can also do a few things which we always would have liked to If they were present chapel they would then be quiet. We have more room and can do things more dignified than we have done so far. It's just impossible. But the singing also I noticed that immediately and again with envy but also with joy is certainly much better than ours. Although I may say ours isn't bad. quite good but I think uses better as well life and movement and so these are all things of which I like to learn and we should learn and so there is this idea of docility in that sense that we are always anxious to learn and from each other I think that is one of the greatest things in life It is an act of humility, an act of charity, an act of true love, and an act certainly also of prudence.

[22:58]

And so we like to learn from each other, and I certainly am very anxious to learn from you. And if we can exchange little things here and there, and can learn a little from each other, I think that is a great act of fraternal charity. facility, which, by the way, also has that wonderful effect of keeping oneself young. Because if one is always anxious to learn and ready to learn, one does not grow really old. I think it was one of the great things that Pope John and Cardinal Baird, still is, which makes them appear so young in heart, this open-mindedness to accept also suggestions and new ideas and assimilate them. Of course, some people accept every new idea without assimilating them, and therefore they are inconstant.

[24:04]

They are not sedable. No, that's a different story. But truly accept them and assimilate them. That is the great thing, which keeps us always young in heart and young in spirit. And so we want to do, and I'm very grateful. Last year I was lucky I could make it. I always wanted to come, but you know how it is. It is sometimes so difficult. But now there are occasions that come, like being at Rochester for the retreat of the Central Seminary. And so I'm very, very happy that I'm going to be with you.

[24:43]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_87.8