I shall read some text of the Rite of Revue on his Doctrine of Spiritual Friendship. It's not very difficult to situate this Doctrine of Friendship in the Doctrine of the Doctrine you have seen these last days. It's, of course, one kind of love. Just heard Father Elred's choir describing these various forms love takes in human life. Somebody has pointed toward these ideas of Elred of Rivo. We are very close to mine. Maybe one reason for that was that we exchanged these ideas for a long time.

[01:04]

Fr. Everett is a good friend of mine. We met in Colday when he was spending his holidays as a young Dominican and also in Oxford. And also he came several times to my monastery, so his doctrine is common to both of us. And also our love for Saint Elred. If you know, he published a book on Saint Elred of Riveau. To situate the doctrine of friendship, it's not difficult, as I say, because it's one example or one quality of love, one kind of love. And it's not either difficult to situate this doctrine as regards to the doctrine of the image of God, as we shall see, because precisely in friendship we find exactly this doctrine of the like seeing the like.

[02:18]

Eventually we shall meet our friend and have an experience of unity of two wills, that's the essential doctrine, and this conformity of two wills will give us a real human experience of what is precisely the union of the human will with the divine will. And that's, again, from an experience you shall know what is union with God. But... This is the essence, the basis of the doctrine, as we shall see. I once pointed out that from the very beginning, this doctrine is solidly, firmly based on the theological anthropology of the Cistercians. Now, if you like, we shall see the first text, page 51.

[03:25]

where in this treatise on spiritual friendship, perhaps we could give a short introduction on the history of this treatise. Saint Elred said in the introduction that he was very fond of the book of Cicero de Amicizia from his early adolescence, from his adolescence, which is a great, when he was a boy. And it's a bit on the same line as Saint Augustine when he was speaking of the treatise of Cicero. And he says that when he entered the monastery, he of course went to, well, left his book there, and after a while, He wanted to read it again because he was remembering such a joy he had.

[04:36]

And when he was reading again his treatise of Cicero, he didn't find the same joy. He was rather disappointed because he did not find the name of Jesus in it. And this is a very common experience. I was just heard an experience which probably Brother James heard in Karamazoo, the meeting of the novice masters and mistresses. A novice mistress spoke of a case of a nun, I know the nun, she's a French nun, and to the noviciate and asked the abbess if she could take all her books, books she likes very much. The novice mistress said, yes, you can, but you just leave these books in the attic during the time of your noviciate.

[05:40]

So she did that, and after the noviciate, she rushed to the attic and took the book, and she was disappointed. It's very... interesting experience. It really means that a monk has changed his world. A phenomenologist will explain that very clearly. You have changed your world, the general vision, and therefore our vision of the world is subjective. It's the only one which is true, and therefore it has changed. So, of Same thing for Hellred. Then, as he was still, if not liking the book of Cicero, as he was still very fond of friendship, he tried, as he said, to find in the Bible and in the Fathers the same doctrine on friendship.

[06:46]

And if you read the treatise, the three dialogues of the and Friendship, you will see that Everett follows more or less the order of the amicisi of Cicero, and that he quotes all the time texts of the Bible, comparing with the philosophy of Cicero and of Sallust and of the Stoics. And his idea, doing that, he was doing exactly what the fathers have always done, that is to say, using any profane literature in order to establish more or give. And the idea is that everything which has been written and which is true

[07:52]

outside revelation has to be assumed by the Christian revelation because it was meant to be assumed. Everything is true, but not completely, not fully. So the Christian revelation has to perfect all these beauty, all these splendid writings of the ancient and the philosophers. That's the beautiful humanistic idea of the Cistercian. It was not at all the idea of smuggling in profaned literature in the cluster. It was really, I thought, that everything was valuable insofar as it was perfected and completed by the full doctrine of the Gospels. Now, in the book the first, the book the first is chiefly a discussion between Ivo and Elred.

[08:59]

Ivo was a disciple of Elred. Ivo was in a foundation. And Elred owned the two definitions of friendship, one given by Cicero, a perfect agreement on everything divine and human with affection. And who gave the definition, to will the same thing and to refuse the same thing. So they compare both definitions and it goes on and on. But then Ivo asks, I should like to know how friendship first originated among men. Was it by nature, by chance, or by necessity of some kind? Or did it come into practice by some statute or law imposed upon the human race and did practice then comment it to men?

[10:04]

I read the answer. And here he will give you again a sort of stoic background to this psychology or philosophy philosophy of friendship. At first, as I see it, nature itself impressed upon the human soul a desire for friendship. And experience increased the desire. It's always this element of experience. And finally, the sanction of law confirmed it. Then describe the creation. In the middle of the page there, you see, and thus sovereign nature, as established all natures, as arranged all things in their places, and as discreetly distributed all things in their own time, this idea of universal order, which is very, very typical of the Middle Age.

[11:08]

He has wilt, moreover, for so is his eternal reason, the Logos has directed that peace encompass all his creatures and society unite them. It's a social element which you find in the story. And as all creatures obtain from him, who is supremely and purely one, some trace of that unity. For that reason, he has left no type of being alone, but out of many, has drawn them together by means of a certain society. And then, He began to examine all creation and see that there is never one tree of the same kind because they need companionship, so to speak. And also the animals. See, paragraph 55 there.

[12:13]

And though in all other respects, animals are rated irrational, Yet they imitate men in this regard to such an extent that we almost believe they act with reason. How they run after one another, play with one another, so express and betray their love by sound and movement, so eagerly and happily do they enjoy their mutual company that they seem to praise nothing else so much as they do whatever pertains to friendship. I was reading this text in Snowmass, a cat jumped on the window, wanting to join the society of friends. So the angel, same thing, the angels, of course. And then paragraph 57, page 52, finally, when God created man in order to command more highly the good of society, he said,

[13:18]

It is not good for man to be alone. Let us make him a helper like unto himself. This is the passage in World Woman, which is quite unique, I think, in the Middle East. Not perhaps unique, but certainly very exceptional. It was from no similar, not even from the same material, the divine might formed his helpmate. but as a clearer inspiration to charity and friendship. He produced a woman from the very substance of the man. How beautiful it is that a second human being was taken from the side of the first, so that nature might teach that human beings are equal, and as it were, collateral. It's a plain word here, elatere collateralis. It's very beautiful. But it's quite clear, all human beings are equal.

[14:22]

And that is, in human affairs, neither a superior or an inferior, the characteristic of true friendship. It's a characteristic of friendship that is no higher, superior or inferior. Hence, nature, from the very beginning, implanted the desire for friendship and charity in the heart of men, a desire which an inner sense of affection soon increased with a taste of sweetness. Experience. Now, in that stage, friendship and charity are indistinguished. Same thing. After the fall of the first man, when with the cooling of charity, we saw this cooling of charity mean, concupiscence made secret inroads and caused private good to take precedence over the commonwealth, it, through avarice and envy, corrupted the splendor of friendship and charity, introducing contention, emulation, aids, and suspicion,

[15:37]

because the morals of men had been corrupted. And then from that time, the good distinguished between charity and friendship. Observing that love ought to be extended even to the hostile and perverse, while no union of will and ideas can exist between the good and the wicked. And so friendship, which like charity was preserved upon all by all, remain according to the natural law among the few good. This is the general principle. I don't know if it's true, but anyway, it is very well, it's very interesting and very significant idea. It could be also remarked that St. Elred These treaties on spiritual friendship was written at the end of his life.

[16:41]

Not very few years before he died, after 70, certainly. But he wrote about friendship in the Mirror of Charity when he was a young novice master, a young monk in his community. And then, it's very interesting to compare, we should do more as comparing the two ways of dealing with the question because when he was a young man of course he was not so sure himself and certainly not as audacious and sure of what his seniors taught. So you can see that he was a credit size for his doctrine, so that at the end of this mirror of charity, when he has finished to explain what he taught of friendship, which he called caritate sacratissimum genus, the noblest kind of charity,

[17:54]

He says that if anybody doesn't want my doctrine or are suspicious or critical, let him remember that Jesus himself had a particular friend. John was his special friend and he was very open about it. Now, when he goes on, he gives a very important doctrine because Christ showing this affection for St. John, for one, not for all, transformed the friendship, natural friendship, and he sacramentalized it

[18:56]

It's the idea, which is very common in this situation, fathers, that everything Christ did or said is a sacrament, is a sign. Since Christ, since Jesus is God, everything he did, everything he said, is divinized, sacramentalized. It can be used by men as such. His doctrine on friendship has been sacramentalized. Okay. If you'd like to read the next page, it's a passage to see again in the third sermon for Richardson, the same doctrine on the philosophical background. Speak of the Holy Spirit. Line 20, page 54.

[20:01]

For the chief lesson of this feast day of Pentecost, for the chief lesson it has for us is love. And nothing that is spoken amongst men is more delightful than this word. Nothing is celebrated with greater rejoicing. If only men whose talk is principally of love, I think it's still the same as in the 12th century, knew what sort of love this is, are pleasant, are useful, are delightful. They were despised as worthless, and so did the love which is no love at all, since only this love is indeed love being true love. This is the love which gives unity to heaven and so on, the whole creation again. This is a love that upholds and binds together the whole of creation, leaving nothing in disorder or out of its due place, nothing without some bonds of friendship, some measure of peace.

[21:10]

All the elements and the creation, nature, and so on. There is the doctrine of the basis, the philosophical background of this doctrine, doctrine of friendship. It has been asked how much friendship was possible in the closed term. Since there were silence, complete silence, rule of silence was very strict, and therefore how much friendship was possible. Well, when you trying to find between the lines or if you examine the text of the writings of our father you get a very different idea of which again the 19th century strict observance gives us or the Rancian reformation but chiefly 19th century which were very very superficial conventional

[22:26]

and after all, not very human. Anyway, I gave an article there, when I was in Oka, two or three years ago, and I made a study on communication and the life of the community in the 12th century, according to the Revo, that's been published in the Sisters and Studies. And I certainly pointed, very interesting text showing that there were a great deal of exchange. Nobody knows exactly how, but there was quite a number of exchange, meeting, and so on. And also one proof that this conversation or communication existed is that we find in the many texts of the general chapter forbidding them strictly.

[23:32]

So, certainly that took place. I'll save you a place. And Elred was, and Rivo was very far away from Sito. St. Bernard never visited the house. He should have, as father immediately, never went to Sito, Rivo. And so, they were able to do... I don't see what they like, but certainly to take some liberty with the strict rule. And certainly, Elric was free enough to allow that. In some sermon, it's very amusing sometimes to think that, what he says. One of the sermon, he says, we must see God when we are at leisure and alone. We must seek him when we are gathered together. I am ashamed of our lukewarmness.

[24:34]

Do we really love? Do we really seek? Do we really care about seeking? It is not for me to try to judge what others do when they are alone and what pays their hearts, but I can judge what they are actually here. May they're brothers. When we are gathered together, what do we seek? Obviously, each one seeks what he loves. There can be no denying that. There is no one who does not speak more readily of what he loves, or the fullness of the heart the Lord speaks. And some speak of nothing but food and drink, other of your rumours, other of their charge, or the livestock, or the buildings. One speaks either word, and such has moved to laughter, while another roars with laughter. There is hardly one who sees the word, hardly one who says to his watchman, have you seen him who my heart looks?

[25:42]

Said with a bit of humor, and it's very, on the contrary, in many of these meetings, There is nothing but detraction, criticism, anger, quarrels, argument, and so on. And he speaks of the gastroemagiae spiritus, the famous gule, pass you. It is this gluttony that has almost a monopoly of the conversation in almost all our meetings. so that as soon as we come together, there is scarcely a conversation in which it does not hold first place. As long as you say the word of conversation, indeed. I am ashamed to say how the attraction is heard in all sight, and judgment grow heated whenever we are together.

[26:47]

I'm not speaking of those who love the world and talk about nothing but money and scandal. But what shall I say of those who seem to have renounced the way of the world? Almost all their discussion and conversations are about their stomachs. And not merely about pleasing them, but about stuffing them. So you say about still... Already some meetings in the time. Now let us see a bit more closely the Doctrine of Friendship, page 82. I spoke to second.

[27:49]

Nevertheless, nevertheless, turn your attention briefly to the manner in which friendship is, so to say, a stage toward the love and knowledge of God. This is the main point of the doctrine. And as you remember, the second step is a step toward the knowledge of God and the truth. and love God. And this friendship is taking place on this second step, on this purification of by or true bodily love. It's one instance, one kind of bodily love. Indeed, in friendship, there is nothing dishonorable, nothing deceptive, nothing feigned. Whatever there is is solely voluntary and true, and this itself is also a characteristic of charity.

[28:53]

In this truly, friendship shines forth with a spiritual right of its own, that among those who are bound by the tide of friendship, all joys, all security, all sweetness, all charms are experienced. Now this is the characteristic of this kind of charity that it is and it's charming and pleasing and that we are easily attracted by it. Also he says a security, it's all security. This one philosopher today, I don't know who, I forgot who, where I read that, was giving two main characteristics of friendship, Distinguish friendship from passionate love, security, and non-exclusivity. I think it's typical that friendship is secure, means it doesn't require all-time assurances.

[30:04]

Do you love me? Are you sure you love me? What you're thinking of? Which is passionate love is always insecure. Friendship is secure. And also, friendship is not exclusive. Passionate love is obviously exclusive. You and I and the rest of the world doesn't exist. But friendship is free. And if my friend is a friend, I'm happy for him and for his friend. So it's not exclusive. That's the kind of thing which we can check of friendship and distinguish from passion. In the treaties, I don't quote text here, but in the treaties of friendship, you will find quite clear distinction between this passionate love, which is not necessarily a sexual or sinful love, but simply passionate love.

[31:05]

And in the treaties of the Mirror of Charity, Elred, as a young man, very naively and candidly examine his soul and he find himself puzzled because he says, well, I am attracted towards this brother who is certainly not a saint, definitely not, but he's charming, I like him, and I'm not attracted to the other one who definitely is a saint and I should have more esteem and admire him, but I am not I don't like him. So what? He's puzzled by this contradiction in his soul. And then he analyzes sometimes in a scholastic way with the affectus, with the tendency, the attraction of the soul and the body because you are incarnated and the rational reason where you should

[32:10]

have an esteem for what is really valuable. Well, all friendships are natural. And it's out of the definition of the thing, which is natural. Natural inclination. But it doesn't mean that it's not charity. See? Charity is not only for our enemies. It is. Now, you will continue to distinguish that. Therefore, in the perfection of charity, we love very many who are a source of burden and grief to us. For interest, we consider ourselves honorably. And this is not hypocrisy. It's true. Charity is not hypocrisy. It's always sometimes being accused of Christian has been accused to love by charity.

[33:12]

For the love of God means for the love of nothing. No love at all. So it's not hypocrisy. It's sincere. And no dissimulation. And it's voluntary. But yet, we do not admit this to the intimacy of our friendship. And so in friendship are joined, joy, honor and charm, truth and joy, goodwill and sweetness, action and affection. And all these take the beginning from Christ, advance through Christ, and are perfected in Christ. Therefore, not too steep or unnatural does the ascent appear from Christ itself, as the inspiration of the love by which we love our friend, to Christ giving himself to us as our friend for us to love, so that charm may follow upon charm, sweetness upon sweetness, and affection upon affection.

[34:21]

This is the doctrine. It's a step. Again, it's the platonic doctrine of degrees, intensity. There's no infinite gap between human love and divine love. It's a degree. And thus, friend cleaving to friend in the spirit of Christ is made, well, you can cross stand next with Christ, which is a mistake in the translation. He's made kumeo, with him, with his friend. Friend cleaving to friend is made with his friend but one heart and one soul. And so mounting a love through degrees of love to friendship with Christ is made one spirit with him in one kiss. It's the same process or the same experience at cleaving to friend, you become one heart and one soul and same experience you realized with Christ

[35:33]

cleaving to him in friendship, you are made one spirit in one kiss. Now, then another text there. This type of friendship belongs to the carnal And especially to the young people, he has three kinds of friendship, and this is the colonel, the first or the lower, if you know, friendship. Especially to the young people, such as they once were, Augustine and the friends of whom he was then speaking. And yet this friendship except for trifle and deception, if nothing dishonorable entails into it, is to be tolerated in the hope of more abundant grace as a beginning, so to say, of a holier friendship.

[36:44]

This is very liberal and very human and very understanding doctrine. And here again, the next sentence, you will see in what consists the progress of a monk. By these beginnings, with a growth in piety and a constant zeal for things of the spirit, with the growing seriousness of mature years and the illumination of the spiritual senses, which is really the ultimate progress, they may with pure affections, mount to love to your heads from, as it were, a region close by. It's always the nearness, closeness of human love to divine love, or to the soul, to the world.

[37:44]

Just as yesterday we say that friendship of man could be easily translated into a friendship for God himself because of the similarity existing between both. And that's the beautiful doctrine of Elred and friendship. You see that it's theological, and that real friend is someone who help you to realize yourself, to be yourself, and as a Christian, to be really yourself in God and with God, united to God. I think we need very much that, and perhaps even more today than ever. Social ties are, in our society, loosening very much

[38:50]

There's never been so much communication and relationship and meetings of all kinds, and at the same time, never been so much loneliness and solitude, and even in our monasteries. The more we speak of meeting and coming together and discussing, very often all these meetings, discussing, exchange, and so-called being transparent, means nothing deeply. We don't exchange, really. We don't exchange the most inner feeling and the more inner sentiment we have. As monks and contemplative and spiritual men, we should and we like and we would like to express or to exchange our difficulties or troubles Sometimes in time of crisis, very often I think that in time of crisis we need a friend.

[39:56]

In the old time it was superior, but it's not always possible. And even if you like a superior, if you are a good friend with a superior, sometimes it's not possible to express or you have to need to do somewhere else. It was great difficulties in In our monastery in Trappist, because rule of silence was very strict. We are not allowed to speak, except to two persons, the abbot and the prayer, I think. And the novice could speak also with the novice master. And I must say that in my use, I never hesitate to break this law, just to save my soul. I never regret it. Anyway, you have people who wear... observant enough not to do it. So they were remaining alone. Many, many people left or just been dragging on was precisely because I never find or never had somebody who they can trust and they could just ask help.

[41:12]

It doesn't need much talk. It doesn't mean It may be very often together, as we always live together from morning to night, but just to know that he's there and that if you need it, you can talk to him. And also I think that as regards to mutual fraternal correction today, which has disappeared practically everywhere, I'm very happy that this chapter of four disappeared for more. or from all chapters, because it was absolutely nonsense, and it was completely become formal, and absolutely no meaning. I remember Wood Monk of the chapter accusing, we had chapter four every week, I think, and it was on Friday, and was accusing every time of three same things. banged the door, came to lay to office or something else.

[42:15]

Anyway, one time he forgot the third thing and his neighbor told him. As we gather this mutual correction, I much believe that you can accept from a friend more than you can sometimes accept from your superior. And that would be very useful if we could have this relation between... I'm a friend, community. I'm told that in These, it's almost a practice, a general practice. Protestant monks, when they engage in their commitment, the prayer asks them if they have... advisor, counselor, which is a friend. And he chose a friend with them.

[43:17]

Propose and the Hmong accept or refuse to find another one. And I meet every fortnight. One of the brothers told me that. And it is very serious. It's a conversation. What about your life of prayer, your work, your private prayer, state, and so on. your temptation, and so on. It is very useful. And I ask him how many he had as friends, and he say, I have three myself who come to me more or less regularly, and it differs very much from one to the other because it's very free and personal. And I say, and you, to whom you go? I say, I cannot find one in my community. I have found a sister. So that's another thing. Very often, I think you're Maybe you find somebody else. You want somebody out of the community, a monk or a layman. Then there's a question of relation with women, and that is a subject very delicate, but I think it's the same thing.

[44:33]

It's... We have to see that these people in the Middle Ages were very clear about the problems it incurs any friendship between men or between women or between men and women. And they were very, well, they were perhaps more open and clear than we are today after the Victorian era. They knew very well what Greek love was and they were speaking openly of their And the same principle I think is valuable. If the basis of friendship is really a desire to help one another to go to God, and if it's sincere, then it's true spiritual friendship. But sincerity and openness is absolutely necessary.

[45:37]

and is a danger to cover up by spiritual direction, what is sometimes very different. We made an inquiry, the nuns are very much more difficult than we are to find friends. I don't know why, it's probably the culture But we made an inquiry in the order recently asking the herbes and the chaplain how we consider spiritual direction in the convent. And if he thought that women and nuns would be good for them to have direction or friendship in that meaning, friendship, helping one another in the spiritual life. And the answers are very, very interesting.

[46:42]

I've collected myself all these answers. It's very varied, great variety. But generally speaking, they are much more reluctant to trust. A woman is more reluctant to trust a woman than a man trusts a man. And probably the cultures has a lot of due to that. Men trust more easily a man because he's rational, clear, and so on, and sees things in perspective, but also because the culture gives her this idea that he's stronger, which is certainly not true, and also the clerical business. Women have been trained that conscience business belongs to the priest, which is, again, not true. Anybody can open his soul about anything to anybody.

[47:44]

And they still have this idea that they cannot open their soul to a woman because that belongs to the confessional. Well, a woman would not give the absolution, but she can perhaps help her much more than the confessor or the chaplain. So there's a problem today. I think it's perhaps necessary today in our society... to take really, face really the problem, because more and more we are in need. You see nuns and priests completely lost today, and lost and having no frame, no support of any community, and therefore for their spiritual life they need somebody which would be a friend, an advisor, and a counselor. And here to end, I will quote some text, modern text.

[48:52]

As we get this relation between men and women, of course, it's a very broad, wide subject, but there is certainly a tendency today, I don't know if it's not in a tube in utopia or reality, to go to the future would be a more personal relationship between man and woman where the sexual characteristic would not be so evident. It was the person would be more evident, more clearly seen. That is Teilhard de Chardin's idea, which is developed very much in some of his books, in some of the books just published now, which is not published until now, and also the idea of Rilke. Rilke, I just quote a beautiful passage, you know, in the letter to a young poet, the letter of the seven, and he speaks of this relation, that is meant to be of one human being to another, no longer of man and woman.

[50:04]

And this more human love will resemble that which we are preparing with struggle and toil, the love that consists in these, that two solitudes protect and border and salute each other. A very beautiful text. A wonderful thing. That's probably what is meant by spiritual friendship. Solitudes which protects each other and border and salute each other. That's probably what is, in a modern context, in a modern language, what was meant in the 12th century Buddhist spiritual friendship. Anyway, the dilemma facing fallen men, and here I quote the biologist Jean Rostand, either to annul himself by isolation or to debase himself by aggregation, is transcended in the ideal of a community of loving and freely consenting person.

[51:23]

And this is the only way to save our personality and also to save the community in which we live. And then to end, beautiful biographical passage of Elred, page 83. From time to time in his writing, he mentioned kind of friends he has in his community, and he speaks of one of them, I think it was a subprayer. He himself killed me when distressed. He suited me when angry. Whenever anything unpleasant occurred, I referred to him so that shoulder to shoulder, I was able to be more easily where they could not be alone. What more is there then that I can see? Was it not a foretaste of blessedness, thus to love and to be loved, thus to help and thus to be helped?

[52:31]

and this way from the sweetness of fraternal charity, to wing one's flight aloft to that more sublime splendor of divine love, and by the ladder of charity, now to mount to the embrace of Christ himself, and again to descend to the love of neighbor, there pleasantly to rest. And so in this friendship of ours, which we have introduced by way of example, If you see outwardly of imitation, profit by it to advance your own perfection.

[53:06]

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