Dear brethren, the other day we heard in the breviary the words of St. Hilary, Non est humano, ot seculi sensu, in Deo rebus loquendum. Que scripta sunt, legamus, et que legiremus, intelegamus, et tunc perfectam fidei officio fungemur. About the things of God, one should not talk in a human or worldly sense. But what has been written, that we should read. And what we have read that we should understand. And then we fulfill truly the full responsibility of our faith.

[01:08]

Because about the truth of Christ, stop it still. If we don't say about the truth of Christ what we have learned from him, we say stupid and frivolous things. I would like to apply these words of St. Hilary to a problem which has given rise to some discussion among you in recent weeks. a problem which is of capital importance in the daily living together of men who have consecrated their bodies to God in holy virginity. I mean the problem of modesty in our daily conduct. We stay together at close quarters in dormitory where we sleep together, Naturally, the problem arises how we should behave, dressing and undressing.

[02:14]

Should one act, as they say, naturally? Should one be careful not to expose oneself? Or is such an attitude prudish? Going swimming together, is it better to wear trunks or should we swim without them? Sleeping in a hot dormitory at night, can one take off at least the upper part of one's pyjamas? I only mention these examples that you may know what our subject is in this conference. We do not speak about the merits or the essence of holy virginity. There is no disagreement among us in this respect. We can't. Oh, no. But there are some who consider it as more in harmony with holy virginity to be unconcerned when the situation seems to call for it.

[03:29]

And not... and not to be too anxious, because this may lead to a general attitude of prudishness and of stuffiness, which, far from creating an atmosphere of purity, on the contrary, may give an opportunity to impure desires hidden in some dark corners of our soul, to feed on just that artificial secrecy which prudence tries to spread over things that are nothing but a part of man's God-created nature. To disregard the attitude of caution which up to now has ruled the behaviour of Christians, and especially of monks in this matter, Seems like opening a window to let a breeze of fresh air come into a stuffy room so that people can breathe freely.

[04:33]

In many ways, this window has been opened in recent years and with good results, as it seems. Parents now are more inclined to answer truthfully their children's questions. The stalk has disappeared from the armoury of a sex education which, in order to instil chastity, tries to ignore the facts of life. Boys and girls in the period of adolescence are encouraged to bathe together without the use of trunks or bathing suits. And it seems that those who are trained to face the nature of their sex squarely are less susceptible to vices to which others seem to be succumbing, who surround themselves with the walls of foolishness.

[05:57]

The odds this attitude also seems to prevent the dangers of that childish sexual curiosity. which so easily reacts against the barriers which an artificial prudishness has tried so hard to erect between the sexes, or also between individuals of the same sex, and which so often causes irreparable damage to souls. There is further the example of army training, which often shocks anxiously protected youth out of their prudishness and has, it seems, a wholesome influence on their sex behaviour. So to give to the facts of our sexual nature an unconcerned publicity seems to have a wholesome effect here and there.

[07:27]

Experiences like these seem, especially in this country, to encourage even ecclesiastical authorities to break with the traditional overcautious attitude in ecclesiastical institutions. You can see, my dear sons in Christ, how vital it is for us to formulate our attitudes in this delicate field. When we try to summarise what we have said up to now, it looks as if the guiding principle of our behaviour should be the word omnia munda mundo, everything is pure to the pure. And are we not pure? Should we not be confident in this field as baptized Christians, as children of the resurrection, as people who have devoted themselves to holy virginity and are habitually leading the kind of life which corresponds to God's commandments by keeping the desires of the flesh under the rule of the Spirit?

[08:59]

I would hate nothing more than to create in our family here at Mount Saviour an attitude of mutual suspicion, suspicion from the part of the superior acting as if his charges would live habitually on the edge of mortal sin, a like suspicion of one another so that in the end our monastery would have the dusty smell of one of those institutions for adolescents from the 17th, the 18th or the 19th century, where the beast of impurity seems to be waiting around every corner. On the contrary, it is my ardent wish in my constant prayer, that the air of our community life be fresh and radiant, that every member of our monastery should shine with the radiance of purity, that each brother should be clothed in that heavenly garment which is woven from the threads of light which shines on the face of Christ Jesus.

[10:28]

This is a better cover of our nakedness than any anxious attempt not to expose even an ankle to a brother's gaze. Therefore we should certainly not fall into the mistake to consider everything connected with the sexual nature of our body as something impure. or as something that therefore has to be hidden at any price from the notice of the brethren. Sometimes we see people in monasteries in this respect possessed by fears which have nothing to do with chastity. because chastity is not the virtue which hides the facts of life, but which consecrates them to the glory of God.

[11:33]

However, it would be a fatal mistake, my dear sons in Christ, for anybody to think that the splendour of holy virginity is identical with our nature, or is the fruit of our personal efforts, or of prudent psychology, and therefore at any moment really ours, in our personal possession or at our command. As the earth differs from heaven, so also does holy virginity differ from that matter-of-fact indifference which modern wisdom considers to be the solution of sexual problems. And it is the attempt to constitute this matter-of-fact indifference which dictates most of the modern tactics of sex education.

[12:44]

Chastity, however, is not indifference. It is not self-control either, nor is it that wise pursuit of self-preservation which a highly educated mother of the higher strata of society are commended to her sons with the words, Be good, and if you can't, at least be prudent. It is clear that this kind of attitude, although it may be materially somehow successful, has nothing to do with the inner splendour of Christian virtue which is derived from the holiness of God through obedience to his will. We should therefore be careful before we as monks adopt certain rules of behaviour which are clearly rooted in a spirit which is not ours.

[13:56]

We may go to the wrong teacher, and learn tricks which may not be applicable to our situation at all. It is clear that monks are not a group of teenagers who have to be helped in the difficulties of adolescence. They are a group of mature men who deliberately and in full knowledge of the implications and of the spiritual significance of their sex, consecrate themselves to God in holy virginity. A monastic community is not an army either. An army is a group of men who are forced to live together at close quarters for a long time, who are not especially interested in virginity, to say the least.

[15:03]

Their main purpose is to be kept fit for a fight as a group, and nothing could be more detrimental to their spirit than, for example, to have the vice of homosexuality rampant among them. The martial spirit and the spirit of Eros have always been allies. To a certain extent, military leaders have even been anxious to concentrate or direct the social instincts, the sexual instincts of their men towards what we call the girls. The sword song which Lamech sings in the Old Testament, displaying his warrior's spirit before his wives, remains typical up to this date.

[16:14]

No, a monastery is neither a camp for boy scouts nor a military training post. Their ways, therefore, cannot be our ways, especially as far as the problem of sex is concerned. Virginity is to us as monks not a human matter only, but a spiritual one. And therefore in speaking about it, The rule has to be applied, which we learned from St. Hilary. One should not talk about the things of God in a human or worldly sense. Let us read what has been written. Let us understand what we have read. Then only do we exercise the full responsibility of the faith.

[17:24]

Now, the first thing we read in the Scriptures about our topic is that Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their nakedness, but theirs was the innocence and rightness of bodies and minds completely subjected to God before the fall. The Hebrew term for being ashamed used in Genesis 2.25 shows that to be ashamed means as much as to realize that we are not what we are expected to be. It implies a disappointment with ourselves. as it is expressed in the Latin equivalent confundi and confusio.

[18:28]

The God-given inborn knowledge of what we should be is called conscience. The realisation in this God-given light of conscience that we are not what we should be is called shame. It is the loss of that garment of light with which God's love has clothed us, lending us, as it were, a piece of his own glory. So that man, living in the Spirit of God, does not see his own nakedness because he is covered with God's glory. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were, as Scripture says, two in one flesh.

[19:32]

This phrase does not, in my opinion, refer only to the bodily union which takes place in marital relations. but rather to the intimacy and harmony which results, which flows from the unity of the spirit. Only there we can speak of two in one flesh, where we have two in one spirit, and this spirit can only be the spirit of God. In other words, Adam and Eve were naked. two in one flesh, and they were not ashamed, because in spirit and in flesh they were holy gods, covered by his glory. A word of Lacordaire, the famous preacher, comes to my mind.

[20:39]

He says, the canticle of canticles, as well as the cross, are both naked, but their nakedness is beyond punishment and beyond reproach, because it is truly divine. As you know very well, the nakedness of Paradise did not last. The Fall opened the eyes of our parents, Adam and Eve made for themselves a cover of fig leaves because they were ashamed of their nakedness. Shall we condemn this action as prudishness? Was it a part of their sin? Or was it not rather the first reaction against their sin?

[21:44]

In the context of the story, it can only mean that by following the suggestion of the beast, I mean the serpent, the beast had become alive in them. But the voice was there which told them that they should not be like beasts. This interpretation of Genesis 3.7 becomes more convincing when you compare it with Genesis 3.21, as the Lord God made Adam and Eve garments of animal skins and clothed them. Here is the divine beginning of what we would call civilization. The essential function of civilisation is this, in a fallen world, to protect man against the hostile elements and to remind him of his original dignity, as an antidote against his tendency to sink down to the level of animality.

[23:10]

The cloth which God has made for man to show him that he is a man and that the animal should not rule in him, hence that the world around him, in spite of all technical progress, has

[23:33]

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