that in the life of St. Benedict, as recorded by Pope St. Gregory, there is a profound connection between the beginning of his monastic experience and its consummation. And so I'm going to just point out a few of these parallels. Now, you've been to Subiaco, I guess, a couple of times. Any other members of the community, Pierre? Subiaco. Yeah, oh, that's good. I remember the visit a group of us made from Montecistello made in the early 1960s. And we bought some bread and cheese at the little village of Subiaco. And the bread was wrapped in a newspaper that was pretty much out of date by that time. The headline was, Mussolini is always right. But... But at any rate, you know, it's a strange experience. The lake there, there's something still primitive about it.

[01:01]

Emperor Nero, or Claudius, had a dam built there, and he had a country villa there. And there's something still wild and almost pagan about the place. And then you climb up, and you finally get to the holy cave. And it's a rather large cave, big enough for a chapel and a lot of other things in it. But at any rate, we read in the life of St. Benedict here. When Benedict makes his break with, quote, the world, and turns his back on what seems to be the best that classical culture can offer him because it's not enough. It doesn't lead directly enough to God. He goes off into the wilderness, and he goes to Subiaco, and the text says, at Subiaco, Benedict made his home... in a narrow cave. Now, that's a bad translation. At Subiaco, the Latin says, Benedict se tradit. He gave himself.

[02:03]

He handed himself over. It's this deep radical commitment that a very young man is able to make when he comes to this mature period of making definitive decisions, like Jesus in the temple at the age of 12, when he knows that he has to be about his father's business, or St. Anthony going off to begin his monastic life at the age of 18 or 19. So Benedict has arrived at a certain spiritual maturity, and he's giving himself absolutely wholeheartedly, say, tragedy. He handed himself over, and that's exactly what we're doing in our monastic life when we come to Mount Xavier or any other community. We have to give ourselves with undivided hearts, with this absolute, total simplicity of heart, and plunge ourselves into the fullness of the monastic experience. And the same text says, he made his home where he gave himself over into a narrow cave.

[03:12]

And the Latin is even more interesting. It's arctissimo specu, a most important, narrow cave, now actually the cave of Subiaco, at least this is now, is rather enormous, and you can lead a rather comfortable existence. But at any rate, there's an obvious intention here of Pope St. Gregory to give the impression of something very confining and constricted, like a tomb. And I think that's a theme that's implicit in all of this section, is that Just as Benedict now, as Jesus, was lying in his tomb, waiting for the resurrection for three days, so Benedict is going to be lying in his narrow tomb-like cave for these three years. Now, it is dark, and it's constricted, and it's clear that this is a way of expressing the fact that Saint Benedict is

[04:16]

as this youngster, is plunging himself into the heart of the paschal mystery as much as he can. You have that wonderful, wonderful icon of the nativity in your church. I'm so glad I got to see it before it's taken away after tomorrow's feast. And you see Jesus lying there in a manger. But if you look carefully, the manger is a tomb, at least in the traditional iconography. And you have this cave. It's not just a stable, but it's a cave. And there's total blackness in the cave. And it's just not dark, but this is the metaphysical darkness at night that we read about in the prologue of St. John, that the word is made flesh, the word becomes flesh, and emerges out of the depths of human experience. And in this metaphysical darkness in which the world is swallowed up, but the darkness cannot snuff out or overcome the light.

[05:22]

So this is how Jesus then enters into the sphere of our existence. And there's absolute nothingness and primeval chaos and darkness and night. The same night, which after the meal on Holy Thursday, Judas goes out and it was night. So this is just not a physical night. This is a metaphysical night. So you just can't go beyond the depths of human experience and not find Jesus has already gone there before. And so this is very, very important because there's a connection between the incarnation then and the redemptive death and self-sacrifice on the cross exactly parallel. So that you find in our monastic tradition, and it's still in the East to this day, once the incarnation takes place, then the whole mystery of Christ is already, you might say, encapsulated in its very beginning.

[06:27]

All of the rest is going to be just simply a spelling out of what Jesus has committed himself to in the moment of the incarnation. So, At any rate, it's a wonderful, wonderful icon. And you see the divine infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, but the swaddling clothes are like mummy bands, you know, the bands that are tied around the corpse and around the shroud. So it's profound, profound symbolism that corresponds to a deep, deep theological reality. So, the Desert Fathers, you know, there's so many strands of the Desert Father tradition. Some of them I find more attractive than others. But there's one strand of tradition in which the old geezer would go off to the desert and he would find a tomb and toss the mummy out of the tomb and take up housekeeping in this abandoned tomb. And then on Sunday, really on Saturday, the beginning of Sunday, he would reappear and put on his

[07:36]

his specifically monastic habit, and celebrate the resurrection of the Lord, and receive the Eucharist, and then after the celebration, go back to his tomb. Now, it's obvious that the idea is once again participating in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, which is what our monastic vocation is all about. So, essentially, Benedict, I think, as understood by St. Gregory, is thinking of Benedict's experience in terms of this perfect identification of the young Benedict, this perfect identification with Jesus and the mystery of his self-giving and his descent into this darkness. And then comes at the end of three years, this initial experience of Benedict, of the resurrection. So you all know, I guess, the dialogues of Pope St. Gregory, dialogue number two. And it's Easter day.

[08:36]

Oh, that's okay. I've never been able to follow a text. Thanks. And the Lord gives a message to a priest who lives at some distance from Vedic's cave. And the priest is preparing a rather lavish banquet for himself to help celebrate Easter in real style. And the Lord says to him, let's see... How can you prepare these delicacies for yourself, she asked, while my servant is out there in the wild, suffering from hunger. But rising at once, the priest wrapped up the food and set out to find the man of God that very day. Then he tells how he looks for him, he searches him, and finally he founds him in the narrow cave. They said a prayer of thanksgiving together and then sent out to talk about the spiritual life. So he's been extorting and talking, I guess, about the sweetness of divine contemplation.

[09:40]

But the moment comes, after a while, the priest suggested that they take their meal. And he says, today is the great feast of Easter. Some place I had the Latin text. And it's a little bit different. Crea odiate pasca est. Now, remember there are two strands of tradition about the interpretation of the term Pascha. But one of them is a passing over. The angel of death passes over the chosen people. The people of God pass from death into life, from slavery into freedom. They pass across the Sea of Reeds, the Red Sea. So, at any rate, Easter always means then this Paschal tradition. Jesus passing through death and suffering and the glory of the resurrection, and us passing the same way that Jesus followed in him and with him.

[10:43]

So the priest proclaims, this today is the past. To which the man of God replied, saying, I know that today is the past. because I have been found worthy to see you. So Benedict seems to realize that because he's come in contact with this living person, he's being taken out of this kind of experience of what it means to be in darkness and constricted and in the tomb and in death. And the text goes on to say I used to be very decedified. by this, it must be a great feast, that's the past, to have brought me this kind to visit the man of God, replied, not realizing, after his long separation from men, that it was Easter Sunday. And what used to scandalize me about that is I thought, you know, St. Benedict and the Benedictians had something to do with the liturgical boom, and were specialized. I didn't say Benedict don't even know when it's Easter.

[11:44]

But then for the third time, The third time now, you have the proclamation of the fact that it's Easter. Today is really Easter, the priest insisted, the feast of our Lord's resurrection. On such a solemn occasion, you should not be fasting, besides I was sent here by Almighty God so that both of us could share in his gifts. After that, they said grace and began their meal. And this is obviously a Eucharistic meal, a foretaste of the heavenly banquet at the end of time when the pastoral mystery is worked out in all of its fullness. So now then, at the beginning of St. Benedict's monastic journey, we already have something that symbolizes his sharing in the passion and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, at the end of his life, it's even more wonderful to

[12:46]

he's gone through his long life and after emerging from the cave and experiencing something of a foretaste of the resurrection he has a great temptation of the flesh and this is something that shouldn't frighten us too much when you have a taste of the truth and light there's always going to be some kind of rebellion and the people who know all about death psychology have a great deal to say about it I have nothing to say about it, but I just know that people who come to the monastic life after having lived a decent, good, positive Christian life for a long time, all of a sudden they sometimes find themselves totally overwhelmed by all kinds of things they hadn't even dreamed of before. Okay, so this is a little bit like St. Benedict. So there's this wild aesthetic struggle. And then comes the time when he begins attracting disciples, and he can communicate his experience and his wisdom. And there's a great deal of teaching and communication going on.

[13:51]

And then his great provision, when he experiences the whole world caught up in a single ray of God's light, and he writes this rule. But then comes the time when he's beyond words. and really beyond actions. And he's ready now to follow through with the last stage of his Paschal journey in Jesus. So the text begins with a lot of language, which obviously is meant to draw parallels with the last week of Jesus' earthly existence. So the text begins, six days... before he died, and that's another bad translation. It's literally the sixth day before his exodus, his going forth, and you remember in St. Luke's Gospel on the Mount of Transfiguration how Moses and Elias are talking with Jesus about his exodus, his going forth, his passion to death.

[14:55]

So identical terminology here, but when you hear six days before before his going forth, you immediately think of St. John's Gospel. Six days before his Passion, Jesus is at Bethany. And there at Bethany, Mary washes his feet. And St. John understands this as preparation of Jesus for his burial. And Jesus isn't going to have a normal Jewish burial. So he's being buried, anointed, in advance for his burial. And he's committing himself to this death. It's a wonderful text. So I do it the same way. St. Benedict, six days before he died, he gave orders for his tomb to be opened. He, too, is getting ready for his death. Almost immediately he was seized with a violent fever that rapidly wasted his remaining strength. Each day his condition grew worse until finally, on the sixth day,

[16:00]

and all the terminology reminds you of the six-day Friday, Good Friday, he had his disciples carry him into the chapel where he received the body and blood of our Lord to gain strength, it says, for his approaching and, in the word again, is exodus. And this translation isn't too good when it comes to translating the word munir. That's a sacramental term that comes up in the Eucharistic text, in the liturgical text, and you are fortified by the body and blood of Christ. So, at any rate, what happens then? Then, supporting his weakened body on the arms of his brethren, and this is wonderful, because, you see, Benedict, the great patriarch, he depends on us. He depends on his sons. his disciples. And when he's dying, you know, it's like Moses on the mountaintop, maybe supported by his preferred disciples, but when he dies, it's surrounded and aided by the brethren.

[17:08]

It's a collective experience. Even Benedict's death is not for himself alone, but for the whole community. Then supporting his weakened body on the arms of his brethren, he stood with his hands raised to heaven. You know, attitude of the orante, the one who's praying, the one who represents the whole church. Just perfect attitude of prayer, perfect imitation, and the deepest sense of the word imitation, a participation in Jesus on the cross with his arms outstretched. Then he stood with his hands raised to heaven, and as he prayed, he breathed his last, and the exalotic sputatum is the same word that we find in the Gospels. about Jesus breathing forth his spirit. And this is the life of the monk, to just breathe out our whole life in prayer. But the essential thing is that we are inserted in this experience of Jesus.

[18:10]

This is, I think, the most important thing, the identification of ourselves with Jesus in his paschal journey. And so when we die, It's got to be a sharing, like St. Stephen, when he sees the heavens opened, it's got to be a sharing in the death of Jesus on the cross. They have something redemptive, some communication of God's love, his perfect mercy, his self-giving charity about it. And then the text goes on to speak about that day, two monks, one of them at the monastery, the other some distance away, received the very same revelation. Now, what did they see? They both saw a magnificent road covered with rich carpeting and glittering with thousands of lights. And that's a good description of what the churches used to look like in the early days when they're celebrating the Paschal Mystery.

[19:13]

Candles all over the place, everything blazing with light as much as was possible. and a lot of tapestries and carpets screwing around. That was part of the tradition, too. So this is a celebration of Easter. And I should have pointed out that if the scholars are right, and St. Benedict died on March the 21st in the year, I forget whether it was 543 or 547, but that didn't mean it was the year of his death, then that day was Holy Thursday. And so that's another indication that Benedict's death is to be understood as his participation in the paschal journey of the Lord Jesus. So anyway, these two disciples of St. Benedict, both in two different places, see the same thing. Then it says, from his monastery, this road stretched eastward in a straight line.

[20:15]

And anyone who knows medieval literature knows that when you speak about the East, it's from the East that the Lord will come in the second coming. It's towards the East that Eden lies. And so it's towards the east that people prayed. It's towards the east that churches were oriented. And so it has a profound theological import. So that Benedict is traveling now to the heavenly Eden, to the paradise, to the place where he meets Christ in the full confirmation of the paschal mystery. And it says, very important, in a straight line, the Latin term is recto tramite, No curves, no deviations, but absolutely straightforward. As a matter of fact, the earliest recoverable book of Cluny's customary is called the Liber Tramitis.

[21:20]

the book of this direct way. Because all of the monastic observances were supposed to be meant to help us in this journey where we follow after Benedict in this direct way that leads straight to heaven, to paradise. And it says, I'd stretched eastward this road in a straight line until it reached up into heaven. And maybe the important thing is that it's from according to this translation, from his monastery, it begins its way. But the Latin text says, from Benedict's cell. Okay, well, at any rate, for us, the way that leads straight to heaven is straight from our Savior, monastery, straight to heaven. And this is where we're going to find here in this place, already in anticipation, the fullness of the Paschal Mystery. And everything about our life here at Mount Savior, or my life at Gethsemane, or wherever you have a monastic community, everything just has to lead you as directly as possible to the consummation of our life in Christ.

[22:35]

And that's one of the wonderful things about a community. We have the possibility, which is never realized all that perfectly, but... We do have a good possibility of creating a controlled environment where we can make conscious choices of those things that will keep us most in contact with the absolute, that will keep us from going off on sideways or getting deflected from the one thing that's necessary, this identity with Jesus. So there shouldn't be anything in our monastic setup that could prove a hindrance to us. And if there is anything, that's got to go. And so this requires an enormous amount of discernment, you know, adaptation to contemporary times, what we need by way of human culture and so forth. So this is why we have a great need of spiritual discernment and spiritual fathers who are skilled in discerning the spirit and making the right judgments.

[23:41]

But at any rate, all of us... like Benedict, has to take this direct path to the East, to the fulfillment of the Paschal Mystery. And obviously this is not a path that's taken for the first time by Benedict, because it's always Jesus who has gone before. So this is the path that Jesus took. It's the path of self-giving, love, charity, and spirit. defending love of God, this defending agape, this defending charity that Dom Damus has always loved to talk about, this free love that gives itself completely, this service to the brethren, this life of humility, this life of obedience, which means the sharing and the humility and the obedience and the loneliness of the Lord Jesus. So that's essentially bound up with our life in Christ. And then... These two guys, they're standing there, and they're in the brightness to demand a majestic appearance who asked them, these two disciples, do you know who passed this way?

[24:44]

They're not too bright. They said, no, they replied. Then he, this majestic figure, told them, he said, this is the road taken by blessed Benedict, the Lord's beloved. And that's wonderful. The Latin term is delectus. And that's you and me. Remember, the beloved of the Lord is the preferred disciple. We think of it being St. John, the evangelist, the Lord's beloved. But you and I are each the preferred and beloved disciple of the Lord, too. And to be a disciple, remember, in our monastic tradition, in early culture, meant More than just learning a doctrine or sitting at the feet of a spiritual master, it meant learning by living with him and by serving him and being in his deepest intimacy.

[25:45]

And so this is why Benedict then is the beloved disciple, because he lives and experiences everything in the intimacy of Jesus. And so, at any rate, that's the way the text works. And so it was very, very clear, according to the dialogue of Pope St. Gregory, as I've kept on saying, that our life is essentially a sharing in this Paschal Mystery of the Word of Jesus, and it's here in the monastery that this reality is present in a very special way. We have wonderful icons in my own community, and probably fewer than you have, but we use them in the liturgy. They're painted by one of our own former monks, our Brother Labyrinth. And one of the marvelous things about them, for each of the mysteries portrayed, almost all of them are portrayed in such a way that you see architectural features from our own monastery church.

[26:49]

And so when Jesus is being offered in the presentation as a baby 40 days after his birth, you see the altar for our own sanctuary. You see the abbot's tear behind the altar. You see all of the architectural features of our cloister to indicate that it's here in this community that that this mystery is present and is being celebrated and is taking place. And it's not as if there's something that historically happened in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. It's a reality that's present here in our own community. And so there's a lovely poem by Father Lewis that I thought I would quickly comment on, which is all about this. This poem originated when a friend of his had a little girl by the name of Grace.

[27:51]

I think her name was Grace Sussman or something like that. And little Grace was about seven or eight years old, I guess. And she drew a picture of her home to send to Father Lewis as a greeting card. And so Father Lewis was deeply moved by this sketch drawn by a little girl, and he wrote a poem. in response. And the poem is called Grace's House. And so the name of the little girl is Grace, but of course it's also grace, God's grace. And so it's not only the home where this little girl Grace dwells, but it's where God's grace is working and operative. And you know, I could pass this around. Frankly, I think the mother must have had something to do with that. Because a lot of the things just aren't characteristic of a little seven or eight year old girl. I'm sure the mother must have drawn the dog. But you see the big hill with the little blades of grass, and here's Grace's house with a door and two windows, and Grace is looking out of the window and smiling.

[28:59]

And there are all kinds of animals around, a dog and a cat and a rabbit, and there's a squirrel looking out, what seems to be one of several apples. And there's a mailbox with Valentines falling out of it. And there's a chimney with smoke going up. And over the big, big sun, the way children all draw, because I guess when they learn how to draw, their parents say, this is the way you draw a sun. You know, it's a big, half-circle, little rays going down to it. So you see this huge sun rising behind the hill, and you see the storm cloud that seems to be moving away. And then down below, there's a river. Now, there's no path. That leads to the house, no road or anything. But this is the river in which you see little fishes and birds washing themselves. So this river that separates the foreground from Grace's house. Well, you can pass it around.

[30:00]

So this is the way the poem begins. Grace's house on the summit and stands on a fair summit prepared by wind's and followed smoke rose from the chimney like a snow cloud. Grace's house is secure. And I think this is important for us, that when she wants to portray her house, she puts it on the top of a hill. Now, there's something very theological. You find this in all kinds of places in comparative religion. The place where you encounter the absolute, this place where heaven... leaves off and earth begins. You go to the summit and you contact the gods or God on the summit. It's on the top of the mountain that Moses enters the dark cloud and speaks with God. It's on the top of Mount Horeb that Elijah hears the small, still voice of God.

[31:00]

It's on the top of the mountain table where salvation takes place. It's on, you might say, the mountain. Mount Golgotha? It is. It's Mount Olivet, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mountain of the Ascension. And so you have this even Christian tradition, you know, the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount. So this mountain as symbolizing the place where we leave off everything earthly that attaches us to what's below and come face to face with God. So there's a way in your Benedictine tradition, you used to have your monasteries built in on a hilltop. And I must say, I was impressed. I mean, the other day with Father Martin, we had to drive up your own mountain slope here. In our Cistercian tradition, most of our Moranisteries were built in the low, humble valley, which has a theological tradition behind it, too. But even despite that fact, we must have a dozen monasteries with names like Mount St.

[32:04]

Joseph, Mount St. Mary, and almost all of them on these flat, rolling plains. But you have the equivalent of a real mountain. But no matter what the topography or geography is, it always has got to mean that we're on this mountain where the holy place is. and where we can encounter God most directly and most face to face. So Mount Xavier is really on this mountaintop, like Grace's house. It says, no blade of grass is not counted, no blade of grass forgotten on this hill. Twelve flowers make a token garden. Now, you see, this is the Garden of Eden. So our monastery has got to be something of this claustral paradise, as the fathers used to say. They had other images, too. The monastery is a prison. The monastery is a tomb.

[33:07]

But they also had the monastery as a paradise. So there are times in our lives that different metaphors apply more significantly than others. But essentially... Our monastery has got to be a place where we can return to the innocence of Eden and have a foretaste of the kingdom to come so that everything in our monastery will be token something of the state of Adam and Eve in paradise before the fall where God walks and talks with us in the cool of the evening breeze. So 12 flowers make a token garden in the Garden of Eden. Now, there is no path to the summit. No path drawn to Grace's house. And the meaning of this will become clear in a moment. Now, all the curtains are arranged not for hiding, but for seeing out. And this is wonderful, too. So we keep the cloister faithfully.

[34:10]

But the cloister opens out and is mentioned that we might not be able to see if we were out there ourselves. And there's some mysterious way, if we're really living our monastic vocation to the full, we can become more and more men of the church, more identified with this experience of the whole of humankind, but by remaining here in our monastery, living its life to the full. So it's not a wall of separation, but it's a manner of entering more fully into the reality of this whole redemptive mystery that puts us in contact with everything that's that's for real. And you see this in lots of people like Don Nemesis. There was practically nothing that didn't concern him in the church and the world in some deep way. You see it in people like our Father Lewis, Thomas Burton, who was just crucified by his identification with all the horrible things that were going on on the outside and his conflict between good and evil.

[35:12]

It was just a personal part of his own experience. So, at any rate, Everything is arranged, not for hiding, but for seeing out. In one window, says his grace, someone looks out and winks. We've got to keep our cruel and keep our monastic bounds to be able to wink. Two gnarled, short, fortified trees have knotholes from which animals look out. And so there's a lot about animals here. And once again, it's a return to paradise. where there's this perfect correspondence between our humanity and nature and reconciliation, you know, with nature talking about ecology and the monastic life and so forth, you find it expressed here. Okay, so the harmony, you know, the whole world moaning and groaning until the final revelation that can only take place, final reconciliation, when Christ is manifested in all of his glory.

[36:14]

So, Fortified trees have knotholes from which animals look out. From behind a corner of Grace's house, another creature peeks out. Important. Hidden in the foreground, most carefully drawn, the dog smiles. His foreleg is curled, his eye like an aster, you know, the flower. Nose and collar are made with great attention. This dog is loved by Grace. And this is wonderful, too. We're not much to look at, brethren. But God has made each of us individually with such great love and attention that we have each his own personal individuating characteristics. And God has drawn each of us with an enormous amount of love and care and attention. And this is something that we've got to realize. I'll be talking a little bit more about that later on. So this dog

[37:15]

is loved by grace. Each one of us is loved by God's grace. Then he says, and there, the world, mailbox number five, is full of valentines for grace. You see, the mode of communication now is this mode of love. The message is love. Everything is just God's descending charity that just pours out of the mailbox. There's just too much love in the mailbox to be contained there. It just comes pouring out. And on this mailbox, he says, there is a name on the box, the name of a family not ready to be written in language. It looks as if there are three people on the mailbox, obviously Grace and her parents. but she can't articulate in the words what the family name is. And this is surely the name each one of us will receive when we come. The person who we really are in Christ, at the end of the full revelation, it is this new name that we read about in the revelation of St.

[38:22]

John. A spangled arrow there points from our Coney Island to her green sun hill, And that's the kind of a theme that's dear to contemporary literature, you know, about everyone going around looking for a kind of a joy and some kind of a satisfaction, like we heard about in one of the petitions at Mass today. One of the ladies spoke about those who were seeking and didn't know where to seek. And so everyone is looking, you know, seeking God. And sometimes there are other strange forces of a wave. I remember once Fr. Lewis said, It was the last day of his period as Master of the Juniors. We were called scholastics back in those days. And so he had just been made novice master under rather unusual circumstances. We had lost our novice master, who became abbot of our Lady of the Genesee. It was pretty clear that the one who stayed over was our Father Lewis.

[39:25]

And so he had a vault where all kinds of books and manuscripts were stored and where he gave his conferences to the juniors. And he had to move to the novitiate on the other side of the monastery. So the last afternoon, a group of four or five of us juniors got together to help him carry books and other things over to the novitiate. And at the end of the afternoon, Father Lewis stopped and spoke to us very spontaneously. He said, you know, what is it that I've been trying to tell you for the last couple of years? What is it that I've really been trying to say? And then he thought for a moment. He said, I suppose it's what St. Benedict says in the chapter about the reception of novices. When he speaks about what a monk is, and he says that the person who helps to discern the spirits has to see... if the candidate is really and truly seeking God. If he's really, truly seeking God.

[40:32]

And then he said, the most important thing is not just to be seeking God, because he says, everyone does that. And in some crazy way or another, some people take some really crazy ways of doing that don't lead very directly to a direct encounter with God. But in the Netherlands, ultimately, we're all looking for God. But he says the important word is truly. Now, what does it mean to truly seek God? It's to seek God there where God has most truly revealed himself, which means in Christ. And so the monk is a man, then, who seeks God truly by seeking Christ, by becoming more and more identified with the Lord Jesus Christ— And he went on to say, if a monk ever thinks that he found Christ perfectly, that's the end of his vocation. It's a lifetime search and a lifetime finding more and more.

[41:35]

And so this is the reason that there's something always dynamic about the monastic life. There's never, never anything static. And God always calling us farther and beyond and deeper and above, or, you know, Let's lose their meaning. But always more and more of a search and a finding of God in Christ. And, you know, I'm just delighted that people are studying so many different forms of monasticism and that they're finding pre-Christian monasticism or they get interested in the East. And all of that is just wonderful. But there's something that's very specific to our monasticism, and that's the Lord's Jesus. So in the monastic life, it's just not a question of shared spiritual values to a big extent with other forms of monasticism. But for us, monasticism has got to mean the Lord Jesus Christ. And we should never, never, never forget that. We're monks because we're disciples of the Lord Jesus.

[42:39]

We have to be men of the church, men who enter deeply into this experience of God's redeeming love in the Lord Jesus Christ. So at any rate, the arrow points to away from the Coney Island straight to our green sun hill, which Father Lewis talks about. Then he says, between our world and hers runs this wheat river. He says, no, it is not the road. It is the uncrossed crystal water between our ignorance and her gracious truth. So remember, it's the children who are the bearers of Revelation. It's the children in the gospel who cry out and recognize Jesus for whom he is when he enters the temple. And it's not the Pharisees, and it's not the scribes, and it's not the priests, and it's not those who have been officially designated, but it's the little children now that become the bearers of Revelation. And that's got to be an important thing for us, too.

[43:39]

that we as disciples of the Lord are the little ones to whom Jesus rejoicing in the Father reveals the mysteries of the kingdom. It's not to the wise and the prudent, but to the poverty, the little ones, that the mysteries of God are revealed. And so there's this crystal sea that we read about in the apocalypse that stands between us and the throes of God. And the question is, how do you get beyond the crystal sea to this presence of God? So, he says, O paradise, O child's world, and that's our monastery, that's we are children, that's our world, where all the grass lives and all the animals are aware. The huge sun, and this is Jesus Christ, the son of justice, bigger than the house, stands in streams with life in the east. We talked about that. while in the west of the realm of the evil one, a thundercloud moves away forever.

[44:42]

No blade of grass is not blessed. And this is wonderful. On this archetypal cosmic hill, the womb of mysteries. And all that you've done, Demis, would have gone wilder for that expression. The womb of mysteries. This source of life, this womb is filled with the life-giving mystery of Christ, and that's what the monastery is. The monastery is this womb of mysteries. Now, I must not omit to mention a rabbit and two birds bathing in a stream. Now, he says, which is no road, because, alas, there is no road to Grace's house. How do we get there? I mean, you can't draw up a map to tell us how to get from there into Mount Savior, or to any other monastery, or into the church. I mean, this is a mystery of vocation in God's providence.

[45:46]

We find ourselves there by the mercy and the love of God. And there's just no clear direction that you can explain. It's just the mystery of God's grace working. But the fact is, we're there. We're here. in the gracious house in the womb of mystery, and this is something we've got to rejoice in and be grateful for, and just live, live, live to the full, and live a rich, positive, menastic type of experience. Okay, so I think I've talked too long for this morning. What time is the next session, Father Martin? What time is the next session? 7.15. 7.15 will be super, okay. And then what I think I'm going to do, this is going to be enormously unstructured. You know, Don Damasus came to us as a monk of Maria Locke and Mount Xavier, which was in his early days of being founded then. And I'm not representing my community. I'm kind of mixed up. I'm not quite sure about my community.

[46:48]

We have many strands of... Tradition being in my community, and I wouldn't want to say that I come to you representing everything that's in my community, because I couldn't begin to do that. I'm just here as a monk who's received everything through and from my community at Gethsemane. So I'm just going to be talking about exactly the same things I would be talking about in any Cistercian community, the way Dom Demesis taught. And just as I was able to recognize... that everything fit Gethsemane. Maybe what I'll be saying when I speak about Cistercian monks, you'll recognize as being valid because all belong to the same great tradition. So I'll be talking about someone you have never heard of before. It's a medieval 13th century life of a Cistercian nun who became a leper. Her name is Alice. And I see this very brief life as something of a practical commentary on the rule of St. Benedict, particularly chapter 7 on the degrees of humanity.

[47:52]

So, 7.15 then this evening. So, God bless you. Help us in the name of the Lord. Amen.

[48:00]

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