We pray thee, O Lord, by faith, O Holy Spirit, that thou mayest lead us into the new union of the Holy Spirit, and that thou mayest always be with us, O Lord God of our fathers and of our mothers. Amen. May the Lord be with you. Amen. May the Lord be with you. My dear brethren, Dear friends, needless to say that I am very happy to be with you again. Once a year I put in an appearance, a born saviour. God willing, I have done so, God willing I will do so. And every time I find your community growing, I can certainly judge immediately the external growth. but instinctively also feel the internal growth and that you become more and more a family in Christ.

[01:10]

I did do a little reminiscing these days and I remembered that it's just a little over 20 years, what was exactly, it was on the 9th of September that Rev. Fr. Damasus and I arrived in these shores of the United States. And for 35 years we started studying in Rome. So it's a long time, it's a lifetime really that we have been mentally and spiritually united. So I'm happy to be with you once more. Returning to my little priory, in Weston, I like to call it funtly my little baby in Weston, I also am happy to say that we have made progress. Being away for several months and then returning, I'm able to judge the progress made, and again I may say, within and without, the numbers have grown and are constantly growing,

[02:27]

But I also feel that our little community has grown more as a family, a Benedictine family around the altar, drawing its strength from that source of energy which is the altar of Our Lord. And so I'm happy to say that there too we have made progress. I am wishing you that with the growing numbers of your communities, you will also be able to put up a few new buildings. And I may say so, this is not altogether altruistic. There's a selfish motive in it, because then I might be able to send you some flowers again, as I have done once. And our Father Robert, who made part of his novitiate here, still speaks with fond thoughts of his stay here, which he liked very much and by which he, as he always emphasizes, gained spiritually and really got much out of.

[03:50]

So let us hope that something can develop again and that's a new link between our two houses and every such link I think is very dear to my heart and I'm sure it is dear to Fr. Demers' heart and to your hearts and to our communities. But I suppose you would like to hear a little about Jerusalem and my abbey over there. May I say, or can I say, that we made progress, yes, in a certain sense, there too, although our progress is much more slow and hidden, I may say. By numbers, we haven't grown much. But there again, a link has been established. One of the Western boys went over and is there now, one of the brethren, a brother, and is presiding over the kitchen department in Jerusalem, and so far was a great help for us.

[05:00]

I can be there at least for a time. Another of our young brothers, Weston, spent his summer vacation there. He is a student in Rome. Those of you who are Roman students know our brother Ansel. and he spent a summer vacation in our abbey and was also established and made that link more intimate. Otherwise there isn't much of external rules. Some of you may remember that either last year or two years ago I spoke of this friend of mine who was a Jew, a major in the army, And then after his discharge from the regular army, he is still a major in the reserve. And the reserve over there in Israel means really much more than it does in other countries.

[06:05]

Just more kind of a national guard. Those of you who know how Switzerland works these things, it is somehow comparable to the way Switzerland has its army now, constantly on the alert and they always enter the ranks again. And then he held a government job. In the meantime, I have known him for eight years, never urged him, never tried to have any pressure to bear on him. But we talked about matters. He tried to teach me Hebrew and then unfortunately maybe for my learning Hebrew too often he said, well let's leave the language now and let's talk about some matters I would like to discuss with you. And it was theological matters and the questions which he asked were

[07:13]

I must say those of a very intelligent seminarian, student of theology. And then he might sit quietly for a moment and say, well, if I try to answer his questions, then he might say after a while, yes, I think that is the answer. And so it went on and on and on. And after eight years, last year when I was in this country, he sent me a letter and said, the great question is no longer a question. The only question is, shall I wait until you return? And I wrote him back, no, he shouldn't wait. And on the Feast of the Assumption, last year I was in this country, the Assumption, usually I spend it in the alley on Mount Zion. So at the Feast of the Assumption, he was baptized, Upon my return I made him an omelet novice, and now he lives with us as a kind of a cloistered omelet.

[08:19]

Now I think that was an encouraging thing, and so there are certainly some other matters I would like to bring before you. That you see there is certain progress, very subtly and almost hidden, However, for those who do really look behind the surface, below the surface, there is something that is growing there. It may grow very slowly. We ought to think in centuries and even more, as our Lord in heaven does, And I think we shouldn't be impatient, the thing of much patience and tact and waiting, but also of much prayer and expectation and hope. I will just give you a few items which show you what I mean and show you also what to pray for and show you what

[09:30]

really is going on there. And I give it to you in a few more or less concrete examples or descriptions. One of them, one of these facts is, for instance, a number of university professors and lecturers with whom I am of very friendly terms. Now, of course, there's the venerable patriarch Martin Buber, who recently at his 80th birthday whom I see from time to time. Unfortunately, it often turns out that when I'm in Jerusalem, he's in America, and when I'm in America, he's in Jerusalem. So we don't see each other too often, but once in a while. But then there are also younger men, especially two, with whom I'm on very friendly terms, and of one of them I like to tell you a little, but the other is somewhat in a similar going in a similar direction.

[10:33]

Now I see him very often, at least rather often, and I've never found a man who knows the ancient church history, patristic theology, scripture of Old and New Testament, the church fathers of the first six or so centuries, as well as him. native of Czechoslovakia, Israeli now and lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Now we speak about many things and I find him so open and interested that I often thought, now what does he really think? Does he just want to be tactful with regard to me and kind to me? But I have really come to the conviction, of course I wouldn't tell it to his face, but I have come to the conviction that somehow he himself is convinced that Jesus is the Messiah.

[11:44]

But somehow he waits for the grace return. for that, maybe for the second coming of Christ. Because this is all for us too, it is, you know, mysterious, and we don't know much about it, and he doesn't, but somehow he gropes for it. There seems to be no doubt. Is there, well, quite a character, he can be very funny, he can be even something of a terrible occasionally, But he is a very, very fine man, and I must say, has become a great friend of mine. I like him very, very much. Now, before I left Jerusalem for this trip here, when I almost hesitated to say it, I took another very rapid trip to Holland. There was a meeting in Apeldoorn, and they wanted one of priests of the Holy Land of Israel there was on the Jewish Christian questions and we priests in Israel got together on this and finally we all decided I should go and helped to bring it about.

[13:00]

So I did go and attended this meeting and before I left, that is why I bring it in here, before I left I went to see this friend of mine and told him, I'm going to meet him in Holland, to treat such questions. Then he said, well, can't you get, either from Europe or from America, some layman, and he thought laymen are better than priests because a priest immediately is the official representative of the church and so on, but let's get try to get some laymen who come to us as guest lecturers and explain the church to us, because we want to hear that. We want to know the church, we want to hear more about it, and if you can get some good lay people who are able, because there must be, of university, If you will get them who are able and willing to explain the Church to us, I think it would be a wonderful thing.

[14:06]

Now you see how this man thinks. Now you will ask me, is that the majority? Oh, certainly not. It is a minority. Certainly. The majority, what shall I say about it, the majority really are those people, you know, you see them in this country to tell you, well, after all, we are all the same God, and I'm a Jew, and I'm a Christian, it doesn't matter so much. That is this kind of indifferentistic way of looking at things. And that is a great majority who consider themselves Jews and yet are not too eager to practice it. certain things they all practice. I think on Yom Kippur they practically all fast and they keep their Seder service, their Paschal meal, which I had this year with this university friend of mine.

[15:12]

I attended the Seder evening, the Paschal, the Pesach evening celebration in his family. And so that might be the majority. And then there's this other group, the strict orthodox, and there again it has all kinds of shades. The real strict orthodox, the extreme ones, are, I may say, quite unpleasant people, very fanatical, very unpopular with their own people, living, it's strange to say, living in Jerusalem as in a ghetto by themselves. Not different from any ghetto in a European city. A little part of the city where they live according to their ways and if, for instance, on a Sabbath, a car passes through that section, well, that's almost suicide.

[16:13]

They will, they might, they have already burned out cars, stole them and so on. Now there, of course, there would be hardly We don't even try to build a bridge towards them, I think it's rather hopeless. However, there are others who are Orthodox, they are much more kind, friendly, and with them you can at least have nice friendship, but you never know. So there are also many, many shades. But this group of which I'm really speaking, of which this young university teacher, lecturer, is a representative, with whom I had also the cellar evening and who taught me about getting lay people to explain the church to them. Now this group of men, of people, is certainly a minority. However, I think it is one which is slowly growing.

[17:18]

Not homogeneous so that they would all have the same ideas. No, there are many among them who probably are just coping. Others, like this one, who is more clear and knows more, knows really something about the Church and wants to know something. But this group is, I think, highly important and really giving cause to great hopes. Naturally, as I said in the beginning, we must not try to think in years and decades, but we must try to think in centuries. After all, it doesn't matter that we see the tangible effects. If God sees it and the next generation or the second next generation may see it, that doesn't really matter.

[18:23]

God sees it and we must each one of us do his little share. to bring it about. And this number, I think, is growing externally, perhaps, and internally. And so, to mention a few more things which might be of interest in that respect. First, for instance, that we have really begun to let the Church take roots in Israel. It may sound strange if I say it takes roots now, hasn't the church been there for many many years, centuries even, true, but so far it had not yet taken roots in Israel. It was a church of strangers, of missionaries, also of the Arab minority in Israel, but their form was

[19:23]

minority quite separate from the rest. But now we have begun, and I say we, I mean the real active ones, are some very good friends of mine, a Dominican, an Assumptionist father, and then a very fine young man, one of the petits frères du père Foucault, petits frères de Jésus, And these men work actively, more than we do, but of course always in cooperation. And they have, for instance, the beginnings of what you could call a Catholic kibbutz. You know what kibbutzim are? Kibbutz are the quite singular experiment which the Jewish socialists, coming usually from the East European countries, started in Israel as a collective settlement.

[20:29]

Again with several shades, the extreme ones, very socialistic, so that the children even are hardly ever with their families, separated entirely, and others a little more moderate. Now, that's what I call the Catholic taboos, they certainly don't go quite in that direction, but what I mean is there are two or three families of Jewish converts who are determined to stay in the country and to be Catholic Jews and build up this cooperative little settlement among themselves. And these are the first beginnings, a little grain of seed. But that is what I say, the church taking roots.

[21:33]

Now that again is a thing, of course, far sighted you may say, a thing for the future, but I really do think it is something. to look out for in the future. And thus little cells like this might spring up little by little. And that is again a very hopeful sign. And those are fine people, people who really want to be true Christians. And at the same time want to be Israelis, want to be Jews. I do not try now to define what a Jew is. The Jews themselves can't. So I will not try to define it. It is necessary, because it is sufficiently clear, I see, these want to be Jews, and yet they want to be thoroughly Christians and Catholics.

[22:36]

So you see, there are confines. But even among those who have no ideas yet, I spoke about those with a broad mass, but now a mandate where maybe there's even a separate class. I think another hopeful sign, although perhaps only really in the future, is the young generation which grows up in Israel. Let's say in those kibbutzins. You may say they grow up as parents, yes, to a certain extent that is true. Kind of a naturalistic religion, they don't, they are usually in kind of opposition to their own parent generation. If they are observant Jews, they are not observant Jews, and so on and so on. And they try, they live in nature, agriculture and so on, in these kibbutzim, and you may say it is kind of a naturalistic religion as they have.

[23:50]

However, I think a Jew can never get entirely away from that background of his. They all read Holy Scripture, perhaps not as Holy Scripture yet, but they know it. And Holy Scripture is Holy Scripture. And it will have its subtle effects nevertheless. And they can never become real pains in a strict sense. Now, these people, young boys and girls, of course, I am a little simplifying, you will certainly find they are also very different from each other. Nevertheless, I think generally speaking, you may say, these boys and girls of the younger age who were born in Israel, maybe one of these you would see, and grow up there, I must say, they make a wonderful impression. If I may use that word which applied to human beings is not a very nice word,

[24:58]

But may I use it for once, there will be once, I think, a fine material. Often there come in groups to us, for instance, just for curiosity, you may say, both at Mount Zion and also in Tacna, the shores of the Lake of Tiberias, where we have all fine little sanctuary of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, that beautiful spot on the shore there, on the slope, on the foot of the Mount of Beatitudes, nice little monastery which was built some years ago, three or four years ago. And they come to both places. And I must say, the way in which they meet us is such an open-hearted unbiased way is extremely satisfactory, extremely pleasing.

[26:02]

They have no bias. And they, I mean, if they, for instance, if somebody mentions what has happened in former centuries about persecutions of Jews and so on, I said, alright, I mean, it doesn't touch us. We are a new generation and for us the church is something. We don't know, we want to know, it's a phenomenon which we are interested in. And they come absolutely unbiased and then they ask questions, sometimes stupid ones, sometimes also more clever ones, but you feel somehow they are also interested. It may still be far off that the interest really gets deeper, maybe it's for the time being a more superficial interest. Nevertheless, there are very nice young people, of a natural freshness, even their external appearance is entirely different.

[27:10]

And that is why I always say, how wrong any reason is. It is really the circumstances and surroundings which have a much greater influence on human beings. Being the constant underdog, or being frail and developing unharmed and so on. And that is this young generation of young kibbutzniks, but maybe also in the cities, but more or less all across the country, who impress me. as an extremely fine class of young people, idealistic, and yet realistic, healthy, or they look like life in Berlin, I mean a healthy and fresh place, and they are somehow open, unbiased, ready for all influences from without.

[28:14]

Now I see all these things, I think I must not keep you long enough. All these things give you some idea what we are hoping for and quietly working for and praying for. And so I may also ask you to help us pray for these matters and keep them also in your mind, because you know there is absolutely no doubt about it. You have only to read St. Paul. to the Romans, the great return of the Jewish people is to come someday. And it will not only be the salvation of the Jews, it will be also something, I don't know, I'm very careful to express myself here because it's all so mysterious, but it will at least be a step towards the full redemption Church is still waiting for that.

[29:18]

Something is still missing. She is still in exile. And will be until the chosen people of God will be one with all of us. Thank you.

[29:44]

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