It's good still to give it some thought in what is behind it, unless you know it's Question very vital to our community, the whole idea of Monsavia as a new foundation of Benedictine monasticism on what we call the contemplative line. and following the rule of Saint Benedict also in this that the monastic vocation the monastic life has the is the primary objective and not the clerical one now that leads to certain objections maybe also here and there to misunderstandings the church nowadays is very

[01:19]

sensitive towards any movement which would look as a reaction or opposition against the dignity of the priesthood because that is in our days a great danger that people start from a natural idea of natural and mechanical equality And as you can readily see, such a natural mechanical equality is the child rather of human pride than of any truly supernatural spirit. And therefore, a community in which the distinction of the choir monks and lay brothers be eliminated would easily appear as a weak concession to the spirit of the times where people are lack in faith and therefore are not capable of accepting their position and their station

[02:45]

within the order of Christ's mystical body. But that is of course not our objective at all. That would be completely against the spirit of monastic vocation, monastic life. St. Benedict certainly in his rule does not exclude authority, but he builds the whole thing on authority. And he does not exclude order. He builds the Vita Communis on order. But the way in which that order is determined is the way of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit establishes the order of the monastery. And that is the endeavor of the rule. That is the whole aim and purpose of Saint Benedict, to eliminate not the order of the monastic community, but to eliminate any order which is not based on the Holy Spirit.

[03:54]

That's the important point. In this way, it should also be considered that Saint Benedict has not taken any part and agreed to a certain a priori enmity which one can see here and there, maybe hostility. No, maybe that is too strong. But a certain opposition that we can see among the monks against the clerical state. It is, if one sees it on the background of the controversies, which were alive in the monastic milieu at the time of Saint Benedict. There was the discussion, what is the position of the cleric in the monastery? Should a monk be ordained?

[04:55]

Saint Benedict has decided that question in favor of the monks being ordained. And one should not forget that his The advice to the abbot that he should have people from his own community ordain priests is definitely taking sides in the controversy which troubled the monastic movement at St. Benedict's time. So therefore, Saint Benedict does not by any means think that the clerical state is incompatible with the monastic state. But he says that, first of all, the clerical office is there essentially to do a certain service, service in the service of the soul. and that the outstanding service of the clerical office is the administration of the sacraments and that therefore the monastic community should have enough priests to take care of that need of the administration of the sacraments for the monastic church, for the monastic congregation and not more.

[06:20]

But one can also see from what St. Benedict says in his rule about the abbots picking out one or the other to have him ordained by the bishop. One can also clearly see that in St. Benedict's time a difficulty did not yet exist which exists in our days. And that is that at St. Benedict's time, the ordination to the priesthood really did not require much in the line of preparation. So I can say on the whole that the priesthood and the priestly clerical state at the time of St. Benedict was as far as spiritual formation and spiritual knowledge, knowledge of holy scripture, knowledge of the farmer's goals, that the monastic state as such was superior to the clerical state in this way, as a whole, in this way of preparation.

[07:25]

the monks had their entire life in which everyone in the monastery had a great amount of time for reading and studying the Holy Scripture as well as the Fathers and therefore the spiritual formation of the monk was on the goals superior to that of the And therefore for a monk to become priest, there was more or less a matter of learning how to administer the sacraments, how to offer the holy sacrifice, and other services of that kind. And there was more or less a technical preparation that could be done in In a short time, and which would not influence, and that is the important part, would not influence or disturb the order of the Vita Communis, so that the one who was picked out to be ordained would by that fact not be taken out, maybe for years, out of the general rhythm of the Vita Communis.

[08:43]

And in that way, it was certainly for St. Benedict to have monks ordained was easier and did not constitute such a problem as it constitutes today for us. So that has certainly to be taken into consideration. However, then there also comes an opposite consideration, and that is the fact that, of course, if we compare St. Benedict's time and our days, that in the meantime, that great development has taken place, which has built up more and more the preparation of the priest, and has evidently, therefore, also given to the priest, at least in the West, maybe not so much in the East, But very much in the West, and I think that's only for the good of the church, a much greater and much more thorough and comprehensive spiritual, philosophical, and theological preparation so that the priest today is much more an authority in the field of teaching

[10:10]

And in the spiritual guidance of the faithful, then he used to be in the time when St. Benedict lived and established Monte Cassino. Today, therefore, the priestly rank as such has grown up, as it were, and has a much greater spiritual significance. Theology as such has grown tremendously. Philosophy has grown. All of the various departments, church history, and anything connected with it, the history of the liturgy, all these things, The more years and decades we add to the history of the Church, the more observable material that has to be learned, that has to be absorbed, increases. There is no doubt that philosophy has developed tremendously, that theology has tremendously developed.

[11:14]

There was no Summa Theologica to deal with at the times of Saint Benedict. But today there is. I don't know how many questions. But there is a tremendous amount of material has to be upon. And the church, the authority of the church, insists very much, and of course rightly so, necessarily so, on the candidate for the priesthood to absorb all that material. and there is where the difficulty comes in that is the reason why then of course also in our days the problem arises that those who are to prepare for the priesthood have to do it at least that's the way the majority of monasteries thinks about it today have to begin early because you can't if you have a tremendous

[12:19]

field of knowledge to absorb. Now you have to have a young mind, you have to have the elasticity and the alacrity of youth to deal with it. And that's, to my mind, one of the main reasons why the general setup of our monasteries is geared to that. The one who wants to enter into the priesthood is right away put on that track. so that he immediately can go on and enter into these years and years of studies, seven years, and it seems that the longer time progresses, the more years are added to it. One doubts sometimes, I mean, if that's the solution to the problem, but... I mean, that's the way it is. And that's not our matter to decide.

[13:20]

So, while on the other hand, then, that's where the whole difficulty comes in. On the other hand, those who are there for those who prepare for the priesthood, they can for years and years cannot... take part in the ordinary run of the Vita Communis. while the others who are not preparing for the priesthood, they are then also, as soon as possible, because there is that need, you have, let us say, 20 people studying in one of those big abbeys, and there is a need, of course, that an abbot looks towards everyone who then, in the lay brotherhood, you know, comes up to them all, where he can't help, and then fast, fast, you know, get him on the track, a manual labor and get the other one on the track of learning, studying.

[14:21]

And then, of course, these two things are splitting into two camps. And then the idea arises that the ideal for monastic community is achieved if one part of the community specializes in manual labor and the other part of the community specializes in studies. But that is, of course, not the solution of the question. That is simply not what St. Benedict wanted. St. Benedict didn't want a balance which was achieved by the coexistence of two groups. idea of a monastic life. But Saint Benedict wanted a balance which was achieved in every individual. That is the meaning of the vita communis. If you have two groups and then the whole getting into a balance, that is not vita communis.

[15:25]

So there we are confronted really with very weighty problems. And there comes then, of course, if we embark, let's say, on this line, on which generally monasticism is one, then, of course, one comes to the conclusion that therefore the, let's say, intellectual capability is or background of education, the means and the social standing to visit colleges and other schools, especially in Europe, is then, decides then, about the entering of the candidate into the higher class, which naturally is the clerical class, or into the lower class, which then are the class of the laborers. And then we have exactly what Saint Benedict wanted to avoid, by all means.

[16:28]

We have then an element really forming the structure of a community which is not taken from the Holy Spirit. That is the problem that today, of course, also is being faced by the great majority of not only Benedictine abbeys, but Trappists as well. And all, Confucians, Cavallulis, whatever, all in the same boat for that matter. There then comes the question also, for example, the contemplative life. Then one gets the idea, yes, of course, the monk priests, you know, they are leading the contemplative life. And then you come to the result that the contemplative life is the privilege of the bookworms. And that the bookworms live their contemplative life

[17:32]

because they have a good group of strong workhorses who take care of their needs that they are not capable of dealing with. And that's putting us in a pure mess there. but one has to put it sometimes bluntly in order to see the situation and the problems. And that is just the thing, see, that we, the foundation of Monsignor really wouldn't have any meaning if we were not allowed or able to try to another approach and solution to that problem, vital to monasticism and to the following of the rule of St. Benedict. But I would say now, see, that one should never, each considering our Savior as a part of the role of the church, considering our Savior as part of the, say, of the living church.

[18:37]

And of course, we don't want to to say to constitute and wave the red flag of revolutions. Here comes the revolution. That is what the authority in Rome is a little nervous about. And it would be right. One, we have, you know, we have, no, we absolutely do not think, we must be among ourselves completely clear about it. The way to solve the problem of monastic unity is certainly not simply establish equality so that nobody, you know, would feel hurt, you know, or so on, because he would be in a less privileged position or anything like that. That's not... Therefore, we are certainly not, you know, against a division in the monastic community between clergy,

[19:47]

clerics, you know, and those who are not priests, you know, between priests and those who are not priests. That distinction is general in the entire church. But that distinction of priests and lay people is in itself in no way against the unity of the church. That we must keep completely clear. Because to say the opposite That would be a misunderstanding of what the common priesthood of all the faithful really is. That would simply then mean that we believe in a common priesthood which excludes the special priesthood. That cannot be done. That is against the faith. That is a heresy. It's Protestantism. But therefore there, hierarchical order of the church, which is based on the ordination, holy orders, that doesn't destroy the unity of the church, never has, and therefore it cannot destroy the unity of the monastery either, because the monastery is not founded on any foundation that's different from the church.

[21:07]

We stand on the same Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit forms a unity in the hierarchical order of the Church at large, the Holy Spirit is also certainly capable of forming a unity within the hierarchical structure of the monastery. Still, you see, there comes the question of the monastic vocation. And there is where the difficulty comes in. There is where we have to be clear and follow our logic. It's in the solution or quasi-soul solution of the a relation between those who are not priests, monks who are not priests and monks who are priests, which would lead to an obscuring of the primary importance of the monastic vocation that we have to steer away from, that we have to avoid.

[22:14]

The basis of the life must remain the monastic vocation. Hence, therefore, also the preparation must be on that line. Anybody who comes into the monastery has to be tested on exactly the same grounds. We cannot have two different standards of testing on monastic vocations. Impossible. We must have the same. And, you know, we shared in the whole period of preparation before a solemn profession, is most concentrated on the same thing, most concentrated on the, is there that eagerness and zeal for divine office, and the love for it. Is there the eagerness for obedience, and is there the eagerness for humiliations? And that's the essential thing.

[23:15]

That are the three things that St. Benedict points out. And in order to do that, in order to test the vocation in that direction, to my mind, it is very necessary that all are in the same condition. And that not right from the beginning, there is a division in which one, you know, tends towards the honors of the glory of the priesthood, and the other knows they will never get there. Because that immediately creates an inequality and makes the testing of the real monastic virtue, to my mind, very difficult. And a choir monk will always say, if he has a tough novice master now, that's one year I have to put up with this situation, but I'm sure that that will change. I think I can take it for a year.

[24:19]

And that is, of course, dangerous. Then we come at the end, we come to the fact that maybe those who join the choir and join the priesthood are less prepared and less formed and efficient in the monastic virtues than the ones in the labor of the novitiate who never have anything like that to look forward to. And therefore, I think that one thing which, I mean, the essential thing for us, for our Savior as a community, is the unity in the monastic spirit. And to keep that absolutely here and see that that is the real point. And therefore, the unity of preparation in the bishop and through the entire period of preparation. and even after solemn vows. So in order to look forward then to a community life in which also the problems which result from a too early specialization are being avoided, because that is the

[25:37]

unity of spirit must be established and the unity of spirit which puts all the emphasis also the mutual respect let us say also the appreciation of one another of the individual monk puts that appreciation on the basis of monastic virtues and not on the basis of intellectual qualities so that also the superior spiritual father of a monastic community in that way directs his attention and his appreciation to the spiritual qualities and not to the intellectual capabilities but then also in such a way see that today we have simply the fact that certainly the preparation for the priesthood is a more difficult and more absorbing one than it was at the time of St.

[26:44]

Benedict. But on the other hand, one must also say that the running of a monastic community, let us say, on material lines is today a much more difficult and absorbing one than it was at the times of St. Benedict. St. Benedict is a farm And running a farm was, under the social conditions of the Roman Empire, mostly a matter of the colony. And these colonies were sitting and living on those farms for centuries. And they were families of peasants, the colony, who were bound to a farm. That was the legislation that especially Diocletian had introduced all over the Roman Empire, that the collodi belong to the farm. They are part of the farm, and they cannot move. It's one of the reasons why the monks also take, in that way, that same way of life of stability.

[27:52]

To my mind, it certainly is in the whole idea of stability is influenced very much the fact that all over the Roman Empire, the poorer classes did not have the privilege and the possibility to move around according to their own will. But the poor classes were all bound to the soil on which they were or to the job which the father had and which the grandfather had and the great-grandfather and which came down. And there they were. That's stability for the poor in the Roman Empire. It would be interesting to look into that if that idea of stability is not also in some way influenced just by that for the monks. So, therefore, it's in those forms that it has to do, but for us, it does. It's a mature. We need people also in the right occupancy that are running the farm.

[28:54]

There must be a team of people who would know what they are doing. But if, let us say, a monk in Mount Seiria would only, let's say, get into that habit, have a chance to get into that kind of work, after seven, eight years, you know, of studying philosophy and theology, on top, better say, of two years college, and I don't know how many years high school, and how many years... My, I mean, the hope that he will ever get into the swing of things is rather low. It cannot be done. So, therefore, on the other hand, you know, you must also see There today, really, of course, the priesthood, just from the greater amount of preparation and the expansion, say, of the whole field of the priesthood in an intellectual way, also, of course, makes the one who undergoes those studies in obedience

[29:59]

to the Abel, as I say, makes him more weighty, makes his position a more, as I say, important one. Today, to have a priest in a monastery cannot only, in our stage of development, cannot mean only to have a man who administers the sacrament. But it must be, he is necessarily, because he has to, he doesn't pass his examinations before the episcopal diocesan court, he is not ordained, you see, now there you are. And therefore, the one who passes them, he has to make, therefore, also a greater contribution to the whole monastery. That kind of specialization, you see, and that is the important thing in Mount Savior, always to keep in mind.

[31:00]

That kind of specialization, which harbors and brings with it that great danger, you see, that there are two groups developing. One specializing in, let us say, the practical aspects of things, and another specializing in the theological aspect of things. But that, you see, that's a dangerous situation. And there we should keep clearly the idea that St. Benedict wants balance of the vita communis. He doesn't want the balance established by the external cooperation of two different groups. That we have to keep in mind. Therefore, it is the obligation of every monk at Mount Saviour, you know, start to the young ones, you know. The old ones, I can consider myself a hopeless case.

[32:02]

But I mean, we are looking for the future. What's the future? Is that those who are engaged, you know, the thing is, for example, in the intellectual work, you know, to avoid, you know, this idea, oh, we are, you know, We have this man has to be ordained six years and terrible long time So not not to be in a hurry but to extend also the whole way of formation, but in such a way that the formation of the priesthood does not simply abolish and make impossible the practical cooperation in the entire workings of the monastic community, that the orarium of the individual is not completely thrown out of balance by his studies. While at the same time, those who are not going on, say, for formal studies, it's so important that they to keep the eagerness to develop in the philosophical and theological way, so that in that way, the balance is achieved as a thing which is the individual

[33:29]

obligation of every man. while it is the obligation of the superior to give the opportunity for this balance, to establish this balance, to everyone in the monastic community. So, let us always keep these things in mind, ponder about it, carry them in your heart, and see the greatness of that ideal and also the uniqueness, really, of the attempt that we are making here at Mount Saviour ask God for the Holy Spirit especially in these days of preparation for Pentecost to let us see and let us all agree first of all in the basic simplicity and greatness of the monastic vocation which puts the emphasis on humility not on the cheap We are not here at Mount Seville in order to carry on or to maintain with great cost the old glories of Benedictine scholarship or something like that.

[34:45]

And at the same time, we are not, how do you know, to be the same here. Wait, you know, at the same time. guinea pig, you know, for great agricultural experiments. I'm not speaking about dietary experiments. Agricultural experiments. That's not necessary. We have, in fact, you know, we have all together, you know, as a community, we have in simplicity and humility, we sign to resign ourselves to the fact, That we are not aiming at putting any great lights on a tremendous candlestick. That is. But on the other hand, that doesn't mean, you know, either that we will be all kind of lowbrow attitude, you know, spiritually and manually.

[35:46]

just kind of offer boundaries and that, not being interested really in anything, you see, and saying, oh, yes, monastic life is just keep humble and don't push. That's not a good idea, you see, because that is very often a nice title to laziness and sloppiness, you know, and that would lead to a rotten state of things, you know, in a monastic company. But today, the wonderful thing is today that really also the whole, of course, in that field, much could be done. I mean, we have seen that in the agricultural field, and we see it also in the intellectual field. In both, really, modern education puts at our disposal The results of great, let us say, and sometimes frustrating research were in laboratories and all these things.

[36:50]

But let those people do that who have the money to do it, you see. There are funds being put at the disposal, but they are incognito. They are not advancing. and therefore let us profit, you know, with all possible means from the research of others, you know. But let us not look forward to that time, you see, where in the Courier Journal it says, you know, Catholic monk discovered new fertilizer. I'm sorry.

[37:24]

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