Remember, last time we talked about four levels of legislation that we have. The first level is the general church legislation, which is canon law, code of canon law. The second is the rule of St. Benedict, which we are likely to interpret not completely literally. The third level is the Conobie's Constitutions, and the fourth level is our own customs, which we don't have a customary, we don't have a book of customs, but that novitiate tag contains local customs, so that's what that's about. And so, otherwise, other than that, they're cheaply unwritten, our schedule, and all the other things that we do and don't do. I wanted to talk today about the Conobie's Constitutions, because last time we talked about the Holy Rule, and what I'm trying to do now is just give you a very brief, bird's eye view, so that later we can go into these things in greater detail, but what you need at first is just to be able to find your way around them, so that's as far as we'll go.

[01:09]

However, with the Conobie's Constitutions, there are a few other things to say, because they have a long history. The rule of St. Benedict is one document, even though we have other documents before it, it's circumscribed. The Conobie's Constitutions start in 1080, and they come up to 1981, when it was the last time that we revealed them, which was last fall, and there's a lot of evolution during that time, so it's necessary to say something about that, especially because monastic rules and constitutions are so relative to history, they really do change during history. We may say that they don't change in their essentials, but there's a lot of change and we have to look at it. Just for background, and this is a little digression, I just came upon this good little book of David Knowles, it's a fascinating little book on the constitutional history of the religious orders. You might think that that would be a very external and dry kind of thing, how the laws of religious orders and their structures develop, but it's quite interesting, it has a lot to

[02:13]

do with really what's going on. There's a real pattern of development, and if you understand it, then you know that much more about history, you know that much more about where you are, because the way that these things are structured expresses the spirit and the development of the spirit, the evolution of the spirit, and at the same time it determines the spirit for the next who knows how many hundred years, so it's important. Here's the way he expresses the background of the reform of commodity, starting from the regular Benedictine, the black Benedictine tradition at that time, which is the 10th and 11th century. We say the 11th century because Commodity was founded in the 11th century. Remember St. Ronald died in 1027, and the Commodities reform is at the springtime, at the beginning of that great 11th century reform, which had so many other waves. He says, the great religious revival of the 11th century is perhaps the most widespread and most spiritual of all the mysterious religious revivals of the West.

[03:13]

Compared with earlier renovations, it had two distinctive features. In common with all medieval movements, it claimed to be a return to past excellence, but whereas previously the Golden Age had been situated in the 6th century, reformers were now seeking their models in earlier ages, and monastic reformers were demanding a return to the desert cradle of monarchism. So St. Ronald does that, doesn't he? He goes beyond the rule of St. Benedict back to the desert, and to the primitive or medical realm. And then, this is a good little chapter, this starts on page 16, and he talks about the Italian foundations of which Rommel was about to boast, and then the more organized French foundations across the Alps that happened afterwards, more expansive. Now, here's what he finds at Camaldoli. It was in direct imitation of Egypt, if not even as a kind of manifesto.

[04:15]

But the settlement at Camaldoli was from the first calder desert. Usually they say Eremo, Eremo is Italian, Eremes. That foundation on the mountainside near Arezzo consisted of a number of separate cells or within a wide enclosure. The monks lived in their cells and came together in the common oratory, refectory, and meeting hall only at certain times and occasions. Later, 1010, a second degree of the institute was established lower down the mountain with a monastery of common life. Now, that's the synobium which started out as the hospitium, the guesthouse of Camaldoli. Following a strict interpretation of the rule of St. Benedict, from which experienced monks could pass to the era of medical life, as indeed St. Benedict had suggested under the first chapter of the rule. Okay. Here is the significance of the Camaldoli's foundation frame. Camaldoli has a twofold significance in the history of religious orders. This is constitutional history, external structural history. First, it was the first institute in which rules were drawn up for a group of hermits

[05:19]

in the West. The first attempt to standardize and control what had hitherto been essentially free and confined, and sometimes wild, too. It was thus the prototype of a multitude of similar ventures in which the larger and more celebrated desert of La Chartreuse was the most notable member. The Carthusian is much bigger and more highly organized. The Camaldoli's foundation remains, you might say, more woodsy, more rural, and closer to the earth, and less aristocratic. I don't know whether you can say less highly regimented. In a certain way, yes. Perhaps more pluralistic. Secondly, it was the first religious institute embracing two kinds of life, the era of medical life and the semi-medical life. Although this was not there at first, it only came up out of necessity, it appears, and even after the death of Saint Ronald. And it only gradually asserts itself, the right of the synovium, of the semi-medical

[06:24]

life, to full existence within the Camaldoli's structure, within the congregation. It always has to fight for its life, because there's a tendency always to absolutize the solitary part of the vocation. And similarly, the synovium is continually trying to swallow the hermitage, and that's why the hermits often seem to be fighting for their life. A curious thing in history, which happens in all kinds of sectors of the life of the church, where those polarities, those polarizations come up. This was to become, in one shape or other, a common phenomenon in the century that followed. I haven't gone into in what way that embracing two kinds of life becomes a common phenomenon. It doesn't so far as the lay brother, the choir monk thing happens, or men and women in monastic communities, but otherwise I don't know what it means. Well, sometimes you have a mixed life, which is partly contemplative and partly active. Really, that's a double, two phases of the life of the synovium.

[07:29]

Anyway, that's his point. With that background, let's look at the constitutions. And just from a very quick point of view, there seem to be five phases in this legislation. The first is that of Blessed Rudolf himself, back in 1080. The longer constitutions, you notice in this, I'll put these things on a glass shelf afterwards, and some of you will probably find these in yourselves, in your rooms, not in the same binding, but the constitutions of Blessed Rudolf, the longer ones and the shorter ones. The longer ones are divided into 70. No, it's only 54 chapters. The shorter ones are all one piece, not divided into chapters. The longer ones are ascribed to the year 1080, and the shorter ones to 1085, as a later compensation revision, but the historians have acquired that which comes first. I haven't applied carbon-13 yet.

[08:30]

These are the customs that come out of him, the customs of a very particular place, and you can see that because, at a certain point, he's talking about very detailed things. An example is chapter 26. What is to be served on the days of bloodletting? During the times of the bloodletting, which is customarily performed, this is good for you, three times a year, the following distribution is to be made. During the three days appointed for each bloodletting, on the morning of the first day, a dish is served of wheat cereal, on the second one of grain paste, and on the third day one of flour cake. On the evening of the first day, a meal is served of soup, on the second of vegetables, on the first day, tarts, critters, and half a loaf of bread for each meal, and so on. That's an extreme example. But there's a lot of detail in that. And some of that detail remains in the Connolly's constitutions up to 1957, because they're

[09:35]

still basically the observances for the hermitage and the monastery of Connolly itself, and they're not meant for a bigger congregation. In the congregations which were larger from the start, where you had more houses, well, then you have to have a lot more generalization and much less detail. Although, there were a lot of Connolly's houses at one point. They must have applied not these constitutions, but other subsequent constitutions. The next phase is around in the 13th century, where you have the constitutions of Blissard Martin and Blissard Gerard in 1253, 1271, 1278, and those are of a broader kind. And as I remember, they're to govern the Sanhebedical life as well. So they go beyond this very particular thing of Blissard Gerard. Then there's another very important phase of Blissard Paul Giustiniani, about 1520. Remember, Paul Giustiniani, he was a Venetian who came from a very wealthy family, and went

[10:39]

to Camaldoli, and in a very short time he became a superior, and he started out to renew the order, and he made a series of different additions of constitutions, which did change the pattern of life quite a bit. And the idea was a return to a strict aramidical life. And then subsequently, remember, he left, and another congregation formed around him, which was the congregation of Monte Corona. And at a certain point, you've got five different congregations, five different Camaldolese congregations. And then gradually, most of them faded out, and the Hermits of Tuscany and the Cenobites were made. And then in 1935, those two were joined together. We'll talk a little bit about Paul Giustiniani's constitutions in a minute. Then, the next phase, I would say, the fourth phase, is the reunion of the Hermits and the Cenobites in 1935, and then you have constitutions in 1943, which embody that reunion.

[11:42]

And then 1957. Now, the constitutions in 1957 are here. There are a lot of these around, because these are what we were observing when we began here. And finally, you have the constitutions of 1969, which were composed in the general chapter of 1968 and 1969. That was an extraordinary general chapter, called as a consequence of that conclusion by the Order of Rome, and which were finally approved last fall, in the chapter of last fall. So they should be shortly getting approval from the Holy See. We've had them under experiment for the past twelve years, but very few changes have been made. A few changes were introduced a year ago, but not very many. Okay, let's go back now and look quickly at some of these phases, not at all of them. The beginning and the end are what really concern us, and more the end than the beginning

[12:47]

really. If you want to do research on this whole evolution, we'll have to go into that in more detail later, and then you'll have to do a lot of work on your own to dig it out. First of all, blessed be God, let's take a look at his constitution. Because this is the most primitive document, and the one that's closest to Saint Romulus. Remember, Romulus died in 1027, and Lucid Ludov, who I think is the fourth prior of the Holy Hermitage, he's writing about 1080. And he seems to have been influenced by Peter Damon, who died in 1272, and who had already written two editions of the Customs of Ponte Avalon, which was a hermitage which was really renewed by Romulus. And so he's the principal channel for the tradition of honor, as a matter of fact, and built the life of Saint Romulus. And Ludov's constitution and his have a lot in common. I've never made a detailed comparison of the two. First of all, some of you who have read The Silent Life by Thomas Merton will recall that

[13:52]

he uses a passage from the constitution of the Blessed Ludov. It's a magnificent passage, too. It's from the first chapter. It's Moses, it's the gospel of Ludov this morning. It's Moses confronting the Permanent Bishop. That's a symbol that lasts throughout. That's a symbol that doesn't die. It's a symbol of the Permanent Bishop. And everything goes with it. Now, the first characteristic that you notice of these constitutions, it's funny because they've got two characteristics really that it pulls apart. One is that detailed thing, which can get to the point of, really it seems to be descending to the point of trivia at a certain point, where you talk about what you're going to have to suffer in the dead. And on the other hand, it's got this magnificent, sapiential flavor, this wisdom character to the constitution. And it turns out to be kind of concrete on both ends. The wisdom character, this sapiential or sophianic character, which is the patristic way of reading the scripture, comes out in the first chapters. Chapters one up through five or six, where he's talking about the examples of those,

[14:59]

the models for the aramidical line, the models for the solitary line. And he starts out in the first chapter talking about Moses. If you don't read the rest of the constitutions of Wessel-Ludov, I think you should, you know, sooner or later, it's not that long. But by all means, read those first chapters. In the first chapter, he's pointing out the superiority of the solitary line. He uses Moses as his first example. Now Moses, who was the man of the desert, and who had his experience of God remembered in the desert. His individual experience of God started with the burning bush. And MacGregor of Nyssa, in his life of Moses, is drawing the map, as it were, for the interior life. I don't know how much he talks about solitude in the life of Moses. But there's something else here besides Moses, and that is the feminine figure who appears. And I was talking about a kind of wisdom literature here.

[16:01]

And you're looking for a rule or customs, and what you find is this feminine figure, who is a wisdom figure in some way. The one that he chooses is the woman of the twelfth chapter of Revelation. The woman who is crowned with the stars, and clothed with the sun. This solitary life is figured in that heavenly woman, who, living soberly, justly, and devoutly in this world. It's a tissue of scripture. This is from St. Paul, of course, of living soberly, justly, and devoutly. Stands as a queen at God's right hand. That's from the psalm. You see how he weaves together. That's not what you expect to find in Constitutions. And then all of a sudden you run up against it. In some very detailed piece, I think, surprisingly. Not all of a sudden. Clad with gold, adorned with varied splendor. Clothed with the sun of justice. She treads underfoot the moon of worldly glory. See, here's a spiritual interpretation, in terms of the hermetic life. Typical monastic interpretation of scripture. Tasting of the things that are above, not those which are on earth.

[17:03]

Yet she is tormented by the bangs of childbearing. For without the labor of battle, labor, the labor of battle is childbearing. Sanctity is not born. So the childbearing is the training course of sanctity. Now don't let the moralistic language turn you off. Sanctity is not born. Well, you're probably not interested in giving birth to an abstract virtue. But what is really being born? What's he really talking about? He's talking about your rebirth. He's talking about the new birth within. The same thing that Paul is talking about in Romans 8. But the language comes across as very heavily moralistic. Without the agony of temptation, there cannot come forth the fruit of justice, that is, joy, peace, patience, and life. There's no good fruit for the spirit. And he goes on. From this it appears most evident that after God and through God's help there can be found no more secure refuge against the ancient wiles of the devil than conversion to a solitary life. So he puts before you this magnificent image

[18:05]

and then the danger is that he's going to interpret it in too narrow a way. Interpret it in terms of... The woman is in the desert, of course. That would prove that the solitary life is the best life in the world. It's a strong, what do you call it, attraction, a strong expression of the value of the solitary life. But the language doesn't always carry it across. And then he goes on with the vision of Moses. And curiously the feminine figure appears here too. Moses first indicated this way of life in symbol and followed it in fact. For when he had led the sheep to the inner desert he beheld a great wonder, a bush which burned without being consumed. And you, whoever you are, who live in solitude and need a solitary life... And here he's talking about the interior life. Having led your flocks, that is to say your simple thoughts and your humble affections, your thoughts and your feelings. So this is hesychasm. And that spiritual interpretation of the sheep as thoughts.

[19:11]

I'll let you find that in the Hesychast Fragments. Into the depths of your living will, the depths of your heart, you might say, there you will find the bush of your humility which until now brought forth nothing but thorns and briars, radiant with the light of God. What does the bush of humility mean? Somehow it's recommended. It's the center of your humanity within your heart. Radiant with the light of God. For you will be glorifying and bearing God in your own heart and body. This is the divine fire which enlightens without burning us, gives radiance but does not consume us, and bestows charismatic gifts on its own favored ones. The divine fire. So he's talking about the Holy Spirit. We are the burning bush at that point. But the burning bush is interior, in the heart, and it's experienced in solitude. That's what he's saying. For aside from the allegorical application to the Immaculate Virgin, now, why does he put that in here? Just to brush that aside? Also, remember that the woman clothed with the sun

[20:15]

is also applied to the Virgin, isn't it? The feminine figure returns here in the burning bush. So the woman clothed with the sun and the interior vision of the burning bush as being your own humanity and that feminine wisdom figure somehow are all together in the rainbow and giving us the significance and the beauty of the solitary world. The bush that burns without being consumed is human nature impinged with the fire of divine love. You see, Mary is the one who was most eminent in that. And why he says that that's used for the Immaculate Virgin is because her virginity is not consumed by the fire of the Spirit which brings forth Christ from her. You see the idea? That's why they applied also the fleece of who was Gideon. And the bush which is not burned by the fire to Mary

[21:15]

the virginity is not consumed although the fire of fertility the fire of life brings forth the child. So that's a magnificent passage that he starts the Constitution with. And then there's a lot there are more examples here the examples of David and Elijah and all the people you can find in the Bible It's a very biblical kind of theology. It's typical of the Fathers, you see, this kind of thing. Here you have the very special application of the solitary world but otherwise it's cave patristic theology. You find that kind of narrow when a monk is defending his own way of life. Basically the sapiential thing is there. And then he gets down to detailed prescriptions after that and then towards the end he broadens out again when he talks about the virtues and he's continually using images from Scripture it may be the trees remember that Isaiah talks about like in the desert the box tree and the plane tree and the oak and the cypress

[22:17]

they're all to grow so he uses those for various virtues in terms of the current moral sense and then also the effort that the high priest has to wear on his chest that's interpreted in terms of virtues. You see that continual attempt to find a luminosity and a depth to mention in Scripture. Mixed in with legislation. Now later on, in the later constitutions that disappears. That sapiential dimension disappears and you have to get just rules. Okay going on from there the Blessed Father is telling us the best that we have in English about Paul Justiniani as in Alone with God which is a collection of his Aramidical writings edited by Jean Leclerc and there's a preface by Thomas Ferdinand

[23:18]

and an introduction by Justiniani in which he tells something about the life an introduction by Leclerc in which he tells something about the life of Justiniani Paul Justiniani became a novice at Camaldoli in 1510 that is to say that he entered the most ancient of the Aramidical orders that have survived in the Western Church Camaldoli he goes on about Camaldoli Paul Justiniani entered Camaldoli at a time when the fervor had lost some of its ancient heat and he left it for a stricter solitude eventually he was to start a new Aramidical congregation of his own Mohammed's of Monte Corona Justiniani thus bears the same relation to Camaldoli as the Abbé des Ronces does to the Order of Citeaux and in another sense he's not as innocent as the Masson does to the Church and he's Leclerc got some of the Camaldolis mad at him

[24:18]

while writing this book he wrote two books about Justiniani I remember one of the old Camaldoli's patriarch Bernardo quite a writer why didn't he stay in his own sanctuary? he belongs in the 12th century because he's a specialist on Saint Bernard and Justiniani is in the 16th but they claimed he didn't understand because what Justiniani does is to narrow down the monastic tradition he focuses and like des Ronces narrows down and focuses and concentrates the Cistercian life in a highly penitential way he focuses on one element and loses the breadth of the tradition and Justiniani does something similar he narrows down and focuses on solitude to such an extent that he loses a lot of the breadth and the richness of the monastic tradition and that's typical of reform movements especially at a certain time

[25:18]

when you want to whip up the fervor again and you do it well sometimes we work on it sometimes we're taking one element and actually it doesn't matter nevertheless he represents a real rekindling of the tradition there are a lot of reforms happening around that time the reform of the Capuchin reform and a lot of others going on at the same time you know that it's just the time of the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation comes along the Council of Trent and so on but this is before the Council of Trent Justiniani and his friend there were two noble Venetians who went to Granada at about the same time and they were both on fire with the love of God and they both wanted to reform what they found to be kind of a lax monastic situation in fact they wanted to reform the whole church and the other one wrote Quirini was his name wrote this letter to Leo X who was the Pope at that time setting out a vast program

[26:21]

of reform for the church and the Pope didn't listen if he had listened the Reformation itself might not have had to happen had he listened to that in the similar ways to reform the church at that time it didn't happen so Justiniani too was a reformer he had ambitions to reform the whole church but particularly to reform the commodities I'll read a little more of the book his introduction that was that was Merton I was reading that was from his preface not from the book's introduction Merton at that point tended somewhat to idealize this reform ok the history in 1510 at the age of 34 Paul Justiniani entered the hermitage of Camaldoli

[27:21]

as a novice a year and a half later shortly after he had pronounced his vows he was drawn to reform the whole Camaldoli's order so he entered in 1510 and in 1511 and a half he was ready to reform the order in 1520 after 10 years of trouble and effort he left the hermitage of Camaldoli to seek out a still more solitary life in absolute indigence and that's when he moved out and I don't remember which settlement that was but he was a real saint and so people gathered around him and new borders sprang up around him which I don't think was his intention and it's been pointed out that that was not a split in the arts it was not a split in the Camaldoli's whereby some of the brethren formed a separate congregation he went off alone and it started up comparable example to Mother Teresa who leaves one order and starts something else

[28:22]

it was 10 years after he joined he didn't have much patience and then he died in 1521 so you suspect that his assimilation of the monastic tradition may have been a little hasty you hear about these desert fathers who were around for 90 years and they're a little hesitant about answering questions well it took him a year and a half there have been a lot of examples of that the people who come in from outside monasticism and decide they're going to clean it up and come in with a certain idea and so they do renew it they do something to it according to a principle that they have because they aren't really absorbing it it was a little that way too although he started he wasn't at the top of something

[29:25]

when he did it and he didn't reform something from inside unless you say he did that to Benedictines he was a little that way too he was impatient with stability that's the expression from his life it's very difficult to evaluate this grace knows no similarity but yet afterwards when you look at a person's work you have to see how well they got it all together because Jesus does the same thing he comes inside an existing structure and he really in a sense he blows it apart so there's always that prophetic three years this kind of history is very difficult to evaluate

[30:26]

if it hadn't been for just a moment the cannibalist life itself in the main time of it might have been much less prevalent in the succeeding times and yet there was a narrowing that happened there too I don't know it might have been a tightening up of the ship they say that they reformed whatever we think of it now in the tradition maybe it was the only thing to carry them through carry the system through I don't know what they were going to have to go through ok, the next constitutions

[31:34]

we want to consider are the ones of 1957 which are in this book I'll put this on the glass shelf we don't have it with us just a few remarks about it so that you can find your way around a couple of differences I'd like to point out from the present constitutions first of all it's divided into two sections the declarations and the constitutions the constitutions are in the back of the book and they deal with the structure of the congregation with the parliamentary rules what the structure is the legal structure and how you conduct a general chapter how you do elections all those things so it's juridical material purely the declarations are inserted after the chapters of the rule of St. Benedict and in part they comment

[32:35]

on the various chapters of the rule of Benedict but really that doesn't do it justice to say that because they're really a separate treatise, some of the material is not really relevant to the chapters of St. Benedict's rule some of it is very much and some of it's not so this was a particular choice that was made to insert the declarations in the rule of St. Benedict the same question comes up now as to whether to try to insert the present constitutions into the rule of Benedict or to leave them separate and it looks like they're going to be left separate because if you try to insert them in the rule of St. Benedict you'll have to atomize them you'll have to fragment them and they have a very good structure, a very good unity the way they are now in those ten schemes so I don't know exactly how they're going to do it probably they'll just have to probably print them all up in one book and leave them separate these constitutions

[33:37]

in here are what you find in schemes 2 and 4 and 5 of the present constitution and then there's a little of that material which drifts into the first chapters here on the abbot and so on ok these are good for comparison of the present constitutions to understand what happened at the time of Vatican II and what happened because these are what should I say they're closer to the constitutions of Justinian in 1520 than they are to the constitutions of 1969 so that's a big jump that was taken in a few years it's only 12 years in between these and the present constitutions and the previous gap of time was what? in 1520 than 1957 the historical moment now remember in 1935

[34:38]

the Cenobite congregation of Commodores was reunited with the Hermit congregation but practically speaking it represented the suppression of the Cenobite branch they had to become Hermits really or they could continue in one monastery that was it that is the Commodores were seen by the Holy See as being at that time once again really Hermits and the Cenobitical Life allowed only in function of the Hermitical Life ok as a kind of nursery for Hermits and this is continually trying to change itself from within the congregation there's something in that kind of principle that doesn't work and by now the Cenobium has reasserted its right to existence independently but to be a Commodores you don't have to be destined to be a Hermit

[35:39]

because if you're not a Hermit you can't really commit yourself to it if you are not at present don't have within you the vocation to be a solitary you can't very well promise that you want to in the future in fact that's up to now in a way the law has to be flexible enough to accommodate itself to the Holy Spirit rather than vice versa you can't legislate the Spirit you can't legislate vocation you can screen vocation you can say ok we won't take anybody who is not going to be a Hermit he doesn't have to be a Hermit now but only in the future but how can you tell if that person is going to turn out to be a Hermit or turn out to need another kind of Master God you can't tell because a lot of people come of course with a Hermit ideal in their mind and then later it turns out that's not what God wants for them that's not what they need so you can't force them into some kind of life which is not meant for them so somehow the legislation has to be flexible enough also to make room for the unexpected

[36:39]

moves of the Spirit for the unexpected moves of people this is another difficulty you see of narrowing down the tradition too much narrowing down the monastic tradition too much and over specializing the other example is the example which we see continually of the poor prayers who have a cenobitical life which has no room for solitude so suppose you've been a poor prayer for 30 years and you're a Saint and a deep interior life is developing and you're in this life which is very regimented and together all the time and you just don't feel any space for that life to develop which is beginning then nothing you can do nothing you can do so in a way there too the monastic tradition has been constricted too much so that you decide this is what we are and nothing but this but suppose God says something else suppose there are other spirits at a certain point in life let's take a couple of examples

[37:42]

from the Constitution of 1957 just a couple of key points one key point is the relation of the cenobitical life, the regular monastic life to the aramanitical life and you get the flavor of this from the first set of declarations after chapter 1 of the rule I'll read the first paragraph this is number 1 the monk hermit congregation is made up of hermitages and cenobiums in the hermitage one attends solely to contemplation in the cenobium which is ordinarily considered as the preparatory school for the hermitage one completes one's monastic formation within apostolic ministries or exorcise and the second the infirmary therefore now this is in the tradition of that first hospitium because that's what you did there it started with the hermitage and then the monastery which was only a hospitium and a guest house at first was a kind of staging platform or whatever you want to call it

[38:45]

for the hermitage and you go back there to the circle you might have to prepare there but where it's really at is the hermitage and if you want really to be a monk according to the apostolic rescript interreligiosus cetus of July 5th 1935 now that was the rescript from Rome which united the cenobites with the hermits this congregation is called the congregation of monk hermits of of the order of Saint Benedict now that monk hermit I think deliberately had a bit of ambiguity in it that is monk has two meanings to it it means anybody who is a monk including hermits or it means only cenobite excluding hermits now a lot of people understood it in terms of monk and cenobite a hermit is something else the deeper understanding the more traditional understanding is that a hermit is a monk just like anybody else so that hyphenated title monk hermit has a little ambiguity and leaves open I think a little room for the cenobitical thing given the lack of clarity on those words at that time

[39:46]

it enjoys all the privileges granted by the holy see to the congregation of cenobite monks and is reunited into one single congregation according to the terms of the Apocalypse and Rescript so these constitutions have a relation to that rescript like our present constitutions have to Vatican II and the documents of Vatican II the church decrees the Vatican II the houses of the congregation which have all the requisites amended by the constitutions are autonomous houses governed by major superiors I don't think this had been in earlier constitutions so the autonomous individual house begins to emerge for a long while so that the superior general the prior general and his assistants really govern it from the center you see the difference whereas the traditional benedictine structure is that each house is autonomous

[40:50]

and the central superiors exercise a kind of moderating role and also a kind of watchful role a role of vigilance in their visitation they come and pick up on the individual monastery to see how they're doing and even that only came late in the tradition because originally we didn't have a big congregation like Cluny those were later reform movements initially we had autonomous monasteries and then later there was a union between monasteries there was one monastery with a daughter house basically individual houses the commodities because of the centrality of commodity and because of the reform of St. Romulus became centralized and the central power was that commodity you see so lately we've been approaching the traditional benedictine structure which is the autonomy of the individual house it begins to emerge here and the development is about complete in our present constitution where the individual house is really critically autonomous and in between there are quite a lot of individual points

[41:54]

where this autonomy has to be tried to be arisen now as far as we're concerned it tends to be quite an advantage because when the commodities are all in Italy it's fairly easy to supervise everything from one center because you get in your Fiat and you drive over to Fontavolano and you're there in a couple of hours that doesn't work when there's a house in California and besides it's very difficult for the general superiors to really understand the details of the life as it has to be regularly so it seems much better if the congregation becomes more than Italian more than European the dis-autonomy will be there which puts a lot of responsibility on that here's another number four the commodities profess the rule of Saint Benedict and the statutes of the commodities congregation here enumerate that these are the statutes the hermitage in which they live completely segregated

[42:54]

from the world is considered as the specific element of the order the religious therefore who live in the monastery devoted to the formation of the realm dedicated by obedience to certain activities and pastoral work or who dwell there for reasons of health or for any other reason in other words there has to be an excuse for living in a monastery that's the way it sounds to me must live there according to the spirit of the hermitage so it's almost like you need to be ashamed of living in a monastery and find some reason why you're not in a hermitage and get back there as soon as you can the priors moreover should see to it that from time to time they send their subjects you don't find that language in the monastic subjects to the hermitage where they will attend to the exercises of the solitary life leaving to their superiors to decide for what length of time and how frequently they are to go there the hermetical life so this number four is very important the hermetical life as proper and distinctive of the institute is obligatory on the order

[43:54]

what does that mean? if the comadres didn't have a hermitage they wouldn't exist the holy see, the church the official church sees the comadres as being specifically hermetically that doesn't mean that everybody has to be a hermit that's not interpreted in that sense anymore but it means that if the comadres didn't have the hermetical life they wouldn't have any reason for existing that's still where the word is in the eyes of the holy see that's where the word is and those things are very difficult actually to iron out in the sense of who's right, what's right and so on you can see there's a truth there but that tradition has to be preserved at all cost that's right it's the specific thing

[44:59]

and the risk here is in confusing the specific thing with the whole thing or focusing on the specific thing so much that you strangle yourself because that's what happens that's what Justinian does to focus on the specific element but if you only do what's specific you can kill yourself or at least you can very much quench the life that's present there this is a very tricky thing it's hard to understand the masculine intellect the rational intellect which is made for focusing the way a man thinks is to separate out and to focus on a particular element and say that's it it's not this, it's not that it's this and this only it takes another kind of thinking really to save life and to prevent that focusing tendency from becoming destructive and the focusing tendency can also get into the law it also gets into the legislation so here, I'm not trying to undermine this principle

[46:00]

only to point out that there's more to it than that that if you don't have the whole monastic tradition you're in bad condition if you make one element the whole then you're in trouble even though it may be the most important element it's like that business another panacotic definition of the monk in terms of the center that's a beautiful example kind of an ultimate example of that thing the monk exists for the sake of the center but the center is an emptiness the center is a void and the center only exists in relation to what's around it this is kind of metaphysical but that's the same thing if you focus on that center you can miss everything if you focus on the exclusion of everything else you're focused on the exclusion of life it's like the Jewish way of interpreting the Sabbath the Sabbath is a knot the Sabbath is the holiest thing in Judaism but if the Sabbath is interpreted contrary to life if you focus on the holiest thing in such a way that you rule out life

[47:00]

and Jesus symbolizes that by the healings he does on the Sabbath then you're frustrated with the purpose of that holiest thing itself that's where the thing falls under the cloud this is another example so the Sabbath is for man that's right similarly, the Aramidical life is for man and man is not for the Aramidical life solitude is for man and man is not for solitude that kind of principle even though to say okay then let's do what we like the perversion of it goes in the other direction you lose the principle you lose the focus, you lose the center in terms of breadth and humanity you lose the focus you lose the center that's right even though much is continually trying to focus and we have to focus we lose our focus and sort of our life gets thin

[48:02]

and it gets lax we lose our focus if we over focus we fail you can see people who do that it's also an example of the Western yes yeah the Western because the Western they're both focused but the Western rational tendency to focus or to focus with legislation legally and rationally, mentally is different from the focus of the Sarniowski yes and then there's a special issue of this yeah the Eastern way is and the holistic versus the basically holistic versus the rational the separated isolated rational but the Sarniowski

[49:04]

that particular point is a little bit tricky because as you can see Sarniowski monasticism also can be a rejection of the world which is a complete rejection of the world which is a kind of focusing we're talking about but it can be an exaggeration I think this elevation of the question of focus is important the focus is the subject or subjective or the objective is that we'll be rational we'll not say that they won't listen everything for simplification there's an excluding view of the state or any other state that everything is for the open state including the personal sanctification but it is a real monastic tradition for its own extremes and that focusing on one exclusion of the world so you have to end up with a kind of a mystery which transcends both of those

[50:05]

which is beyond dualism and this is continual in monasticism we run into that kind of thing and get a frustrating answer to a question but as soon as you enunciate the question that way we know that neither one of those is the answer the liturgy is not just for your individual sanctification or that's not so obvious when you just say it like that but if you see the consequence the kind of life that a person will live if that's what he believes then you see that everything becomes self-centered and the holiness that he's really seeking isn't holiness at all, it's something else if you follow that kind of axiom ordinarily, there are exceptions there's the exceptional saint who is called to step out of the liturgy and do it simply interiorly, I think with rare recourse to the liturgy but there's a danger when we generalize this going on with number four here each and every professed must aspire after the hermetic life as to a higher degree of the monastic life so you can see there was a very great care

[51:07]

to keep the order between hermitage and monastery here and keep the monastery under, keep it in its right place by continually reasserting the principle of the hermetic life as we talk however no one shall be obliged to go to the hermitage there had been quite a lot of bloodshed about that also when you're 15 or 16 you're put in a hermitage for the bishop the hermitage at Konale is no country family it's cold but every religious after three years of solemn profession and acquirements after their priesthood have a right to ask for admission to the nearest hermitage or the one united to the monastery and that's all um so you see the quality there and then we'll see the difference in the newer constitution to change the mentality of the rules one more point here that this contemplation may be carried on without blood or hindrance

[52:08]

let every unnecessary intercourse with outsiders be forbidden without offending charity under no pretext should anyone be admitted within the cloister not even the nearest one nor should any cause be offered to them to come to us therefore our religious should not involve themselves in worldly affairs not even in parents or relations unless it's superior for a just cause should think otherwise hence it is forbidden one to visit one's family residence so the language and the mentality there is a lot different from what I find in other constitutions I won't point out all the detailed ways in which there's a difference the word forbidden is fairly frequently you don't find it in the Vatican just like under the whole vocabulary you find it in the Council of Trent but you don't find it in the Vatican and it's related it's not the same thing and these constitutions

[53:13]

as I say are very close to the constitution of the 16th century of Justinianic and then after the time of Justinianic our constitutions were very much influenced by the congregation of Monte Carano in fact at one point we just about took over their constitutions I don't remember just when that was and they were much stronger actually than the traditional Caranobis congregation for quite a while in the modern centuries 17th and 18th centuries this paper didn't need it remember they went to Colo more recently whereas our branch the old branch more recently had a little bit of an incursion into Savoy that's right Colombia that's a new foundation

[54:14]

maybe 15 years old very little after the second Vatican Council there was an attempt to get the two grand divisions together and especially on the part of Rome because it's obvious if you've got two people, two orders who are supposed to be doing the same thing why should they be two instead of one especially since both of them are small but these historical divisions are very hard to deal and so they didn't really get together after a while neither side really wanted to get back together they had simply become too set in their respective ways the main difference now is that the Caranobis hermits of Monte Corona do not have the Caranobis they don't have the regular monastery and they have a much more exclusive sense of solitude than do our congregation so our congregation is a lot more pluralistic it's a lot more mixed it tends to have more vitality

[55:18]

and that's somewhat threatening and then there's the little one in Ohio one in Spain I think two in Colombia one of which is at least is frescoed and about five are traditional the main one being Frascati Monte Corona itself is one of the houses that was another house at a certain point but that one disappeared that one no longer exists as a community the main community is at Frascati which is about 30 miles from Rome it's in the Castelli those sort of resort places around Rome where the Roman aristocrats used to live a couple thousand years ago I guess they still do not far from Grotta Ferrata where the Holy Father lives so a lot of people know

[56:19]

Frascati he was close to Rome a lot of bishops and so on whereas it takes several hours to get to Pomagri the biggest house of the other order it's not really a big house size wise it's about the size of this maybe a little smaller a little smaller than this and the community is not very numerous and it's a hard working community they used to have a lot of laborers only a few priests they had cows it's funny because it disappears in America can you imagine America being the majority of Frascati and he was a very active fellow he had a keeping cattle he worked a lot of time any questions about the those constitutions

[57:21]

that's enough for today next time we'll go on with the present constitutions of 1968 69 81 oh one word about the regime see in the constitutions in the back those were declarations you find some points on the structure of the the houses chapter 12 the constitution of the community starting on page 102 and continuing on the next page houses sui iuris sui iuris means independent houses sui iuris means you exist in your own right you're not dependent on another community houses sui iuris in the full sense are houses combined of both hermitage and monastery and other and forming one community only with one there's only one example of that and that's Camelot they have to have 12

[58:23]

religious solemnly professed to exist independent houses sui iuris are hermitages only are monasteries only that's what we are and to have that status you have to have six choir religious solemnly professed so when a house has six solemnly professed monks now the choir monk thing is not it doesn't mean what it meant before because before you had lay brothers now you just have monks that were choir monks as soon as you have six and you fulfill certain other requirements you have to be independent economically and so on and you have to have an orientation such that the general can approve you they can give you that autonomous status and then you can elect your own choir and have your own religion and so on so you can be interactive total organism ok that's enough for today next one present constitution

[59:23]

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