heavenly father invited our minds and hearts no words can be made more deeply penetrate into this mystery of our in monastic vocation is century in this place this we ask the christ or
so
ah second part of this program is defense
we might focus or briefly on faith when we've tried to suggest is that faith is to be clearly distinguished from religion or the sequel
our faith is essential biblical very and these others are major sort of sociological categories that are interesting but quite distinct
for instance one way to learn the centrality of a have a notion of a category in the bible is just to see its frequency of public likes it she's often do this it's a first step
for instance of the term sacred occurs only five times in the home of scriptures and all five times and the old testament secret right next the sacred vessels it's never does the word sacred occur in the new testament
and then suggested something has happened
religious this where the only five times in the horn of scriptures and three of the times is quite negative as which reads pulses when i was at the jewish religion when the litter of james james's man's religion is pain so these categories of religion and sacred
crew very rare feast of your other and pcs a curse more than three hundred times and scriptures and almost always in the new testament about two hundred and eighty five times or in a new testament alone then if you get to the adjective form faithful that occurs another one
hundred times mostly the new testament and if you get the verbal form of to believe that occurs another three hundred times so or jervis seven hundred times this category of the least to believe faith occurring mainly in the new testament and
secret never in the new testament so something's happening here then a so often there's is clear distinction between faith and anything like with the jaw city or or sexuality remember the new testament de know the high priests are the ones who condemned geez
the religious professionally religious people professionally always in this sacred area to sacred temple and the secret laws etc
st john says
high priests the pharisees sadducees all these professionally religious people though they've been present when he gave so many signs they did not believe in him so they are unbelievers even though they're profoundly religious and profoundly synchro
so then a in matthew of jesus's to the centurion the secular and said army officer i have not seen so great a faith in all of israel
so good faith is quite distinct and and this gets to be quite attention and support brie contrasts the law and all the religious observance of the law with faith he says first there was a law that kept us kind of in bondage and then faith in christ came and saved us galatians three twenty
three before faith king we were allowed no freedom by the law center so some indications that this clear distinction
i'm so this category of sacred and also secular i found only one word secular in the whole of the scriptures and it didn't mean it all what we mean it occurs in the new testament and it means non-military it says when the soldier is involved in secular activities
that is non-military so it's not are so we can say that term secular simply doesn't occur it's foreign to the biblical mind as is sacred almost for him to the new testament mind will see one
so much of this debate about how to live as monks today i think implicit isn't his problems like what is the relation of the month to the whole sacred dimension of the past the grew up not from scriptures that we'll see later from of the sacred synthesis
that comes about in up with constantine and after constantine and in the east and in the western and middle ages and then breaks down on starts to break down with a renaissance in the emergence of the sciences et cetera and as a significantly in crisis now what is this all about so we want to try to reflect what is this
his area of the sacred
oh to try to get a hold of it more what is it were losing touch with and as it's so critical as it's so terrible that this sacred realm is no longer all encompassing
with the people i've read suggested the basic meaning of sacred is simply something set apart for exclusively religious coating function yeah usually quite simple and quite innocent in itself supposed romeo is sculpting a vessel
miss certain point he says i want this to be a chalice
a eucharistic jealous when he wants his from that point on the set aside for that sacred function and from that point on it can't be it'll be used every now and them in the refectory for lunch or supper know it said set aside exclusively for that sacred function it becomes a safe
rudd their song so things can be sacred sacred vestments that aren't warm one day to altered and next day out working reviewing their set aside for that central function
candlesticks images on his sacred things there are sacred places you build a building and it could be a home it could be garage at a certain decide point you to say no this will be a chapel so we set it aside for that function normally and then again you don't alternate back and forth it's set aside for that
so yeah so good things sacred places where sacred times up sunday is set aside at that time you don't do the normal various day things are working etc
arthur the as a very strong sense of this and if you're out there sawing wood and send he'll come in to tell you what day is this so this is a sacred this is a sacred time you see and so the monastic day there's a sacred time which is the time for morning prayer
and if you're out doing something else at time you know something isn't quite right or vespers or a soul
here comes up hey
i words surprise medical bag so sacred time sacred persons such herodotus the latin word for priest in english we have set your daughter what does it mean the etymologies a little obscure but it means it's certainly tied into sacred but it seems to me
he who give sacred things
the sacraments and a sacrament
so we have these areas of sexuality which mean to set aside for religious especially cultic function and this is fine again it's not at all central in the new testament the idea even though the category to accrue crew that often but ideas very central year old testament i
remember our old testament professor drawing circles of concentric circles of expanding influence but at the center is the most intense area of sexuality of holiness that's the holy of holies then the next circle is the temple itself than the next circle is the
holy city of jerusalem than the next and perhaps final circle is up the holy chosen people of god than when you get a more universal vision with i see etc this expands to call all the gentiles but who will then return and mount the amount of from side to go
go to the a temple to worship there so the old testament you have this sense of sexuality of holy places holy people to try of priests levi of holy vessels or read leviticus it's filled with is sort of thing
but what happens in the new testaments of the very strange and executes are to try to get a hold of it but all this sexuality is sort of turned upside down and we could do conferences entirely on this what happens to secure our new testament jesus remembers tells us and
eric woman not on this mountain or in jerusalem with a true worshipers worship but they were worshipping in up spirit and in truth
somehow all this security becomes into your eyes become spiritualized
and jesus is constantly getting in trouble with a professional religious people the professional of sacralizing people the pharisees it's because he doesn't observe the sacred day of sabha his disciples gotten a great remember he heels on the sabbath and he says with a semitism in combat
he relativise is this a crowd and the hockey is not of the sacred such an older tribe of levi he's a layman in jewish terms he can't go into the holy on holies is not permitted to me sulayman
oh and he says that strange we're not quite sure what he said about the temple but something about you know the apostles are mine is glorious sacred structure he says he can all be torn down and he executed his for this sort of thing he was crucified and press blasphemy against jewish sexuality
he
it's very significant how he ends crucified outside the sacred city in is impure of all places this place of but execution for criminals and the way he dies you know make it to nail their the old testament says a cursive is he who hangs from the tree
so all of sexuality is turned upside down ages and he rises not the holy sabbath be but he raises the day after the ferry old day
and this we're still trying to understand on this but somehow sexuality is really shuffled up in this point
someone was suggested if we wanted to rewrite the whole scenario as they say according to very cultic synchro categories we could and jesus would be born of the tribe of levi and he would be the high priest and a certain point and say i want to offer my life and holocaust for the scenes the whole peoples and they would lead him into the own
they are only it's new for himself on the high altar and they would build a bonfire and he would offer his life on the sabbath of the passcode this would be a wonderful sacral
but that isn't would happen
and then it believe letter to the hebrews it's interesting all these the temple is made jesus or us our body becomes the real temple
and the real high priest is jesus was going to the real temple which is the heavenly holy of holies et cetera everything is shifted now into a secular which becomes holy
and so we're still trying to work through that now executes had started looking again at the old testament and they discovered this radical d sacralizing occurring aren't in the old testament if you compare the old testament with the religions around israel where everything was sequel and me
the the magic's things have really been de sac realized
for instance the whole central affirmation of genesis of creation for the other religions all of nature is filled with guards and divinity in magical powers and history is his divinity and under that rock raccoons angelic forces etc and you've got to have magical formula for taking care of
this genesis cuts through all their senses not a whole cosmos is the work of god's hand to it's all done men it's all d sacralized in a certain sense not only that but it's all put under man under adam and eve adams
eve should dominate and subjugate all of creation and added remember should give the name to everything so we no longer as to fear all these weird some supernatural preternatural powers this is the first dramatic leap forward in secularization according to see
some of theologians of the scriptures will see in what sense of another great step according to have some of princes and could shoot you
see was something about this but there's whole of essays written on this the doctrine of creation the denial that events on earth were dictated by the stars the destruction of belief in the eternal return the disappearance of the classical pantheon opened up a new world for the christian
a world created in contradiction to the adage that everything is full of gods from the young woman this d divination of the cosmos a genuine a the as a nation of the divine world of the greeks and romans like the christians rightly been accused of being a
atheists and regarding to all these ancestral pagan am pst divinity is in sacred powers it work in the creation
and then this essay says this d mythology isation opened up a new world in astronomy and physics and a new world to a sciences says when this d demonisation runs into hellenism there's an explosion of creative work in the sciences because now
you don't have to fear that rock in that tree you can
can either mean to tests on the tree eventually you can even dissect the human body a though dubbing she's still have to do it in secret said rebecca
of at a certain point
we can approach creation with the serenity that it's not to be despised at all it's in a very holy order that we see to believe but it's not saccharin it's not sacrilegious to approach scientifically creation another great leap forward is with the huh
whole area of another sacralized a dimension which was the political damage the emperor was divine right of rain the time of jesus augustus and you had to go when you had to put incense to this divinity and this is where the christians got in trouble the pharaoh was
divine miss the often this manifestation of divinity on earth of the king's their source so by the will of god so the book of exodus carries on this second radical decentralisation when the farrow says to this little
tribe of slaves you can do businesses this and they say no he said
no and the should be blasphemy because he's there is the manifestation of divinity and they say no and most as their leader starts wrestling with this up the name of another god who does not recognize the security of this power
and this is radical and when we get to the time of jesus the profits are very strong against the kings when nathan against stuff david et cetera and up to jesus because herod you know that wolf
that fox and
the young property apocalypse is very rough on the imperial rome him terms with the seventy remember the drain into the seven head says that his imperial city etc
so de sacralization of political power and then him jesus in the new testament we have the d sacralization of salvation itself that again occurs naughtiness synchro holocaust on the high altar of the holy of holies but outside the separate cities and that most impure of places up through
kind of political death
so you've got a global sexuality in ancient world especially in the ancient non-jewish religions and in the ancient roman religion and it was the emperor who tied the security altogether as the manifestation of divinity
and he pulled everything else into this sacred synthesis the arts politics religion it was all unified in him or this disappears with christianity perhaps to come back we'll see with famous constantine you want to look into that what happens in that decisive moment of history
we have constantly
and then another key moment in history what happens with the western renaissance when that lovely psychosynthesis starts to really break down so key to key moments will want to look at to understand our own life today as as modern monks but we've got this global security
in contradistinction to a very very sober sexuality of christianity
christianity doesn't say let's wipe out all psychology we have the sacraments we have the eucharist though it's never called sacrament in the new testament but that's later applied to it but note the sobriety the simplest and sort of the poverty the second especially as they were celebrated in the first years of
not a huge glorious basilicas with with patriarchs and etc but in homes you know the domestic church gathering in the house of surfaces up
mother in law whatever it was the a guppy
and sobriety this of the expressions of these seconds water bread wine the laying on of hands simplest of symbols so to go from imperial sexuality with these immense basilica is in the vestal virgins and the emperor being carried and the whole bit too
the christian sacraments a one can understand all the christians were considered atheists actually without religion and because they were onto another thing
and the interesting aspect of this is the opposite than of socrates what is common every day the greek word for this is corners in the old testament in the septuagint it's applied to unclean things unclean food
the new testament it because when most beautiful word a substantive koinonia that is what is held in common and then it can also mean the community itself and per call me is called monastic like only quite a nice and they only community but the simplest of things which we
hold together and which hold us together
this is a the new sexuality so to speak encountered distinction to this kind of imperial sexuality
so we start moving towards what can be called the secular though the real emergence of this categories much major where does it come from secular it seems to come from what i have read the latin sake loom which literally means a generation of people
my generation back in my generation my signal and thus it can apply to a period of time and this it can apply to the temporal order so it's first emergence in the middle ages was two priests who are not monks they were called secular priests
and so anyone who was not a monk was a secular and monks on the other had were religious this is the first merchant seven so nothing terribly have to be kind of despise during a secular priest was one involved in the more of temporal dimension more directly involved with people
will the monk was thought to be in this realm more eternal more religious so this is the more now one thing we might not hear it might be difficult for us to be totally objective and on this issue of the secular and sacred and the religious it's because we're we are the epitome of the religious
according to this middle ages synthesis we are the synchro
according to eastern canon law will see right from the first christian emperors and in the western canon law monks or about his sacred issue can get if you're a solemnly professed monk if someone hits you is excommunicated because you're a sick role vessel sort of the r m
just as if you smoke a priest this is something sacred you can't do it
lyrics of we often said this to them because he was our only defense
i'm so sexuality something that set aside
and we are set aside as monks the monastic life is sacred at a later point we want to ask is this what st anthony had in mind when he would often to the desert of this is a later development it's typically middle aged but note that sexuality requires some
sort of sacred authority to set aside
if
if romney will decide to like that vessel to be a sacred vessel he should get some priest to bless or something something has to happen to set that aside it's gonna get some authority if someone who has little middle and he wants a really blessed you should go to a priest
now the more significant though setting aside the more high up you have to go on a higher archy i can bless us benedict's middle but i can't concentrate a priest it takes a bishop you gotta go higher up and
if you want to do something really be if you want to dedicate the whole of the universe to the sacred heart or something you've gotta be a pope so the more significant the sacralization the setting aside the higher of on the ladder you have to go now suppose you want to sacrifice not just the spiritual order but the
a whole material order of culture and art and politics etc what what would be good to have around would be a sacred emperor whose christian and this is what happens in this link up between constantine and the church you've got the church to the pope and the patriarchs
and you've got constantine and the embrace each other and the sacralized the whole order and then you get this new phenomenon which is called the christian empire or christendom and it's something i dreamt up by the apostles by the new testament but it's something that emerges something that gets into our blood so
the later we think it's inevitable but the then in the renaissance breaks down and now we're trying to live in this new world which is also the road of the apostles were were no longer in
christian empire were no longer in christendom in that sense and were terrified threatened by but it might not be that bad a thin any case of just some preparations for this concept of how useful it is to have a christian emperor around yes your pay
plugged into this need of a sacred synthesis as i think many readings of our eastern brethren of they really still feel most at home in that kind of sacred synthesis
ah
in this sacralization and secularization number of a contributing member forty seven they they hinted guess what it's all about his eastern synthesis is basically tied in to this sexuality tied in with the emperor the emperor before constantine
was divine he was the keystone of the sacred synthesis of the empire and then suddenly this emperor embraces christianity and all this sacrilege and flows into christianity
ah in the preface to this issue their time but all the new challenges that comes from the secular and how do we answer this and i was really quite difficult and they say what's the solution should we flee to the east into our orthodox privilege and they say should we perhaps listen to the christian east where people think themselves protests
did against an eternal secularization process by their own concept of the church as communion with divine life
both the structures of eastern churches and their concept of man's relation to god are profoundly influenced by a christian up i'm sorry by a pre christian idea of the sacred which found such prominent expression in the byzantine emperors cold the key words to an understanding of the situation in
the christian east are byzantine culture sacralization and isolation so he says that's where they still are
and then he goes on to say few orthodox theologians are daring to raise questions to miss the cold up there are only a few dared to timidly ask what the lasting value maybe of this byzantine view of the sacred order for orthodoxy particularly in a world dominated by an officially atheist ideology and may
king intense progress in technological development is who i'm soviet were moves forward with industrialization to and this holy orthodox world keeps pulling back into its secret of traditions and it's it's difficult the situation in eastern way
west is two different to determined by specific cultural historical factors to provide us with a common answer to religion spiritual weakness in the west is a very interesting we as monks today might feel a little uneasy how do we live the monastic vocation as religious
this in a secular world as old as say dedicated to this me this or the other issue where religious and when a secular world i didn't get to this together when one answer might be let's go to the east where everything is still sacred and associates is trying to suggest that unfortunately eight the answer
ah tenders as i say this whole essay on sacralization and secularization in eastern churches and they repeat this thesis the very understanding of man's relations with god in the liturgical celebration teams have an influence throughout the east by the pre christian concept of the sacred and
quotes of which the imperial cult of his answer is the most obvious expression
now once you get plugged into this were anticipate where we're gonna get but ah
you see the the exodus the of say no to emperor to the pharaoh or the prophetic theme of the of the prophet to chastise is david this is really very revolutionary basic or jesus who says no to
that fox herod and to the high priests etc this is very revolutionary whereas the other is extremely static and reactionary it's wants to be stable for all eternity because the emperor is there by the will of god and his son
they're either by the will of god and his son you've got a seiko ordered that doesn't want to change we were talking before about of this kind of nostalgia for the unchanging this can get into the social political cultural area and the role is very good to to sort of that
keep things static and that's what they were trying to do with the saar czar in russians simply mean caesar the tsar was to be the christian caesar in russia in the russian empire and of moscow was called the third rome and they'd simply
extended this whole byzantium sacred cuddled into russia so right up to the end what what were these czars doing you're trying to bolster up there autocratic will say no you can't touch us because we are here by divine will and unfortunately that the patriarch was often they're right by his sights and yes it
so don't touch the tsar don't touch this this
this regime so i'm just stop this ideology
obviously imposed a certain social rigidity in the name of sacred order emancipation movements and efforts to overthrow the existing order readily judged to be sinful in such an overall context allusions to transcendental and heavenly models were quite normal in medieval such
siop imbued as it was with the exempt wrist and a socialist spirit will see this in the writings of eusebius about constantine to see the constantine court is the direct revelation of the heavenly kingdom
yeah this is the best way to solidify a political tool to undermine the social order on earth was to attack heaven itself the theocrats did not hesitate to make frequent analogies between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and also a political hierarchy and the celestial hierarchy
you can distract lincoln and is very sacred and very unified and very consoling but very richard
and then it goes on about the renaissance thinkers start knocking the stone they talk here about a merciless of padua and william of ockham who ushered in the spirit of modern times ah
marsalis did this to his journey to a return to the primitive church you see christian humans their innocence settlements can beyond all this heavy cleric realization and holy roman empires and things let's get back to the fonts and he rejected the higher higher oh crap
in deuteronomy
and then william of ockham or talked about god's absolute freedom and his independence from these regimes don't link up the will of god with assad necessarily or with the holy roman emperor so here it is a truly revolutionary principal living room for criticism and even rejects
none of this demonised sacralized order so big things are happening at the time of constantine and big things are happening in the west at the time of the renaissance and we have to see very critically if everything that happened in the time of constantine was good and of everything that happened in the tenderloin
since as bad this is often the thesis implicitly or sometimes even explicitly of our orthodox brethren so this is what we want to get into to also anticipate remember that the real monastic life begins precisely the time of constantine and in
protest against what he's doing and what you see your sister this happy kind of contract in neutral embrace and the urban's see we want no part of this and listening to this type of thomas merton of convention says the his words at something about the integration of christianity and
empire the monk see notice and they go off into the desert then very shortly after this the empire
achieves a kind of reader integration of monasticism he becomes an integral part of this sacred order indeed in a certain sense it becomes the very apex which is very flattering to us but a which we want to look at very suspiciously
in the east it's true that monk really has its place and it's a glorious place or interchange will often talks about the authority of mount athos in the orthodox world and it's right at the apex of the old seiko period and so that can be particularly attractive to amongst
we're searching for their identity but that ain't necessarily where we want to go if we want really to achieve this is marginal prophetic presence that britain another monks talk about
ah
this whole sacrilege thing is also anti historical it's based upon this eternal essentialist sort of neoplatonic thing
and it mentions that a whole concept of history which is in the word of god disappears in this whole and comes back again with the renaissance people like erasmus thomas more the christian humanist not to the pagan numerous know that man is in history and history is no longer just a sign of man's week
miss how changeable the world is but it's a sign of the space of creativity where man works
today in contrast with medieval man we know that the social establishment is not a divine creation but a cultural and man-made situation which can be dealt with and reformed
this mutability ah
in the ancient middle ages or did not present human historicity as the framework for the for man's creativity it was seen the market man's frailty in fine tightness the emperor and the middle age man knew that the exchange but for them it was a sign of
of how tragic the human situations whereas for scriptures it's the sign of this dynamic history of salvation and some the move and this is recovered in the western a renaissance is recovered in historical research
it's recovered in the kind of western of interested who was the real saint teresa bliss you let's get ya despise documents and these these archetypes and get to know the real historical torres in her unique message to us is typically western and i don't think it's all
at bats
so
lily are you getting us all him with some indigestion
so to sum up again sacralization is to set aside for religious use and there's nothing terrible are menacing about that up in the new testament it's quite sober and quite contained and then first epistemic farmers thus but then it gets really full-blown and
almost orgiastic when we get to constantine and at that point i think precisely as monks we want to raise some questions get into the sacred christendom salt said quality let's look a little more carefully now at the secular we often hear that we live in a second or world and often that said with
kind of a fear or or sneer you know western secular man sort of the place we don't want to be because women of faith religious their arguments distinguish faith from religion and ask if within the secular faith cannot be lived
what is the basic meaning of secular well it sort of the opposite of secret it's what is not set aside for exclusively cultic the church produce sir ronald there's there again is potter's wheel and makes a special any decides mischievously i won't set this aside as a
eucharistic jealous this will serve as a drinking vessel for meals
at that point that vessel is part of the secular order and i think there's nothing pernicious about it there's nothing to be we should be spat at it as data to haiti and beauty if he makes up a vase or and it's the same thing and suppose you'd build a building and it doesn't become a chapel or basilica becomes a home
well that's part of the say secular order them or you have not sunday but you have the farrier things they also have their space or you have a man who is not a priest and especially not a religious he is he is a secular
he's a layman but he's not to be spat out for that let's remember that the older people of god or constituted about ninety nine percent by by sequiturs by the secular order
and suppose we have someone who wants to study not mystical theology or canon law that wants to study astronomy or medicine or engineering or drama
these are secular disciplines and it can we shouldn't perhaps why is that of threatening or that contemptible
the secular tends to be performed immediately because there's so many spaces for human creativity god me this this way with all this incredible and creativity so michelangelo does his thing and of mean she does his thing andrew as mr his history and einstein does his
thing in darwin does his thing and you get lots of areas and an orthodox might say this is splintering this is breaking up but it might be this a glorious perform expression of human creativity that's to be admired
ah
let's consider the relation between faith and the secular and religious and secular coalition between faith and the secular let's take when discipline is an example like medicine medicine is part of the secular
order
we could take mathematics or whatever he's very interesting there is not a catholic mathematics there's not a catholic botany
you can couldn't these problems at union probably schools and you have to build huge science labs and things very expensive why to teach catholic biology there is no such thing as catholic biology there's no such thing as catholic mathematics
ah some people queued about catholic medicine you have a simcoe says aspirant and and sort of it
that's about as close as you can get so you've got this young very devout catholic who wants to be a doctor what does he have to do has to study and he has to study quite as much as anyone else quite as much as the lutheran student or even the agnostic atheist he has to crack those books of medicine and sweat as much as anyone else
his faith gives him no shortcuts in this regard
you can't say why the word of god i have scriptures i have the holy tradition of the fathers i have a few kamiya shirley somewhere in here i can find the best way to operate for kidney stones or the best way to intervene for heart attack or that isn't a function of scripture or the phyllo media or whatever to give us
it's easy answers about this
so here we get into this fact of the autonomy of medicine or the autonomy of astronomy these were battles that were hard one for gallon the york he said look you look into your telescope you come to the conclusion that the sun is not rotating around the earth
he got into trouble and the holy office said you can't see this it's against theology it's against scripture in seeking spirituality and they made him and recant and in his heart of parties and i'm sorry but defense ladies
our sweat in the west we've come to acknowledge and even sort of esteem this autonomy of the science you can take internment autonomy and the sensitive all built up to christ who fulfilled all it but not interim in the sense that we're just waiting to get back to the guy
old days when the priests will have final say about astronomical questions or medical questions or the monks with the holy office the holy office no longer hands once the ultimate say on nuclear physics or on astronomy you are on these things
so
this the student of ours devout catholic but he's got to study as much as anyone else hopefully he'll study more than anyone else and he has to take his anatomy exam you go into the book of anatomy i was reading the physically and other day and there's this
sir weird anatomy of of the father still when father set up you know when you breathe what do you do you take air directly into your heart and then the heart of extends his life-giving air directly to the body
and this is a lovely up but unfortunately this ain't the way it is and if a a greek student of medicine or were to want to base his
anatomy theories on a few locally if you get into trouble
and we want to distinguish today the function to feel locally is not to teach us
lessons on anatomy of we're still on borderline cases what is the heart for instance we'd been talking grigio and these days about the heart the heart is the deepest center of the human person in the area feeling and centric well what is the heart for the doctor it's an interesting problem but you've got this muscle basically this
pomp
and you got phenomenon such as heart transplants
i'm in what sense are we taking in any kind of material way that the heart is where i want to end up with the heart you see it does have to be a symbol i can end up with someone else is hard and and desist mean that i have a deep other person inside of your what's happening here of so that so
science regularly challenges us in some of our a kind of simple ideas about things and this can be threatening this can be really threatening
now what do you do there you can do several things you can deny the autonomy of sciences and in the west we stopped doing that said know how is the universe built leave it to the sciences to decide the function of scriptures is not to give us astronomical models of the universe of
function of the scriptures is to announce our salvation jesus christ
so you can try to deduce answers directly from scriptures and this is called integral gruesome or of and mrs faults the universe must have been created in seven
chronological days because the book of drips says so so evolution must be wrong etc do not saying that any longer in the west
ah so that's the solution that were not inclined to work in the west normally when i can just a few years ago on evolutions big fight and win of the fathers here insisted that no catholic could hold a evolution and indeed are manual philosophy said the theory of evolution is against catholic faith
and you won't find it it's another example of finally saying leave it to the paleontologists to decide are these real fossils what do they indicate was there a neanderthal man were was the whole universe created two thousand years ago as they believe
in the middle ages of
it said
another thing you can do if you're not prepared to try to retake power with the holy office and the emperor in the and the patriarch deciding ultimate questions of astronomy biology and etc is then the answer of disdain and contempt
or it will grant these areas their autonomy but with disdain under the mirror merely material areas the spiritual man should have little or nothing to do with them
remember the stories who told go to tear up all your manuscripts that's merely worldly stuff no really spiritual orthodox rights the sort of thing you can do this no true christian should waste his time sciences i know many christians who tortured by this there was an orthodox
secular realm
i don't think this is quite a wise take medicine for instance take the dignity of medicine
on the other day i would done to him my eyes examined
two hundred years ago there was no such thing as glasses and many of us would have been out of business at this point as far as reading writing think of don't benedetto and think of the centrality of something like a spiritual reading next year divina for the monk
up so we can see the merely bodily but at least for the biblical and for the modern view if not for the neoplatonic the body is is very tied up with a spirit some teresa's as try not to get sick because usually people don't pray that will when they've got a heritage
trouble at a preservative up with her down with the flu so try to keep well and try to keep your site
if i see my eyes going down to like to see well that's divine providence of where i see another the or another thousand prostrations before the icon i go to the eye doctor and i'm grateful he had some incredible stuff they're very advanced technology
there was this machine and pumped a little
the wave of winded my eyeball and that bounced back kind of a radar thing and immediately measured the intensity of pressure within my eye to determine if there was some sort of sickness that consists in excessive pressure from the i book and i said this is incredible technologies it gets too
two years ago we didn't have this and in saving lots of people from blindness now this is mere technology or kate but it's rather beautiful and could it be that god is working through this without the seats reflect much more on this up
i was hungry and get to eat i was sick and you had visited me and center there's something about presence of christ in people who need help and there's something about the capacity of technology at it's best i'm arguing a case years up to help people that i think we should be very hesitant to sneer
for it
ah
so this relative autonomy
of the sciences of the secular damage also culture
a catholic port should have freedom to write agree was deepest intuitions gogo should have permitted been permitted to write he was a genius as a writer told the right with greatest honesty what is a real situation of russia and even if he had inspired pushkar to see how sad on russia's if this is the way he sought
but that's true christian so what does this mean that faith has no place in the secular
are we building a kind of of schizophrenia that the poor christian
a student of medicine simply as to leave his faith outside the door has nothing to do with studies know we haven't seen that we said that faith gives no magical answers to the immediate discipline of how to do this and how to do that what it does though is keep give you your deepest motivations for why to do that
the christian doctor will have to study as hard and hopefully higher than the non christian but he'll be different in the sense of you'll have a entirely different inner motivation he'll be doing it not for the money and not for the glory and prestige you not because his mother wanted him to be a doctor you'll be doing it because through this
as science through this tool to be able to serve his fellow man who is sick with serpent so it's not the faith doesn't enter faith enters as the eleven within that enemies and and of inspires
and so all the great christian doctors and nurses but it doesn't address religion would want to enter to retake over to kind of dominate and sacralized so what is relation of secularity notes work depends if we wanna go in as christians with our fee
then we could get in there and will be present as levin if we want to carry your whole pre constructed single synthesis of mirror and say the galileo what you're saying is different from the sacred father said do what you're saying is different proven then we ran into problems and contradict
oceans and tensions and then we might have to react with the old of disdain some this is mere worldly stuff so we rushed through this we haven't got up the constantly yet which is very fascinating so next time when we come back we can look
the moments in the history of bad again the constant tinian compromise we can call it and then the restaurants are getting beyond and behind that compromise of back to another perspective
ah
just done to
it's interesting that for us constantly is not a seat for the western church st helen is yes but constantly and he was very interesting and sort of typical and butler's lives of talks about that ambiguous man constant constancy concept rather glad that constantine isn't on the
a western calendar she is saint in the eastern calendar and a butler's lives quotes this line from the byzantine calendar which is also in next st herman's calendar which is up there the library of so the feast of st constantine and helen holy equals to the apostles and
her constantine and his mother helen
so for them of great veneration for constantine and so and other christian emperors justinian etc and would want to look at the ambiguities of this some of the best of byzantine thinkers are now beginning to re-evaluate these great a christian emperors but it's a
slow and painful process for them and we in the west with a renaissance have four hundred years of sort of headstart oddness of raising questions about the whole concept of christian empire
so we might take five minutes out and then come back and discuss to pay a little in then
i wasn't it

questions problems
difficulties
repairs
a growing person
child

beautiful image
your kitchen bank storm
on there's much speculation were
this be the british
yeah that's the mystery that's what a book like this is trying to
sacralization and secularization than once the next step and they said this is full of mystery it's like a kid who's gone through childhood that again beautiful world where everything is unified and simple and there's answers to everything and the answers come from daddy then he gets into a much more complicated world where
all the answers aren't from dead he has to study this book in that book and it's a very complicated now it's hard for him to for secret he's going
where will i be say a thirteen year old kid you ask him what will you be at the age of thirty or in the twenty kids you have ideas where he wants to be etc but it's difficult for him to see why think myself that's where we're at we're in this situation and trying to move ahead
i'm taking the best because the childhood as all sorts of riches that you can't just repress her cut out the best of the childhood as to be brought in through adolescence and adulthood is some kind of a serene
synthesis of this at a new level
and hopefully
what it would involve would be the best i think the coastline continued his faith and i think princes vatican two was given us
the kind of the step by step on turn henry newman says one step enough for me we've got faith in christ the sensuality of christ the sensuality the scriptures the centrality of the eucharist etc we've got a nerf key points for our spirituality you're very pro from you can spend a life
time i think getting into scripture brings school then of the deep heritage of the past keep this but moving onto a serene of acceptance of this new situation and see if we can't move on taking the best of it all i think had my
ppp
i would think where we have to move on at least as a group has to be
western in modern one or two people might make a contribution to the journey by going back as it were in specializing in a very deep way in i don't know what tenth century him to thought or thirteenth century tibetan buddhism work or the as he cast prayer whatever you can specialize in all sorts of things now
would be good and then they bring these riches to the community receives me the christian community as such and any monastery or hermitage as such the community as such it's basic path has to be along the lines of sort of what sketched out by vatican two would sketch
out by the rule of st benedict and and moving on from there is shared i don't know if that helps
i think that's the answer is not to move back to some era when there weren't the problems that we have now
it's called from this creek below cheeses technology is an error and it's based upon the theological error that's typically western surgery everything is typically western and then it goes on this
i can you understand why he's trying to say but i don't think we can do that sort of thing we can't just say the modern world is based on a theological error and if we just get back to the theological truth which is represented by orthodoxy or the western middle ages who whatever be of then we're safe
i think what has happened in medicine and astronomy and of the arts center it can't all be chalked up to mistake you do that get your extreme reactions secular becomes secularism jews and as this book says that often happens
the phone is a little a priests years these scientists who are saying but as to our astronomy and appreciate know you've got to you've got to do what the holy officers and then these scientists can enter into crisis and some of them go atheist etc then you duke and secularism galileo was a devout catholic and created this
right to keep a hold of this so he submitted etc instead of secret type but it's not true sort of it but the people who couldn't get through this
can they get radical secularists and then it's science only etc so i think we have to read begin a dialogue with the people we've lost through excessive precise second sacralization and the answer is not to to spit on the christian humanist in the christian scientists etc up but kind of some
support them and start a serene dialogue with the others noting also the good that the others are doing
other

changed
yeah again i've been arguing a case and so pushy of this whole other side i think a certain truth because there is a prophetic forced to the east and in favor of man in his spiritual to which starting this has to be cons
currently utilized
i don't think it should be a sneeringly and i don't think it should be in the name of this integral whole
i think the east has to a modestly give up that presumption to have the integral whole and again enter into adolescence but what i think it does have this elements elements extremely profound
prayer
well
salvation
ha

yeah i keep missing talking about it was
yeah but we're on the same sort of way in the city were in the history
it seems like

yeah
right i could get sick people feel that
the go to by

yeah well i think that's the key for us as westerners to be as open as possible to try to see what is the most valid points meant to integrate things i think this is the whether it be from the east whether it be from sand or whatever
i mean a real opens and i think that's what we're challenged to today as real contemporaries open to the orthodox yes the also open to the reformed churches also been to the whole thing this is real catalysts city which means universality
sometimes people get so interested in one dialogue that then they get almost of intolerant of other dialogs or or their openness incinerate
so i think the christians can offer so much i think luther can offer some things the anglican heritage skin or president but whole bed
i i guess i guess
as possible
hey
rank amateur but one of the next day surrender
why
so am i on
patches or why
run
rose for example i really don't look
no i haven't yet
source
stunning
but it
here is in order to
we're offering what
from this condition
i feel i have no
i don't know i guess i know
for example i don't know what has happened to come up his tradition
they be impact
renaissance its own
wow
know so i guess i'm asked
arthur studying your other
said much
third i guess if so what is what is relationship
a man
dr deep
take belize
slow
now these are much more narrow
sorry
they would be concerned i am
yeah i think bruno must know what is available here in english i know lots of translations have been done with the recent literature and insignificant up for instance i'm thomas merton his books were life and solitude
the silent five years a final essay on the commodities he considers of placid rudolph's constitutions to be very great see you know sublime i know we have those in which so maybe go through them go through them carefully look at the implications go to some ham st peter damian yes a difficult
things it's a different time historically so we can't take it all but he has some beautiful things and dominus copy school etc is concept of the home universal church present in each from it so think of yeah some beautiful things go through them are so who are in the renaissance
it's period the communities are very present there's some crate on come out these humanists and great canal sick tourists who who know greek are involved with the east etc and into were asking for the reform the church i think of what one hundred years before before luther
a great anglican earning great a commodities humanists are asking the papacy to allow the liturgy in the language of the people this sort of thing is a wonderful heritage
how much has been translated i don't know there's the lives the five brothers beautiful at the baddies from a to want to go into mission activity and this hope and several whole different
now the camellias heritage has always seen as in the fall monastic heritage we don't have founders as the modern orders to on serrano visit our founder and same sense of ignatius for the jesuit sore of but what is it years is our spiritual father was
a kind of created this family in this one tree of monasticism so to see this whole commodities heritage also in the context of the whole benedictine heritage for instance the whole medieval of don hugo our library into that immense book on the commodities library in the
middle ages and it was very richly endowed for that time but therein to the victory means therein to of the fathers of the desert during to a lots of western fathers and must have lots of eastern i think predominantly western parts of eastern up one can their through
i think that's really still just an italian but a bruno knows italian now hobby after getting to this business what will do in about november december start a kind of us history of christian spirituality and i'll i'll get into the heavily
after was certainly their cycles is really critical us not just be historically mine and we're going out
but to get those those great here is that people and inside
yeah so and we're building something and not just
harrison down
i think the come out these you just very significant not pompously and it's certainly not rich like the dove i don't know the trappist the cistercian or something but it's sufficiently rich and something maybe a
aeromedical spiritual life shouldn't be that rich that is only it's it's feet it's sort of the dark knight and sell sort of thing and that's why i think we have to be a little careful of any full blown theological spiritual synthesis or we're not after religious culture were after living our own prayer
and out is always been strong and each one will develop his own
life of prayer his own rhythm in his own sell the cartoons have it all structured and if you go to mount athos there is that way of the jesus prayer etc up i think the these tend to be much more flexible and pluralistic but there are indications of a certain direction which i think it's a very exciting during
action very tolerant direction and i think of certainly brutal wriggly could help you with that with that with with these are classics like a blessing golf phantom st peter damian the five brothers center and so forth to then i'll try to get into this also
ah
more
oh you're not horns yeah

well here i think you want to distinguish the various come elderly spaces there's the hermitage which was never write down there in the renaissance then there's a rural monastery which wasn't that much then there was the urban monastery which was and the commodities say each community concern to do its thing
now that were great commodities artists and musicians partly the man who invented the musical scale was the commodities and at this sort of thing the great a teacher of the to angelica the great painter was a canal gullies and his work syrup are there a florentine gallery
since into this sort of now this doesn't you can think wouldn't this sort of corrupt of the purity the arabic with that's a distinct space so it's not the humans were in it was insisted them you've got to become humanists though the hundreds who never anti study this is a this is i think interesting
hugo study was of the hermit library and very rich library with lots of meaty theology and lots of western fathers and so they were never on the you know
i worked at least in the mountains
design
eventually all the spaces we have to dial already or deed and that aeromedical saves the center medical from going to worldly in the bad since and i think the senate medical saves your medical of going off so anti intellectual like for instance the trappist stood in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and a certain point
didn't the whole thing for a trappist was staying for the priesthood was to not go out to study and to study the minimum possible to thought was no students make you the good things and they hadn't extremely unprepared energy in a certain point the holy see itself had to intervene and insist
that the cartoon shoes and big on track as go out to spend we've never had that sort of problem
we've always been a little afraid of a kind of bugs have a anti intellectual reaction and can get you into because you've gotta go somewhere usually the anti intellectual beats into the ocean elysium more leads into fanaticism for one particular little school or silly
study can be dangerous and it can go just the kind of humanistic way but
at its best i think it can lead into and be a service to wisdom
and that's i think the direction to he said generally tried to go
other
i guess the bell is rung soaps are so next time i guess in august book will plunge and we should polish this up in august and get beyond our defense of the west or we could certainly open up again hutch to the east and the north we haven't talked about the north and south yeah i will get into that to after flynn