November 1979 talk, Serial No. 00901

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the intrinsic intention of doing what the church wants this was explicitly in the ordination for me that was not cited by or or pathology query we also know that were politics or the hundred hierarchy in wrong fought against
the great majority decision of a theologians called by legal video to decide the question of great majority were in favour the validity and the irish courage you didn't at all want this gets very complicated with since roman catholics doing in england and ireland than as the anglicans source of this is a
historically documented thing but i have been told that there is no hatred roman catholic theologian out and would argue the invalidity of orders the whole women think it's more complicated but
leaving the women's side if you're gonna be a language and before you he claims to be archbishops is he just a layman or as the an archbishop of the great majority roman catholics and cities in archbishop you may have some theological are lacking studies and archbishops just as the old catholic or coptic
through something like this was a year discovered that the elements elements the government and said that began we can see here we go into hasn't a certain it has this is the way things work in the church there's an official level and often there's an unofficial theological level it's quite ahead it's quite like saying
the eucharist in the vernacular seven years ago fisher you couldn't do it and there were all sorts of groups doing at etc but but i heard you in a landing and was discovered and was my even was to celebrate with us we should let him conservatory or every community has to decide this i know this
the yeah so when there's oh certainly i would suggest hear that probably it isn't according to the vibrations you there might be certain community skirt their identity etc i think every community has to work this out in freedom and spirit and i would think that if here you were to refuse communion to an anglican this would be a bit much
oh that that you shouldn't invite him but insisted he come this is another thing but if he asks and comes that you send him away
we immediately
the
if was a privileged interesting

so last time we saw something about
possible connections between the contemplative vocation and the ecumenical commitment or we looked at merton his life in general and then the particular sc then we looked at the vatican two in general and specific a decree on ecumenism
and we saw the three models etc
ah today we can something about english mysticism in general then depending upon the time ah
go on to the cloud or come back to the cloud maybe then on something about very briefly on anglicanism and then especially more about this initiative of a foundation then questions you have any time and then questions after the english thing and questions after the initiative and
and that maybe come back to the cloud or go on whatever the
there were the spirit guides seasons
so the english mystics what do we mean by this phrase who is included in who isn't for instance
feather knowles the benedictine as a book the english mystical tradition and thomas merton in ms since and masters has a beautiful essay ah the english mistakes what are they talking about fear all the possible english mystics
no as they say you should they term has become a technical term to refer to for key mistakes i underlined the twice their of the fourteenth century richard rohr delightful hermit who had this experience as a fire in his heart very
very close to the eastern heritage
written system is pure look at the cloud of unknowing we don't know the author but a very significant sea and the author certainly knows a pseudo dionysius did he translated a work of sudanese so as you can imagine these lines are lying
of influence on commodities a little confusing there it's not that the cloud is influenced directly by carmel valley but by pseudo unisys ah then julian of norwich wonderful a woman recluse who have had a series of visions but not to win
weird visions but beautifully theological positions that burton says she is the greatest theologian and the english language because there's such a theological content to revisions in the water hilton
so those are the for
then because augustan baker who died almost two hundred years later but because he's so close to them in spirit and continuity and he wrote a commentary on the cloud of unknowing etc because he's so close to them it's spirit so knowles and merton treat on him also
so they push him into this group so when you talk about the english mistakes or the english mystical school or that's who you're talking about
but the first thing that merton notes and is that this is very arbitrary there's no reason of excluding all these others and especially because there's marvelous continuity that's one thing of his binds are supposed to suggest we've got a real heritage here so we haven't just got for who are out there were no connection with anything else but
a stand in this mainstream of the english monastic heritage which was will seize also a monastic benedictine heritage so it's good to see them in the context and to go right back to the earliest pre-history and england deep of celtic christian
in presence which was very very much as to do so fantastically monastic the dumps it wasn't the bishop rantings in the diocese it was the abbot and the bishop was under the abbot it was a kind of monastic vision of the church that it's hard for us even to enter into but the celtic monasticism ca
comes from france and france at that i was quite influenced by the east through kitchen so i'm trying to suggest is right at the very beginning there's an interesting eastern link-up the anglicans by the way or the popular proud of this that there is the whole gregorian western
current of which are very proud that there's also this mysterious eastern content from the very beginning now this is not lost in the english english heritage fortunately to bead who writes you know beautiful history the english a church it's the kind of us not a history in our sense though he
was quite rigorous for his time but a kind of a theological reading of what has happened and he safeguards is hold celtic heritage in way it gets into his
our writings and
peter three influential income elderly also see later and he's very influenced by gregory so should start to see link ups here so one could go back right to the celts than there's beat himself and so you can call him the she came from italy but archbishop of canterbury rid of he's a philosopher but a very
contemplative mystical philosopher
and through augusta you're certainly going of course gregory in the room were decisive for him and read of revolt how would would say that in french
ah
you could read apart me i was wondering why use the frenchman
no his english but that's the name of is abbey in england it's a curious thing i don't know must be the norm and is be able reliable so a beautiful writer
and he a great friend of some bird and he wrote up on spiritual friendship we have a to the library he wrote the mirror of love speculum room a tart is a beautiful thing all in the kind of of the best cistercian heritage and very english written
he says he should be considered when you consider english mysticism then richard a son victor of the great victory in school of mysticism with all his contemplative commentaries on scripture and ducts can criticize other thing he also has a four degrees of love
he's most interesting because his masters hugo of saint victor
and they both have a very decisive influence on com elderly will see this later but it's interesting this link up between english european and the camaraderie when i'm pinching cavalli i'm time of the hermitage the hermetic spirituality in the early centuries we now know quite a bit more about who they were reading the info
once of every school etc but the victory in school surprisingly is decisive for the hermitage
vision spiritual vision of the
thirteen fourteen hundreds then
john of salisbury john peckham their minor features but they are at canal dele also and being read that that minor but anyway of important figures so you can get good rd concern them in the catholic then we get into our area richard role as i say this is beautiful will see more the key
loud of annoying cloud of unknowing which is in contact again with a whole eastern thing to lean and water salt in which continues this thing then accustomed bakers to takes up this whole heritage again he writes a commentary on the cloud of annoying he knows he's very widely read in the whole contemplative world he knows the
kitchen through the initial some claim a goose etc etc
can write down and as merton himself notes there's no reason why not to go into the english anglican mystics at this point i'm so there's the so-called seventeenth century anglican divines
there's von and tray heard or you could have put george herbert before he knows this whole heritage and he can be read and should be reading this contemplative mystical heritage as such
that orthodox book interpreting him up sister secular does then right up to our own time and ts eliot to watch is four quartets he cites julian of norwich three times i can get the last quartets north and she'll be well in all manner of things shall be real and the whole apathetic traditions very close to him to
the point is is it's not one person it's a whole heritage and that can be important for contemplative rather lot of time just to do spiritual reading to get into a spiritual doctrine and teaching if you've got one individual that's very helpful to you that's fine but it's it
it's hard to remain sort of within the constrictions of any one person in his experience but if you've got a whole heritage you see one person nourish is another one person corrects another the cloud of annoying seems to be arguing a bit with richard rohr and water held and seems to be arguing with
cloud so this is fun not a kind of a violent thing but just decided that i don't agree with you here and that sort of thing so enriches or so there is a whole heritage and as i say it's not even at all closed into itself but it's tied up to the great amps a monastic bonds have fun
the rule gregory and also to the east
it's also very aeromedical heritage will see this later ah and it is tied into canal dele i'd like to make a long for emphasis now and going to fight we know this and why this can be interesting to us but just this year there was published this huge told by
our book librarian come out and a hugo fossa along with another italian scholar or the title is a kind of a catchy title the so more coffins because it's terribly expensive the title is library culture from elderly but what it is all about his spirituality
t at the hermitage
from the tenth centuries this and right down to the present
seen through the library how can you see a spirituality through the library was a whole medieval monastic heritage is that the library isn't just a kind of a place of culture it's an unhappy word under the respects but it's a kind it is the sacred place after this after the chapel of a monastery
and a special waiver hermitage because it's a place of the revelation of god
so another point to remember is that manuscripts were extremely costly extremely difficult to produce in the early years so if there is a minute manuscript in a library that's that's a great deal it's not as if here for instance some some seminary that's the disappointing two or three box
this of of duplicate and we put them on the shelves and no one here might ever be interested in that sort of thing i've seen sections in the library that i suspected out that frequented but there there now that wouldn't happen at the sacred hermitage you see if there's a manuscript there they've had to really make a sacrifice to get it there either through their own
scriptorium that came up leisure or to purchasing is very expensive things so if they decide let's take by this will not that are let's spend a year coffee this is not that it says something about their choices
so scholars have discovered this window into spirituality the hops so they're real breakthrough was recently they discovered the full inventory of the hermitage library of fourteen oh six every manuscript it was in
in the library at that time was this inventory so what they've done is publish this
about what is a three three hundred and five manuscripts quite a rich are ample library for that time breaks into so they've
publish the text in latin here
about twenty pages and the whole rest of this is simply built around it's largely on extrapolations and deductions
and when you start to think about it you can deduce a tremendous amount given these are
these principles and if there's a manuscript their it means a serious choice so you start asking yours than the other thing you know what manuscript was there for instance then you can go look for it and we know that many are in a library of florence in a redstone there's several in england it's just so you can look at them you can look them over often on
the title page there's a note by the canal really smug when they came into the library at the hermitage so this gets extremely interesting so you now no no not only what was there in fourteen or six but something on their inventory might have just arrived a month earlier some might have arrived to
centuries earlier you can start to reconstruct that so you can start to reconstruct the library at the hermitage through the centuries what was there this is what they're good at various the tenth century eleventh twelfth what was there in literature what reserve bible what was there commentaries on the bible when monastic rules
so you start to get a whole vision of their spirituality through the live with they lived an incredible amount of work they check this the counter check this will be a forty hour the line and library the other great a hermitage monastery of st peter damian and make comparisons
then they found all sorts of other inventories up through the sixteenth seventeenth century so they seek with library goes what changes come in it's extremely fascinating
so you can start asking very concrete questions for instance with the library reading st gregory
and how much as gregory the great with their lot with their little was there nothing this can be extremely interesting as a matter of fact there was a tremendous amount for instance of st gregory the great and there's all these sections of the library there's
commentary on scriptures patristic letters there's the section on moral theology etc was very interesting what comes first in each of these sections so gregory the great occurs very frequently and a curse as number one in four different sections so this
i was already suggesting a predominant influence of gregory the great at the hermitage energy energy to trace queenie came in all this sort of thing and would they reading clinicals yes they were
his work is that the very end see that vader where they reading the upper deck much i guess where they reading bead yes which works if bead of the commentaries which commentaries on this sort of things they did not have tape recorders but that will be interesting parts so you see how you can start to bill
build an intuition of with their spirituality is that what authors how much of each author and where it's placed in each section then what categories are there what categories aren't there for instance other books and philosophy are they reading sister or they reading plato are they not reading the this sort of thing how many men school
oops in the area of assuming this sort of thing so it becomes really quite fascinating
how many manuscripts in each category if hypothetically you've got two hundred manuscripts in the areas of philosophy
and to when the area of biblical exegesis you know something and is happening matter fact it's not get worried all the shoot area has to do with the word of god see say up
more than half of the men scripts have to do either scripture or with commentary scripture or homiletics which was simply commentary on scripture spoken sort of thing so half of these three hundred manuscripts her in that area now this is very interesting what do you do with that what specific books for instance you can get into that
that
to really reading the apocalypse here for instance they they know a real importance of the apocalypse and the hermitage from the several manuscript commentaries on the apocalypse they not a real importance of the canticle of canticles for the same reason so you get into this v
very interesting business
then the key that for them was decisive was the order of the books this can be for us rather arbitrary and dry business and we might follow a modified dewey decimal
but they didn't have a dewy decimal six a system that time so what order do you put the books in according to importance so what does your criterion of importance or according to some easy system there were in some of the monasteries and system simply alphabetical order but that what sense going to author topic etc
gets a little but that was not the order followed at the hermitage so what was the order and this puzzle these two scholars for some time
ah
so it starts out with a whole section on liturgy missiles are professionals gradually breviary soldiers
then liturgy of the word commentaries on the scripture biblical texts concordances
various commentaries in a section called moral canon law decrees constitutions the intersection of assuming theological sumer morals sumer ten things on politics and even a one work on politics then
stick of theology
then you get into
monastic and aeromedical rules then you can into martyr all itchy and it all ends up with criminals so they pondered what on earth does this order mean you start with liturgy and towards the middle of his canon law and and the summa launch
okay and full of philosophical soon etc towards the and aesthetical mystical theology than the martyr ology the lives of the scenes and chemicals can anyone intuit by ip behind this ordering weather was arbitrary or pull a kind of father bernard here why was he called
dutch albert the great
for the universe so why is do we have this order

for instance is canon law more important to them and aesthetical mystical theology comes first
or does it build up to mystical theology if it builds up why in scripture and why is literature first is that the least important for them or is it some sort of alphabetical order or
so for twenty thousand dollars
so they pondered this and so no no suggestions intuitions proposals
they pondered this
and then they got into with all this they got into medieval mystical theology and especially of the victory stairs where we do get technical to our topic and the big dreams and clinical this clinic uses the end was sort of interesting and it turns out that the ladder image
is decisive in all family's heritage there are two basic an elderly symbols one is the charles with to peacocks it shouldn't be two dogs for to peacocks for eternity is a very ancient christian symbol they spent dozens of pages discussing this snippets the other is the ladder remember the vision of around
old the people going up and down the ladder teacups ladder and then benedict and that
then wrong wolf so the ladder image now this is very important include goose and very very important didn't you go of saint victor
hugo of saint victor works out a qatar buses and an analysis of mythical descend from our high right down to the depths of the human experience and then in the moment of the incarnation the inaba since the return to heaven so this kind of gray
and mystical cycle of descent and ascent and the mystical and the medieval always starts with the on high and then gets down to us and then the incarnation the da vinci xi and then we can ascend with christ to the father of this sort of thing so a descending and ascending so the order of the monastery
arie reflects this and so they worked out a very direct parallel between the mystical theology of hugo of victor
and the ordering of the monastery of monastery library and this reveals the whole mindset the whole mystical vision of the hermitage in or centuries so fine literature because liturgy isn't there's dozens of pages that each one of these sections how
it's understood in the medieval heritage in a benedictine on the monastic in europe medical center just an extremely rich business so the eucharist it starts with the eucharist indeed the eucharist is the odd high it is the kind of the celestial moment for the hermit in a special way and they cite all the right
things from roof
food off and on the rest of it then it slowly descends in the office and the word of god is this on hi i'm a liturgy directed to us also the ordering of for instance the commentaries and scriptures as fascinating of for instance in our library there's a commentaries
i'm mark matthew mark luke and john their order is the commentaries on john mark luke and matthew in that order so it's obviously always a theological mystical order
ah so it goes down and down so you get down to the ultimate depths of the human experience and that's canon law so it's sort of funny so it's not the cannonball is more important than aesthetically mystical theology fronts that's as low as you can get
then given the presence of the divine in the human experience then begins the return to the eternal father like through philosophy systematic theology authentic authentic of theology which is beyond the theoretical philosophy and theology mystical theology
ten this rendered concrete in the lives of the seats in the motorola cheese and it ends up is a kind of a key to the whole thing in criminals so this is the whole bit but as i say it's a fascinating book and
again it gives you a suggestion of what's happening at the normal centuries and how things develop in decline in ceteris but there is the real him with the east but there is this amazing tie in with the victories and which is the tie in with the whole english thing so
we are related we are sort of blood brothers to of the east and also to the english west or which would then come out with the anglicans in the students and will see that later but so there are bonds that are extremely fascinating to look into
ah comments criticism internet
okay so let's get back to the english or why study the school of english spirituality why bother sort of thing you know there's all sorts of schools that mystical theology there's some that are much more known than others that the carmelites etc why study richard role in the cloud of unknowing etc
a mutt note some virtues that i think are very interesting he's very enthusiastic for the english school
ah in his essay for instance he starts right out there is every reason for interest in the english mystics they have a charm and simplicity that are unequaled by any other school this word simplicity comes up again and again and again in this essay is very interesting and charm is red
delightful but i think simplicity is getting a little more important for contemplative because autograph or contemplative life also can get a little burro can we can get to very complicated in our head but of simplicity can be a sort of decisive for for a healthy contemplative prayer
they are also maybe said generally quite clear down to earth and practical even when they are concerned with the loftiest matters so this is interesting if you're not interested in mystical literature is a kind of a cultural curiosity but you know the kind of to live into your prayer you just go to a certain point not just multiply
the words about the the ineffable but you know how to grow into your prayer
they never seem to have thought of their life with god as something recondite no hidden special esoteric or even unusual they were simply christians they rejoiced to know in christ their creator and redeemer they rejoiced in that in that in him the a direct access to the
father of lights so simplicity another deeper well another important motive he notes is this whole bit of this heritage is very rooted in the patristic heritage and this through the monks who the whole medieval english heritage which is profoundly monastic profoundly penny
addicting
medieval scholars say there's hardly any other nation in europe it was so specifically monastic in its middle ages as england was almost all of the cathedral's were related to monasteries and the schools were benedictine and all the rest of it but it was profoundly so
he also brings this out
the english mystics belong to the ancient patristic tradition which was so thoroughly transplanted into britain by the early monks as to become authentically part of the very essence of english spirit so the benedictine to the rule and the gregorian there's a whole debate today whether some greg
the great either use the rule or was benedictine and many scholars say he wasn't it's a very complicated debate but in any case there is at a you know unique gregorian heritage of monasticism add a benedictine and both got into england through augustan and through bead up and of course in a since sensitive
our amongst we can be happy about them because they came from gregory isn't gregorio and there's this historical time which is on at least fascinating but saw this very patristic of thing then he noted it was the protestants and anglicans of the nineteenth century who rediscovered this whole heritage the didn't last
after twenty you know you get into different things and you get into a certain jesuit and other schools of spirituality in rodriguez in the carmelites etc but we did rediscover this hotel gets in the nineteenth century ah
now there's another holt is it makes it interest old and distresses is benedictine monastic the several times right up to the conclusion
ah the chief characteristic of the english school at fourteenth century is it's hollow genius simple optimistic and personal quality and this is perhaps to have evolved to the fact that it developed out of the english monastic tradition the mysticism the english school is basically benedictine and cistercian
it goes back to the same roots as pseudo dennis through cation and gregory the great this is a little odd this connection you but at least expect a pseudo dentists cation to evacuate contiguous and the desert fathers and origin so he's carried to right back to the yachts the earliest
of this kind of experience
so that's encouraging it does remain always this little problem for us with the to the jesuit schools so that even a carmelite schools this specifically monastic heritage and up there's another thing that makes it rather interesting to us
it is a characteristically aeromedical
richard roe was a hermit and very proud of it and never wanted to be anything else are julian of norwich with reckless living beside a a benedictine abbey and apparently we don't know the authors a cloud of unknowing that's where the most fascinating mysteries so that everyone tries to solve it but there are some hypothesis
esses that he was a helmet to it seems now more probable that he was a kind of a country parson but contact with the whole a very learned country person but he certainly writing for a young hermit he says is explicitly at the beginning of the cloud of annoying
so it's literature for argument and water hilton there's some a hypothesis that he was a hermit before becoming an augustinian or kevin so
it's typically aeromedical in spirit and merton as a long thing on this of it may be argued that the english mystics word for the most part either solitary or in oriented towards your medical life this does nothing to disprove that their mysticism is rooted in the medieval monastic tradition of england
since the english hermits were obviously the full flower of the monastic tradition and this is nice and rather rare commodities so not worse or of juxtapositions but the one
as a harmonious compliment to the other sort of thing the hermit life properly understood as a life without exaltation of life not at the top of the ladder but in a certain sense that the bottom here we get back to them for more than anyone else the from it has to be a humble man this combination of simplicity years this word again individu
reality and humility of the english school night without ever present elements of humor is proper to a spirituality of men and women who have gone apart to live along with god so there's this of dimension of the spirituality that is interesting there's another quality that comes out a given
again spiritually isn't gloomy and sort of conscripted them dots richard intense etc it's just the opposite it lives in a kind of a joyous light of the original innocence and written comes back to this
several times
there is in fact and all the english mystics a characteristic realization of wholeness of restoration of returned to a primitive state of innocence the english mystics our paradise man and the more clearing spontaneous their awareness of paradise the more truly english is their contemplation then he goes into the whole thing
about a

whether they are mystics of darkness or of light the masters of the english school are all equally positive optimistic simple years this word again he asked if the cloud talks of darkness in nothing and yet he does not strike us as much less luminous than role richard roll with is fired song and sweetness the miss
a system of darkness is not a mister system of gloom we must remember how these mistakes appropriate the verse of the song night is my light in my delights it is a darkness illuminated by joy by the presence of the board all the more joyous precisely because the night brings him nearer and unites us to hear more
intimately than any light
so then he goes on and on about the doctrine of simplicity and joy when finds him nothing tragic nothing morbid know obsession no violence and says there's a critique less said the devil and of he says there's list so what does is there is in the english school less blood and anguish with
hell fire and whore than is to be found in any other school that's interesting so if you like hell fire this isn't a bags will things but and this is even with julian who has all these showings all these visions of crucified lord but this has never in a kind of a morbid a set
but the light of mercy and the joy of life in the risen savior transfigured even the vision of the crucified for lady julian this of course is it should be
so there's this which i think the is there is the temptation of contemplative to get sort of gloomy and depressed melancholic on one level or another
then the whole thing about creation and getting back to the original paradise than elasticity and pluralism the respect for individuality each one of these contemplative even if you limit limited just to those for is really quite unique quite unlike the other and this is delightful so
you see the continuity and the harmony but you also see very distinct an individual to here's a whole paragraph on that but we've already coordinates forty five minutes and haven't even gotten near our foundation so
we might close it up there
and don't go to this is
continuing coming back to the theme of love mentioned that and you know that sometimes we serve writers of a read of revolt rights on me
mirror of low that ton of his key tracks as free love of lasix or he caused the monastery the schools of charity the rules is where the school of divine service school
and here we have the school of school or car taxes that you know the whole substitution theology that moment there was a very rich mystical theology of love and it's very much so he's got this a near-earth love and richard have some victor has the four degrees of laws one of the main
works of richard role is the fire of love and a julian of norwich rights the revelations of divine love and one of the keywords to water hilton is the golden love so this is one of the themes it comes up again and again but again in in quite a variety of ways of stuff
handling it there is the whole bit
about this being english spirituality and in english this is the first the first expression of the english language some of the first forms of the english language in the fourteenth century are richard role and the cloud this is this is really quite lovely
you can get into a long discourse here
but it is interesting to be able to read really a classic the mystical life not in translation so to the these are up to modernized english but you can get the old english it's delightful the critical text which i haven't found in the library here but it's quite lovely sort of like we didn't trust her surfing but
i think there's something also theological hear that is if we're born into a certain heritage in a certain place in a certain century there's something behind this providential he presumably now with all our means of scholarship today we can't go elsewhere so to speak until today you can have a great scholar of augusta
he lives in japan are a great scholars and francis of assisi lives in india or something this is fine
ah and it enriches the dialogue and on the bit but it might be good if the man in india most about some francis auto know something about his own indian heritage that can enrich his own
understanding of st francis of assisi and it makes it more incarnate for his work in india this sort of thing
now
we had a distant relative of one of our monks who didn't even go for a month which young lad fourteen years old this relative and he was off to india because he was convinced that the only place you could pray contemplative lee was in india and this lad knew nothing about western catholic monasteries you do that
eight exists in the middle ages but he never knew that they still existed this sort of thing and so he came up to come elderly and we started dialogue dialoguing turned up well he ended up going to india and coming back but with quite a different perspective you see knowing that he had served within himself within his own history with only sold within his own language
stitch with with what you can come to terms first afterwards but sooner or later presumably so there is this bit it's not simply nationalistic you with these groups of comes to try you can get into a sort of thing of on my automobile is better than your automobile sort of thing and you can tie it into nationalism it so
audrey i'm not saying that but i am think this is part of our heritage in a away perhaps the vader's through something like this aren't so immediately and it might be good to know something about this there's also very as something rather a charming about he's been the first forms of writing
have you not english language of spritzing rather the first expression in our own tongue of the souls quest for god the cloud of unknown that isn't quite true it would be richard role that comes before this but that sort of idea but ah
notes makes the point that the latin language had gotten a little formalistic and so the latin treatises and contemplation and gotten a little formalistic into the style of writing nicely in latin so you have this first effort to get these things in your own tongue and there he
is a kind of in of simplicity their later the english language will become quite polished quite eloquent your before that also so you're after the latin formalities and before the english formalities so this again gives you a spontaneous simplicity that's really quite not
this charming but might get you closer to the of ineffable experienced and when you have to be mediated through a stylistic forms it yet is richard all right he writes in both on yeah he has some treatises in latin in some treatises in english so well
i haven't even looked in your library if it's a few and whatever they wish there was a degree of versions of general doesn't
i think that's latin from the titus is it from they are and if an english
what sure it's in english whether that is translation or
who do
i know you have a the for to get to the cloud you have the for current translations good translation to the cloud which is johnson's and then the penguin classics systems by an anglican discovered which with a long good introduction then you have the
what's his name of the
mccann and literature resorted to asthma inhaler was
what is of right
i think it's a slightly more antiquated peace but i don't think it's the original cha syria and iraq precisely system
so you have quite a with all the introductions and you had of nodes and of johnson was very good introduction which i think is better to the know sort of pregnant and then so you have a good little section and the cloud of unknowing i haven't looked up on the other sections yet long limbs
maybe we will have to shift over to the foundation after if there or other questions comments yeah just curiosity
the my question would be whether richard is and victor couldn't be
read consider sharing with born in new england i'm british isles yeah young went to france and because trainings for him
yeah gets a little arbitrary at that point if one is english or now martin says he certainly english now he's a disciple of hugo but the the whole nationalistic model certainly isn't is that important in the middle ages it is to us today but he says you should certainly discuss a richard
a typical translators were usually reflection
yeah i think so
see
you stand a ale or it over revolt i was talking to system says he should certainly be true to to word english mystics the customer has been you know
ah
arabs i think it was father's
mary priests saxon
yes
here there's one thing about a or it
in any case it certainly arbitrary but
i'm somewhere in here he discusses richard so i put them there altar and he is a english of origin in this sort of thing but it's certainly less important in this thing it's a whole is more it's a whole cistercian heritage rather than english or french or anything else but it certainly is
in this heritage and influences a later accustomed baker very much uses richard for instance
i think yes the cloud there's another time the cloud translates richards work on benjamin minor did i put in that line and we sort of their yes so in that sense there's continuity
other comments questions
but eventually returning more women women's will be using refuge
an important
and very rich in spiritual theology
so they called the means subject to the abbey here
are there any other questions
right
for the first time reading the convention was a first-time how tools any other manifestations
oh maybe it's on of writing writing perhaps as as they i've just started to write and read this thing there's a marvelous index so one could look up richard for instance insight into your several he cited dumped third times and they had the writings of richard they had the writings of hugo and
specifically the writing on a ladder a bit and so they're sure of that tiny now whether later writers refer to the they were certainly read and utilized and the whole thing that you tie him to hugo for the whole basic structuring of the library which their thesis is this of to
polls theological mr vision
on other things
a harmless time with community sharing with one of these experiences
in they describe these books
it was that one experience and read it that way
experience rooms
from now
well i think it's sort of like our library know there is the library to which you go to get books for your
spiritual reading now certainly i would think they would discuss them the recreations which will not that frequent etc but the be meditate them you know how the the monks meditate the spiritual reading which is all the interpreted as a commentary on this word of god and interests would certainly got inside of them and inside of their experience
it's and glimpse there's a manuscript their it means it's been chosen and at some sacrifice
brought their will copy their results are beautiful of examples of camellias calligraphy and father roy the prior of
oh for blackley of the anglican community he's a very good
calligrapher but this is neither here nor there but just to say that at a certain point there was the whereas as a cold scriptorium at the hermitage and they started producing their own
they're all manuscripts and that of course than or another time with the english there's a whole section on england here they have a manuscript here in the library to came from an english manuscript
so there's some time there and then he notes in the passage in come elderly we sometimes think it is right out in the absolute wilderness committee was right on the main highway from rome up north there were all sorts of foreigners coming through bringing all sorts of but this was the spiritual
exchanges it went on so of there's a whole section on that but here is the calligraphy to come out these calligraphy which also was a whole
this is the finer this is a more ornate for apart symbol which for them at a huge it was a kind of a little icon it summed up and i say they ever and again as eucharistic interestingly enough to or yeah the doves the very angry about that that represents a major decadence cause
attorneys are
it's a very biblical image of a eternity of
that there's a whole section on that an old section on the ladder the a symbolic grades of this symbolic a degrees so
the
medication or like loyal you said that i wrote the book in the water
it would seem like the
well that was
now are more them
sherry
so nylon
why thought you were in not dramatically but you're in england with the ice and snow mystics now will now the author of the cloud it seems quite evident very much wanted to remain anonymous which is rather lovely and interesting so it's not as if no one had ever heard of the cakes are obviously was staring work for a moment
a for a hermit a young hermit and one of the detections is he had quite an a group around him of he was a spiritual director we had a quiet a group that he was directing but it was no there was quite a bit of exchange and again of wanted him to knows the cloud and criticizes it implicitly
and the clown nose which had no role and criticism so there's quite a bit of exchange and the cloud indeed knows the whole eastern thing so it's quite a rich business of exchanges and continuities
augusta baker is an amazing tired of i didn't bring a holy wisdom but he he's read the whole thing you sort of a luton enough back in the sixteen hundreds and he puts it together and makes his own sort but this is fascinating images you grow for downstream
the worth it works on my limited as mean with know because as a a awoke up incentives will be harder gospel richards interest downstream
have you
that's so that's a fascinating thing set it up like a burrito
to be extended shirt the more them and think you could on i will what the judges doing
take a card like in san francis is he lost to be a up driving here in voters vote for him
right for us the any foods commonly
the carmelite because they talked as if you haven't read the op of coach but up google gave a whole conference and with all sorts of questions this sort of thing and people started immediately asking if this one yes this one looks carmelites i don't remember anything well let's remember this is fourteen or six on the internet
that's why there's no english school in our since it's it's that time or so but there is francisco this is very interesting there's a real influence of the first franciscan mystics on com elderly
oh it's a say in any of this can be a research
the other things yeah one could go on a great deal i wanted to sort of focus on the english thing entirely to two things the italian monastic in the eastern but obviously the italian vanessa could be filled that incredibly the eastern could be filled out incredibly and also the english sort of thing but not to make a to way
i had to turn it this way to as well as ways of lancelot and was considered one that
the religious right and the animal buttons your name which is a beautiful spiritual writer anglican where he's one of the seventeenth century design team up has a lovely book on private prayers it was equivalent collection of personal
where
no
last time
he mentions when newman with across and became one of ours he kept a lancelot andrew a book of prayers always find them non him despite the yeah
other comments questions so it is dirty
after the biggest to
yeah that's very fascinating there is just the summa contra gentiles that's not the summa theologica and it is there in an apologetic section d
the hermits were into counseling and this sort of thing so and it comes in later of co obviously consider later but it's or not you know
there's not a preponderant presence of also the whole canon law section it's small and it comes in quite late hundred years
yeah they think that things cooldown you're quite rapidly afterwards the library gets much larger but they say it loses it's typical here there's a whole mysticism implicit in our home specific vision afterwards it's it's a regular big library with a bit of everything
what all sorts of eastern farms i didn't put their that are gregory about nancy ann st gregory of nyssa basil they're all they're in translation of course so far as google knows there's nothing in greek but there's all sorts of things from the eastern trans
collation which she's interesting but as i say there's the index and
name and author index and also analytical dix you can just look up anyone clinicals what is their of clinicals this sort of thing hugo of some victor
for instance or peckham john peckham an archbishop of canterbury he's not a major writer but he's a good that medieval writer writes all sorts of things philosophy and theology and a very little mystical theology is one thing and mystical theology years that come out but there's other things aren't his commentary on the canticles
is it come out this thing is interesting so they're picking and choosing ah
so as i think it's fascinating
and ah they say this is just the beginning of a big discussion and debate in all the rest and or sorts of things a b et cetera augustan
so
i'm not hear that
but when again
international
i don't i know it was certainly an international community in the sense that there was as high week it goes not just by the monastery it's critical right through the monastery if that you did a commodity there's a huge monster below the hermitage is about and then there's you still see
see this this road coming up and coming right through the mean it's an amazing thing but apparently this that if the cultural journey
that is represented by the a document on opens up to a distant spaces the writings of william of multiple so i didn't put there was another englishman john of golems of ties canal dele in a
mysterious manner to the english schools of oxford in lincoln
others as i say even a manuscript was written in england
our solar system there was a certain international community in that sense and the fact that the victories just a couple of centuries but the richard of st victor's died in and hugo ch of richard of saint victor
die in eleven seventy three
so in the very beginning the fourteen hundreds fuego his master's already he's his writings richards or at canal the and are a decisive so there's all sorts of exchange with a with all of europe how many monks and hermits and i don't know that as keuka word i think it's would be good
to get you go over to the states and debts i talked to a site like to invite him up this berkeley goes and we weren't because he has lots of this in his head and a fascinating person or two men of real prayer and
he thinks the camellia gets to cultural at a certain point and he says at a certain point produces more professors that saints millicent delightful of
yeah but
it it's it
other things
st bernard music theory represented
bernard quite a bit
guillermo

ha
chris guillermo you could see pictures as he meant two things gregory of nyssa gregory reports that's interesting
gregory the theologian medicine so we're looking at williams
and now there's civic williams there's a de monte was the englishman dear is do run loose sense i can no english para todos and st theodore
his life of st bernard move that is he
mit den in the up analytical they're talking about all sorts of people who might not even be there actually moment that they discussed williams
i don't see too
for don't know about that one certainly bernard
yeah here's bernard
about twenty citations here
yeah twenty twenty citations
there's twenty manuscripts buttocks are twenty citations
it's a very complicated thing because they don't it's not as if the manuscript is titled or commentary on the canticle by bernard
it's entitled a manuscript it begins and then there's the latin text to the first words and ends so these poor people have had to work through the writings of bernard and you go in the whole thing to see if bernard wrote in fact not only that but you have the beginning at the end but it's not excluded that there would be
he also to things in the middle
so this is a minimum of what they had not a maximum this sort of thing
this ever
we're site of to off his name
oh was a working on it they've got it down with very careful scholarship to some place and i think it's the east midlands through the the kind of english dialect that comes out and they certainly all sorts of conjectures he was a priest
because he concludes i leave you with god's blessing and mind so there seems to be a such your total blessing in their of a country parson east midlands acquaintance with the religious life a largest circle of souls under his direction seems a certain consensus about this there's a whole group of scholars who think it was indeed walter
hilton but others denied this and it seems now more probable that it wasn't you know these scholarship but i don't know i think so charming that a real spiritual classic is anonymous you know soon as thing also the pseudo dionysus we have no idea i guess this conjectures all sorts of
but i think it's interesting and he'd apparently didn't want to be known you know he wasn't writing to get a nice the book i may be better than this
spirituality no no
yeah number of and average apathetic road ahead
pillar
after checking there are all sorts of writings in the middle ages we don't really know where the authors so often they are applied to so it's sorts on so but now they called pseudo the customer pseudo sorts of discussions here pseudo hugo some victor et cetera so it's nothing new at all
all right yeah often a writer to try to give more authority to his thing would there was less scrupulous city about but this meant simply apparently didn't you didn't tie this to anyone who just wanted to remain anonymous
that was an edge
yeah i think he's saying you know what i'm trying to say is more important than my name in lights sort of thing i think which is good
when i take a break the phone good
just a few notes about the anglican communion which is not unrelated to honest because at least the way the anglican see themselves as they see the church as a church of continuity ease when we think of the anglicans we usually think you know the church founded by enter the eighth
in the sixteenth century that's the way they don't see themselves so that if you want to offend an episcopalian ask about touch can mediate this founders something
our for instance mcquarrie
one other outstanding theologians to seduce this anglicanism as never considered itself to be a sect or denomination originating in the sixteenth century it continues without a break the ecclesia ugly kind of founded by st augustine thirteenth centuries more are present revered leader
church archbishop ramps and this was written some musical is reckoned the one hundredth archbishop of canterbury indirect succession to augustan himself so their main thing is continuity you see
and they say yes there was a reform and we were changed after but not radically they say it's like you romans now before and after the vatican council's of the council change this quite considerably many wins you know that mass now in the vernacular sytems or and we see the change and know
what but we feel it's the same church before and after but reformed now that's the way they've always considered and this is to the earthers earliest apologists that if you want to say earliest for then the earliest apologised to request and indeed etc but if the earliest specifically of anglican
anglican apologise insisted on this continuity now the continuity is very important because we've seen it's a continuity in the monastic and benedictine heritage and are you gonna do all sorts of interesting possibilities when the monks of the root of the holy cross with whom we have this covenant and dub which will be work
in berkeley i wrote an article for the review for religious stressing this basically monastic spirit in all of anglicanism what happened in the reform of the sixteenth century for them for for them and was essentially putting the liturgy of the cuter which we've had done after four hundred years later up making the word of god much more avail
able to the people much more space for the word of god in the liturgy the anglican church reads more of the word of god in the liturgy than any other church for instance is said at a vespers service they they won't read a few verses of charge you'll read a whole chapter of john after having read a whole chapter from similar note
estimate
and another thing is that their best person broad services are not just for the clergy but their basic liturgies for the parishes that all people participate in so this is a kind of an expression of this basically monastic spirit and the all of anglicanism will all of this is to mean that what we might be
involved in becomes considerably easier because there's this kind of
monastic common route
our to what we're interested in and to or what the holy cross is interested in but to the whole of the anglican a ecclesial experience perhaps
oh no the anglican communion as such this communion of twenty three national churches all over the world and australia africa canada etc i'm just two hundred years ago there was not one anglican bishop outside of great britain and now about eighty percent of the anglican bishops are
our outside i was at lambeth the gathering they're simple gathering every ten years of bishops was beautiful to see yeah they've really gone indigenous soaps all these black bishops and dutch there was a group of japanese bishops there with the translators in the hope it was quite an international church
in that sense a holy cross you're they were involved in it was founded in eighteen eighty one in the states it's the oldest mins border anglican in the states ah it is not just in the states itself also in canada and africa their behinds it's a protest that's a quite a longer history
one of their spiritual writers father hewson it's not did but he's quite an upstanding the certain books on that contemplative prayer with christ and god etc he is citing your people like
dacre benson bernard r gregory stressing a literature etcetera so it's basically or
what we're always there sort of thing
so that's the rushing of very slipped through the
the anglican communion now
the foundation as you probably know a last november twenty first said there was this sub decision after some comments of bruno i'm talking about new canal some thoughts about a possible of foundation of a little monastery in california the another italian or priest it was no chance or pushed me saying why don't be
does there seem to be on manpower problem who would do this so he said why don't you offer yourself so i talked to promote seconds or so i'm just a year ago then what happened we started talking i had some get to bruno and adam and and move the general is superior to what would be the basic
spiritual sketch of the thing and we've put together a document and then another document in english which i guess i didn't bring along
if anyone wants that but it just stuff i have lots of copies it's a sketch of the basic principle to the spirituality which would be centered on christ on the word of god and virginia grasp basic principles of monastic heritage
are you tell your prayer
i think this might be a link up with here i think the explicit strong witness here to the importance of contemplative prayer of recollection of silence etc obviously we wouldn't have intensity of this in a small a monastic ruben situation but we could certainly insist on it insist every day
period for into your period center and i think that would be very important it's very important for me for simply living the monastic life and so are very briefly it could go back to that in the christian period
so it would hopefully be a continuity with the whole a monastic heritage and come out the heritage the house will depend from can elderly
it also some kind of a spiritual bond
with newcomers me but not at all jericho we shouldn't do you know either fields with the together to service so sort of some sort of judical bond or that sort of thing
ah
this is a little parenthesis but maybe you know that for the big griffith was through here it might be that he i will be plugging into commendably as it were a he's looking for some sort of
relationship with a established monastic order that would be not just theoretical but also to radical but the critical side it would seem that you will be depending from of the general and the generals council the way berkeley will be so it would be an interesting thing camellia
as other houses depending from it at the hermitage in naples the farm down below in san gregorio but to have when quite a contemplative ecumenical house in india dialogue with the hinduism and then another house in berkeley it seems to me it's just a stretch that's a fascinating and also quite
to quite challenging and and i think it said
sort of and then he's interested perhaps in the presence he's hoping a beat griffis of our don bernard but bernardino was already been there a year living with him at his ashram are you very much like stone bernardino pretty he wants them to help out in the the further formation of a little ashram etc
that's how
turkey comic
hello
a senior competition
yeah
president
yeah
transparent
now there's things to work out certainly
oh don't rather on using like very high iq
from what you know chimps are said to me when i was just up there it's on it's way that is it's sort of finalized in the sense that yes we're going to do this how to work at all the details and said that's another thing but if i understood in a chance or right it has been decided and be griffis has chosen commodity which is rather nice
no he's not just choosing it a kind of a juridical opportunity but he's he's been looking for the house that for him
can you not be in communion with what he's trying to do in india
he liked her
but to try to do the exact connection here
there is a time out
yeah he's been at come elderly both a monastery in the hermitage as to understand so say he knows bernardino all the way he's already sent us a couple of one monk curiously an italian monk but and the time we'd gone to india and he suggested you go back and become a a western monk and the one monastery he picked out to go to
and this man spoke english really quite relative was was compelled league into this reason so there has been quite a bond of friendship and bernardino right shrigley to i think that the griffith is a kind of the spiritual father a bernardino
ah
so the protect now the whole ecumenical site we've gotta go into that for me again that doesn't compromise the contemplative site i think it'll be a commitment to push further
our father roy who's the prior of the community there he's quite a speech from and he's now doing graduate work in the institute of speech rally the people who come here what couple of times a year and he has been to japan he's very interested in western cat he studying that is the roman catholic institute as future
and he's also just in the dialogue with dutch the sand heritage etc
ah
so the prayer carry the hud how did the same get ecumenical i think it might be good to spend a little time on that because people might think it was some kind of us since to plot or something that is
so twenty first of november it was a projected start looking around seafood picked up one of the big issues was to find a job the economic that the sort of nuts and bolts from automobile are decisive for foundations
but there was the idea that brazil foundation one of the things that is holding that up is the whole economic things camellia is not in a position to throw a bankroll it for its first years at all or even three months so so the teaching side seemed a reasonable way for me to earn my keep for the least the first period so
the first thing to do is to find a teaching job was there a job available in california teaching so the first thing i did was right to certain friends and acquaintances in california is think they know any ends about teaching where we'd had this fellowship that we'd had this covenant relationship with holy cross with a couple of years also the fellowship had grown up
a year or so and we have visited berkeley up there so i wrote father roy the twenty eighth dates are interesting because it'll be the twenty that will be going up there i'm saying what do you know about a job nothing ecumenical at all so he started looking for a teaching jobs he seemed interesting because right there at the gtu with all the
friendships with the jesuits and dominicans in so he was really quite helpful and he offered one point to to write on every roman catholic teaching place in california i ended up doing it because there is more suitable but in any case he was quite helpful and so we had exchanges of letters simply on the level of job for
finding then in april he wrote me i sent him our fellowship newsletter etc and awfully nice to have a newsletter and that you're getting i'm glad that you've had some nibbles about to teach him then he said wouldn't it be fine if you could find a good teaching position in this area and the commodities and ohc could open
and up a joint house that would be a true ecumenical pilot project so this is the twenty seventh of april
some four months later after job hunting etc
so this is a concrete proposal and i felt i couldn't just ignore it or pretend it hadn't been made then sometime in the spirit the general of holy cross pass through and he made another reference to this obviously they talked it over among themselves
roy doesn't have the authority to make a proposal like this without their own superiors okay so some sort of answer was required so i talked it over to general benedict to a new chance or etc we decided to send back a kind of a reflection and various problems that there would be certain you're obviously eucharistic sharing our that be worked out
what would be the relation of that he should we talked a joint house you see so she writes back later this is june twelfth he says also nice to have your letter and accompanied tracked because that
in response to my suggestion of a joint ohc commodities have so one thing i would like to stress the whole initiative came from them it wasn't central watch it has taken me awhile to answer because etc then he goes on to discuss all the details that i brought brought up and death or covenant proceeded from
hi inspiration and socialist implementation and then the vocations things of course the commandments would want to attract vocations the witness of the foundation is would hold across how would a joint house effect this where the presence of a unity and diversity would probably enrich the formula so to speak i mean each community attracts a type in a corner
it's with a vision of it's founder and the witness who both or which zero sb under one roof could help a clarify a sense of vocation in either direction perhaps and goes on working about these details then he gets very concrete you see i've been looking for jobs i've had nibbles we were still thinking terms of a year from now perhaps
beginning teaching because it's very difficult riding teaching jobs in california
but he's the next year or things were very well this year so the housing issue starts to come up there were some more substantial nibbles from holy cross holy family college and they have an apartment so one possibly seem to be immediate first year a period than in the apartment to totally
family but that has its pluses and it's negatives but he says for the immediate future what would you think of tying in with st dominic's priory that's theirs as seems suitable in the event you take a teaching position in the area which wasn't adults from chances are we could arrange room for you in the building perhaps right next door to our monastics
then when our priory in marine county is given we can move in that direction that's a line that still puzzling to me i don't know if they've had a house offered them whether this is a joke or what but that's a whole thing that has to be worked out eventually other possible house and we've already looked with the lewis and
the in chance with two possibilities one in berkeley went outside but the whole area of space as suggested a joint house would be founded on the neutral spirit between the order since in our initial contact several musical that it seems to me must be the basis for everything on this foundation well disposed and mature members of both community should have little difficulty
in working out a common office and other living arrangements etc so they proposed it and it seemed to require some sort of answer so you're either going to say yes to them or no or maybe or let's give it a try or let's wait a while so we started at length discussing this of
the general chin so i dug a hole that i don't know not what point i looked at bruno but the dialogue was going
now we came to a kind of consensus that we couldn't say no to these people it's they've had to sacrifice making this propose that we shouldn't think this is all watch t but in any rate and we could neither say let's wait because what does let's wait to meet obviously if if we start the foundation
it's gonna take a certain direction we're going to be looking for our house looking for let's wait is equivalent of saying no so it's equivalent of closing the door
so then suddenly the teaching job did come through quite clearly and providential it was quite close or unpermitted year depending how you fight if you have to berkeley and then we wrote again on what what about transportation and he made me look into all this sort of thing and said the bard cakes and expert
ausable then there was all thing have been no chance or wanting to come every to study english roy immediately found a school for him it's free a very good school of english so things started on the very concrete level working through and that is a fairly important level and think making a foundation because center
i'm a beautiful ideas but nothing works and the pray you can't find a man where you can't find a house you can find the money or something but things seem to move through so
so here we are searching
one decisive thing for me quite frankly was there was a group of episcopalians in rome on an ecumenical pilgrimage from michigan state and i was showing them around rome and they were staying at some go or heal and then they had kind of an audience at the secretariat for christian unity and the they really put out the red
carpenter and your anglican man can and stewart spoke to them and he cited the lund principle which is this it is that we have now arrived to such a level advanced level of ecumenical dialogue that the several christian churches should no longer undertake any initiative separately
if it can possibly be done together
at any level and kennedy stewart says unfortunately we are still following just the opposite principle that is if we can possibly do it separately each on his own then will certainly do it that way so he was speaking so this sort of blew my mind that writing the middle of the vatican here was this month signori who was
talking about this loan principal and we were talking about thinking about this initiative this monastic foundation initiative and we had this very concrete proposal that was so waiting for a yes or no
of doing this jointly so don't do anything separately that you could possibly do jointly will at least we could give it a try jointly now this might not work out for reasons we don't yet see if it doesn't work out there will vary certainly take another road that's all that is the ecumenical thing is
not a scenic one oh it's not either this go through were i don't know we're going to go out and get married or something
this is a first try if this doesn't work out another more traditional model of a specifically extensively commodities house etc
so that's another aspect that seven have discussed one or two
the berkeley foundation does not preclude does not exclude other little monastic foundations or big monastic published either from newcomer the orphan come out a beard some a couple of proposed a kind of a model of berkeley as a monastic houses studies ecumenical than a larger
monastery not urban or rather like the big monastery it come elderly in the forest maybe then the hermetic cheer with
tyrannical relationships to be worked out but i just simply saying that the berkeley think does not want to be some sort of monopoly on the possibility of monastic foundations if other initiatives can be started from year or from commodity fine i on my part will do everything possible such to help is my hope is not needed find that it's so
there's that a wrinkle to the thing to
ah just were a couple of days ago i met with no chancel who's now been up there for forty days that he's been following sorta forty days forty nights
he's been falling their community life rather closely as i would sort of building up a kind of a joint community in small
now he has quite a critical since i mean if there's problems he'll see it sometimes you'll see problems when there aren't problems but he's got quite a penetrating eye and for me has been quite a test the fact that he wound up there first he is
he's very ecumenical deserve but his thing is not anglicans and this is really is first series contact with him he doesn't tend to like me
he doesn't to like english and he does like that whole culture at
that so now his first reactions as i got them we talked quite a long time were quite positive that as he sees no no problems ah he says it's almost impossible to sort of get into us a ferocious argument with these for observing the interpersonal
our vibrations this can be particularly important if if if you've got a small and asked the community it's always fairly important it shouldn't be decisive but it's important and especially if you're going with this added but these are very of warm open kind people are very dedicated to humanism as i say the roy
is very spiritual their youngest man is the king's first theology there are absolutely brilliant is a linguist he comes from a spanish background so we speak spanish and portuguese and french and he's already picked up a town are going in or is the most brilliant men in the theological seminary and he's very interested in new humanism
he is a matter of fact was roman catholic or we sometimes think that all going across as in one direction they have the great majority is the holy cross monks are converts from one thing or another most of them were methodists presbyterians something that there are some roman catholics as he's very serene about this and
so that's an interesting wrinkle but you know change was already proposing that he spent a period in wrong doing some theological studies there and he's quite interested in this new sheds was also already interested we have several clerks beginning their theological studies in italy that one of them do at least a period at berkeley
yeah images was fairly impressed with the ups
with the theological program
so there's hope but anyway in general did not see problems he thinks it will have the character of a ecumenical monastic house of studies are
but
i have either an a personal level on the theological level on any level of he thinks he's going drop he's impressed by the fact that berkeley is a rather the jesuits are the franciscans the dominicans the angry consult with insists all sorts of people there isn't a monastic presence it's already extremely acumen
nico atmosphere for the again there isn't a monastic and the stress of a monastic spirituality a monastic prayer the witness a monastic for could be very important and helpful and the whole ecumenical you know so
the community is urban i'd like to see a few words about that sometimes when things you can put a monastery anywhere you can put it in the forest put on the top of a mountain or christ and you can now put it during the jungles are in the desert and which you can't put it in the city who sort of thing so just the fact that it's an urban
monastery this already sort of the close it sort of speech well this is a view point of view there's also two points if you who in the good as the growth of me know that there is in the whole monastic heritage a very long thing on urban monasticism our own some gregory's which is one of the oldest monsters
in christendom
but that there's a whole series of examples you can give but i've been amazed in looking over the history of the order to find out how central it is to her heritage
there was hardly a major city in italy they didn't have its command the lease urban monastery many of them were very strict monsters they had a very high level of observance and there were very important for the cities but there was some
which were very important on st mary of the angels in florence it michael some pieces clements never right so i'm st mary incinerate so there were two commodities monasteries just in the city of a red sox st john the baptist and firenze or a etc etc st mary of the angels in bologna
yeah st mary in padova since several in perugia he's banisters produced st smaller insisted that the whole urban thing which was decided on quite before the whole of ecumenical wrinkle ah is is thoroughly command is also the whole study thing cause
you get a i can copy tensions here urban study a rural for a stock hermitage to to obviously different emphases that are coming in here and i think in the past week we've sometimes in our a worst periods felt sort of threatened one by the other that is if
one is doing one thing the other feel threatened if that's different from what i'm doing always the kind of doubt that he'll sooner or later want to impose that on me
but i think the commodities heritage it's best is saying this sort of unity in diversity and precisely because we are unified we can be incredibly diverse a tiered as the principle that a union of differentiates but the whole lump sum paul model of the body that the
heart is absolutely different from the i which is actually different from the hand but the aren't in organic unity so there isn't one richard mold of what monasticism should or shouldn't be and then you are excommunicate everyone else i think the canal commodities approach is this great
diversity so we have going here a small urban monastery with quite an ecumenical thrust this is what is on the immediate horizon so i see if this doesn't work out for reasons that have not at all emerged up to now of then we certainly take another and we've already agreed with
holy cross in cool at all be traumatic for our relationship the one with the other and it should teach us if it's ten seriously enough even a mistake even a not being able to go ahead will teach us something about the whole thing sorts of we feel that saying no to this opportunity
there don't seem to be the grounds for saying no that's the thing and what
what roy has proposed in in effect the hospitality they're offering has made possible that the thing has gone forward with a certain number
with a certain east and the way that other as i say other foundation endeavors have become incredibly blocked
and as i say my ticket different form but also the possibility of in so for instance again to to study etc that's all been made possible more or less by by this sort of the shape it's taken ah
other side's i guess that's about all
we can talk about them the the office they have their the sort of rhythm of life they have their that might come out questions that can have a large service in the morning of vespers service in the evening now