Anthony said to Albert Pullman, this is the great work of a man, of a monk, that is always to take the blame for his own sins before God and to expect temptation to his last breath. So he's not supposed to expect consolations from the King of Heaven, but rather expect temptation. Excuse me, there's another story about one of the brothers said that he was all clean of temptations, and the other guy advised him, well, you better start praying to have some. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he said, I don't have any problem. He said, well, pray to God, and he gave you some. There was another one who did that himself, who had become somehow too peaceful, and so he prayed to God and gave him temptations. What was that like? Did they continue to grow, continue to live, continue to suffer with Christ? They feel that they have to struggle in order to make progress, and also sometimes it's a matter of humility. They're suspicious of any peace or ease that lasts too long, because they know they're not

[01:02]

worthy of this. So this must be a demonic temptation, and I'll surely sin, but it may be untried, like this. And after those years and years, I suppose they get into such a habit of struggle all of a sudden, it's the only thing that they know. So the struggle represents growth? Yeah. Is that true? You know, it's hard to say, because it's all relative to your stage. In other words, you can consider these two possibilities. The normal possibility is that struggle represents growth, and so that the person has an inclination to run away from struggle into ease and peace, to retire from any kind of conflict, confrontation, struggle, into the introverted person who comes to the monastic life, I don't know, he usually has that tendency. So for him, struggle is very much equivalent to growth. Then you get another position, where a person is really being called by God into interior quiet, he's being called into contemplative prayer, and he's afraid to enter into that emptiness now, and he's got a compulsive need to act all the time, all right?

[02:03]

So he's going to be looking for struggles, where he should be just entering into the peace of the Lord. John of the Cross talks about things like that. So it depends very much on the individual. You can't generalize in these cases. Okay. Well, there's a peace and a joy that's there even in the middle of your struggle, that's the thing, you see. Like where Jesus says, I leave you my peace, but not as the world gives, do I give you peace? In other words, you'll have afflictions on the outside, but you'll have peace on the inside. And sometimes a person doesn't even know the peace that he has, because he's preoccupied with his struggle, but other people can see that peace, you see? This is true of a lot of advanced religious, I think, who are deeply into a life of prayer, who have a lot of suffering, and they think, oh, my goodness, I'm all messed up. And then they go to their spiritual director, and he says, well, you're marvelously peaceful

[03:06]

in spite of your struggle. Somebody else can see it, but they can't see it. And yet the peace is there. It's a strange thing. It's like being shot full of Norvocaine or something. It's something much greater to be able to support the trouble that every man has to support, and to bear the sufferings of mankind and have peace in that, that's something else. Who had, I mean, since he was 20, he was an older man. Many illnesses that were nearly to death. Yes, yes. So most people didn't kind of care about him. He was a good man. And he kept on coming out of this, and people were just so, so, so overwhelmed.

[04:08]

He kept on enjoying the company, which was a great miracle that he was given. Yes. That's the Christian thing, really, is to be able to have peace in the midst of the sufferings. You find that very much in St. Teresa, I think. She had all kinds of things to suffer in. She had this unshakeable peace. And the peace is largely, in a sense, the product of the suffering, just like the strength of a tree is largely due to the winds that it has to resist and everything. Okay, now, in 39, he gets to a kind of a ladder of virtues here. This, we gave some attention to this last time when we passed through here. I'll put it off to next time, and we'll talk about it a little more then. But compare it with Chapter 7 of St. Benedict's Rule, the chapter on humility. Because this is the source of St. Benedict's Chapter 7, and Chapter 7 is the heart of the

[05:11]

Rule of Benedict, you see. So this is very important here. You'll notice that the structure is different, however, because St. Benedict talks about 12 degrees of humility, and Cassian is talking about 4 degrees of virtue and 10 signs of humility. Now, humility is one of his degrees of virtue. You see, he goes from fear of the Lord to contempt of the world, which is detachment, which is poverty, which is nakedness. Fear of the Lord to this detachment. And this detachment to humility, and from humility to love. So he's really got 4 stages, and the 10 signs are the signs of the third stage, that is, of humility. And then St. Benedict takes that and makes that the heart of his Rule. It's in that Rule of the Master too, in between the two. St. Benedict took 12 degrees of humility. That's right. But he's got the same signs, and then he adds two more. See, he changes the signs of humility, of Cassian, into the degrees of humility. So here in Cassian you've got a ladder with 4 steps, which in St. Benedict turns into

[06:16]

a ladder with 12 steps, because the signs become degrees. They become steps, you see. But that metaphor of the degrees, you always have to take it with a grain of salt. Especially because one of these things doesn't really follow another one in a unique way. There's always a mixture and a kind of a cyclical effect, as we'll see later on. And then in Chapter 43, at the end, he boils the whole thing down in a slightly different way. You can compare the two. He's got a different ladder there, but it includes the same 4 steps, but with other ones in between. Where he says, we go from fear of the Lord to compunction, from compunction to this nakedness, from nakedness to humility, humility to the modification of desires, from that to the elimination of false, from that to the growing up of virtues, from that to purity of heart, and finally from that to love. Which holds later also for the conferences, isn't it?

[07:23]

It's interesting to compare with what you find in conferences. One conference perhaps that's the most relevant to this, he says the one on purity of heart, but his number 11 on perfection, and you remember those of you who were here then, that that goes from fear to love. From fear through hope to love. What you just mentioned, did you say St. Benedict Chapter 11? What was 11? 11, Conference 11. Conference 11, okay. Yeah, the reference in here is, what is it? These things are... I haven't got the page reference in here. That's alright, I can find it. It's the one on perfection. Okay, let's stop there and we'll finish that next time, then we can go on with gluttony. I know you all have heard that.

[08:23]

Because in the one on gluttony, number 5 there, he talks about sort of the whole structure of the Eight Evil Thoughts anyway. He builds his foundation and then he starts with that. Hello, everybody. Cassius Institutes and Regattas for Chapter 39. And we're in the middle of Panofius' discourse, which is pretty interesting, pretty good. It's a pretty good sermon he gives to this. This candidate. Now we get to the point where he talks about sort of the ladder of virtues. And there's a lot of literary stuff in here. You can tell he didn't just sort of... This doesn't sound like what comes automatically out of the heart of a desert father. But it's got a past to it. And it's Chapter 39.

[09:30]

It's one of this genus, there's a literary genus of ladders, you know, of scales of virtues, where you start out with one situation and you go to another. And the fathers really loved to do that. St. John Climacus, his book is based on something like that. You know, he's got these 33 different levels. But of course, whenever you see something like that, you know that things are not as simple as that. Things are not as linear as that. In fact, at another time he'll tell you that all the virtues are one. And so we'll have to ask ourselves about that. What is the relationship between them? The simplest way to, after all, to set things out is one, two, three. You're trying to analyze something, so that's what they do. Let's read Chapter 39, then. The beginning of our salvation and the safeguard of it is, as I said, the fear of the Lord.

[10:36]

So that comes from the scripture, you find that in several places in the wisdom books. And also, however, you find the statement that the fear of the Lord is the perfection of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the fullness of wisdom. And that can annoy the dickens out of you if you don't understand that. If you like that graphic, how are you going to build a ladder then? I guess that the foundation is conserved in the whole construction of the building, in a sense. And so many things in the spiritual life, we find that the beginning is the end. In some way, the end is found right in the beginning. There's those words of Eliot, what does he say? When we get there, it'll be as if we've been there for the first time. We'll be back at the beginning, at the end of the course. And it'll be as if we were there for the first time. As it were, the end is the rediscovering of the beginning. And the end is somehow contained in the beginning. But this fear of the Lord that he's talking about, however, can be kind of a heavy fear of the Lord.

[11:39]

There's another kind of fear of the Lord that comes later. We saw that in that conference on the two species of fear of the Lord. Fear of punishment and then fear of, as it were, hurting the Lord. Okay, the beginning is the fear of the Lord. When this is gained in entrance into a man's heart, it produces contempt of all things and begets a forgetfulness of kinsfolk and a horror of the world itself. So the second stage, second step is this kind of alienation from the world that comes from the fear of God. As if God in some way were contrary to the world. We have to remember always when we run into this, the sense that the word world is being used in. And yet, don't expect Cashin to analyze that and to describe it carefully, to delineate it and draw a line around it to define it. Because the world is just used by monastic writers without much precision. Don't you find the same thing in St. John?

[12:40]

What he means, of course, is attachment to the world. He means particularly the world of sin. But you're going to continually find God being put against the world as if they were two contrary and uncompromisable realities. So the fear of God begets a kind of horror, he says, of the world. The fear of God begets a kind of horror of the world. So isn't it the same thing, the same wordiness towards the flesh when they speak about the flesh? Yes. In fact, in St. John's letter you find the world, the flesh and the devil lumped together, right? As being the three great pulls away from God. Then they're talking about the carnal. Is that in St. John's? The carnal and the world are very much the same thing. Now, this is interesting that you brought that up because on Sunday we were talking about the body and we're going to be talking about the earth, okay? And the connection of the earth and the body because the body is really the earth which is inside you.

[13:42]

If you like, it's outside you, which you shall. But if we talk about that spiritual body, the body of the resurrection, your body is going to be sort of the world which is inside you, which is inside your spirit, which is inside your person. So that you lift up, in a way, the whole world inside of yourself. Now, we begin to do that already in some way in our heart, which is both spirit and matter. And there we have to be very intellectually lucid in order to be able to say something. That's true. Now, you spoke of world and the carnal. Carnal means fleshly, of course. The flesh as being the same too. Now, there you have very nearly the same two realities in the dark light, you see? In the shadow instead of in the light. We talk about the spiritual body and we talk about the earth. As if the spiritual body were the salvation, the elevation, the spiritualization of the earth in the body of man. Then we talk about the world and the flesh as being kin, you see?

[14:45]

World, flesh and devil. Earth, body and God, okay? Two sides of the thing. One is on the light side, the side of Christ and the resurrection. The other side is on the dark side, the side of sin. Other side of the unredeemed man, pulled by the world. And in the world there is a very complex and global reality. It means everything. It means the earth too. Flesh and body and God. Is the world and sense of creation, is that supposed to somehow transform the resurrection? Yes, that's right. So it's not going to disappear? No, it's not going to disappear. It can't really, because man is made obviously to live in some kind of a world. Man needs a world. And even if you think about the risen Christ, okay? That dogma is absolutely solid in Christianity, that Jesus is risen in the body.

[15:48]

Therefore, what's he going to do with his body if there's no world for it? It would be meaningless for Christ to have a body if there were no new earth, or no new bodily reality, bodily world for him to live in, in the body. The same thing is true of us. It's even more true of us. Because he has his divine life, which you can picture as being more, I don't know, the life of the Trinity, which you can picture as fulfilling him completely. But for us to be risen with a body and then have nothing for that body to relate to, would be absurd. Now, you can picture that body relating to one another, right? If we're risen in the body and we have some kind of social communion through the body, as well as on the spiritual level, as we do now. But what that will be is impossible to imagine. But you see how it sort of follows logically and necessarily from the fact that the body will rise, that there will be a world for the body to be in. Remember also that Jesus says in the book of Revelation,

[16:51]

Behold, I make all things new, I make a new heaven and a new earth. A new heaven and a new earth as well. So it's not that the earth just gets abolished. Even though we tend to think it will be abolished because we hear of the disasters of the last times, we hear that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom. And it's presented to us in a way which defies our imaginations. That's what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, Don't try to imagine it, you've got no idea. You're looking at the sea, don't expect that you can imagine the full plan. There's going to be some kind of reality in which spirit and matter are really married. So that no longer do they pull against one another, but one perfectly reflects the other. Not to get too far off the track, but sometimes I hear heaven is spoken of as though it were supposed to be a physical place.

[17:54]

That's a good question, what is heaven? And everybody can give his own answer to that, I think. Now it's not a place in the same, it's not a place that's continuous with our places in space. It's not a place in space as we know space. That's impossible, right? You can't put heaven into our space. In other words, if you go out on a missile, a rocket, you're not going to run into heaven, even if you go very far. That's what the Russian astronauts thought when they went up there. They actually did say that. Is that right? Well, you see, these Christians are wrong. There's no heaven up here. I remember some of them. You really said that. They're materialists. But what is heaven? Heaven is a state, heaven is not a condition. I'd rather consider heaven to be a presence. In other words, heaven is a mode of presence of God, and a manner in which you are present to God in such a way that he gives life to you, in such a way that, I don't know, that you enjoy his life, that you participate in his life, okay? Now, we think of the angels as being in heaven.

[18:57]

So the angels are in that relationship to God, in that presence of God, in which in some way they share his life and his life. So that's what it means for me. It means kind of a presence of God, which is, as they used to say, full vision. The easiest way to think of it is like that, but also on the other side is being different from the state that we're in now. I mean, that's obvious, that there's a transparency and a brilliance and a fullness that's not in the state that we're in now. But I think we make a mistake by trying to say too much about it. I don't think we make a mistake by thinking about it. I think we should think about it. It's a good meditation. Yeah, sure. That's one of the troubles. That's one of the reasons why Christianity goes flat nowadays and is powerless, is because people don't think about heaven. They don't really believe in it enough to think about it. And that's because the present reality is so persuasive. Just the surface of things is so overpowering, especially in the city, you know.

[19:57]

Because there's a man-made universe there with millions of automobiles and everything that's so powerful that you can't possibly, when you're in the middle of that, you can't possibly believe in anything else. Unless a special grace comes and touches you, you know, and awakens something. But we really should. There's a good chapter in Leclerc's The Love of Learning and the Desire for God in terms of devotion to heaven. Devotion to heaven. It's got some beautiful literary texts in it, too. And especially in connection with the heavenly Jerusalem. Remember, we were thinking about that a couple of months ago. But to heaven in general. Because the monks say, really? That's the eschatological view. That's where the monk is supposed to have his eyes fixed. Which seems absurd to anybody else. It seems like, you know, just gazing into the clouds. Does he advance the coming of that heaven by practicing? Well, we can only speculate on it, but I believe that he does, yes. Because, first of all, you advance it for yourself. Because to focus, you begin to become what you focus on, right? You begin to realize what you believe in and what you fix your mind and your heart on.

[21:01]

And especially in this case. And when you talk about heaven, you're talking about something that has God in the middle of it, right? When we talk about heaven, we're talking about God. Can you say God plus? No. Not God plus something, you know. But just God, who is able to radiate the way he wants to radiate now. Which means the creatures, the angels, the beautiful things that are around him and so on. Anyway. This is not about heaven. This is about... This is about the vices. Where did we start from on that digression? The body. The body up here. And where did we come from there? Contempt of all things. Contempt of the world. See, we only got to the second degree. So, but by the contempt for the loss of all possessions.

[22:05]

And this means that contemptus mundi, that's a thing that's been very much criticized nowadays. There's a guy who wrote a book against Saint Peter Damian because of his contemptus mundi. Contemptus mundi is a monastic thing. It literally means contempt or despising the world or hatred for the world or whatever. And it's easy to misinterpret that. But you find, especially because the monks talk about it so carelessly, you know. They talk about contempt for the world as if you hated everything in the world. Even Jesus used that language, you know, that he who does not hate his father, his mother, his brother and so on. But you've got to understand carefully what he means. The same with his contemptus mundi. And this brings you to humility. And then he's got these ten signs of humility, okay? And then I'll skip through those right now and we'll return to them. For by such signs and the like is true humility recognized. Remember that these are the degrees of humility, the grades of humility of Saint Benedict in Chapter 7. And when this has once been genuinely secured, then at once it leads you on by a still higher step to love,

[23:06]

which knows no fear. So fear has disappeared and now there's just love. And through this you begin without any effort, and as it were naturally, to keep up everything that you formerly observed, not without fear of punishment. That's that survival fear. That's that first base kind of fear. No longer now from regard of punishment or fear of it, but from love of goodness itself and delight in virtue. So, that's beautiful. So the idea is that when you get to that point, you're really operating from what's inside of yourself. In other words, virtue is operating for love of virtue. Love is operating for love of love. It's no longer being chased away from something. It's no longer being motivated by something outside of itself. You're no longer being motivated by something outside of yourself. You can say, well, that perfection, that heaven or whatever is outside of yourself. Yes, but it's inside of yourself too now. And it's proving it by the way that it manifests itself. In these virtues. Let's compare that now with the Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 7.

[24:08]

Briefly. I didn't get the Rule of the Master, because that's the intermediate step, you see, between Gashin and St. Benedict. But that's too much of a complication to bring that in, so we'll just deal with these two. If anybody's curious, get the Rule of the Master and compare how he works in between Gashin and St. Benedict. Chapter 7 of St. Benedict. He spends a long while on the first degree of humility. And remember that all 12 of these are degrees of humility. And remember that he's really got a ladder here. Now, Gashin's only got four steps in his ladder there. But for the third step, which is humility, he's got ten indications, ten signs. See, the four steps in Gashin's ladder at that point are, first of all, the fear of the Lord, secondly, his contempt of the world, which is poverty or detachment or whatever you want to call it. Thirdly, humility, and fourthly, love. Just four steps. It's very simple. And notice the progress from fear to the Lord.

[25:11]

Usually, for the Fathers, those are the two extremes. And that's, of course, verified in St. John and so on, where St. John says that perfect love casts out fear. And yet, in the Old Testament, it's said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So, that gets put together in that way. And besides, by their experience. See, conversion is a matter, first of all, often of a kind of fear. A person, lots of people have been converted by seeing a dead person, a relative, or by seeing a terrible accident. Well, lots of people have been converted by having some disaster descend upon them. And yet, when we say fear, we've got to be very careful. Because there's a whole spectrum between just the fear of being hurt and the fear of suffering, the fear of revenge, of punishment, of being killed. And the kind of fear which works into your heart, which is really a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, which goes all the way to the other end

[26:13]

of a very delicate sensitivity to a relationship of love, whereby you don't want to do anything that's going to hurt the other person or that's going to hurt that relationship of love, you see. And this is true between people. You can be afraid that somebody's going to find a clobber you, or you can be afraid that you're going to do the least thing to hurt that person. Now, there's a world of difference between those two things, and they still... both of them can go under the name of fear. But we talked about this at another time, so there's no point going into it in detail. I went to the kind of dumb lengths of making a table of comparison of the indications of humility in Gashin and the degrees of humility in St. Benedict. And they're pretty mixed up, it turns out. They don't follow in the same order, which is okay as far as Gashin is concerned, because he's not pretending to make a ladder of signs of humility, you see. He just says, well, these are the indications of humility. He doesn't say they're in order. But St. Benedict does propose a kind of order.

[27:15]

Now, 11 and 12 in St. Benedict you don't find in Gashin. They're not there. But running from 1 to 10, there's roughly a parallel. Except that, especially the fear of God in Gashin, which comes before his indications of humility, is fused with his first indication of humility. And then you go on pretty much up the same scale. Some of them are exact, literally taken from Gashin, the same words. And some of them are changed around a little bit. The sequence is basically the same. Really, Gashin's presentation, I think, is the most preferable in general, to call these signs of humility, and not to make them into a ladder, because it's obvious that they don't follow in the form of a ladder. For instance, it's obvious that, take St. Benedict's, what is it, the 8th or the 6th? The 7th degree of humility is that

[28:21]

he considered himself lower on the blessed count than anybody else, not only in verbal protestation, but also with a most heartfelt inner conviction. Okay, now that's the peak of humility, all right? And then look what comes after it. The 9th, the 10th degree of humility is that he'd not be ready and quick to laugh. Well, that's no... See, that's not a progress. That's just an exteriorization of the perfection of humility. So that sequence in St. Benedict doesn't really hold up in that fashion. When you get to number 7, number 7, you're really there. That's really the interior acquisition of the grace of humility, which is not something we do, but something that's given to us. In passion, that number 7 is number 8. Faithfully, if he does not only outwardly profess with his lips that he's inferior to all who really believe in him, he has no thoughts of his heart. And then he too moves to the two outward ones,

[29:21]

not talking too much and not laughing too easily. But he doesn't pretend that they are steps beyond that one. So you see how Cashin's scheme really holds up somewhat better than St. Benedict's. There's one thing there that Cashin doesn't have that St. Benedict puts in, and that's at the very end where he's talking about the fruit of this whole ladder, where St. Cashin says, No longer now from regard of punishment or fear of it, but from love of goodness itself and delight in virtue. Listen to St. Benedict. No longer will his motive be the fear of hell, but rather the love of Christ, good habit and delight in the virtues which the Lord will deign to show forth by the Holy Spirit in his servant now cleansed from vice and sin. So St. Benedict puts it into, as it were, a Trinitarian context. He says, now for the love of Christ and that's important at that point. That really crowns it, it really puts a blossom at the top of the whole ladder there

[30:23]

which Cashin hasn't put in in his more, slightly more cold ascetical treatment. Now we could talk a lot about back and forth about those degrees of finality that all business is considering yourself to be the worst of all. But we've talked about that at other times and we will at other times so I'm not going to go into it now. Because it's easy to say, well you know that's neurotic. we don't need to go into that discussion. Because those things, that particular one is a grace. And if you read the saints, that's the way they feel. Whether or not you want to say it's objectively true, that's the way they feel. There's an area, there's a spirit which comes into a man that gives him a new consciousness in which he simply sees things in a way that other people don't see them. A good example of this is Brother Zasima there in the Brothers Karamazov. But also Zasima's brother,

[31:24]

the brother that died when he was young in the Brothers Karamazov, is beautiful. Just that kind of foolishness that he has, which is unable to see evil because people think he's a lunatic. Because you can't square that with reason and with our ordinary ways of thinking. But that's an insight that's given to him by the Holy Spirit. But sometimes the language can throw us off. That is a discovery of what proceeds from the heart. Yes. So you see that in the way that's in your heart is expressed in the world. That's right. And you see that in your heart is all the evil in some way in the world, but also all the good in the world is in your heart, you know. And you know this in a way in which it can't be discussed and other people can't understand it. It's just a different level of knowledge. Chapter 40.

[32:25]

That the monk should seek for examples of perfection not from many but just from one or a very few. When we get to the next chapter here, the next book, we're going to find something that seems to contradict this. It's interesting. He says, seek your examples from very few or indeed from one or two only, not from too many. Yeah, he does contradict that. But we'll see. I think we can see why. Now here he's talking about the beginning. He's talking about the cenobitic life. Later on he's going to be talking about a more advanced stage. I think that comes out in the way that he discusses it. So he says in the beginning just pick one model and imitate him towards this perfection of a cenobitical life. And also he's talking about the spiritual father, I think, and therefore not wandering around having different spiritual fathers and so on. He doesn't come right out and he does not say that but he's got to.

[33:26]

Chapter 41. Now this is good. And here's another one that's easy to criticize and easy to misunderstand perhaps. So that you can do all this you have to do three things. You have to be deaf and dumb and blind. And then he says you have to be a fool. That's the fourth. He calls this honest. He's like a deaf man and heard not and is one that is dumb and doesn't open his mouth and I became as a man that hears not and in whose mouth there are no reproofs. Well, the meaning of this honest there is not exactly the same as the meaning that Keshen is putting into those words but you're used to that by now. So you should also walk as one that is deaf and dumb and blind so that putting aside the contemplation of the one who has been rightly chosen by you as your model see how it hooks up with the chapter before. You have to be a blind man and not see any of those things which you find to be unedified. I remember he's talking particularly about the beginning of the monastic life here

[34:32]

and the person comes into the monastery and he's likely to see all kinds of things that just blow his mind because he says, how can this be? I didn't think the monastic life was that. I didn't think there was this kind of imperfection and this kind of selfishness and this kind of laziness and laxity in the monastic life. But people always find that and in the beginning they can very easily just be completely disillusioned by it and they can even leave because there's a regular curve you can almost plot depending on how idealistic a person is when he comes in and how much or little experience of the world and of men he has. And it's especially true of people who have experienced a drastic conversion in their life especially, we found it to be true especially true of people it's true also in the church people who are converted to the church at first when they're converted they see it as being absolutely flawless Catholic Church

[35:33]

and then the sort of romantic haze begins to, the mist begins to blow away a bit and they begin to see the human defect they begin to see the other side and boy, it can really crush them it can really knock them down. So, the same thing occurs in a monastery. So, they almost need to put in put in intensive care at that time protected soothed. You should be like a blind man and not see any of those things that you find to be unhelpful. Also, you have to remember the monastery is made it's not a, it's a school and it's not a sort of place of perfection where everything is sort of a sterile greenhouse where everything is absolutely absolutely perfect where as soon as you step in the door you're supposed to enter in that state of perfection the idea is that we get trained by by perversity and by contrariety if you read the old monastic literature the stuff that went on is really something you know, beatings and fights

[36:36]

this and that people jumping over the wall and going out and getting into trouble Do you ever think that the older monks would want to get there? Well, you would think that you would think that but Saint Benedict says don't judge a man by his gray hairs you know, don't judge virtue and seniority by gray hairs but by something else by what's inside so even that and that's the hardest thing to take is to see people that have been in the monastery for 40 years and who you just don't want to you don't admire them and you don't want to be like that Merton talks about that a lot in contemplation of the world of action the poor young candidates that come in and they see a brother so and so and a father so and so and they say, am I going to be like that? At that point you have to remember also that your life is your own you can't expect the monastery to turn you into something like a fruitcake or a loaf of bread but it's up to you what you're going to become and if you want to become like brother X you will or if you don't

[37:38]

nor be influenced by the authority or fashion of those who do these things now part of this is an example of just seeing things that just discourage you but part of this is I mean bad example just edifying things things that discourage you but the other thing is influence the idea of being deaf to the people who are going to insinuate that there are going to be people around in the community who will try to poison your monastic spirit by, I don't know, just injecting their own thing in this is one of the reasons why monasteries especially Trappist monasteries have been very leery about having a lot of workers around who are not really part of the monastic life because what happens is they get into a situation of ill feeling towards the community for one reason or another they don't react to being kind of second class citizens or something and so there's a spirit of kind of criticism and of ill will

[38:43]

and of murmuring that develops among them and then it starts to pass into the monks you see then the contagion passes to the monks because the monks make friends with these people especially if they're work women and that can really be ruined and we've had that experience in the past too so you have to be very careful with the kind of people that you have living in fairly close contact with the monks there's a world of difference between the people who have a positive spirit take somebody like Lee for instance who's got such a spirit of positivity it would be very hard for him to fall in love and you get another kind of a guy that's always a little bit discontented always wants to put a little something into your ear and who's got problems with the establishment but it also comes from within the community if you hear anyone disobedient or insubordinate

[39:43]

or disparaging another or doing anything different from what was taught to you you should not go along and be very strict and that can be very hard because these people they can be in and of issue with you or whatever they can seem to be your friends they can be very attractive and persuasive people you can see how there's a lot of truth in what they're saying that's the trouble you see because there's always a lot of truth in these things in criticism in the worst kind of criticism usually there's a good deal of truth but you don't judge it's not so much a matter of judging the content judging the truth or falsity it's a matter of discerning the spirit is it? discerning the spirit what is in the heart besides the truth besides the content besides a fact or a statement there's a spirit that goes with it every time and is that spirit positive? is that the spirit of Christ? is that the spirit of love? that word edify up-build is very important or is it the spirit that tears down? is it the spirit that causes division? is it a spirit which is basically egoistic dissatisfaction

[40:45]

some kind of frustration which is trying to now defend itself and give its own back you have to make that discernment and if somebody starts putting that poison in your ear you've got to cut him off for your own good that gets into the whole thing about murmuring which he was so so absolutely about but like a deaf man as if you'd never heard it you should pass it all by if insults are offered to you or to anyone else or wrongs done be immovable and as far as an answer in retaliation is concerned now here's where the dumbness comes in here's where he does agree with the prophet in the psalms because the psalm was saying I was like I didn't open my mouth and that means when one is insulted or misjudged or something not to have to justify oneself and especially not to have to come back with violence with anger and that's hard it's not easy at all always singing in your heart this verse of the psalmist I said it will take eternal grace to open my mouth there's a miscommunication

[41:47]

yeah well that's some things have to be cleared up okay and so it's a delicate line there often a person has to ask a little advice on a question like that there are times when you can just be misjudged and you can take it perfectly well and no harm results there are times when you can be misjudged and if you don't straighten it out several bad things may happen so you've got to straighten it out in most cases but you should clear up your motives clear up what's inside your heart before you do it the idea is that I'm not just trying to get rid of this pain of being misjudged but I'm doing this because I feel that I have to clarify I have to prevent the other evil the sort of evils that can happen are if somebody for instance misinterprets an action of yours and thinks that you did it out of ill will thinks that you in other words he's going to take that as a bad example so he may do the same thing

[42:48]

you see if he thinks oh I don't know he finds you doing something say eating out of hours or something like that or eating something in an ordinary way that we don't have okay now he makes a judgment and he says oh my gosh he's sneaking this thing all the time I didn't know that was gone it sounded like a good idea but so what are you you've got to tell him well my doctor told me to do this my doctor told me to have this bottle of beer before I went to bed see in a case like that if you if you don't explain it you're going to do damage to him I mean presumably it's true I mean your doctor told you you had to drink a quarter of a beer before you went to bed every night by the way there's some eggs in there the doctor told me I have to eat eggs so there it is well I remember

[43:52]

one fella had to drink a bottle of beer before he went to bed every night but it wasn't a quarter it wasn't here that was that was Father Francis in Texas but that's only one example there can be many cases like that where you have to clarify also because of your relationship with a person okay consider this this thing somebody's got the impression that you did something to spite him alright and therefore it ruins your whole relationship with the person now why are you going to straighten that out you're not going to straighten it out just because you don't like to be thought of as being a spiteful person or a sinner or whatever but because if you don't straighten it out that relationship is just out of joint it may never get straightened out so clarification just has to be made in that case but there are other little things where you don't have to defend yourself and especially where you're say accused of a mistake in work or something like that or somebody else does make some mistake okay and you get blamed for it well why not just accept it sometimes you can't

[44:53]

accept it sometimes you have to clarify that too but in many small cases you can so that's a it can be a difficult judgment but the idea is killing this instinct towards self-defense and self-justification and it goes with those signs of humility there too you see because the idea of thinking about yourself was of an indifference to your self-image by which you can just walk over your own image or your image in the eyes of other people now this is another one of those things it's easy to talk about and it's hard to do but nevertheless we should know about it and be ready to grab onto that opportunity sometime when the Lord presents it remember that thing about the statue or a poem or something he tells his disciple go on to a stone and take that statue and then go on and praise him he says well how did he react he didn't say he says you gotta be the same right it's that kind of thing a kind of indifference to our own reputation or to praise

[45:53]

sing it over see the little baby wrapped in a manger on Christmas morning Amen see him at the temple talking with the elders marvel at his wisdom Amen Amen Amen all together now Amen [...]

[47:16]

Amen see him at the Jordan where John was baptizing and saving all the sinners Amen see him at the seaside talking to the fishermen making them disciples Amen Amen Amen sing it louder now Amen [...] see him marching in Jerusalem Amen over palm branches Amen in pomp and splendor

[48:18]

Amen Amen Amen see him in the garden Amen praying to his father Amen in deep and sorrow Amen [...] praying Amen [...] all together now Amen Amen see him at the Jordan where John was baptizing and saving all the sinners Amen [...]

[49:21]

Amen [...] ♪ Raise above my heart to hear and praise the news we hear today ♪

[51:08]

♪ How great a feat that they've done in all I've learned to be. ♪ ♪ I have already found my home in faith and love, in faith and love. ♪ ♪ I have already found my home in faith and love, in faith and love. ♪

[52:38]

♪ I have already found my home in faith and love, in faith and love. ♪ ♪♪ ♪ He touched me and all the joy that filled my soul. Things happened and now I know He touched me and made me whole. ♪

[54:07]

♪♪ ♪ And my shame, and the hand of the Savior, He touched me. Oh, praise God, I am no longer shame. He touched me. Oh, He touched me. ♪ ♪ He touched me and all the joy that touched my soul. Something wonderful happened and now I know He touched me and made me whole. ♪

[55:35]

♪♪ ♪ Oh, I will never cease to praise Him. I'll sing it while eternity rolls. He touched me. Oh, He touched me. ♪ ♪ He touched me and all the joy that touched my soul. Something wonderful happened and now, praise God, I know He touched me and made me whole. ♪

[57:04]

♪♪ ♪ Oh, my soul♪ His name is Jesus. Jesus, He is the Savior of my soul. Who is the Savior of my soul? Jesus, Jesus Jesus, Jesus Who is the Savior of my soul?

[58:40]

He's the Savior of my soul To be like Jesus To be like Jesus All I ask is to be like Jesus All through my journey from earth to glory All I ask is to be like Jesus

[59:44]

To be like Jesus To be like Jesus All I ask is to be like Jesus All through my journey from earth to glory All I ask is to be like Jesus All I ask is to be like Jesus

[60:54]

His name is wonderful His name is wonderful His name is wonderful, Jesus my Lord He is the mighty King Master of everything His name is wonderful, Jesus my Lord He's the great Shepherd The Rock of all ages

[62:21]

Almighty God is here His name is wonderful, Jesus my Lord He's the great Shepherd The Rock of all ages Almighty God is here

[63:29]

Bow down before Him Love and adore Him His name is wonderful, Jesus my Lord His name is wonderful, Jesus my Lord O Lord my God When I in awesome wonder

[64:33]

Consider all the world Thy hand hath made I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe displayed Lend me my soul, my Savior God to be I'll break the heart, I'll break the soul Lend me my soul, my Savior God to be

[65:41]

I'll break the heart, I'll break the soul When you look on the world And for a place of wonder And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees When I in awesome wonder Consider all the world And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees Lend me my soul, my Savior God to be

[66:57]

I'll break the heart, I'll break the soul Lend me my soul, my Savior God to be I'll break the heart, I'll break the soul When Christ shall come with shouts of exultation And make me know what joy hath filled my home When Christ shall come with shouts of exultation

[68:11]

And make me know what joy hath filled my home Lend me my soul, my Savior God to be I'll break the heart, I'll break the soul Lend me my soul, my Savior God to be I'll break the heart, I'll break the soul

[69:28]

I'll break the heart, I'll break the soul We want to thank Him for His kindness And we thank Him for His love We've all been heavily blessed Without blessing from above We've been sharing all the good things

[70:31]

The family kind of boys Let's serve our praise for time And praise the Lord Let's just praise the Lord Praise the Lord Let's just lift our hands toward Heaven And praise the Lord Let's just praise the Lord Praise the Lord Let's just lift our hands toward Heaven And praise the Lord Just the precious name of Jesus

[71:38]

His name is worthy of our praise Let us bow our knees before Him And our hands to Heaven raise When He comes in clouds of glory With Him we'll ever reign We'll lift our happy voices And praise His name Let's just praise the Lord Praise the Lord Let's just lift our hands toward Heaven And praise the Lord

[72:41]

Let's just praise the Lord Praise the Lord Let's just lift our hands toward Heaven And praise the Lord Let's just lift our hands toward Heaven And praise the Lord Praise the Lord Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah

[73:46]

Alleluia, Alleluia, What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear, What a privilege to carry, Everything to God in praise. Thank you Jesus, [...] Thank you Lord.

[74:57]

Alleluia, [...] Alleluia. Well, the marketplace is empty.

[76:03]

There's no more traffic in all the states. The business tools are silent. No more time to harvest wheat. Busy housewives cease their labors. In the courtroom there's no debate. Work on earth has been suspended. As the king comes through the gate. Oh, the king is coming. The king is coming. I just heard the prophet's song. And now his face I see. The king is coming. The king is coming. Praise God, he's coming for me.

[77:05]

Happy faces line the hallways. Those whose lives have been redeemed. Broken homes that he has fended. Those from prison he has freed. Little children of age. Hand in hand stand on the wall. Poor crippled, broken, ruined. Clad in garments white as snow. I can hear the chariots rumble. I can see the marching throng. All the flurry of God's prophets. Spell the end of sin and wrong. Regal robes are now unfolding. Heaven's grandstands are all in place. Heaven's choir is now assembled.

[78:21]

And they start to sing amazing grace. Oh, the king, the king is coming. The king is coming. I just heard the prophet's song. And now his face I see. Oh, the king is coming. The king is coming. Praise God, he's coming for me. The king is coming. The king is coming. The king is coming. I just heard the prophet's song. And now his face I see. Where were we? Yeah. So there's sort of a movement of renewing paradise now.

[79:29]

Yeah, especially in California. California lends itself to that. I don't know if they have grass in paradise, do they? They have marijuana. But that's the biggest help to simulating the paradise state. It's together with the climate, you know, because you can sleep outdoors, you can eat the berries off the trees. It doesn't happen so easily in New England, I guess. There are some of those beliefs there, too. Okay, so the chapter 35 here is important, too. The fear of the Lord is our cause. As then one who is crucified no longer has the power of moving or turning his limbs in any direction as he pleases. So we also ought to affix our wishes and desires, not in accordance with what is pleasant or delightful to us now, but in accordance with the law of the Lord, where it constrains us. And as he who is fastened to the wood of the cross no longer considers things present, nor thinks about his likings, nor is perplexed by anxiety and care for the moral,

[80:33]

nor disturbed by any desire of profession, possession, or claim by pride or strife, or grief, not at present injuries. One thing here is the thought of death, you know, the thought of death which is sort of a key to detachment. In other words, as soon as you think of your death, it puts everything in the right perspective in a certain way, because nothing else has any significance except what you're going to be at that moment. And so it's been said by monks that every good thought and the source of every virtue is the thought of death. That's one way, you see. Well, this image of the cross here and the idea of the monastic life being a life of crucifixion, that's one of the dimensions of it, is containing, see, putting yourself in the context of your death. And then all these other things are just, you know, ridiculous, they're not worth thinking about, they're trivial, all those other desires and concerns and so on. But that's something you don't, you can't just think of it, it has to be sort of ground into the heart and so on. How does it come about? Well, he shows. I mean, all the things that you do in the monastic life are supposed to promote that.

[81:36]

That's the idea. Obedience and work and fasting and all of those things, they have to bring it to that point. There's no one simple formula for it. But this is the image that he puts before the pastoral. And while he is still breathing in the body, he considers that he is dead to all earthly things. Now, there are people that, if you mention, if you talk this kind of language on them, they'll go right through the ceiling, because there's a lot of that kind of reaction. Because they associate it with a whole harsh and negative, unacceptable and frightening kind of spirituality. And nevertheless, it's in Christianity, it's in the tradition. And we have to find the right approach to be able to grab on to it. But there's a lot of, a lot of, I don't know, just revulsion to that kind of talking. And thinking of death? Thinking of death and of the cross, especially the mission of the cross. It just makes people shivers. All society is directed towards well-being.

[82:39]

Yes, yes. To do their best not to notice death so they turn their head. That's right. But also, in the past sometimes, in the religious life, these things have been presented and have been done in such a cold and inhuman way that there's reason for some... A lot of people have been wounded by that, he says. Even religious, monks and religious. Is there sort of a revival of theology of the cross? There's a revival among, who was it? Moltmann is one of them, I think, who wrote a theology. Among a certain number of Protestant theologians. This is some years ago, theology of the cross. Coming from a different angle. Looking probably at Christian life in the world, you see. And the sufferings in the world and so on. But nevertheless, trying to bring back into value the image of the cross, which never loses its value for Christianity. And that hasn't got very far, certainly, in Catholicism,

[83:47]

the revival of the theology of the cross. It's not in fashion. Sending the thoughts of his heart on before to that place whither he doubts not that he is shortly to come. That is to death, but also to heaven, you see, the last things. So we also, when crucified by the fear of the Lord, are to be dead indeed to all these things. Not only to carnal vices, but also to all earthly things. Having the eye of our minds fixed there, whither we hope at each moment that we are sent to pass. Now, notice the word hope there. He's not talking just about death, but he's talking about what comes after death. So the idea, this eschatological, pardon the big word, that word eschatological is important, it means the last things. It means that the monk, especially of all Christians, is supposed to be focused on what is coming. And the second coming of Jesus, if you want to look at it that way, or the resurrection, whatever you want to call it, but focused on that which is coming. On the coming salvation.

[84:48]

And that's what detaches him from the desires of the present, you see. Hope, the virtue of hope. For in this way we can have all our desires and carnal afflictions mortified. So he's talking really a kind of monastic psychology, that this thing works, that a person can do it deeply enough. And then chapter 36 he goes into, sorry, I have something else on there. But the relevant quotes for those things, they're in Galatians chapter 6, then Colossians 3, and then Romans 6 also, where he says, remember, you have been baptized with Christ into his death, so that you might rise to a new life. There are a number of passages like that. The idea that you're already dead in some way, and that that death is rooted in the body. It's a mysterious idea. That your body in some way is dead. Well, you know your body is dying, right? The thing is running down all the time. You get very aware of that after you're about 30 years old.

[85:52]

You get more convinced of it all the time, until you get to be 70. And at the same time, something new is being born within you. But the body is already dying. It's already committed to death. It's given to death. It has to go back to the earth in some way. It has to go back to the dust. And yet something new is being born within you. And that something new is both bodily and spiritual. It's a spiritual body. It's physical. It's physical. It's what's being born in you. And it's in your heart. That's where you experience it. So you experience the resurrection, even while the outside is dying. The other place on this is St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4. He's just been talking about that vision of the light of God on the face of Christ. And he says, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair,

[86:53]

persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. In the body, both the death and the life. The death, as it were, on the outside, because he's being beaten down with all these things. And on the inside, somehow, the life of Jesus is flowing out of his heart into his body. The resurrection already exists. He's talking about the life of the risen Jesus. That's what it means to have your eyes directed ahead, like Cassian is saying, even while you're on the cross. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. That's a real paradox. He doesn't say just that the life of Jesus is manifested in our spirit, but in our mortal flesh already, even while we're dying. You see it in the martyrs. Sometimes the faces of the martyrs would be luminous, being tortured and killed,

[87:54]

shot. Because their flesh was already being beaten. St. Stephen, remember, his face shown like the face of an angel while he was dying. Chapter 36. Excuse me. Yes, Seraphim. He wasn't dying then, but in a way he was already dead because he'd gone through a terrific mortification before that time. Those years standing out on the stone and so on. Chapter 36. He says, look out that you don't give these things up and then take them back again. There are a bunch of biblical references here. Beware that you remember nothing of your kinsfolk or your former factions. That's something you always have to look at from a different point of view.

[88:57]

Putting your hand to the plow and then looking back. Beware lest at any time when you've begun to dip into the knowledge of the Psalms, notice that he's talking about gnosis now, he's talking about the growth of monastic wisdom, and he speaks about it in terms of the knowledge of the Psalms. That's where this wisdom comes from. Just like in Conference 14 later on. You'll be little by little puffed up and think of reviving that pride which now at your beginning you've trampled underfoot in the order of faith and imposed humility. Notice what he's saying there. He says that after, in a while, there's going to be a risk not of worldly pride but of spiritual pride because you begin to see something in the depths of the Scriptures and you begin to say, ah, now I'm getting wise. But what are you doing? You're just going back to the same old vice you had before but now it's in a spiritual wrapping. Just like St. John of the Cross talks about the seven spiritual sins, remember? You have the seven carnal sins and then the seven spiritual sins which are simply spiritual extensions or doubles. Building again those things which you have destroyed

[90:02]

and make yourself a backslide. But rather take heed to continue even to the end in that state of nakedness of which you made profession in the sight of God and of his angels. Nakedness and crucifixion are the same thing there. Poverty. And this humility too and patience with which you persevered for ten days before the doors. See, he's making that an image that the time outside the doors on your face, he's making that an image to hold up before yourself later on so that you don't go back to your old attachments and old pride. For not he who begins these things but he who endures in them to the end shall be saved. Thirty-seven. The devil's always lying there like a serpent watching at our heel. So we have to be vigilant for our life. And I don't know how many people that are like that, you know, that preserve that negative. But what happens? After a while the religious life becomes comfortable or the person begins to get his little

[91:03]

spiritual consolations from the Lord and so he latches right onto them, you know, and he's complacent and just as full of self as he was before. It's very hard to, very hard to avoid that. Because those things are given to a person also to draw him forward, you see. So naturally he's going to grab onto them. And who's going to pry them out of his fingers then? It's as if the spiritual consolations are there to draw us away from the physical consolations, you know, and the worldly consolations. But who's going to draw us away from the spiritual consolations? Well, that's those passive purifications you have, you see. When everything turns dry on you, everything dries up, you don't know anything anymore, you don't have anything in your heart to this experience. So these evil thoughts are going to come from the serpent and the head of the serpent is the first beginning of the evil thoughts so you have to bang your reveal down on his head

[92:04]

or rather reveal him to the superior, to the spiritual father. 38. So prepare yourself for temptation. When you go forth to serve the Lord, stand in the fear of the Lord and prepare your mind, not for repose or carelessness or delights, but for temptation and trouble.

[92:25]

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