So, we're about a third of the way through Conference 21, the first conference of Advaita Jonas. And the Latin title of this is De Remissione Quinquagesima, which means the relaxation of 50 days. And what it refers to is the time after Easter, Easter time, when they didn't do any fasting. We're going to find out what they mean by not doing any fasting in the New Year. We got as far as Chapter 10 last time, which is the first part. The first part was on Abba John and Abba Jonas' vocation there, you know, the question of the law and grace. He goes out and leaves his wife in response to what Abba John tells him, in order to embrace

[01:01]

the liberty of grace, rather than just giving his tie as a first-gracer of the Old Testament. Now, we start on a question, which is the principal question of the conference, and that is why the monks in Egypt don't fast during the 50 days of Easter time. Now, you know, the 50 days of Easter time go from Easter itself to Pentecost, right? In fact, Pentecost means 50, means 50 days. And that was a period in the Old Testament between, I guess it was between the Passover and the Feast of, the Harvest Feast, which they call the Feast of Weeks. You can find it in Deuteronomy. We'll run into that reference a little further on, so I'll close with that. The Old Testament history of that feast. But Pentecost is a very significant feast for Christianity, of course. Easter time actually, of course, goes until Trinity Sunday, doesn't it? I don't know.

[02:13]

What does it mean? It used to go until Trinity Sunday, but it's been shortened. I think it's, I think it's only the 50 days of Pentecost. It's been shortened. Is it the Easter renewal of the Eucharist? Well, that's part of it, but that's a posterior thing. That comes in later on. The idea that you have to go to communion once a year, used to be the idea. Therefore, you'd have to go to confession. You'd have to go to confession and communion sometimes just for that, during that time. But that wasn't the reason why that time was created. That came before the church was. The reason is deeper than that. Okay, why is it that during Easter time, nobody fasts when the Egyptian luncheon? They don't kneel in prayer either, so they don't have to experience it. In fact, that's even in the Council of Messiah, the famous diplomatic council, the 20th Canon.

[03:20]

It's a footnote here. A reference to the not kneeling in prayer. Now, these two things are parallel. Okay, Theonis begins his reply in chapter 12. He says, first of all, we don't have to understand everything. It's good enough for us to follow the tradition. Especially such a venerable tradition. But since you demand on knowing the reasons, I'll give you what I know. First of all, he wants to talk about fasting in general, before he talks about that liturgical season. What's fasting all about. And then he quotes Ecclesiastes. There's a time for everything. There's a time to bring forth, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pull up, and so on. A time to kill and a time to heal. But there's a time for everything and for every deed. None.

[04:21]

None, therefore, of these things does it lay down, the scripture, as always good, but only when any of them are fittingly done and at the right time. So that these very things, which at one time, when done at the right moment, turn out well, if they're ventured on at a wrong or unsuitable time, are found to be useless or harmful. Accepting only those things which are in their own nature, good or bad, and which cannot ever be made the opposite. Like justice, prudence, fortitude, temperance. Those are the old Greek cardinal virtues. Justice, fortitude, temperance, and prudence. And they get taken up by St. Thomas. You see, already the father's old. And the rest of the virtues. Or, on the other hand, those false, the description of which cannot possibly be altered or fall under the other head. So, you've got three kinds of things. You've got things that are good in themselves, the virtues, and especially, he's going to say, faith, hope, and love. And especially love. And you've got things which are bad in themselves, which are the vices, and they're the opposite to the virtues. The things that are good in themselves are always good.

[05:24]

In fact, you can't be without them. The things that are bad in themselves are always bad, and you can't do them at any time. And then there are things that are in between. Now, the translator here calls them indifferent things, but that's not the best word, because they're not indifferent. They're very important. But whether they're good or bad depends on when you do them, and what situation you do them in, okay? The word in the Latin, in the Gashen, is medium. Medium, which means mean. And we're going to find out this is very significant. It has a double meaning, or something. Medium, medium. M-E-D-I-U-M. Which is the same as mean in English. Mean, what does mean signify, after all? It means the middle, right? Between two other things, okay? We say means, a means to get to an end, right? So you take something in between to get to your final goal. So we're going to find out that the word medium, or means, has those two senses.

[06:28]

One, it's in between two things. Something is in between being good and evil, so we call it medium. He says medium. He says indifferent, or ambivalent would be a good word. We don't call them middle things, or mean things, or medium things. Except if we're talking about a stake in English. And then the other sense is that if you're trying to get to a goal, we distinguish the goal from the means, right? Now, the means are once again in the middle, because they're between where you are and your goal, right? These are two different senses for the word, but we'll find that they converge here. Between good and evil, between you and your goal, the starting point and the finish. Okay, we have the word media, you know. But what does media mean? The media are the means of communication, right? The thing in the middle by which intelligence is communicated, by which words are communicated, by which information is communicated.

[07:33]

And this is very important for Cashin, because this is, it probably rings a bell in your mind about Cashin, about Conference One, remember? Where he says that everything is subordinate to love and the purity of all. So he's continually getting back to this fact that we've got two levels. We've got the levels of the mean and we've got the levels of the end. And he started out talking about the goal of the monastic life, and he says everything has to be subordinate to the goal. So don't let the means get in the way of the end. And he's coming back to this principle right now. That's sort of the basic structure of his philosophy of monastic life. And so you find it everywhere, very clearly here. And it's a good principle, too. It's very important. We even find that the law itself, you see, is a means. It's not the goal. But what's the goal? The goal is charity. The goal is love. The goal is gracing, you see. The goal is Christ. So this is a very deep theological principle. It's not only a philosophical principle. It's Christian philosophy. Okay, now what about fasting? He gets to this in 14.

[08:37]

Is fasting good in itself? Is it bad in itself? Or is it, as the translator says, indifferent, which means ambivalent, which means something that can be either good or bad. And of course he says it can be either good or bad, depending on how and when you do it. There's not a good in the same sort of way as justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance. Because all those things, if you're without them, at any time it's bad. If you're unjust, if you're intemperate, if you're imprudent, or if you're weak, if you're cowardly, it's always bad. And similarly with the vices on the other side. Any time you do them, they're wrong. But if we hold fasting to be included in that list of virtues, so that abstinence from food is placed among those things which are good in themselves, then certainly the partaking of food will be bad and wrong. If fasting is good in itself, then eating is bad in itself, right? And food is bad in itself. Where do you get into trouble if you say that? The same thing holds for marriage or a lot of other things.

[09:38]

For whatever is the opposite of that which is in its own nature good must certainly be held to be bad in its own nature. But Holy Scripture doesn't allow us to lay this down. If we fast as if we would sin by eating, we'll not only gain no advantage, but we'll actually sin. Fall into the sin of impiety, as St. Paul says, abstaining from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful and those who know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it has partaken of it with thanksgiving. Now, that comes from Romans 4.14, I think. It's important to know these passages. Now, who is St. Paul talking about here?

[10:54]

The Spirit expressly says that in later times, that's now, some will depart from the faith. He's talking about heretics then. By giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, actually demonic doctrines, through the pretension of liars whose consciences are seared, consciences somehow are traumatized, wounded, burned, who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving. And we went into that quotation now. By those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, etc. If it is received with thanksgiving, for then it is consecrated by the word of God in prayer. That's very important. It's very important for a Christian life. Because if we think that marriage is evil, or that natural things are evil, we get into a terrific bind later on. It is a heretical thing. And he says it's a demonic thing. And why is it demonic? And there's plenty of this kind of demonism about. There's plenty of this kind of mistake about. Because it takes the whole creation away from God.

[11:56]

That's what it ends up doing. Because what you end up doing is saying that the world is bad. And in some way, that there's another evil principle which is stronger than God. And so God gets squeezed into a little corner of abstract and absolute faith. And everything else belongs to the devil. It's a horrible situation. And very often we get into that sort of thing. We don't do it explicitly. We don't say that. But we can act as if it were true. So this is where theology gets to be very important. Christians have been accused of being Manicheans and so on. And this is horrible. And especially monks. Because they behave sometimes towards married people as if they were living in sin. Or towards people who don't fast as if they were unchristian. As if they were infidels. You can't do that. See, that's where the monk's self-knowledge and humility and also simply his understanding is very important. Otherwise he makes himself ridiculous. And turns Christianity upside down.

[12:59]

Turns it into another kind of parasocialism. So that's something to think about. We'll come back to it again. And you'll find yourself coming back to it. And notice how marriage and foods are related. Those are two basic human dimensions. The sexual dimension and the dimension of nutrition. Which are really in the center of man somehow. Where his body and his soul and his mind are all related. Both in the sexual area of marriage and love. In the area of food, not so much. Food in the sense that food is a symbol for something deeper. Food is a symbol for love. Or it's a symbol for spiritual nutrition. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. And what he's talking about is doctrine. He's talking about the revelation that you bring. As well as about the Eucharist. So those things merge into one another. And both food and marriage are used as symbols for man's relationship with God.

[14:00]

Food in the bread of life, the Eucharist. Marriage in the whole of the Old Testament. Not the whole of it. The central part. Hosea and Jeremiah and so on. It talks about man being the bride of God. The swan of swan. Which comes in the New Testament. So if you get a wrong slant on those things. Somehow the whole thing gets out of whack. Which has happened frequently in the past. Sometimes in explicit heresies. Usually though, not in heresies. In other words, it wasn't theologians who came out and make theses and write books on these things. It would be the ordinary man and the ordinary monk who lived as if these things were true. Who really believed them down in his soul but never brought them out explicitly. They wouldn't articulate them. They wouldn't put them into words. So there's a middle road between this kind of heresy, this kind of manichaeism. St. Augustine was a manichaean for a long time.

[15:04]

Ten years before he became a Christian. And it's almost as if he had a tug of that still in him later on. About marriage and things like that. That's about concupiscence. Which has affected our Western spirituality ever since. There's a middle road between this kind of thing. Rejecting God's good creation. And the other kind of thing which says anything is okay. I'm a Christian. I'm free. And therefore there's no law for me. MacCashen talks about that later on at the same time. So it's a delicate thing. Because in all of these things you say something and immediately you're in danger of falling into the opposite extreme. As soon as you say something on one side or the other. So each statement has to be balanced well. This freedom which he is talking about here has to be balanced well with something else. And St. Paul does very effectively with it all. When he says, although I'm a Christian. Although I'm free. Although I know the Lord.

[16:06]

Yet I buffet my body and so on. So that I may not fall away. I didn't preach devilism. And that whole ascetical thing is important. And the fact that you have died with Christ. Therefore don't lend your members to sin. No, you're no preacher. You've got to have both those sides. What he says here is beautiful. Everything created by God is good. And nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. In other words, if you bring it back. But when you take it, you bring it back towards where it came from. Which is the Father. So you receive it with thanksgiving. Remember thanksgiving is Eucharist, right? Eucharist means thanksgiving. So everything becomes a kind of a Eucharist. It's brought back towards the Father. And that's what the Eucharist is. For then it is consecrated by the word of God and by prayer. Consecrated by the word. It's as if you had three levels. You've got the level of the thing, the food or whatever. You've got the level of the word of God. And finally you've got the level of the spirit. And prayer is the level of the spirit working in you. It's the Holy Spirit expressing itself in you.

[17:08]

It's going to have a part in raising this thing up. It's where the flame raises it up. The word, the understanding. And finally the thing itself. It's a sacramental sense of where I am. Go ahead. Those are things then that are... He says they're neither good nor evil. Well, and yet St. Paul says that these things are good. Well we don't like to mean that. There's no confusion here. There's no contradiction. These things are good. But the use of them is good or bad depending on the circumstances. Depending on the time and the attitude. The use of these things can be bad, right? The use of sex can be bad. The use of food can be bad. Not immoderately, but outside the law. And then he'll say this, you know, that nothing is to be refused. Every creature of God is good. And then you find out how they were eating. They were hungry. You see, it's not exactly...

[18:10]

It's not exactly logical. If a man thinks that a thing is common, to him it is common. Now what common means there is unblessed. And therefore unlawful for the Jews. Defiled. That's from St. Paul. And he's talking about that business of can you eat food that's been... It's not kosher, practically speaking, for the Jews. But it's been somehow offered to idols or something like that. And St. Paul says, well, if you think that it belongs to idols and to demons, then you're sinning. But if you know better, then you're not sinning. He says that sort of thing. So it's the interior intention that makes it unlawful. Chapter 14. Then he goes on that fasting is not good in its own nature. And yet they always behave as if it were. And he just goes on repeating and amplifying what he's been saying.

[19:14]

The indifferent things are the mean things, the media, like marriage, agriculture, riches, retirement into the desert, vigils, reading and meditation on scripture, and fasting itself. And we're astonished to find all of this sort of in the same packet. Because my goodness, he's a monk. And usually you'll find the monks putting down marriage and food and agriculture and things like that, the normal human things, and elevating things like the reading of scripture and fasting and solitude. But Cashin has got a solid mind on these matters. See, this is where the monk and the theologian might collide, might disagree. Cashin is both monk and theologian, and so he's got it right. He doesn't let his monastic vocation pull him off the road and say that he's not. And that's a beautiful thing. That's one of the main blessings in reading Cashin, is that he's got this theological solidity, he's got this understanding as well as the power, the understanding as well as the love, as well as the vocation.

[20:20]

Anything that's absolutely commanded brings death if it's not fulfilled. But whatever things we are urged to rather than commanded, when done are useful, if not done, then done with punishment. It goes on and on. And then he gives some examples about fasting, and times when fasting would be not good but bad. And the first case is a case of hospitality. If you've decided to fast and if your brother comes and he's hungry and you should feed him, and you don't feed him or you don't eat with him, because you don't want to break your fast, he says then your fast is not good as well. The second case is when the person has decided to fast, but he's physically too weak for it, so it's going to hurt his health if he fasts. Then it's better. And the third case is the case in which it's a feast day, and the person has made up his mind he's going to fast anyway. And no, you shouldn't, you shouldn't break your fasting. It's interesting, there's three reasons. One of them points to God, one of them points to yourself,

[21:27]

and one of them points to your neighbor. Often you find this kind of symmetry in cashing. He'll give you three examples and you find out that those examples pretty well cover the whole area. As if he'd been thinking about it for a week or so before he ordered. So there's a lot of richness in cashing that's not visible here. Just due to his balance, you know. Also, those things will be found bad if they're done for vainglory. Those men who, by a foolish show of paleness, gain credit for sanctity, of whom the word of the gospel tells them that they have received their reward in this life. Remember Jesus says that about the ones who will pray on the street corners and the ones who will roll a trumpet when they get in lines and so on. Remember St. Bernard in the steps of Bride, where he talks about singularity, and the fellow who looks at himself in the mirror to see if he's getting, going for proper signs of fasting, and pinches himself to see if he's skinny enough. So, that's on, maybe got further from Christ. And he applies to these people the prophecy of Isaiah,

[22:33]

the words of Isaiah, God and Israel, where he rejects the fast of the Israelites. Now these readings, you're going to get them in length until you're full of them, because time after time we get these readings of what kind of a fast we should make. Behold, in the days of your fast, your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors. Behold, you fast for debates and strife, and strife with a fist wickedly. That's a, that's beautiful. Is this the kind of fast that I've chosen for a man to afflict his soul for a day, to wind his head about like a serfman, to spread sackcloth, and all these external things? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, and let them that are broken go free, and break asunder every burden. Deal your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into your house. And when you shall see one naked, cover him, and despise not your own flesh.

[23:35]

Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health so speedily arise. And your righteousness shall go before your face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather you up. Then shall you call, and the Lord shall hear. You shall cry, and he shall say, Lord, I am. It's as if you had different levels in which you could fast. See, one level is the external fast, and the external, sort of the equipment, the apparatus and the display of penance. And what's the interior fast that he's talking about? First of all, it's the fast from sin. But what kind of sin is he talking about? He says, in the days of your fast, your own will is found. So there's a fast on the level of the ego, not doing your own will. And the way of doing your own will that he's talking about particularly here is in subjecting other people to your own will. You exact of all your debts. In other words, you demand that all your debts be paid back.

[24:38]

You insist on having your own lives. See, you're feeding yourself, you're feeding your will and your own satisfaction on the ego level, even as you're fasting on the external level. So he says your fast isn't worth anything. Because the only place that anything is worth anything is in the heart, right? It's in the interior level. And whatever is external is only an expression or a sign or a help towards what is internal, what is in the heart. So if a person fasts on the external level, the surface level, and he's meanwhile feasting himself on the internal level by cramming himself with one thing or another, or by, say, pleasing himself, satisfying himself, enriching himself, or increasing himself at the expense of others, then he's not really fasting at all. Then the outside sign of fasting is a fake, you see. But if the outside sign of fasting means that he's trying to arrive at internal purity, at internal, well, at hunger or whatever you want to call it, and purity is a better word, then the fasting means something.

[25:39]

Or if it's an expression of an interior, sincere interior motivation. Okay? It's the Pharisee thing, you see. When the fast becomes an excuse for not loving, and for not fasting interiorly, but the real fast, he says, what is it? The real fast seems like the opposite of a fast because it's a pouring forth. The real fast, he says, is a giving. It's a giving. Boost the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that are of thirst, let them that are broken go free, and break asunder all their burdens. It doesn't sound exactly like a fast. It sounds like a liberation. It sounds like a different thing. That's what it is. It's like the Sabbath. Now, the real Sabbath is not just not working, not doing something. The real Sabbath is this kind of thing, too. Remember, when Jesus heals the people on the Sabbath day, and accuses them for it, and says, you broke the Sabbath, you could say, no, I didn't break the Sabbath.

[26:40]

I'm showing you what the Sabbath is. It's the same thing here for the fast. See, all of these things, these external things, these customs, these rites in the Old Testament, they all point towards the same thing. The same thing. What they point towards is what? It's man really becoming what he's supposed to become, and doing, functioning the way he's supposed to function, which is what? Which is flowing like a fountain, you know, because that's the way man should be. Man should be giving and giving to something that follows. Whether it be Sabbath, or whether it be fast, or tithes, or first fruits, or all those things. And they all lead to Christ. And they all lead to the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Spirit, which is in us, which is this thing, this fast, which is talking to us. So it's wonderful how much of the New Testament there already is in the Old Testament. It's everywhere. We run into problems sometimes. There are other passages in the Old Testament, but that's the way it is. Okay, he says,

[27:42]

So fasting is certainly not considered by the world as a thing that's given of some nature, because it becomes good and well-pleasing to God, not by itself, but by other works. The other works, he says, are the alms-giving, and so on. And the other work, really, is the internal work, the conversion of heart. Again, from the surrounding circumstances, it may be regarded as not merely vain, but actually hateful. It's when the Lord says, When I fast, I will not yield up to others. Okay, chapter 15, now he talks about something else, another aspect of the same subject. He says, It's wrong to do something which is good in itself for the sake of something else. Not only is it wrong not to do what is good in itself, but it's wrong to do it for the wrong reason, to make it a means instead of an end. Just as it's wrong to make an end out of the means, it's wrong to make a means out of the end. And he gives the example of those other virtues, to practice love for the sake of fasting,

[28:42]

rather than fasting for the sake of love. Well, how could you do that? Only if you're getting some kind of other yield out of your fasting, right? If your fasting gives you satisfaction for reasons of vainglory, or for some kind of personal self-complacency, well, then one might do other good things for the sake of that. He wants us to have our motive in our prayers. I can work with you on that. Let's say he's a brother. When he's doing the fast, and no one turns fast, and he discovers he's inferior, what does he do to make it? It depends on what he can do in this situation. If he's all alone, then he can't do things like almsgiving, or he can't show charity to his brothers, at least on the surface level. The biggest thing is his prayer, you see. In other words, if a person knows that,

[29:44]

he's already halfway over the disease, right? Once you recognize that your motive is impure for something that you're doing, and it probably won't be 100% impure, only a part of impure, but once you recognize where you are and what your motivation is, that itself could destroy the impurity of your motivation to a certain extent, right? If you recognize, well, I'm doing this just out of vanity, I'm doing this just out of pride, just because I want to look well either in somebody else's eyes or in my own. If you realize that, it begins to correct itself already in your own eyes, right? Because you say, well, I'm not afraid of my prayers, I don't have any faith, you know, I'm just an actor, you see. And then one can also correct it with respect to other people, by making sure that... They talk about the hidden work that I'm used to. If a person conceals it, it doesn't work. It deliberately tries not to know because of what's going on. So there's one answer to God's result,

[30:44]

another answer to what's the real question. And with regard to God, it's a matter of prayer. If somebody's started something, you should pray and ask the Lord, shall I continue this thing? Will you help me to be more sincere about it? Or shall I give up? Because of what's going on. When a person is sincere, if you're sincere, then this is the opposite of sincerity, you see. So it tends to disappear. For this then, the affliction of the flesh is useful. I'm starting quite fast. For this, the remedy of abstinence must be implored. That is, that by it we may succeed in attaining to love, wherein there is what is good without shame. Passion, the philosophy of love. Continually, with no exception of time. There's a little echo of Plato you can hear here. Plato, the absolute ideas that exist were ever the same. And then the other thing, on the lower earthly level,

[31:46]

were changed back and forth. But the way Plato and the Gospel coincide is marvelous and marvelous. Plato is called the prophet of the Greeks. And the set of divine providence prepared him to express the Christian doctrine. The other side that isn't in the Scripture. Seems a lot of truth to me. And then he talks about all the other trades. You don't do the work for the sake of the tools, but use the tools for the sake of the work. All these things seem obvious, but then we realize, well, they cut pretty deeply into life at the same time. Even though they seem like gratitude. And if you don't know what you're using something for, then there's no possibility of you using it rightly. But if you're content with just having it, then often there are children. Children like to have something shiny. So you can't really love for the sake of something else.

[32:47]

I don't think you can really do that. You can ask yourself a question. Is it possible to love for the sake of something else? Not really, in the ultimate sense. And therefore what he's saying is if you think you can do that, then you're never going to learn how to love. Because you've got the thing wrong. You've got it the wrong way. If your goal is fasting, or vanity, or whatever, or health, instead of love, then you're never going to get to love. It's not a question of really doing it for the sake of something else. You're trying to do it for the sake of something else, and therefore you're not going to be able to do it. Because you've misconstrued it as being a means of certain love. You've got to look out for somebody like a guide horse who makes passion a step on the way to contemplation. You see, you find this in some of the Bibles, the highly intellectual ones. They put contemplation above charity. And so it becomes a means towards something else.

[33:53]

Love, for example. You've got to be careful. That's not what the Gospels think. Love is the ultimate. Love is the ultimate. It's only when it says it's good. But contemplation is too. That's the thing. The two are inseparable. The charity and the contemplation. The contemplation is merely the charity with its eyes open. Something like that. It's charity aware of itself. It's the self-awareness or consciousness of love, I believe. That's what it's all about. Okay, 16. How can you tell what's really good in itself from other things that are good only for some extent of reason? Well, it'll be good all the time. Whereas other things you can interrupt sometimes and then lose it. It's a much bigger tool. He gives an example, once again the example of food.

[34:54]

He says you can't regard food as being evil unless intemperance or luxury or some other thoughts are the result. And then he quotes the Gospel in some apt quotation. For it's not that which enters into the mouth that defiles a man, but that which comes out of the mouth that defiles a man. Remember, Jesus goes on to say that evil thoughts and blasphemies and adulteries and murders and all those things come from within, out of the heart. He points directly to the heart, you see. So that's the level on which the real good exists. And the things on the outside are not on that level of the real good. They're only means. Okay, Chapter 17, the reason for the question. It really feels he has to emphasize this continually. There must be a lot of people who have a lot of good doing in this question. It's almost inevitable at a certain point in his poetry that when a person begins to feel he's getting good at something

[35:58]

then he tends to neglect the things for which he cannot grow. That's the end of it. He tends to neglect the other things that are better than him or are good in themselves. He'll say, but that thing that you can grasp, it's worth it to me. It's that possessiveness in the spiritual world. When we identify ourselves with a certain thing, we say, well, that's my thing, you know. That's it. And then we tend to settle down and we don't go any further. But he says you have to go further until you get to that which is good in itself. He says, don't set your hope upon passion. You see, that's the point. That's the psychological point, is we put our hope on one thing or another. We identify our salvation or identify ourselves with one thing or another. And if we identify ourselves with the wrong thing, we never go beyond that point. Whatever it is, we just sit down and work. But so that by it we may succeed in attaining to purity of heart an apostolic love, which takes us back to the First Conference, and that's the goal of a master poet.

[36:58]

Apostolic once again, not in the sense of an apostolate, but in the sense of the love of the Acts of the Apostles and of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. For there is no limit set to justice, patience, soberness, modesty, love. Nor, on the other hand, is a license ever granted for injustice, impatience, wrath, immodesty, envy, and pride. So, literally. Chapter 18 Fasting is not always suitable. He gives examples now from, this one example from the Gospel, that the Pharisees were fasting, and so were the disciples of John the Baptist, and so are the Old Testament on my side. The disciples of Jesus were not fasting. The disciples of John the Baptist were Pharisees complaining. And they said, well, why do our masters teach us to fast

[38:00]

and your master doesn't teach you to fast? And here we get right to the node of the meaning of fasting to it, in Christianity. And the reply of Jesus was this. Can the children of the bridegroom mourn while the bridegroom is with them? For the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast. Now, John's fasting and mourning. And it's as if there were two kinds of seasons, two kinds of times you can have in life. You can have a time of mourning and fasting, you can have a time of feasting and rejoicing. Okay? It's as if life was divided into those two seasons. And Jesus is saying, now is the time of feasting and rejoicing because the bridegroom is with, as we call it, the children of the bridegroom. That's a Semitic, that's a Jewish expression, just we're friends of the bridegroom and so on. And then the time will come, which will be a time of mourning and a time of fasting

[39:01]

when the bridegroom is taken away. It's marvelous, you know, because why does he use the word bridegroom? Because the feast is a wedding feast. The feast is a wedding feast, and the mourning, what's mourning for? Mourning is for a death, right? Feast is a wedding feast and mourning is for a death. We've got these two aspects of the road. The wedding feast, which is sort of the consummation of man's life, because in a way it's the happiest moment of man's life, right? It's the moment when all of his hope is gathered into one rope and one bow. And he expects satisfaction at that time, even though it may not be that satisfaction. Well, it's a mountain top in a moment of life, symbolically at least. And at the same time, it's when life is supposed to come forth, right? Because this love is supposed to generate new life. And on the other side we've got death. And that marriage feast, what does it represent really? It represents the union of God with man, which is in Jesus Christ, you see? So he is the marriage feast,

[40:01]

and as long as he's around, there can't be any fasting, okay? And this is all on a symbolic level, because he's here now, and yet it's a time for fasting. But that was meant to be a symbolic time, you see, while he was here. Now he's the bridegroom. Where's the bride? Everybody's the bride. That is, the children of the sons of the marriage, they too are the brides, because the church is the bride. Man is the bride. Such a marvelous thing. And that marriage imagery is central in Scripture. So fasting would be a time for attuning the senses? Well, that's another aspect. But what does he say there? The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from you, and then shall they fast. So the reason for fasting, then, has something to do with the fact that the bridegroom isn't here. So what are you fasting for? To maybe purify yourself for the bridegroom?

[41:06]

And how can fasting purify you, too? Because it makes an effort to remove the pressure. Well, think about it now. What are you trying to purify? You're trying to purify your heart. You're trying to purify and concentrate your love and your desire, your expectation. You mentioned expectation before. So you can look at it in a negative way, or you can look at it in a positive way. If you look at it in a positive way, it means you've got a certain dynamism of love and of desire and of expectation in your heart, the dynamism of your heart, which can be dispersed among a hundred things, as it very commonly is in life, and either just sort of flow along, carried along with us, or what Pascal calls diversion, distraction. Or you can concentrate all of that power of loving and all of that power of expectation, all of that power of desire and of faith, too,

[42:09]

into one, okay? Now, that's the purpose of fasting, I think, if you relook in the text of Ephesians 4. The purpose of fasting, and all the other means of asceticism, is to focus you on the one thing which is really worthwhile, you see? So when he's talking about the means in the end here, the means are geared to drawing you into one and concentrating you and focusing you on the end, on the one thing which is worthwhile, you see? Which is the bridegroom, which is Jesus. So it's eschatological because it points forward to the time when the bridegroom will return, okay? Which is the real marriage feast, okay? Because the marriage feast so far has only been symbolic. When Jesus was around on the earth, it was a symbolic time of the marriage feast. And many of the things that he does, you know, he's just sort of giving a sample and a foretaste on a little figure, a little symbol of what the real marriage feast is. But then he goes away. And so when he goes away, it's a fasting anyway.

[43:11]

Because the real food is him, right? He's the real food. And when he goes away, you're fasting inside because he isn't there. Okay? At least he isn't there in the form that you can see, unless you're going to feast on him right away, when you can really see. So it's getting the outside into tune with the inside, and it's also concentrating you towards this one focus on him, you see? But at the same time, when you're doing that, something else is happening, you know? Because the life of the marriage feast is love. It's really love, isn't it? What's a marriage good for if it isn't love? I mean, that's what it means. That's where the line of the marriage comes from, you see? It flows between the lover and the loverless. Okay. This already in a hidden way is in you, you see? This love. And what you're doing is you're simply purifying that. So you're moving towards the marriage feast at the same time, you see? You can say the marriage feast in some way is growing inside of you, but in a hidden way. And you're fasting because it's hidden, you see?

[44:12]

Because you can't enjoy it. You can't have it with your senses. And so the senses are all drawn into the interior, where the marriage feast is present in your heart. And then later on, the senses will be ready, and the senses themselves will be ready to change. All the power of love in this world. The best of this world. So that's true of fasting. It's true of some of the other things. It's true, first of all, of chastity. You talk about chastity. We talked about marriage and we talked about food before, right? Because nowadays, when they talk about the three vows, they put chastity first. Because chastity, in some way, points the whole of you towards us, you see? Not having a wife means that you're refraining from the other, you're fasting from the other kind of union, the other kind of human union. You're fasting for the bridegroom, you see? But chastity is a kind of a, what do you call it? An emotional fast? No, it involves the whole of you, the physical level and the emotional level.

[45:16]

So you can talk about fasting as a kind of chastity, or you can talk about chastity as a kind of fasting. You see, the food and the marriage thing come in a little bit. Then we'll talk about marriage feasting. Marriage feasting. Marriage and a feast. That means this kind of union and this kind of feasting at the same time. So you see how these two things sort of interlace as they go back and forth. The two motifs, the two themes of food, nutrition, and bread, and marriage, of fasting and chastity. Okay. Now he says, this points especially to the season of Eastertide. Remember, Jesus was with the disciples for 40 days until the Ascension, and then he disappeared. So you can guess that somebody's going to say, well, what? 50 days instead of 40 days. So that was the time when the bridegroom, after his resurrection, you see, the bridegroom already risen, coming into his power in some way, was with them. And why do we relax for 50 days, he says,

[46:23]

rather than 40 days? And he gives the answer that we fast until Pentecost. It's a good answer. Tell the answer before the question. Because Pentecost was the feast of the seven weeks. Seven weeks is 49 days. That's pretty close to 50. And Pentecost means 50 in Greek. And at that time, according to Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 16, look at the reference, it tells about that. They were supposed to harvest, begin to harvest their grain, you see. It was after the Passover, was it? I think so. Because they had three big feasts, and this was the second one. Passover, Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, and the Feast of Weeks. Now it's seven weeks from the time

[47:24]

you first put the sickle to the standing grain. This would go on for seven weeks. No, after that time, the Feast of Seven Weeks, the Feast of Pentecost, which is a harvest feast. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. Some kind of a tithe or something. Now, Albus Dionysius of Cassian here makes a good allegory of this. This was indeed shown to be offered to the Lord by the preaching of the apostles, which they are said on Pentecost Day to have addressed to the people. So the first fruits seem to have two aspects to it. The first aspect is the preaching of the apostles, which is a first fruit because it comes forth for the first time on Pentecost Day, you see, by the seed of the Word, which is produced first on that day. Because before then, they were afraid to preach, remember? The second and the real first fruits, however,

[48:25]

are the 5,000 people that were converted on that day, remember? St. Peter's first preaching, the Acts of the Apostles, I guess, in Chapter 2. So, that's a pretty good... That's a pretty good allegory, which is true to the Scripture. Consecrated the first fruits of the Jews as a Christian people to the Lord, 5,000 men being filled with the gifts of food, which recalls the multiplication of the loaves, remember? He probably does that a little bit. There's no explicit word for it. So he says we've got a good reason for keeping those for another 10 days. And also they don't bow their knees in prayer because the bending of the knees is a sign of penitence and warning. If you think about that, because the normal Christian posture for prayer is standing, and often with the arms up there as well. But bending the knees gives you what? What does it express? Well, downcastness is frustration, too, right? You fall flat on the floor. Humility.

[49:25]

Humility. You put yourself lower. There's also brokenness in a sense, right? The idea of bending the knees expresses somehow the idea of being broken. Just as being bent over in a deep bow is brokenness in a sense. The reluctance to be... So that, too. So brokenness and contrition and penitence are the same thing. There's also possibly begging. The position of begging. So that's the same reason why we didn't do that. Then Germanus has got another question. He says, well, how can we avoid falling into sin if we start feasting all of a sudden and we've been fasting all this time? And won't the body get out of control? And chapter 21, Theonis tells him, well, your conscience has to be your guide. Really, you've got to decide for yourself by means of discretion. Remember the central rule of discretion

[50:26]

in the Second Compound. You've got to decide what's going to do your harm and how far you should go in relaxing your thirst within limits of your sleep. He gives this idea of the balance, and he says, on one side of the balance you put your purity of heart, or your desire for purity of heart, which would draw you to do more fasting. On the other side of the balance you put your physical strength, OK? Now, if you have too much concern for your purity of heart, proportionately, you're going to hurt your physical strength. If you have too much concern for your body, you're going to sacrifice purity of heart. You're going to fall into accident, possibly, on this thing. So he says, with your conscience you have to balance those two. Remember when Father Devegate, when his tapes talked about this principle of passion of the middle road, the middle road between the two extremes? Which is especially in the Second Conference on Discretion. They talk about the royal way between the two extremes. And here it comes out strongly, too.

[51:27]

You see how consistent passion is in these various conferences. We've got Conference One with its principle of the absolute. We're going to find it more, too. Being way above the means, OK? We've got two terms. We've got A and B. Conference One. A. Love. Purity of heart. Way up here. The means, B. Way down here. The distinction between the importance of the goal and the importance of the means. Now, the second line of passion is sort of the horizontal one. That's the vertical one. This is the horizontal one. Where you've got A and B. They have to be balanced up against one another in order to be fair to each. It's not the question of means and end. It's the question between various means or whatever you want to say. And the royal road, which is a moderation between the two. Now, we saw Conference One was a vertical conference. Conference Two was a horizontal conference. And this one is both vertical and horizontal. You've got both ways. Why is it you often get the advice

[52:30]

of saints and so forth talking about this middle way? Why is it a practice that they always do seem to be so set aside? Because the Holy Spirit drives them to do it. See, when the Spirit really takes over, they're laying down laws often for other people to work with. When the Spirit is not driven that far yet. Because the important thing is that what we do be in response to grace and not just on our own. Well, they have such a strong fire of grace burning inside of them that they can't do anything else. So they lay down other laws for other people, just like St. Benedict did. He might have done a very moderate kind of asceticism. But he himself probably did a lot more than what he was trying to do with St. Benedict. What they teach for their disciples and what they do themselves are really two different things. And that's the same reason why there are founders and teachers that do begin orders and so on. Because they've got that special word. And yet, they have to have the discretion not to throw away

[53:31]

the same thing you don't know that he also did as well. Sometimes there is trouble when they go to St. Francis because he probably, that a lot of his followers just didn't follow him. He came out of a world where there was a lot of tension. Okay, here's an example. Not too clear an example. He talks about first fruits and so explicitly about discretion. He talks about a deceitful balance. A deceitful balance can be in several ways. If you tell other people one thing and you do something else, not in the sense of doing more but in the sense of doing less.

[54:32]

He says if you preach something to other people and then you have another standard for yourself, he says that's having a double balance. He gets a little bit off the subject here. He gets into the private and the external world. Or if you seem very austere on the outside and alone, one is very indulgent. And I think we're all inclined to do that too. We're all inclined to do that. It's not as if we're unique. We need sin when we find ourselves in it. We've got one principle. In our words, we state the principle and we believe it too. But when it comes to action, very often we fall short. And so very often what we say to others and what we do ourselves are just two different things. Two different things. Which is bad but at the same time we don't want to destroy this St. Paul in Romans chapter 7 says, There's a law in my mind which I embrace and I want the law of the world. But there's another law in my conscience which I want the law of the world.

[55:32]

There's a dispute as to what the reason for this reason for this reason for this But it's still standing right in the course of the world. Chapter 23 says, Well, having said this, now he's going to give you a concrete indication of how much you're going to fast and you're going to relax your fasting and just get together. Isn't that what he said? He said, Well, don't change the quantity. Don't change the quality. In other words, eat the same thing. Don't eat any more of it. Eat a little earlier. He said, During Lent, you are taking your dinner at the ninth hour at three o'clock in the afternoon so you can have it at the sixth one but you're going to eat exactly the same thing. I don't know if anybody ever observed that really because every concretely every place that you hear about they always celebrate

[56:34]

the feast in some special way especially the major feast the whole of Paschal time. You can understand you can't just let go for 50 days and do whatever you need to. However, this does seem quite rigorous. Not another piece of parsley is allowed even in this day and age. Then I get into another question here and it starts another part of Lent chapter 24 with different ways to keep it going. This gets kind of mathematical but there's an interesting and important principle underneath it. Since we're about to get into Lent we can go a little more historically. Anybody have to do anything right away? We can go on in other ways. Because we're getting into Lent and this is a good preparation. So it might be well if you haven't read this attentively yet to do that in the near future as it will give you a little background. Germaine says

[57:35]

why do they keep Lent for six weeks whereas here whereas in some places they keep it for seven weeks and you never get 40 days and they call it quadragesimo which means 40 days so how do you know? It's a mathematical thing. Matthionis says well once again simple people wouldn't bother to ask this question they just do it because this verse is so stubborn. And he's got a good principle here. He quotes Exodus Moses you shall offer to the Lord thy God thy tithes and first fruits so he gets back to the question of tithes again. And notice how Matthionis there's a literary literary shape in his conferences so now he's going back to the first part of him you know tithes and first fruits they put together a very artful word and a tithe is what? It's a tenth, right? So he's going to prove how Lent turns out to be a tenth of the year ok? You don't have to go into precise mathematics because there are

[58:35]

many different ways of calculating this. The quadragesimo which is the Latin name for Lent which is the name we use for it means 40 days and that has a biblical significance to it 40 days I do whereas 36 days they ask you for any special thing. Now they say that it was 36 days and then in the time of Gregory the Great you'll find this in the footnote here they added Ash Wednesday and Thursday Friday Saturday you see to make up 40 days to make it really quadragesimo really 40 days that is and make it more biblical. So maybe that accounts for 40 days. But there was always it seems a period of fast at least from early times before Easter preparation for Easter which was a great feast of the church. Part of it had to do with the preparation of the catechumen so that people were to be baptized on Easter and part of it was for the rest of the day. And then in the Western church they added on three or four more weeks of preparation

[59:35]

for Lent so things really started to branch out so you had quinquagesimo Sunday which was just before Lent and you had asexagesimo and septuagesimo which were very approximate because they weren't that would mean 50 days 60 days 70 days but they weren't Notice how we've gone over from the question of Easter time to the question of Lent these are the two big seasons and one is a season of feasting and the other is a season of penance so the two sides of Lent. Now he says what about the first fruits we talked about the tithes so chapter 26 gives you the allegory the spiritual meaning of first fruits and it's kind of beautiful and what he says is every day you should give your first fruits to the Lord in a spiritual way meaning that you give Him your first thoughts you give Him the first movements of your mind and of your heart you see you don't let the devil and you don't let worldly things worldly cares get in there so he points out how precious a time is is the morning

[60:36]

particularly in monastic monastic tradition and the morning is always prized for prayer he says give that to the Lord that's your first fruits then 27 why there are different numbers of weeks and so on it's the same principle 28 the reason for the 40 day thing is biblical because it is said that Moses and Elijah and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself fasted for 40 days so people are always anxious to square what they're doing with the scriptures so that's the reason for moving to 40 days and 40 is always thought of as being a period of preparation a period of often penance also remember that the Jews were in the desert for 40 years and Moses and Jesus was in the desert for 40 days

[61:37]

and Moses was on top of Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights neither eating nor drinking and so on about Elijah I don't remember when he yeah that was after he that was when he was going to Mount Cordoba the same mountain that Moses fasted on Elijah remember he went three days into the desert and he laid down under the broom tree and he said let me die because I'm no better than my father's the angel came and he touched him and he gave him a hearth cake and he said get up and eat because you have a long way to go and then he walked 40 days I guess fasting until he came to Mount Sinai which is the same mountain the same mountain where Moses went to get food to take him out so he got those three classic fasts in the scriptures so that's a very solid foundation and then he gives you a couple of other reasons one being the civil tax that they have which is one of the other reasons

[62:37]

but now here we get to the important thing he says this is the law that you give a tithe that you give a tenth of your life but the people who are under the gospel are not content with length they're not content with just giving a tithe a tenth of their life but they give their whole of their life to the Lord ok their whole of their life to the Lord now what does this mean practically it means a monastic life you see if you read the rule of Saint Benedict chapter 49 which is a chapter on length he says the whole life of a monk ought to be a continual length so this is a pretty good this is a pretty good principle that the monks as it were are a tithe of the church but they themselves are completely offered to the Lord so that their whole life should be a penitential life whereas the rest of the church takes a tithe takes a tenth of their life and offers it to the Lord so the season for length would be more significant then for

[63:38]

secular people living in war over the months and he says that length started originally they didn't need length because everybody was fervent when the church began to get lax then they set aside a tenth of the year so at least during that time they could live a penitential life now remember his theory of the origin of monasticism was similar he said in the beginning everybody was fervent the apostolic church was fervent but then afterwards it fell off from its first fervor and so certain people went out away from it in order to live a more fervent life of prayer and repentance and those were the monks so you see the origin of length and the origin of monasticism are parallel in fashion at least according to one of his attempts so monasticism

[64:39]

meant a natural sympathy finally he gets to this question of grace and the law and the liberty of the Christian from the law as St. Paul says in Romans 6 sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace for of a truth sin cannot exercise dominion over one who lives faithfully under the liberty of grace that starts the next section maybe the last section that is and let's leave that for next time and then maybe we'll go on to 23 the next one the one homerodon nocturnal illusion we'll come back to that later when it's possible

[65:28]

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