May each of you be blessed, celebrating this feast of the Epiphany, one realises how beautiful it is to make on this deity, the profession, the vows, as Father John and Father Benedict have done, it's now ten years ago. Ten years. Father Abadilipont used to say, after ten years you begin to monastic life without God. That is very true. I think one can celebrate his 40th anniversary and still say, I'm just at the beginnings. But it's very joyful as I yesterday in contact with Charles Benedict to give him the greetings of the community and heard to my joy that the anxieties has disappeared and that he is again in much better shape and so we'll soon come back and join us again and our special prayers today to our child on this day I was thinking you know it's the day of

[01:29]

joining, you know, the sharing, the wedding feast, and the two things belong to it, the giving and the receiving, both things, the giving of the wise man, the magi do, coming from the east, from far away, and representing the fullness of the the ecclesia or the church with gold and frankincense and milk. Just the other day I happened to read there's an abbey in Germany. Abbey's in Bavaria. There's a crib. There's a crib. There are the magi are but in a very kind of peculiar way.

[02:34]

There's a Catholic priest and there's an Orthodox priest and there's a Protestant minister. The Catholic priest brings the gold. The Orthodox priest brings the incense. Of course, the minister brings the bill. And there's really something to it. There are several gifts, you know, but all those gifts, of course, and that is, again, the sad part, you know, of these three things which are so true. I mean, the... honoring of Christ the King, that is always in some way, or from the beginning, the preoccupation to speak of the Roman Catholic Church and the whole mission of Rome, the law and the rule.

[03:43]

The East has much more that element of adoration, the security, the glory to the Lord, that is the burden of the Eastern liturgy in a beautiful way. And then there the Reformation was really born out of, let's say, the concern for the acknowledgement and the real appreciation of Christ becoming man and dying for our sins and doing in that way everything that is necessary for our salvation which we then would receive in faith and every one of these three aspects there really is a great truth to it

[04:52]

we can be happy to realize, of course, it's also evident that the wholeness and the church, the oneness of the church demands the three sacrifices, and one can say the three aspects of the sacrifice demand the oneness of the church, they really have a real meaning only in the unity and through the unity of all the faithful, just incompatible with the idea of the church, of the ecclesia, the one bride of Christ, and all the broadness and the latitude that we see imitated and celebrated in today's Mass, in the lesson, as well as in the Gospel, all these glomedans, the various kind of people that come as on Pentecost, you know, to enter into the Catholic Church.

[06:03]

So the Church is essentially that broadness, and it is just impossible, and it is intolerable really for the Christian, and he really goes into the depth of these relations Christ and the Dove so to speak Christ and the Church if there is one Church that will specialize in one approach and another Church will specialize in another approach and another one in another that is of course so evidently against the whole meaning of the bride of Christ so I think that we experience of course something very similar to that in our monastic life. And it is good that we apply this idea of broadness and totality and the offering of all these sacrifices in the unity of one body also to ourselves, to our own life.

[07:12]

And you realize that that is one of the things that we ask and pray to God that He may give us. because the gifts are different, and we can see also the way of the various brethren is different. Just in these two who made their vows ten years ago, Fr. Benedict, Fr. John, they are two different types. I wouldn't say who is the golden, who is the miracle. to the mystical depth, you know. But there it is, you know, and the important thing, of course, is that as much as possible that we realize, you know, that of course for the monk, the monk is one. Therefore, the monk is called to bring the three sacrifices in his first

[08:20]

gold and the incense and the milk, the faith and the kingdom in Christ, the Pantocrator, as that is so evident in our monastic life, the totality of it, which, as St. Benedict just reminds us this morning, is also so beautiful and fitting, heart and body, the two things go into and there's the incense, there's the prayer, there's the lecture, the meditatio, and therefore also the studies that goes into that, and the mirror, and that is the poverty, that is the monk as not a man but a worm, and a dumb beast, and a... poor one of Christ, poor one.

[09:24]

In the monastery, these aspects, and every individual monk, these aspects must be united. Therefore, also, every individual monk is called on to offer himself in these three ways. One cannot pick out one way and leave the other, but they all have to be one, and then we really become monks And then we really become Catholics. And a monastery, therefore, must, it's a difficult thing, but it's the will of God for us that we don't lose contact in various departments, but that we all remain one, actually, in what we offer and in the spirit in which these gifts And that would also be, as you can easily see, the wonderful goal to speak of any ecumenical movement, to come back to that crib there in Niederaltage, in the refectory, if what is now divided and all that may be worn, so that the worn Catholic

[10:52]

really offers a home to all these various aspects of serving God. It's broad enough to take in the whole of mankind. What a wonderful perspective that is, but also how much patience it takes, and how much humility it takes, and how much really deep to that goal but I think we all have the feeling that in that way the council although it is not just the first phase of it is over still I think we have very much all get the feeling that so much has been done and that the Holy Spirit is really working that dog over our Lord hovering over the furious when he offers himself

[11:52]

in all humility in the baptism on the Jordan and there is that dove representing that fullness of the ecclesia that joins the high priest in that sacred action. I think we can feel that the Holy Spirit is working more than ever in this erection and let us be docile instruments in his hands as Catholics and as Bye.

[12:23]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_88.66