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Joyful Union in Divine Love

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The talk explores the concept of joy, particularly within the framework of Christian theology and its relationship to love, the presence of God, and spiritual practice. Joy is discussed as an essential aspect of living a fulfilling spiritual life, deeply connected to the love of God and a personal relationship with Christ. The role of joy in the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent is highlighted, emphasizing spiritual preparation for the presence of God. The discussion contrasts joy with happiness and delight, arguing that true joy is rooted in spiritual closeness and a personal relationship with God. Critical insights from prominent theologians, such as Karl Rahner, St. Augustine, and St. Bernard, are incorporated to demonstrate joy's theological bases and applications.

Referenced Works:
- The Epistle to the Philippians: Used to examine the exhortation to "rejoice in the Lord always," highlighting the theological underpinning for a life of joy in Christian doctrine.
- Articles by Father McCabe and Sebastian Moore: Discussed for insights into the role of love in the inner life of the Trinity, illustrating the theological relationship between love and joy.
- Karl Rahner and Heinrich Vorkremler: Referenced for their description of joy as an experience of ordered harmony in human existence, providing a philosophical framework for understanding joy.
- The Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas: Examined for its analysis of joy as rooted in love, grounding the discussion in classical theological discourse.
- De Lubac's "Supernatural": Explored for its argument on grace as a necessary condition for true joy, adding depth to the theological understanding of joy as a gift from God.
- Augustine's Writings: Discussed for his perspective on joy related to the Gospel, emphasizing the connection between joy, truth, and divine love.
- St. Bernard’s Sermons: Considered for insights on spiritual joy and the purification process, highlighting industhe intricate relationship between joy and the Christian aspiration for personal holiness.

Critical Figures:
- St. Augustine and Origen: Their interpretations underscore the intrinsic connection between joy and the Christian life, offering historical perspectives on the practical implications of joy.
- Teilhard de Chardin and De Lubac: Mentioned for their contributions to twentieth-century theological thought, especially in relation to joy as embedded in spiritual and existential frameworks.

AI Suggested Title: Joyful Union in Divine Love

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Speaker: Dom John Eudes, OCSO
Possible Title: Retreat 2002
Additional text: #5, Joy, contd, carol discussion

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Transcript: 

to rejoice in the Lord always. And he repeats himself. Again I say, rejoice. This comes from the epistle to the Philippians. It gives the name to the third Sunday of Advent, but actually it's an exhortation to all of us to live in a state of joy. Joy is very much related to the other topics we've been talking about. It's related above all else, seems to me, to love. And in particular, the love of God and to His presence. There's been a new interest and understanding the place of love in relation to the inner life of the Trinity.

[01:06]

Since I'm here, I've seen a couple of articles that deal especially with the Holy Spirit in relation to the inner Trinitarian life. but also in relation to creation. You can't talk about the love of God without being aware that we exist simply because he loves us. That's the point that Father McCabe makes, and he creates us in such a way that if we know ourselves in depth, the chief thing we learn is that we're loved by God. We couldn't exist in the way we do unless God loves us and gives us the space to be free and to love in return.

[02:22]

The joy is very much related to that, and of course it's also related to the other topic that I took up earlier, that of perfection. Because joy is the fruit of love and fulfillment. It arises from the experience of a certain completion, greater fullness of life, Joy is created by love when love is intensified and elevated and so made more pure and noble. We're about to celebrate Lent before long. It happens that just a day or two after Ash Wednesday, head for the Philippines, that'll be my Lent, I'm afraid.

[03:27]

And Lent too, although it's a very sober kind of joy, like Advent, looks forward to a presence, the presence of the Spirit won for us by Jesus on the cross at the very end of Lent. So that Lent too, although it stresses penance and self-denial, is like Advent, a time for spiritual joy. St. Paul goes on in this passage where he tells us to rejoice always. Why? Why? because the Lord is near. He's coming in the flesh at Christmas. He's already near to us now by grace and will become still more near to us by the gift of his Spirit who is sent after he gives himself for us on the cross.

[04:47]

So the Lord is not only near, He is within us, in our heart, in the depths of our spirit, making it possible for us to love Him in return. That's one of the points that Father McCabe makes, that I think is the chief insight he has in his article on the Trinity, that The normal relation between a creature and its creator, a child and its parent, is one of hierarchy of submission and of command. But in the case of God's creating us in Christ, we become his equals

[05:49]

in a certain way, because Christ is his equal. And so we become capable of friendship with God. That's the deepest source of our joy. There's more than first a curse to the mind wrapped up in these few words of St. Paul to rejoice always because the Lord is near. What does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? It soon becomes apparent to anyone who attempts to answer this question that it's not possible to give any adequate and precise definition to this expression. It's a pointer rather than a definition, what we say about joy. The best we can do is to paraphrase it with parallel phrases such as to find delight in the Lord, to feel glad or cheerful, knowing we belong to him and that he's given himself to us.

[07:06]

In giving a son to us, He makes it possible for us to become not only his children, but his friends. Such joy then results from our attachment to the Lord, not from any other benefit he might bestow on us, such as good health, success, loving friends. But from our personal relation to him, this joy terminates in the person. in the persons of God. But joy is not so readily understood as some of the other states of consciousness. While there is a wide agreement concerning its general characteristics, various writers define it somewhat differently. Their treatments are rather complementary than contradictory, arising from distinct points of departure in part, as well as from the character of joy itself.

[08:11]

Its exact nature is elusive, in good measure, as it seems to me, because it derives in its essence from deeper levels of the soul and is rooted in the spirit, not in the psyche, like the other emotions are. For example, Karl Rahner and Heinrich Forgrimler describe joy as... an experience of ordered harmony of the plurality of human existence. You have to sort of think about that a while before it registers. But since joy is an experience, defining it in such terms is not the way to connect with it, it seems to me. But still, it describes the basis for joy, a harmony of the various elements that make up our human existence.

[09:22]

Certainly that is true enough. Joy in this view of things is ultimately founded in the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos. which in turn is due to the fact that Christ is the meaning and ground of creation. All things were made by him, St. John tells us in the prologue. The experience of harmony that is joy is rendered possible only because all creation is ordered to Christ, the Word made flesh. Fr. John Harden Joshua defines joy as a feeling aroused by expectation or possession of some good. He observes that it's rooted in the rational will. The New Catholic Encyclopedia defines joy as a pleasant state of quiescence in which the will is satisfied in a good.

[10:30]

A condition for this experience is intellectual reflexive awareness. Modern English usage employs this word in a very wide sense. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as intense and especially ecstatic or exaltant happiness. This definition, however, is too restrictive, it seems to me, and that it excludes the profound and quiet joy known to many of the saints in the midst of suffering, and experienced by many frequent followers of Christ in their daily life. One cannot always be exultant or ecstatic, and yet St. Paul teaches in the text cited above that we should always rejoice. Aristotle already examined this question and St.

[11:37]

Thomas considered that he came up with the right view of the matter. Delight, Thomas maintained, differs from joy in that it is a movement and state of the sensitive soul. Delight is experienced by animals as well as by human persons. Joy, on the contrary, is proper to human beings and to angels. For we do not speak of joy except when delight follows reason. We feel gratitude for God's gifts to us. We experience joy when we find ourselves absorbed with his person, when we feel he is near and present to us. It's useful perhaps to point out to be near is not the same as being present to someone. Man can be physically at our elbow and mentally and emotionally very distant.

[12:41]

I remember once an encounter I had with a psychiatrist. I mentioned that the other day where he said with his wife She was sometimes very present to him, at other times so distant that he found it depressing. He was actually so discouraged by it, he was tempted to suicide. So physical closeness, material closeness, is Not what St. Paul has in mind. It's not the source of joy, inevitably. It's spiritual closeness, personal. Such presence is itself a form of charity. That is, a benevolent love that transcends selfish satisfactions.

[13:46]

Though, to be sure, such a relation is the most gratifying of all experiences, the gratification is not sought for itself, but is a byproduct, a gratuitous fruit of self-giving. Joy is one of the purest of responses to another, for it arises from appreciation of the other in himself. Some years ago, I had a very fascinating encounter with a young woman who was a very attractive personality. In fact, I noticed her in the back of church. And I had to go down to the guest house to interview somebody. And when I finished, she was in the hall there and asked to talk to me. And she said, she had something to ask me, that she wasn't a Catholic, but she belonged to a very, one of these pietistic churches, and was a married woman, still in her 20s, but she had cheated on her husband.

[15:12]

And she told me her husband was a very serious man very earnest and he was loyal and all of that, but happy emotionally. And she said that what she wanted to ask me is should she tell him that she had slipped and got in a relation with somebody and committed adultery. So that was her concern because it was part of her belief that a man and a wife should not keep secrets from one another. I advised her against that. She wasn't at all sure he would forgive her. Could have ruined her marriage. Said if after many years you feel that he could handle it, you could tell him then, but for now you better not.

[16:17]

I don't know what she did, I never heard from her, but what I remember very explicitly is that she mentioned a couple of times that because with her husband, although he loved her in his way, there wasn't any joy. She went looking for it elsewhere, and of course she found more misery instead of joy. You can find delight in that kind of thing, but not joy. And she was one of the most striking instances of that that I've ever encountered because she certainly was a very attractive woman and very virtuous person, but was vulnerable because of this lack of a connection on a personal level that gives joy. Joy doesn't arise from self-interest, delight, again, but not joy.

[17:27]

Rather, it's responsive to the qualities of the other, who in some real manner we truly love. Joy results because being created in the image of God, we find fulfillment in imitating God, who is Trinity, is essentially shared love. And that's what these recent articles by Sebastian Moore and Father McCabe treat of. There's a revived interest in that, and I think some new insights into that question that already St. Augustine gave important attention to. not wholly successfully. The intensity and purity of joy varies with the degree and quality of the loving desire in which it is rooted.

[18:32]

That in turn is determined by the quality of the object of one's love as well as on the virtue of the lover. Supreme joy arises from the perfection of love for God and as God himself as his object. There's also a joy of participation in God's life and love. Our sharing in his life is a profound source of spiritual delight, one that is compatible with other affections, such as sorrow. That's not often appreciated, in my opinion, and it's a pity, but one of my deepest convictions is that the strongest support for our monastic life is a quiet and profound joy that arises from belonging to God.

[19:36]

And that is quiet and deep enough that it can exist in the presence of difficulties, of struggles, even of a certain feeling at times. of sorrow and struggle. But if the joy is there, I believe that it's the strongest support we can have, humanly speaking, for persevering and persevering fruitfully in our call. In proportion as human friendship and other loving relations reflect divine qualities such as dedication to truth, goodness, and spiritual beauty, those human relations too are a source of true joy for us. For joy is in fact rooted in love, St.

[20:43]

Thomas Aquinas avers in his analysis of its nature. It is evident, he states, that love is the first affection of the appetitive power, and that desire and joy follow from it. Hence, the same virtuous habit inclines us to love and desire the beloved good and to rejoice in it. In practice, this means that to take joy in anyone occurs only when there's some measure of bonding with that person so that in some way he has become another self or at least is experienced as such. It would even seem that to experience joy in another is itself a bonding experience. Either creating a new union or intensifying one that already exists.

[21:46]

Joy results from the fulfillment of desire or an aspiration that is rooted deeply in the soul. Only when the other embodies some value or good that we admire and aspire after do we react to its presence with that spontaneous and gladsome feeling we call joy and that makes life seem somehow more complete and more worthy. Jesus understood his life in preaching to be a source of surpassing joy. St. Luke makes it clear that his birth was already a source of great joy to many. He states that explicitly. I give you tidings of great joy, the angels announced to the shepherds. At the visitation, Mary carrying the child in her room, the joy brought by the Lord was already communicated to the Baptist who leaps for joy, and of course to Elizabeth and her household.

[23:00]

His mere presence was a source of a powerful experience of joy. He presented his message as good news and compared his content to a wedding feast. His own person produced joy in those who lived with him, so that they could not be sad or fast, he says, when he was present among them. So great a cause for joy was he that John the Baptist compared his person to a bridegroom and referred to himself under the same image. Those who accept him and his teaching are characteristically led to rejoice. The first thing that Matthew did when he came to know Jesus and accept him was to make a banquet and invite his friends, as well as the Lord as his honored guest.

[24:04]

He celebrated in joy. The last event of his active ministry when he gave out his most moving and profound thoughts and aspirations was a meal with his disciples. The joy he brings is expressed more fully in community of those who are one in heart and mind in their union with him. Our joy, to be sure, was Our Lord, to be sure, was keenly aware that however pure and elevated in this life, joy would always remain imperfect and limited. He turned the hopes and aspirations to his hearers, to a world where joy would one day be full. Thus, in the Beatitudes, he preaches a happiness that looks to a future world for the values that will be rewarded of those despised in this world.

[25:13]

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. In the world to come, that is. The apocalypse is faithful to this transcendent vision and depicts heaven as a place of light, glory, and praise, where God is the source of unbelief. ending blessings to the saints, and joy symbolized by the brilliant attire of a bride is everywhere diffused throughout the heavenly city of which God is the soul under the form of light. The Church Fathers grasped with a sure spiritual sense this message of joy and its implications. for our Jesus followers. They carried his good news to their communities, wrote of it, and explained its significance in their preaching. Origen, to name the most creative of them all, understood the Word of God as an ever-flowing fountain of refreshment and the source of spiritual gladness.

[26:26]

The Gospel, he wrote, is a discourse that contains the announcement of events that, justly in view of their usefulness, gives joy to those who hear it from the moment they accept its announcement. Just as the appropriate nourishment for the body satisfies animals, so also, origin writes, every rational animal has need of nourishment that is proper to it and suitable for its conditions. Now the true nourishment of reasonable nature is the Word of God. The Word of God then is ordered to provide a profound satisfaction to our spiritual self. He is aware at the same time that the joy at discovering the true sense of Scripture as revealed by Christ is inevitably accompanied by suffering. St.

[27:30]

Augustine is well treated seriously of the question of joy in relation to the gospel. He points out that since Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, he showed that what we call happiness is false and leads to slavery. He is the one who reveals what our true happiness is. He also bestows on us the special graces needed to attain to it. Joy results from that happiness that is founded in truth. First Gustin demonstrates, though two individuals might disagree totally as to what activity would make them happy, yet both make their choice based upon their opinion as to what will bring them joy. They call the joy itself the happy life, he writes. For though one seeks joy in this way and the other in that, yet there is one thing which all strive to attain, and that is to rejoice.

[28:38]

And since everybody has had some experience of joy, when they hear mention made of the happy life, they recognize what it is from their memory. This joy is the interior experience of the happy life. It unites all the faculties in a single... It is found when a person seeks the truth with desire. However fortunate any of us might be in this life, though, never will we know the fullness of joy. Joy is certain only when it is the result of attaining eternal truth. For St. Augustine then, joy results from realizing the goal of If we would attain to perfect happiness, we must intensify and enlarge our desire. For, he wrote, desire is the space inside the heart.

[29:44]

We shall attain what we desire if we extend desire as much as we are able. This doctrine then is another link that connects joy with the season of Advent and of Lent, which fosters the longing for the coming of Christ to bring salvation and eternal life to his people. Saint Bernard, too, is one of the more prominent preachers concerning the importance of joy for the Christian and of the appropriate means of attaining to its perfection. He points out that the very ardor of desire is a foretaste of beatitude. Bernard insists, however, that before we can expect our desire to be ardent, we must mortify ourselves and abstain from false satisfactions. This entails sharing in the passion of Christ. In a sermon that has joy as his theme, he develops this point further and stresses the need for purification.

[30:56]

before we can be capable of pure joy. Good wine, he writes, is not from the vine of impurity, but from the jar of purification. Good wine is not made from the grape of Gomorrah, but from the water of Judea. You have saved the good wine until now, we read in John, for the best wine is saved until now, in that it is not made with water, but rather from that great cluster from the promised land that is carried upon a pall when we know Christ according to the flesh and Him crucified. After laboring at this work of cleansing the heart, the soul is freed from vice and begins to drink of the wine of joy, having learned to glory not only in hope but also in tribulation. Though in the present time of purification, we're not left without consolation, Bernard reminds us, but we are helped by the Holy Spirit.

[32:07]

This is the twofold joy that you have in the meantime, Bernard says, in the Holy Spirit, namely, from the memory of future goods and from enduring present evils. This rejoicing still has a certain restlessness about it that leads us to desire a deeper satisfaction, which we seek through union with our Savior in prayer. In the measure that we turn in prayer to the Lord, we begin to enjoy more than the memory of the Lord. We experience His presence and even at times His embrace. Although only a total union with the Word made flesh will satisfy the longing spirit, in this life we must live by faith and be content with the longing for face-to-face vision possible only in heaven. Still even now we possess the Lord as an amiable companion on the way who lightens our travels with His delightful conversation.

[33:17]

Bernard describes in elaborate detail the ways in which the Lord solicits our love and sustains our hope by revealing Himself to us as lovable. He writes, and in all these things He is gentle and tender, rich in mercy, for in His kiss He is affectionate and mild. He anoints us, as it were, with soothing pigments and fragrant salves by treating us with gentleness overflowing with delicate compassion. On our journey, he is cheerful, affable, charming, and consoling. He is munificent in showing us his riches and possessions, and in his royal largesse, shows himself to be lavish in bestowing rewards. Accordingly, we can even now live in joy though our joy must remain imperfect so long as we are in body and consequently devoted to death.

[34:21]

We can hope to know the fullness of joy only after the body is glorified by the resurrection and enjoy the face-to-face vision promised to those who are purified. Even then, although we shall be fully satisfied, yet our desire will continue to stretch out taking us further into the source of our delight in the Lord. Diadoca Fodiki, if you recall, as I said the other day, spoke of a higher joy that leads to perfection. Since joy is the fulfillment of the ardent desire of the true good, who is Christ the Lord, And desire is the fruit of charity. If we were to attain to perfect joy, we must make it our concern to cultivate that love of God that is pure and ardent, in which we denominate charity.

[35:28]

The liturgy that fosters our longing for the Lord's presence stimulates us to strive after a more pure and more profound love for God. by placing before the eyes of the Spirit the mercy and goodness of God who patiently awaits our repentance and forgives our sins in view of refashioning us in the image of His Son. The liturgy gives us strong motivation for responding to God's kindness with a loving gratitude. When we reflect on the fact that it is His own Son, whom he sends to aid us by his personal sacrifice, his humility and suffering, and even his death, we come to feel a greater trust in approaching him and become more confident of his welcoming us. Nothing so stimulates love as recognition that one is loved.

[36:32]

I would say, trusted. Let us take these considerations to heart then as we enter upon the coming season of Lent so that made ready through more fervent love and gratitude to God we might receive Christ in joy when he comes to take us with himself into the presence of his merciful Father. I think you're right.

[38:01]

That's one reason I speak about joy. That doesn't mean there wasn't a kind of joy present, but often it wasn't spoken about much. But I personally made a discovery in my own life. When I entered the Trappist, it was certainly grimly austere, in my experience at least. You know, life seemed rather heavy there, but I discovered that underneath that, that somehow I was able to, not to resent it, but to realize it was productive.

[39:03]

And that was a source of joy And as time went on, I could see that behind this sort of sorrow or heaviness, there was a presence of God that really was a source of strength and of joy. So that I think I can honestly say that at least since I made simple vows, I haven't had an unhappy day yet. But I've had a lot of days when I could barely get through. The worst was in Africa. But I felt the Lord carried me. And then when I almost died about 18 months ago, I had that same experience that I didn't feel upset. I didn't feel sad.

[40:06]

And on the contrary, I felt if this is God's will, it's quite all right. I wasn't overflowing with joy. But I think I mentioned that one of the doctor's assistants there felt that. And she was a Buddhist, but she decided to come in the church after that experience. She said she saw the way that that I experienced that, you know, miserable condition. I couldn't eat or sleep or even turn over in bed on my own or breathe, and yet I didn't seem to be anything depressing. So I think that's why I mentioned that there is a kind of quiet joy that I think is part of the charism of the monastic life, which is dedicated to conversion and awareness that we're sinners and take responsibility for our weaknesses and our sins and fragility, but at the same time, our whole call is a response to God's love.

[41:31]

And I think as we realize that, that's the real source of quiet joy. But I do agree with you that there's a paradox in it. I just finished reading a life of Lubeck. Sort of the biography of his thought is more than his life, but his life too by one of his admirers, the Jesuits. And he's a very impressive man. I wouldn't be surprised if you were canonized someday when you go into the details of his life. But one of his deepest convictions was that God has made us in such a way, he was suspected of being a heretic because of this. And he made it in such a way that we really can't find our joy and our happiness except in him.

[42:43]

And yet, that being made in that way, although it's in our nature, we can't realize that happiness except by a special gift of grace. He has a book called Sur Naturelle, Supernatural. And that seems to be the essential message. And that gift of grace is given us, of course, in Christ, just out of God's sheer love for us. So that awareness of that, that's why we're all here, I think is the basis for quiet, peaceful joy, even in the midst of trials and awareness of our sinfulness. What we do seem to think things down to our standards. Yes. This is what being loved means.

[43:47]

I can revisit that. Yes. Checking things out and things of our horizon and justice and love. That woman who committed adultery sort of illustrates that, I think. Having a good time is the way to joy. It really backfired for her. It's kind of a pity not to be able to find out how things develop later in her life. But I think our talk did help her decide that she wasn't bound in conscience to tell her husband, by the way.

[45:00]

Yeah. Yeah. But then, at the same time, it was this thing, spirituality, most of you, the more you suffer, the older you are. Yes. And then, of course, you know, I was done by sinners. Yes. I'm happy. They were very devoted, you know. Oh yes, I think that was typical of many. I was blessed to have a Jesuit teacher when I went to college who was the opposite of that. He was strong on penance and so on, but he was probably the most cheerful and outgoing man on the faculty, even that I met in life. seemed happy, you know. And that made him a very attractive personality.

[46:03]

But that was too rare. There were some others that I knew. I had Benedictine sisters when I went to grade school. And they had a very fine sister there too. In fact, I had the same teacher in the first grade that my father had. Sister Crescentia, I still remember her name. I'd never heard of St. Crescentia, but she was about 80 or something and still going strong. But I think it's part of our witness to accept the joy that comes from longing to the Lord. And those people who that doesn't mean that they aren't carrying their burden of suffering too, but they, I think, radiate more of the spirit that St.

[47:07]

Paul speaks of, no matter how large spoken. You know, there was a Franciscan—I worked, when I was in medical school, I worked at night in the hospital for the poor, the St. Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. because they couldn't afford interns, so they hired medical students. And there was a nun there, a German, she had a heavy German accent, who was charged to take care of us. My closest friend and I both had this job. We were on duty together. And it was kind of a grim place. Some of these patients were desperate and chronic. So I remember one who had cancer of the face where the bones were eaten away and maggots were coming out of his face.

[48:11]

And she always gave the impression she'd just come from a party. She was always cheerful and happy and concerned that the icebox had was full so that we had enough to eat and concerned about our welfare and so on. How on earth she maintained that was a mystery to me, but she always, I never saw her any time, day or night, when she didn't radiate to that. And yet she was carrying this kind of penitential life that was, you know, I found it depressing in the atmosphere at times. except for her, mostly. So the two aren't incompatible, and I think getting that idea of becoming more aware of the hidden joy that is in our life makes it more fruitful for us, like becoming aware of potentials that we have

[49:24]

puts us in a position to act on them more. One of the biggest principles in psychotherapy is Evagrius, Ponticus, in the fourth sense, we already understood this, that the more precisely you can identify your inner states, the more effectively you can work with them. So he wrote a book called Antirecicus that consists of a whole list of sayings, you know, maybe like 10 sayings from the scriptures, that you put them against demons against their temptations, and the more precisely you identified the demon, the more you were able to pick the right one of these sayings and use it against it. So the principle, it sounds a little quaint when you put it, that's the way you put it, but the principle is very sound.

[50:35]

I mean, it's the principle that's behind all modern insight therapy that recognizing the potential, the hidden conflicts that we have but also Freud emphasized the conflicts, but also the hidden potentials, which is in a position to do something about them instead of being driven by it. And then it's up to us, of course, to work at it. But I've seen that even a relatively simple insight into a rather ordinary experience change people's lives. So being aware of this hidden joy, I think, can be a source of very real strength and of stimulus to continue on the way and to give our best.

[51:51]

At some point, all of us get to a place in life where that's all we've got. Some of us live rather closely to that much of the time. And a number of the saints did. Yeah, I believe that. I had a friend who lived with Teilhard down in the Chess with St. Ignatius down in Manhattan. Teilhard died actually in New York. And he told me that I asked,

[52:58]

Well, how did he impress you? He said he was the most misunderstood Jesuit I ever knew because he was so humble, you know. He said he would see the superior every week and tell him what he's doing to get his blessing, that sort of thing. But he had to live under a shadow most of his life. The Lubeck is the one who stood by him to defend him. And by experience what that was like, But he certainly had character. Actually, in the war, he was decorated for a bravely under fire in the First World War. And he kept that aggressive spirit, I think. He's the only person I've ever read that much about the First World War. He's the only person I've ever read about the First World War. Who didn't choose, I was here.

[53:58]

100-1000% tragedy. I don't want to say it's all about pecking, but he really was in it. No, he was in the front church, yes. He wasn't enjoying it, but I mean, he was asking about what he was doing. Oh, yeah. It helped him. It's amazing. Yeah, there's a professor down in Kentucky who got interested in my talks on the web. I put him up on the web. I would say this one was, yeah,

[54:59]

And so he's working on that. He's a former teacher at Princeton. But he gave that up to go down and work in Appalachia. A Quaker. But somehow it speaks to him. And in fact, he... But the same thing. She worked on this thing on sorrow and suffering. Oh, yeah. It's a paradox, how they go together. Yeah. No, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, when he wipes out the other day, don't they? That's right. It's a kind of creative tension almost. I think so. Yeah, I'll tell you, Ard, what you said about him is that he said, you know, he could give the idea that he's on top of everything, but it took a lot of courage. Also, this Father Henderson, the one who influenced me so much, His nickname was The Breeze, because he was always full of energy and so on.

[56:08]

One of the things that I still remember, this is 60 years ago almost, but is how he was always the same, even dealing with the poor, he wasn't any different than when he dealt with rich people, prominent people and so on. He had the same outgoing cheerfulness. He had a great influence on the groups of students. He probably stimulated more vocations than the whole rest of the faculty together. And I think it was that enthusiasm. How far back was it? Was it still there? It should still be there. When was this one?

[57:13]

Yeah. Well, for your peace of mind, well, not too long. But this was 99, it looks like. Maybe older. It might be older. Yeah, 99. Just the third Sunday of Advent. I modified it this morning. Third Sunday of Advent. Third Sunday of Advent. Yeah, Gaudete Sunday. Yeah. Chapter, that was a chapter too. What did you say about yourself and about the two mosques that you were worried about?

[58:26]

Yes. Yeah, when I told him, you know, that I feel badly this year, I have to go through this dying of cancer, you know, this slow death, he said, oh, don't, he said it this way, he said, oh, don't worry about that, that's not important, because if it were bad, God My father wouldn't allow. He didn't say God. He said my father wouldn't let her have it. And I happened to be out at the front gate because his sister showed up when she heard about this. Mary, she still writes to me occasionally. And she arrived when he was outside at the doctor's. So he wasn't there. So I talked to her a little bit. And then he came back. We were there and he looked awful.

[59:28]

She burst out crying when she saw him. And he said, Mary, what are you crying about? There's nothing. This isn't all that serious. It's just death. Nothing to worry. And you could see he meant it. It wasn't. And then it's one thing to say that, but he stayed that way throughout his illness. When he died, he died very peacefully. And yet he was considered to be so fragile, he might have a nervous breakdown. He got stronger. He also was one of the most faithful coming to see me. He would come every Saturday morning, you know, talk about. Very bright guy. He had been a radio man in the Navy Air Force in World War II, and was very interested in science.

[60:29]

One of his favorite readings was Scientific American, most of which is over my head. Me too. We get it. Yeah. Once in a while, if I know you can read it. Yeah, it's pretty sophisticated stuff, but he loved it. Talking about Scientific American, light, I was thinking of talking about light this month, but I decided this other. One of the latest inventions for computers is computers run not by electricity, but by light. And Intel has developed a chip. with a little tiny chip with 1150 mirrors on it that act as switches. And so there's no friction in such a system because there's no resistance to light.

[61:37]

And these mirrors, there are two kinds of chips, one where the mirrors can be moved, the other is where they're fixed. but at angles, so each of those mirrors acts as a switch. And it's supposed to enhance the speed of computers by a factor of 1,000. Instead of, say, a million operations per second, which they can do now, two million. Two billion. Isn't that fascinating? The first one made like that was in Scotland. Just two guys who were working at a little lab invented this thing, but Intel took it over, got onto it, and they say it's going to be available in two or three years.

[62:40]

Anyhow. And we had gone, a bunch of us had gone out for lots, full of customers, and we'd go out and we'd watch. So the KVU asked us if we wanted to see the pavilion. They called it a pavilion. It was new and probably got three or four years. So we went back here, and we said, okay. So we went over, and I went inside, and he went to be able to He said, that's how we're looking in. I'm looking out. And all of a sudden, this man came along. I might have seen him here from Mass because I didn't know his name was fun. He said, where are you going here? I said, well, the three of the brothers, they were outside. He said, well, stay right here. He took all of us from people who didn't take this to some. So when they came in, I said, well, this man came and said, stay right here. First thing he does is,

[63:45]

he does get by the use of the perception desk and says, they're with me. I said to Gabriel later, I said, how could we have gotten any further than the perception desk? It sounded like that we can't get by unless you've got... The first thing he does is he goes to this little molecule display of the photonics. And his point was, the short of it was, computers are passe. It's going to be plutonics that go at the speed of light. When you're trying to communicate with Washington, it's like a flick of a finger and you've got to communicate. I couldn't fathom all the way he was saying, I just said to myself, So, you know, this thing is, they've got this photo, prototype on the thing there.

[64:51]

It's transmitting with laser? He spoke of laser, but I don't know whether it is laser or whether it's something else. It's probably what it was tied in with. They said they can transmit now, in a matter of two seconds, the whole content of the Encyclopedia Botanica.

[65:30]

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