Again, I found this vanity under the sun, a solitary man with no companion, with neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his toil, and riches do not satisfy his greed. For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good things? This also is vanity and a worthless task. Two are better than one. They get a good wage for their labor. If the one falls, the other will lift up his companion. Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up. Where a lone man may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily broken. And from the Gospel of John, chapter 13. So when he had washed their feet, and put his garments back on and reclined a table again, he said to them, Do you realize what I have done for you?

[01:02]

You call me teacher and master, and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. So we're now at the second step of our... of our climb towards a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. And really, if we would get stuck on that first step, we would not be authentic Benedictines because we certainly have to move out of an I-Thou relationship into a relationship with our own brother monks in community. Maybe that's a good thing we're celebrating St. Anthony today because in a sense, St. Anthony represents, as you mentioned, The first step, really, in the air medical life, in many ways, of being alone with God, the solitary person. But even there, Anthony really was not all that alone. He was very much involved with, as we know from history, involved with the church and with people who came to him for spiritual direction.

[02:07]

But again, once a person has really developed this interrelation, intimacy with Christ, if he's being called to the centibidic life, then he has to move on into the second step of community life. There's a story told about the night watchman at St. John's in Collegeville. His name was Brother Alfred. He was an old brother there, the night watchman, to go around and check, especially going through the novitiate in the dormitory seat that everybody was there. So he was going through the novitiate one early morning, checking on the novices, and he noticed that... Novice Michael's bed was empty. So he woke up. Novice Henry was in the next bed and says, Novice Henry, where's Novice Michael? And Novice Henry said, well, he's not here. He said, well, yeah, I can see that. His bed's empty. What happened? He says, he left. And Brother Alfred said, well, why did he leave?

[03:09]

And Novice Henry said, well, he didn't like it here anymore. And Brother Alfred said, well, who does? So it's not a question of necessarily liking community life, but loving it. In many ways, our whole attitude towards people that way, because there's some people that just rub us the wrong way, even in community at times. And so it's not a question of liking necessarily their personality or liking them. But to really love them, well, that's where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, and that's what Jesus is talking about. He's talking about love, not love. not liking. So community life, though, can be a cross. We know that. If any one of us here would deny that fact that it can be a cross at times, I don't think they're really being honest with themselves because it's just part of living together with people. We're going to bump into each other and we're going to get our feelings hurt.

[04:11]

We're going to hurt other people. And we constantly have to work at that, which is One of the reasons, I think, why we take the vow of conversion of life. We're constantly, should be open to bettering ourselves, and community really helps us to grow. And there is something, you have to admit that people that come out of a community context seem to be much more rounded personalities than people who maybe have lived most of their life in a in more or less a solitary context. Oftentimes think of the diocesan priests, and that's a special vocation, and God loved them for them. I don't know how they do it, because I couldn't do it, but they basically live a solitary life. And you know, if you live with them for a while, or get to know them, they've developed their own little quirks. They can't help but do that. It's just part of... They have no... no one else to bounce it off from and to round them out. But as we live in community life, I think our personalities get rounded off and we become less acerbic or whatever in relationship to people, more understanding and easy to live with.

[05:27]

But as I went reading from John chapter 13 on the washing of the feet, Living in community like with the washing of the feet can be a stinking business at times. It's not the most pleasant thing in the world. And this came home to me quite evidently about washing of the feet is when I was in Guatemala for two years as the prior down there and had the Holy Thursday washing of the feet for the people that came in from the villages. Well, I started out with this great big clean bucket of water, and at the end, it was totally black or dark. These people, they took off their boots. Most of them walk with these big boots on because of going through the hills, but they took them off, and their feet were fairly dirty, so I thought, well, this makes sense. This is what washing feet is all about, and I'm sure Jesus, even though they didn't wear boots, they probably wore sandals, but still, I'm sure the water was pretty dirty when he got finished. So, Washing the feet is not that antiseptic kind of washing the feet that we oftentimes do in our liturgies around here when people make sure that their feet are washed before they come, if they're going to have their feet washed.

[06:36]

But there's other areas of the community life that really hit home as far as washing one another's feet. And this came home to me pretty much when I was in... I was novice master in the 70s, and we took turns taking care of Father Brandon, who was pretty much paralyzed by a stroke and was in bed. He just couldn't get out and couldn't move much. He could move his arms. But this thinking business was part of washing another part of the anatomy, which was... pretty stinky. But when you came in in the morning, you pretty much had to clean up his bed because he couldn't go to the bathroom. And so we had to change his pampers and change the pad on the bed and so forth. And I would not make a good nurse. I know that. But I had Monday mornings. That was, or Monday. Monday was my day to take care of him. And I pretty much dreaded it because I knew I had to go in and clean him up. And it's just what you have to do.

[07:41]

So I went in that Monday morning and it was For some reason or other, I'd gotten out of the wrong side of the bed that Monday morning and I was not in the best mood. And Father Brendan had a way, even when he was before his stroke, of knowing how to push people's buttons at the time. He was very Irish. Not that the Irish could do that, but he could. But he could get my brother going in a theological argument and just in a couple of words, my brother would just bite it and go off and start arguing with him. But he just knew how to... press people's buttons. And I think he probably knew after it was all over it, I thought, I bet that stinker pretty well knew that it was a bad day for me. And he wanted just to test my patience. Well, he did. I got there and pretty much cleaned him up and changed his bed pad there and was ready to put some more pampers on him. And I went back in the bathroom and washed out the washcloth and came back and By golly, he messed up the bed again, right?

[08:44]

So I pulled all of that stuff out and washed him up again with a washcloth and went back in. I came back in the second time. The second time he had done it. That really did it. I stood there at the bed with my washcloth, and I turned and threw the washcloth all the way through the door into the bathroom, hit the mirror, and I let out an expletive that very much described the situation he was in. I was not a happy camper. And I stomped out. I said, you just lay in it. I walked out. Well, then I left and went back to my room, and I really got calms of conscience, and I had to come back and apologize to him and get my act together. But I couldn't help but think after it was all over, I bet he did that on purpose. I bet he did it on purpose, just to test my patience. And he succeeded. He won. He won, and I lost, basically. But that's community life.

[09:49]

That's part of it. It's just learning to live with people, learning... to adjust to other people's difficulties or help them or whatever. Learning to forgive. And that's probably one of the most important things, just moving on and not carrying grudges. I remember coming on the airplane when I was coming here, the guy that just left Hazelden, he was saying, you know, how do you forgive? You know, he said, we learned at Hazleton that resentment is anger grown old, taking root. And there's probably a lot of truth in that. Resentment comes after you've nursed anger for a long time. You end up being resentful. And he said, I'm really resentful of my wife. And they said that we should pray for her. I said, they're right. If you lift them up in prayer and stop thinking about it, you can move on. And he seemed... to buy into it, although he wasn't too sure, because he said, well, I'm only in my second week of prayer.

[10:50]

I'm supposed to pray four weeks for this, for her. So I wished him good luck. Because it does take a lot of humility to overcome that hurt or whatever. So as one of our priests at the monastery oftentimes says, it ain't easy, kids. It ain't easy. He walks shaking his head and talking about basically community living. But God has called us to this way of life. And it's important that we persevere in it. It's important that we stick to it. That's part of the vow of stability, that we stick to it, we persevere. One of our priests at the monastery one time gave an excellent homily. And it was basically on community living. And he said, you know what I do when I get down on some of the community members or just on the community in general? I go to the ordo, and I open the ordo for Blue Cloud Abbey, and I go through each name, and I try to pick out a good quality of that monk that I can see in that monk and go through each name and do that.

[12:04]

And I said, golly, we should... We should do that more often. When we get down on the community or get down on any particular person, just go to the oracle and open it up and go through each name and pick out a good quality in that person's life that we know and that we've experienced and that we should think about. So reading what we've got here, though, like I said, we're now at the second step towards a vibrant Benedictine spirituality. But what's interesting, the more I start dissecting the rule, I mean, in a good way, I hope, and trying to work out these themes towards a vibrant Benedictine spiritual, the more I see that the rule is really laid out pretty well, theologically, as I said. Benedict introduces us to this intimacy with Christ right away. And he closes his rule right away with that.

[13:07]

That's why chapter 73 and the prologue deal with that. But like I said, what's interesting next, though, when Benedict goes into the next bracket and his rule is chapter 1, which is on the Cenobite, on monks who live together in community. And not only that, chapter 73 or 72 is on good zeal. which is probably one of the best practical guides to how to live in community, how to live with one's brothers. So you have those two brackets. And so as we're moving up towards a more vibrant Benedictine spirituality, we take the next step, which is in chapter 1 and chapter 72. But right in the middle of the rule, more or less, is chapter 58, which I mentioned to you, the reception of new members. And in that... And in that chapter, as we talked a little bit about, you have both of those themes brought together.

[14:10]

You have the individual person who's knocking on the door who feels called by God to enter the community. So he's made a decision on his own as an individual before God to enter this community. And so he enters the community. So you have the I-thou entering into a community a community of other I-thouers to ask for admission into it. So chapter 58 brings both of those first steps together in an interesting way. If you'd read chapter 58, you would see that because he's in the novitiate and he's being tested, but then once he's tested and is able to make vows to enter the community, let him be received into the community and be considered as a member of the community. Let him then be received into the community after being tested for a year. So there is a, in these two steps towards the vibrant Benedictic spirituality, step one and step two, there's a dialectic going on.

[15:23]

We need both. You can't just be stuck in one or stuck in the other. You need both of those steps if you want to be a part of a Benedict and Cenobitic life and not just a hermit. One of the best books on living together in community is a book written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as I mentioned, I think I mentioned it once more, in Life Together. It's a little bitty book, but a very powerful book. And he has chapters on both life together and life... It's called life together. But he has a chapter on the day alone and the day with others. And I think I mentioned to you a quote from him when I was talking about that I-thou relationship on the day alone. But this is the dialectic he talks about between being alone and being in community. He says this...

[16:25]

Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone. Because they cannot stand loneliness. They are driven to seek the company of other people. They hope that that will gain some help. They hope they will gain some help in association with others. And they are generally disappointed. The Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium. Such people are not really seeking community at all, but only distraction which will allow them to forget their loneliness. Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. But the opposite is equally true. Let him who cannot be in community beware of being alone. We recognize then that only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone. And only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone, and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship.

[17:33]

It is not as though the one preceded the other. Both begin at the same time, namely with the call of Jesus Christ. And then he quotes another part of the community living. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. This is the scripture's praise of life together under the word. But now we can rightly interpret the words in unity and say, for brethren to dwell together through Christ. For Jesus Christ alone is our unity. He is our peace. Through him alone do we have access to one another, joy in one another, and fellowship with one another. So I think that's a powerful statement, the importance of Jesus Christ in the fellowship as well as in being alone. So those first steps, step one and step two towards this vibrant benedict and spirituality are basically the steps of the two commandments of loving God above all and loving your neighbor as yourself.

[18:47]

Step two. So the Benedictine vocation is a personal yes to follow Christ in community. A personal yes. My decision early on when I was in the seminary, in the minor seminary, was either I would have to join a community monastery or leave because I knew I would not make it as a diocesan priest. I just knew that. I was not cut out for that kind of life. I figured if I would go on and become a diocesan priest, I would either end up being married or being a drunk or being both. And one vocation is a very high and noble vocation. The other one is not. But I just... Because I saw that was what was happening to some of the diocesan priests who were ordained and then eventually left or...

[19:51]

or hit the bottle or whatever. I knew I needed a support group. I knew I needed other people who were like-minded about seeking God, being serious about their spiritual life and their journey back to the kingdom of heaven. So the hallmark, really, one of the hallmarks of the Benedictine vocation is perseverance or stability, if you want to put it that way. Right at the end of the prologue, St. Benedict says, thus never departing from his guidance, but persevering in his teaching in the monastery until death. So he emphasizes that element. And in the instruments of good works, at the conclusion of the instruments of good works, Benedict says, behold, these are the instruments of the spiritual art. which if they be constantly employed by day and by night, will gain for us from the Lord that reward which he himself has promised.

[21:01]

So to constantly employ these instruments of good work by day and by night, which is perseverance. And it's interesting then too, when we get to chapter 58 on the reception of the brethren, you can underline at least five places in that book in that chapter of the rule where Benedict talks about perseverance. The novice is to persevere in knocking. He's to persevere in his stability. And Benedict then says, if he still perseveres, let him be taken back. And the rule read to him again. And then another phrase in that same chapter, if he stands firm, and then finally, he may not leave the monastery or shake off the yoke. So all of those are elements of perseverance. And we know when we read the gospel, the time that Jesus talks about perseverance, it's in the context of prayer. Knocking, to keep knocking.

[22:02]

Because the Greek verb is to keep knocking, to keep seeking. And we know the story of the widow and the unjust judge. She just pestered the judge until he... took her case because the judge said she's going to wear me down but she persevered and then the beautiful story of the blind man Bartimius which I mentioned to you once before in context of centering prayer he didn't give up he didn't let the crowds shut him up he shouted above the crowds and Jesus came to him I'd like to When talking about community life, I like to use this example from a Peanuts cartoon, which I read years ago. Lucy's sitting behind her little lemonade stand, which is really the psychiatric stand, where psychiatric help, five cents, the doctor is in.

[23:10]

So there's Lucy sitting there, kind of smug, as she usually does sit there, either... looking at Charlie Brown in a disdainful way or propping her feet up on the desk and leaning back or on the stand there. And Charlie Brown's sitting there with his worried look on his face as Lucy's looking on from behind her psychiatric stand. He says, I wonder if it's really possible to make a fresh start. And he says, see that plane up there? It's filled with people who are all going someplace. That's what I'd like to do. Go off someplace and start a new life. Lucy, forget it, Charlie Brown. When you got off the plane, you'd still be the same person you are. But Charlie Brown says, but maybe when I got to this new place, the new people would like me better. Lucy, only until they got to know you, Charlie Brown, then you'd be right back where you started.

[24:11]

But maybe these new people would be more understanding. People are people, Charlie Brown. Well, maybe I forget it, Charlie Brown. But nope, nope. Five cents, please. And then she leans back. Once you have a patient hooked, land him. Poor Charlie Brown walks off. I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, you know. If I'd go someplace else, some people would like me better. They would be more accepting of me. They would understand how talented I am and what gifts I have. Forget it. It's good advice. Forget it. Just persevere. And those who persevere to the end will be saved. So we're still in this community. And you're still in this community. You have not left. You're persevering. And that says a lot about you.

[25:14]

And you need to know that God has given you the grace to persevere and you should be thankful for that. And we all pretty well have lived through, most of us have lived through the hurt of the exodus of the late 60s, the 70s, 80s. and sometimes even into the 90s, the herd of the exodus of monks that we knew over the years and who we thought sure had a vocation, but all of a sudden they were gone. And we always need to be careful about judging. You know, they think, God, all the monks that I really like left, the ones that I can't stand are still here. They're probably saying the same thing about me. Why didn't he leave? We tend to think that way. It's wrong thinking, basically, because we read from the reading in the Mass this morning, you know, God does not judge by appearances. We oftentimes judge by appearances. Oh, that person really making a good monk is really a good monk.

[26:16]

And that person's lousy. He doesn't really follow all the rules. Sometimes the ones who don't follow all the rules are just kind of hem and haul around them or kick against the goat a little bit. are probably the ones that are going to stay. And the ones who are just perfect and follow the rules exactly and are ideal monks. Sometimes they're the ones who go over the tracks right away. Our novice master, he was a novice master for 15 years. He followed the rule to a T and taught all of us to follow it to a T. Well, he's gone. He left. He got married. And one of the monks who was out on the missions, who was really a rebel, and I can remember because I was out on the missions with him, and I really liked the guy because he helped me a lot when I was trying to get adjusted to missionary life because I thought I knew everything. I got out there, I just went way over my head. But he was right there pulling me out of the water all the time and sending me back up on land.

[27:20]

But that was the kind of person he was. He would travel hundreds of miles to visit a fellow monk in another mission. if he knew they was having trouble or just wanted to visit with him and that kind of thing. But he was also the kind of monk who, when I went back for the retreat, the annual retreat or our policy meetings, he said, oh, my gosh, every time I see that tower, my heart starts beating like crazy. I think I'm going to have a heart attack. He'd get close to the monastery and feel like he's going to have a heart attack. He'd come back. I said, that doesn't say much for your commitment to the community. Actually, it said a lot the way he... conducted himself with his other monks because he really had a great love for his fellow monks. And he stayed in. He stayed in. He persevered to the end. He died fairly early on, as a number of our monks have done for some reason or other. They seem to kick the bucket when they're in their prime or just... pretty much in their prime. A number of them have done. And so he died fairly early, but he persevered to the end. And you could see why, because he had a great love for the monks, especially maybe the monks that were hurting.

[28:27]

So if you judge by externals, you'd say, oh, certainly the novice master is going to persevere to the end. And if you studied Father Gerald, you'd say, oh, man, he's going to leave any minute now. But he didn't. You persevere. So we should not judge by appearances or how we see people. We need to go below the surface and see the heart of the person. I'd like to close this one with a reading from the book of Syrac, chapter 2. I think it's a good... scripture reading to read for a person who's taking his first vows at the mass. My son, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials. Be sincere of heart and steadfast, undisturbed in time of adversity.

[29:32]

Cling to him, forsake him not. Thus will your future be great. Accept whatever befalls you In crushing misfortune, be patient. For in fire, gold is tested and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation. Trust God and he will help you. Make straight your ways and hope in him. You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy. Turn not away lest you fall. You who fear the Lord, trust him and your reward will not be lost. You who fear the Lord hope for good things, for lasting joy and mercy. Study the generations long past and understand. Has anyone hoped in the Lord and been disappointed? Has anyone persevered in his fear and been forsaken? Has anyone called upon him and been rebuffed? Compassionate and merciful is the Lord.

[30:36]

He forgives sins. He saves in time of trouble. Woe to craven hearts and drooping hands, to the sinner who treads a double path. Woe to the faint of heart who trusts not, who therefore will have no shelter. Woe to you who have lost hope. What will you do at the visitation of the Lord? Those who fear the Lord disobey not His words. Those who love Him keep His ways. Those who fear the Lord seek to please Him. Those who love him are filled with his law. Those who fear the Lord prepare their hearts and humble themselves before him. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord and not into the hands of men, for equal to his majesty is the mercy that he shows. Chapter two of the Syrac?

[31:51]

What was the chapter of Ecclesiastes? Chapter four. Four, seven. I was a novice master. I hope, I hope. I make a study why novice masters leave. I don't know. That's a good question. But I guess there have been some instances where the novice masters have left.

[32:53]

When they finish this, that'd be a vocation director. They leave the order. They leave the church. Huh. Was that about vocation directors? Yeah. Of course, any time anybody leads on a tune, he says, if you give us the right kind of guys, we'd have no problem with you bringing out those characters. So you're getting that all the time, and you're knocking yourself off trying to do something. Yeah, that's right. Get so bitter. Yeah. Yeah, if anybody has to live by faith alone, it's vocation directors, I think, or persevere. I thought in the region in Mass, there were seven songs he bypassed. And the eighth one was the one he took. Uh-huh. It was the same thing about the eighth one.

[34:01]

He says seven, the Lord said no. The next one, he took. I'm sure there's probably a symbolism between the eighth one, the eighth day, the number eight. It just kind of, it was sort of like saying to me, well, you know, the Lord's good time. Yeah. That was kind of the way Yahweh always worked in the Old Testament. It wasn't taking the least and the youngest or Israel being, as he said, the meanest of all the peoples, which meant the smallest or the most insignificant that he chose. I just never realized that it was the eighth exile. That reading always somewhat puzzles me.

[35:05]

I'm sure some of you have picked up on that too. Because he starts right out. He's going to pick Eliab. Is it Eliab? Was that the first son? The oldest? He says, well, you know, here he's striking appearance and all that. And he says, not by appearances does God judge. And then you get to David. He says, here was a man who was... ruddy and handsome and, you know, God's judging by appearances too, it looks like. I couldn't quite put that one together. Huh? Yeah. Yeah, he wasn't even called in actually, he was still out watching the sheets, right?

[36:12]

When you ever tell people don't, that's their instincts in their mind and that's what they do. Well, we had a medical school, an ophthalmology, we talked about kind of conjunctivitis, and he said, now, what would you use for it? Well, he said, don't use yellow oxygen. Just don't use yellow oxygen. You know, I had an interesting, I think it was, David, when I studied in Jerusalem in the 60s, when we listed this, the group named the ruins of the castle, or I'll quote, Saul.

[37:22]

as located on like herald beans, in Arabic means literally herald beans. So anyway, sometimes herald beans is important. It's fascinating. A few years after we went out to visit the Shehannikos, the Arabs, the Jordanians who had to draw bulldoze that, So you go over now and you could be the greatest scholar in the world, our gallery, and you won't find that castle. It's gone. And I thought, what a shame. And I didn't hear a lot of comments at the time. We all knew it was being bodos. So they did it because it was a pre-Muslim, they used to call it, all the Jewish remains, people remains, pre-Muslim remains. And so they bodos, and I think it's a new hotel there now. Is that a sheikh? Yeah. But I'm glad I saw it.

[38:23]

And it wasn't any great sheikhs. I mean, there's a story of Saul throwing the spear at David. He didn't have farther. He mustered a very poor pain, you know, because he couldn't tell. It wasn't a very big rule. I don't know if that's interesting. Yeah. That's throwing the spear against the wall. Stuck in the wall. Okay, well, thank you. We'll continue the second step towards the vibrant benediction spirituality, which is community. And as you might know, one of my favorite cartoons is Peanuts, so I'm going to open this conference with another Peanuts cartoon. In the first panel of a particularly insightful Peanuts cartoon, little Lucy, her fist clenched, is running after Charlie Brown.

[39:24]

I'll get you, Charlie Brown. I'll get you, she says. In the second panel, she cries out, I'll knock your block off. In the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth panel, Charlie Brown takes over. He stops running, wheels around, and says to Lucy, wait a minute. Hold everything. We can't carry on like this. We have no right to act this way. The world is filled with problems, people hurting other people, people not understanding other people. Now, if we as children can't solve what is relatively minor problems, how can we ever expect to pow? Lucy hits Charlie with a stiff uppercut that knocks him to the ground. In the last panel, Lucy says, I had to hit him quick. He was beginning to make sense. So I think the same thing can be said of us. You know, if we as children as religious men who profess to follow Jesus Christ and to make Christ the center of our life and to be people of deep religious convictions.

[40:39]

If we can't live in relative peace with one another, how are we going to expect people around us to do the same? So, as we were talking about, I think our strongest... pull, our enticement, our attraction for people, our help for people, is simply to live as best we can as a community of Christian brothers, supporting one another, helping one another, despite our difficulties and occasional bumps into one another. This is Just part of the introduction, but I thought it was kind of cute. It has a lot to do with how we love one another and care for one another and what it means to care for one another. This is taken from some little children asking the question, or they were asked the question, what does love mean? And the answer is, they...

[41:42]

They gave her a rather enlightening, as from the lips of children and of babes comes forth words of wisdom. Eight-year-old Rebecca said, when my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love. Six-year-old Chris, he said, love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs. And this is a fairly, I think this is one of the most insightful of all. Six-year-old Nicka said, if you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend you hate. And four-year-old Bethany says, I let my big sister pick on me because my mom says she only picks on me because she loves me. So I pick on my baby sister because I love her. Eight-year-old Jessica says, you really shouldn't say I love you unless you mean it.

[42:50]

But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget. And I think that's even true in our community, even though we don't verbally say it to one another that we love each other. You think, oh, yeah, that's... That's kind of for sissies or whatever. I think we should say it by the way we treat each other, but with respect and anticipating each other as chapter 72. 72 on the good zeal and the holy rule is a good chapter, obviously, on fraternal love, on a practical application of... of living in community. Just as there is a bitter zeal which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal that separates from hell and leads to God and eternal life. And then Benedict goes on to lay out exactly what that means, which is really a description of community, of loving one another. I'd like to read this particular little reflection on geese.

[44:03]

I'm not too sure all of this is exactly true, but I think a lot of it is. Do we have as much sense as a goose? In the fall, when you see geese in a V formation heading back south for the winter, you might be interested to know Why they fly that way. Scientists have learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in V formation, the whole flock gains at least 71% more flying range than if each bird were on its own. Basic truth number one. Those who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they travel on the thrust of one another's effort. Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels drag and air resistance from trying to go it alone.

[45:05]

It quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front. Basic truth number two. If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed in the same direction we are. When the lead goose tires, it rotates back in the wing and another flies point. Basic truth number three. It pays to take turns on hard jobs for people as well as for southbound geese. The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep their speed. That one I'm not sure of, but it could be true. Basic truth number four. We need to be careful of what we say when we honk. Finally, when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot and falls out, two geese fall out of formation and follow it down to provide help and protection. They stay with it until either it is able to fly or is dead, then set out to catch up with their flock, flying on their own or with another group.

[46:12]

Final truth. If we have the sense of a goose, we will always stand by one another. So oftentimes, I think if we look at nature, and we'll like a reflection on the habits of the geese in flying in formation, but in other elements of nature, I think we can draw a lot out of nature as far as living in community together. I mean, granted, it's good to read the scriptures and to pray. But, you know, as it was mentioned about St. Anthony, his book was nature. Oftentimes he read nature so well. And speaking of that, a priest friend and I were out on vacation out in Yellowstone. And we were in one of the cabins. They were sitting there in the evening having an evening drink and feeding Jesus. the birds with peanuts, throwing peanuts out to feed the birds that were flying around. And there was a whole group of sparrows flying around. And finally, my friend Ray noticed.

[47:14]

He says, Tom, look at this group of sparrows. Look at that one who's really, really fat and really big. And you look at the sparrows, and you know sparrows are basically small. But it was true. There was one in the middle of this group that was just huge. I mean, he was just really fat. And then the closer we looked, because they did get closer, is that that big fat bird couldn't eat. He had a beak that was crossed like that. And so all the other birds were feeding it. They were just running back and forth feeding it. And they just did it naturally. I mean, they didn't come up with a collusion. This guy's going to starve because he hasn't got the beak. His beak is malformed. But they just did it naturally. It was like... That's really amazing how, you know, sometimes human beings don't do that. We walk right past people who could care less. But again, it's an example of how nature cares for its own.

[48:15]

I was just mentioning to somebody about the March of the Penguins. If you ever get a chance to get that DVD, I think... whoever orders the movie, but it's a beautiful film on the penguins in the Antarctic, and how they care for each other, especially the couple, and how they care for their little one. That is really amazing. It's probably one of the most positive pro-life films, but also a film on community living as well. supporting each other and how they do that. Again, I think we can draw a lot from nature on how to live our community life. And just some reflections on some images of community living. Martin Luther King, who was just celebrated recently, of course, he was a master at building community and bringing peoples together. As we know from his I Had a Dream speech, But he said, we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

[49:20]

And there is a story told about, apocryphal story, of course, about a shipwrecked people. And they all had to get into this very, very long canoe. Very long. The people in the front or the people in the back couldn't even see the people in the front. They just knew they were there. And word got back to the people in the back that there was a leak in the front of the canoe. And the people in the back said, oh, thank God. I'm glad it's in the front of the canoe. St. Augustine uses an interesting image from his own times. They were shipping olive jars on ships, and they stacked them close together together. on little wooden pedestals, and so they would stand up on end, of course, but they were stacked pretty close together. And he was saying, there's no way on this boat that those olive jars, those jars filled with olive oil, are not going to rub against each other because they're just stacked close together.

[50:26]

And by the very movement of the ship and the waves causing the ship to... to yaw and all of that, that these jars are going to rub against each other. And I thought, well, that's a good symbol for community. In fact, he was using it for that. He said, so it was with the church or he was addressing the people in his congregation or whether it was the members of his religious order. But it's true, just by the very nature of the fact that we're living so close together and by the very nature of our life on this earth and the pitching and yawing of our own life. We're going to rub against each other. And so it's not a question that we're not going to rub against each other because we are. But how do we deal with it once we do rub against each other? Do we bury it or do we address it? And I think there's a big difference between the two. And I was looking and reflecting on on talk, on community life, I thought, well, there's really three major areas, and I thought, well, maybe there's four major areas in community living where people can get under our skin.

[51:37]

And then I checked off those areas, and I said, gee whiz, that's our whole life. But choir, meals, and work, and even sometimes the recreation. But in choir, Sometimes I have to do my best to hold on just to focus on what I'm saying in choir. And I really am convinced as I get older that I think the devil works the hardest in choir to get us angry at each other because we can sit back and reflect on either what was said to us right before choir or what I'm going to say somebody after choir or what's going on during choir, whatever. But like, for instance, in my own choir at Blue Cloud, the person sitting next to me, he's got a partial speech defect, so it's not all his fault. He just comes out periodically with the words from the Psalms, and all of a sudden, and there tend to be a couple of syllables late from where we are, and so it tends to throw me off a little bit.

[52:45]

So I'm not too sure where I'm supposed to be in reciting, because he can get fairly loud and coming out with his own. And then sometimes he tries to leave the office, which is even worse. And that gets me a little ticked off. I try to lift it up to the Lord in prayer. But then the monk sitting next to him, which I can hear sometimes, I try not, I call him Speedy Gonzalez. He jumps in and really runs through the... recitation pretty quick. So I got this one next to me is really slow and the next one is really fast. And then I'm trying to listen to the ones in front because they're keeping a pretty even pace. And I'm saying, oh God, come to my assistance. Oh Lord, make haste to help me. But that's community living. And if it would get too bad, I would have to address it myself or I would hope somebody else would too. But that's part of community living. How do we address that? And again, like I that if choir would get too bad, it really isn't because it's just right where I'm at.

[53:47]

It doesn't throw off the others. I have to make sure that I'm focused in choir. But other areas, like in meals, we can get a little upset maybe the way people eat their food. They all eat their food differently. I remember one particular monk who got quite a bit of the committee upset just because of the noise he made. But it was not just the noise, but he has since passed away, God rest his soul. And he was a great monk, dear brother Alex. But he had this strange habit in the breakfast of getting cottage cheese and putting it in his coffee and then stirring it. And then he'd stir it and stir it and stir it. And people were just sitting there... Or presently when we have tables, I'm trying to encourage the monks to sit together at the table so they don't spread out because we've got extra tables like you have here.

[54:49]

Well, no matter how much I talk about that, there's just one monk who will forever sit at a table by himself. I mean, he'll hope other people maybe will come and join him. But if, I mean, there's spaces here, this table space there, but he'll pick a whole brand new table. I thought, dang it, the guy, the person who's table waiter is going to have to wipe all those tables now just because he's sitting at that one. But I don't know. It's just, that's part of community living too. Because I've just given up on that because you don't want to hound it too much. But I said, well, have mercy on the table waiter at least. Don't mess up all the tables in the refactory. But it's things like that, artwork. If you have your own work area, like for mine is the carpenter shop. Well, sometimes I go out there and it's a puzzle to me. I guess it's sort of like socks. You wonder what happened to the other person. other sock or whatever, a missing one. So I go out to the carpenter shop sometime, and I can't find a single Phillips screwdriver.

[55:55]

I mean, on the wall where we keep all, not a single Phillips screwdriver. And I had about half a dozen. They're all gone, just the regular screwdrivers. And then a couple weeks later, I can walk out there, and then there's all Phillips screwdrivers there and no regular ones. I says, there's some kind of a demon at work here or something like that. But many times when I'm looking for things in the shop and they're not there, I wonder, well, who took it? Well, sometimes when I look for it, I find it and I found it. That's where I put it myself. So it's important not to put too much blame on other people that we do it ourselves. We do it to ourselves or we do it to other people too. And I don't think we oftentimes realize sometimes how much a pain we are to other people. or can be a pain, we think, oh, I'm not hurting anybody, but these other people are driving me crazy. That's not always the case, really. But those are just, you know, those are just areas that we all have to live with and work with and do our best to deal with.

[57:01]

And the bottom line comes is that, you know, am I really trying to live at peace with myself and with my brothers? and not try to keep stirring up the cattle and agitating my own life and the life of others. Well, I've come up, basically, having lived in community, I've come up with 10 steps on how to deal with all the messy relationships in community. And the first step is to put on the mind of Christ. And I really think that is so important. You know, put... As St. Paul says, put on the mind of Christ. And that's where that idea of meditation or contemplation or centering prayer can really come in handy because it really does help us to put on the mind of Christ, to be more understanding, more forgiving, or correcting in a way that Christ would correct, whatever.

[58:05]

But just the very first step, I think, is put on the mind of Christ. if we're getting bent out of shape, we need to check our personal prayer life and meditation time and our relationship with the Lord. And as St. Paul says, that's part of that number one, as far as possible, live in peace with everyone. As far as possible, live in peace with everyone. And number two, put the problem monk at the foot of the cross in prayer. Give him over to the Lord. in prayer and leave him there. Don't carry him with you the rest of the day or the rest of the week or the rest of the month. There's a good story told about an old Abba in the desert and the young novice who was with him. And the old Abba and the novice came to the river and there was this beautiful damsel in distress at the river and she couldn't get across the river. So the old Abba picked her up and carried her across the river and sat her down and then walked on on his journey.

[59:10]

And about a mile down the road, the novice came running up to the old Abba and said, Abba, you shouldn't have picked up that woman at the river. That was not a good thing to do. And the Abba looked at him in surprise and said, Are you still carrying that woman? Not a good thing to carry grudges or to carry... Thirdly, it is really a serious matter, if it is really a serious matter... we need to deal with it as soon as possible, namely a relationship. But not before prayer. Sincere prayer and the calming of anger and hurt. Oftentimes, we correct people in the heat of anger or wounded pride, and that never works because it just adds more fuel to the fire that's already there. So we need to really calm down and put it in prayer and calm down our own hurts so we're not so bent out of shape.

[60:25]

And number four, which is a little bit like number two, do not brood over a hurt and let it boil up in our hearts and fester. Because this is certainly from the devil. I tell people when those kind of thoughts come up, brooding over a herd or something, just tell the devil to go to hell and not collect $200, a passing go. But it's true. We do that with all temptations, I think, but particularly that one which can get us bent out of shape more than others as our relationship with our brother, to just tell that thought to go to hell. Because if we don't, it'll destroy our inner peace and everyone whom we will meet will be affected in a negative way. Number five, be patient in prayer. In and through prayer you will find the right attitude, the right words, the right time to talk to your brother.

[61:30]

But this may take some time. As I said, if it's a very serious one, well, it should be addressed as soon as possible. But sometimes they're not all that serious and they can wait a little bit. And so it's important that we continue to purify it so that we can find the right words, the right time, and the right attitude. Number six, purify your motives through prayer. Is this more my problem or his? How serious is this in reality, this conflict? How much am I at fault? So it's a kind of purity of intention through prayer. Number seven, go to a mediator or a mutual friend and get his opinion or ideas. St. Benedict, of course, talked about that with Simpecte, those who from their own

[62:33]

can sympathize with that person. The abbot is often called upon to find somebody else to mediate, since it might be a conflict between the abbot and this particular monk, or a personality problem between the abbot and the monk, or an authority problem. So the abbot is, Benedict counsels the abbot to send brothers who can talk to him, brothers who know him and know what he's like or who is a good friend of this other brother and see what can be done to heal that. But by going to a third person sometimes or a mutual friend and get his ideas, we don't get locked into our own thoughts and feelings. And they can sometimes be way off base. So number eight, I call level the playing field. Remember, he is your brother, not a lower form of life.

[63:34]

And sometimes we come on like we're going to really nail him. And so as a result, the playing field is not level. We're on the offensive and we put the brother on the defensive right away, either by what we say or the way we approach it and so forth. So level the playing field. Don't come across as having the upper hand as being the wounded one. or the totally innocent one. A fraternal dispute is oftentimes two-sided, never one-sided, just like in a marriage when there's a breakdown. It's not one person. It's usually the two. One might be more at fault than the other, but they're both at fault. And so with these disputes, oftentimes it's what we had said some time ago or what we had done, and we had forgotten about it. Number nine, don't go to the abbot unless all else fails. Tom Monk said, don't come to me unless all else fails.

[64:35]

Because that's the way we should deal as mature men. We need to deal with it ourselves as best we can. And if we've tried and it fails, well then you call the abbot in and we'll sit down as a third party and talk about it. And that can help. Because I've known situations in our own monastery where two brothers just simply were constantly crossing swords. And they would come in to me one at a time. Finally I just called them both in and we sat down together and talked. And it did help because there was a third party there. And they felt that I just asked one to talk and then asked the other one to talk and asked the other party who wasn't talking to listen, to try to listen to what the other brother was saying. And finally, number 10, forgiveness is always possible, always possible on our part. It only takes one to forgive. It takes two to be reconciled.

[65:38]

Sometimes reconciliation is not possible. Sometimes it just won't work. Look at the example of Jesus and Judas. Jesus forgave and wanted to be reconciled to Judas, but Judas would have nothing to do with it. So as a result, there was forgiveness there in the heart of Jesus, but there was not reconciliation between Jesus and Judas. And that's just the opposite with Peter. There was not only forgiveness there, but reconciliation as well. That's it. So in conclusion, it's important for all of us, I think, to develop what I call a community personality. I think that's what really brings people into a Benedictine community and keeps them there because they have a community personality, a personality that is able to live with others and to get along basically with others. Two brothers that came to our community in their 50s, Brother Robert and Brother Patrick,

[66:42]

I always admired them because they had this community personality. Brother Robert was rather quiet and somewhat deaf, so maybe that took him out of the ballgame sometimes. He would just sit there and smile at you. But he had an even personality. He got along well with people. He was at peace with himself. You knew that. He was at peace with himself. And as a result, he was at peace with the other brothers. And Brother Patrick, I think Brother Patrick got through it because of his sense of humor. He was very Irish, but he just simply couldn't carry a grudge. He could get angry at somebody and could really fire away at him and sometimes drop a few expletives from his army days, which weren't really bad, but... Because I can remember one time when one of the German brothers came in.

[67:45]

One of the old German brothers came into the kitchen. Brother Patrick was the assistant cook. Brother Patrick happened to be sitting on the cutting table. You know, the big work table was sitting there. And Brother Felix just could not stand anybody sitting on a table anywhere. So he came in and just reamed Brother Patrick out in the kitchen. just laid into him. And then Brother Patrick just laid into Brother Felix. And they were going at it tooth and nail. And finally Brother Felix said, or no, Brother Patrick says, you S.O.B., get out of here. And so Brother Felix just got out. But within a matter of hours, and I saw him walking down the corridor, and Brother Patrick had his arm around Brother Felix and was talking to him and just chatting away. He didn't carry a grudge. He could get mad. He could blow up, and he had a temper. But he didn't carry a grudge. He was able to surmount that.

[68:48]

I think it had a lot to do with his sense of humor. He always kept me in humor because I could get into a brooding, especially when I was a novice master. I'm sure I looked like I was carrying the world on my shoulders at times. I'd walk into the kitchen sometimes, and he'd say... did you get that guy's license plate number? He says, what guy? He says, the guy that ran over your head. But it was just things like that. And I think that's what helped him to be so endearing to the community because he was well-loved in the community, Brother Patrick. One time I was smoking my pipe at recreation a few years ago because we no longer smoke in public. But I was smoking my pipe, and I lit it up, and it practically exploded. I put my lighter to it, and flames just burst out of the pipe. I thought, what's going on here?

[69:51]

So I took the pipe and knocked it out on the ashtray. All sorts of stuff was coming out, like gooey stuff and everything. Finally, I went back to my tobacco pouch and then dumped that out on the table. And here there was... Little pieces of chopped up rubber bands and pencil shavings all mixed in with my tobacco. Brother Patrick had gone to the trouble of chopping up rubber bands and pencils and sifting them through my tobacco. So I had wood and rubber burning in my, which is quite a fire. It caused quite a fire in my pipe. And he acted like he didn't do it. Me? Me? What I call the five Benedictine senses that we need to live in community. They're not our regular five senses that we have in our body. Number one is a sense of God and his presence in our life. Just to have a constant sense of God, of the presence of God.

[70:52]

Getting back to Brother Lawrence's thing, cultivating the presence of God, to have a sense of God in our life. And number two, of course, is have a sense of prayer. of needing prayer alone and with others. And the third sense is a sense of authority and right order. I really think to live in community, if you don't have a sense of authority and a good attitude towards authority and right order, you're not going to make it in a community. And then number four is a sense of others. Sometimes people can get so locked up into their own life and their own problems and their own concerns that they don't have a sense of others in their presence. And how do we care for others in our presence? How do we wait on others? And so a sense of others. And finally, I think maybe this is the most important of all, the sense of humor.

[71:54]

of being able not to take ourselves too seriously. Probably the most important part of a sense of humor is not to take ourselves too seriously. I remember when I was on the reservation, when I first year or two, I really had a major Messiah complex. I was out there to save all the people on the reservation, to bring them back to the church, because there was very few people attending church. So I was running around trying to draw all these people back to church. Boy, it wasn't happening. They weren't exactly flocking to the church after all my efforts. And so I think I was portrayed to the people somewhat of a serious, almost too serious pastor on the reservation. And one of the servers who was serving my Mass one time, maybe he sensed that too, that I was way, way too serious. Not that you shouldn't be serious saying Mass, but there's a sense of being serious and there's a sense of though maybe brooding or, I don't know, being more morose.

[72:58]

I think I was maybe bordering on that side more than just being. But anyway, I think he was going to make an effort to cheer me up. And he did a pretty good job because this was at the lavabo, the washing of the hands. And there he was standing there by the side of the altar with the towel draped over his arm and then the bowl and then the little crud of water. And he was about eight years old, I guess. And he looked up to me as I walked over. He said, may I take your order, sir? Abba died. Where did that come from? It just came out, just like that. And his mother wanted to know what he said because I just about couldn't handle it. But a sense of humor is important. We need a sense of humor in our life. So that concludes the second step on community.

[74:02]

Tomorrow morning we'll take up the step on prayer. And then the last talk will be the combined step on work and leisure or socializing, enjoying one another's company or practicing holy leisure or however you want to call it, which is a good part of Benedictine life too. I always like that balance in Benedictine life. Dominic, could you put up a sign that will be private on Wednesday night? Practice Holy Legion. Right, practice what we preach. Pardon me? Thanks for doing that. He did keep a straight face.

[75:04]

We don't have reservations anymore. We just didn't have the personnel. My whole philosophy when I went in as abbot was that We've got to really make the Abbey a vibrant center for Benedictine life. And if we had all eight people spread out, one here, one there, and not many people are back at home, we wouldn't be able to do that. So we really had to pull back the troops and make the Abbey itself more vibrant and more alive. And so we turned the missions over to the dioceses, which they should have been turned over anyway to the diocese. It's their responsibility as an ambition. And a lot of the bishops got in other religious orders.

[76:04]

Some of them took them over themselves. But we still have Guatemala, which is doing very well. Got 15 members down there. Three from North America, and the rest are natives. So doing quite well there. But speaking of community living, when I go down there, it's like sometimes... sitting down and refereeing a bunch of teenagers who are always squabbling, because it's a new community, and it's a whole different ballgame. When we're down there in Blue Cloud, Blue Cloud, the monks are a lot older in monastic life, and down there, they're very young in monastic life, and they're young, period, too. But they're also young in Benedictine life, because it's a new form of religious life in Guatemala, hasn't been down there very long. So when I go down, there is a lot of refereeing of conflicts, between some of the monks that are going on. And that's just part of it, dealing with that.

[77:28]

No kidding? Sure. Yeah. Boy, it doesn't seem like there was too many Benedictines that went. I don't think. Franciscans, Dominicans. There was a Benedictine on the second voyage? The second voyage. Oh. But anyway, it had been said that there was a Benedictine town. Not that you don't worship. Because I didn't use the word Kachapa because of it. Thomas Keating had a good thing in common with the various meanings that had a different state in history.

[78:38]

Contemplation or contemplative community? Yeah, I think they will. You have to be patient. Well, Escapulis already is an abbey, and the abbot is a native, which is really, that's the ultimate, I think. So the abbot of Escapulis in Guatemala is a native Guatemalan. And they do. Up where we are, it's a little bit different because of the The nature of the Ketchi, where we are, we have Ketchi Indians, and they were the only Indians of all Guatemala that the Spanish couldn't subdue because they were just a little bit like the Sioux Indians. I mean, they were just tough and fought back.

[79:41]

And Las Casas finally was the Dominican. He finally brokered a peace between... and the Spanish people, the Spanish government. So they just made peace, but they never did conquer the Ketchi. And so that's the people we have up there. So they're a little bit stubborn and proud, and that can cause a little bit of conflict, even among themselves. And what's interesting, I'm finding out, at least in our monastery, there's Ladinos and there's pure bloods. Ladinos are mixed bloods. And Ladinos are basically Hispanic with one of the prevailing Indian cultures there, because there's a number of them, I mean, language groups in Guatemala. But oftentimes the infighting is between the Kitshi themselves and the Kitshi.

[80:43]

Some of the Kitshi in our community are just good friends with the Ladinos, and they farm a little clique, and then sometimes another Ladino and a Kitshi farm a clique over here. And so it's not... But sometimes it's the fighting between the Ladinos or the Kitshi themselves, which is interesting. And that's part of it, just how to live together, how to... Just live in community together more and more accepting. What is the name of that monastery? Our monastery? Resurrection Priory. Resurrection Priory. And Escapolis is... What's the name of Escapolis? I don't know if it's... It's the national shrine.

[81:50]

No, it's not Our Lady. Because the shrine there is the black Christ, Cristo Negro. And they come from all over Guatemala to that shrine. It's the national shrine for Guatemala. Very popular. People come. I'm talking about just... If you want to get your... faith restored or strengthened or whatever or encouraged just to go to the Shrine of Escapulis and sit there in the church there and watch these people come in from all different parts of Guatemala and how they pray and so forth. But I don't know the name of the modest. I should know that. I'll check my order. I'll check the order on that. But they became a an abbey, which was really... And they're doing quite well. They came from St. Joseph in Covington, Louisiana. And then there's a third Benedictine monastery founded by a Marmion Abbey outside of Chicago at San Jose.

[83:02]

That's San Jose up in the northern part of Guatemala. So there's... benedictine communities down there in guatemala how are they doing no they didn't have too much structural damage to the monastery no they didn't have i don't think they had any structural damage there um i think they they just had to deal with high winds and stuff but but they took in a lot of people oh that could have been too yeah But I don't think there's any structural damage to the abbey itself. We can find out. But I know they were begging for money because they were taking a lot of refugees, and we sent some money down to them to help them take care of thousands, hundreds, and over, you know, lots and lots of refugees that they put up there at the monastery. Because that was, of course, that's across the other side of the lake there, which helps too, probably. As far as... Yeah, I think so.

[84:15]

Or parts of it. I think. Parts of it were, I think. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think it was part... Yeah. Of course, it's a double bridge... So they might have been able to make do, I don't know, and parts of it where you could cross over from one dual lane to the other. So they might have been able to maybe keep one lane open by crossing back and forth, whatever. Talking about Guatemala, because that was the CIA, they took all these Protestant missionaries from the states down there. Not so much. But, you know, the evangelists are making inroads, of course, and the evangelical churches are. But in Koban, where we were, and when I was down there for two years, I couldn't see much evidence of it.

[85:22]

I mean, there was a lot of little churches that they had, like the Nazarene Church. It was a pretty good-sized church, and I was walking down the road one time, and I heard... all this singing coming out of the church, and it was just, you know, broadcasted. I thought, my gosh, that sounds like a huge congregation. I walked in, walked past the church. It was practically empty. There was a little group singing around a microphone up in the front of the church, but it made it sound like it was a huge group there, but it was practically empty. And our church, when we have mass there, which is two blocks down from there, I mean, standing room only, for the masses on Sunday and even the weekdays sometimes there's a lot of a lot of I mean it's certainly no reason why

[86:12]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.82