Transcript of Abbot Clement’s Culpa Conference, March 31, 2007
Kazantzakis has this book on Report to Greco. A young man goes to meet a hermit in a cave. At first he's a little intimidated. So he gets up courage and he goes into the cave and there= s the old man, his face is shining, and he= s still kind of intimidated so he asks him, A are you finished with fighting with the devil?@ A The semon?@ And the hermit says A Yes, I’ve grown old and the devil has grown old with me and so he doesn’t bother me. Right now I fight with God.@ The young man is surprised so he blurts out A To win?@ And the hermit says, A No, to loose for my bones still resist!@ The young mans says, A Well you have a hard life. Isn’t there an easier way? I would like to be saved too!@ The hermit says, A There is only one path. That path is to go from the stomach to hunger, from a slacked throat to thirsty, and from a comfort to suffering. For God is in the hunger, the thirst and the suffering and the devil is in a comfortable life.@
This is a hermit speaking so his life is reduced to simplicity. So the greatest obstacles to his self, to put himself aside are his stomach, his thirst and his enjoyable, comfortable existence. Not too much pain if your living by yourself and not running into people and problems, etc. He says God is in this. In other words that= s his path, he actually finds God. He has gone from self to God as we’ve been reading at supper.
I think it’s important for us to call to mind what St. Benedict says for us in Chapter 7 of the Rule, the last two paragraphs dealing with the 12th degree of humility: The monks should not only be humble of heart but should also in his behavior always manifest his humility to those who look upon him that is to say, that whether he is at work that the work of God in the oratory, in the monastery, in the garden, on a road, in the fields or any where else and whether sitting, walking or standing he should always have his head bowed and his eyes downcast pondering always the guilt of his sins and considering that he is about to be brought before the dread judgment seat of God. Let him constantly see in his heart what was said with downcast eyes by the publican in the gospel, A Lord, I am a sinner and am not worthy to raise my eyes to heaven.@ And again with the prophet A I am bowed down and humbled on every side.@ Then when all these degrees of humility have been climbed the monk will presently come to that perfect love of God which cast out fear whereby he will begin to observe without labor as though naturally and by habit all those precepts which formerly he did not observe without fear. No longer for fear of hell but for love of Christ and through good habit and delight in virtue and this will the Lord deign to show forth by the power of his Spirit in his workmen now cleansed from vice and from sin.
So this is the path that we promise that leads us from self to God. And it works. We have tons of saints in our Benedictine Order both men and women that have showed us that that’s our path to come to discover God in this life. St. Benedict insists it= s in this life.
The image of course is an image of the publican in the gospel. That he is so aware of his sinfulness that he has his eyes cast down and he says: A Be merciful to me a sinner.@ And he doesn’t dare look up. What= s an image of consciousness that when we stand before God who is all holy, our sinfulness and our lack of response to God= s infinite goodness will be clear to us. But it’s interesting that this image never goes away. What is added is that we have passed from vice and sin into a love that is God= s love. Therefore in this life it’s possible to have two dispositions. To have the awareness that I am a sinner and that I have absolutely no right to the presence of God and his love. Absolutely none whatsoever and therefore I can say I’m a sinner. I have done these things against you God and I don= t deserve to be forgiven. But you have forgiven me and therefore my whole being is spent now in loving you. Whatever you ask of me whatever I do I will do to please you. I will do it for you.
Less than six weeks ago we came together and we did say: A Lord, I= m going to spend this Lent for you. And I’m going to do these things.@ And everybody in this house has done it. Which makes me happy. It makes me proud of you, in the good sense, that I know you are trying to live the spiritual life. You are doing some very good spiritual reading of the books you promised to read, some of the practices that you practice are movements from vice and sin into a greater purity of love of God.
So now here we are at the end of that period and what can we say about it? Do we stand now before the judgment of God in his presence and his whole incomprehensible total love of each of us and all of us and realize how poor our service is.
Pope John Paul has told us that if we= re living the Christian life correctly we should not only become aware of our sinfulness, but we should each year have a greater discovery of how merciful God is to me. Concretely, I did these things and God forgave me. I failed in these things and God forgave me. I didn’t even think about these things and God forgave me. So this should be a ceremony in which we are going to receive the mercy of God and also to deepen our consciousness of the great mercy that God has for each of us and our whole house. That mercy has a power in it as St. Benedict says in the last sentence of Chapter 7, it’s through the Holy Spirit that we are rendered free of vice and sin. The purpose of this mercy is to lift us into the love of God and his more deeply so that we run the way of God= s commandments and love all the more.
It’s hard for us to be receptive of forgiveness. It’s hard for us to receive each other in our weakness and in our need for each other. The path that we walk is not simply a path of spiritual life for my ascetical improvement. It’s also a path to each other. It= s a path to each other= s concrete self and to come to not only listen to, not only respect, but accept each other because we have seen how God has done this to us, we move to do that toward each other.
As we continue in this rite we want to really receive the grace of it which is to open our hearts to the tremendous mercy that we celebrate, especially now, during this Triduum and Easter.