When we read the call of Isaiah the Prophet in Chapter 6 of the Book of Isaiah, we see he went to the temple because the king had died and stability in the country was shaky so he went to seek God= s direction and in the encounter with the Lord he cries out, A woe is me I am a sinful man among a sinful people.@ I think we have no trouble with the second part of that experience. If you open the paper everyday you can= t help but feel that there is an awful lot of sinfulness in the human race and in our own nation. But the problem is do we identify with the first part? Do we also say I am a sinful man among a sinful people, sinful nation and realize that the Lord like he did for Isaiah wants to do for us. The Angel took a coal of fire from the altar and touched his lips a symbolic act of being purified and therefore renewed.

So if I were to ask what is the vice and the obstacle to living a vibrant spiritual life in the monastery, or for that matter in the world or anywhere else, I would say the vice is a lack of mortification. Because the world doesn't hesitate to be self indulgent. It goes to extremes in self indulgence. I once read of a guy who hopped on a plane and flew to Paris just to have the kind of supper he wanted and came back. That= s extreme self indulgence. When you add self indulgence with selfishness you= re in trouble. Because now you are simply at the pushes and pulls of your body being and the culture for pleasure.

Paul Riceur in his study of Freud made a strong case for what Freud discovered as those of you who had me for a Novice Master know, that he showed that the pleasure principle whether it= s number one or number two in your life, you can= t face reality. It has to be way down in order for the reality principle that is a good ego to be in charge of your life. But that= s only psychology. Freud did not discover the power and the expansiveness of the spirit at least he didn't show it in his writings and in his therapy. But what he says about the pleasure principle relative to the principle of reality he= s absolutely right.

So this is not simply Fr. Clement= s opinion, take the Rule. How does the Rule tell us to renew our life? Go to the chapter on Lent. What do you have to do during Lent? You have to practice mortification. Just read it, you'll see. So our vibrant spiritual life is right under our nose. We don= t have to go anywhere. We don= t need big lectures. We have to ask the question what do I have in my life to show that I am working at mortification. You don= t have to be extreme. Excessive. That= s not necessary. But there= s another point in the Rule that= s even more important, we always like to make measurements and today we ask you how are you doing today, or if the doctor comes to you and just came out of surgery and says, A on a scale of one to ten where do you think you are now?@ If I say from the point of view of the Rule, where are you from mediocrity or if you don= t like that word, lukewarmness, or if you don= t like that word, I'll use a modern word that touches neither of those, I= m a survival person, I just survive. People will ask me, "How are you today?" I say, A I’m alive!@ So I survive. Ok that= s the low level, right? Now the high level is from the Rule. The Rule says that the monk is supposed to be a person of good zeal. Right? Now he mentions there are other kinds of zeal= s that are not very healthy. Namely, the wicked zeal that= s evil, that= s pure wickedness and sinfulness, forget that one. But he also talks about bitter zeal of the Pharasee who is basically a person who is living a good ego life, maybe or at least partially good ego life, and therefore is really living out of his ego rather than out of his heart. Then there= s also the excessive zeal that the abbot is warned against by Benedict because then he= s anxious, he= s not at peace, and he can= t really guide people because he himself is not at peace. But good zeal is very real for Benedict and he spells it out nicely. Now if we are saying that the monk’s job is to seek God, then if we put this scale in terms of good zeal what does it mean? It means you are seeking God all the time, uninterruptedly. It means you seek him generously. It means you seek him as he is. It means you seek him not for what= s in it for you. It means you seek him in a total movement toward surrender. So now with good zeal on the top and survival on the bottom, from one to ten, where are you? Now don= t tell me you can= t renew your life because God didn’t give up on you, the second coming hasn’t come because God still thinks there= s hope. If God thinks there’s hope you ought to have hope.

What are the things that all of us here can do and what are we doing? Well the first one is pray. So the question is what ever you put on your scale from one to ten, suppose you put six, then what= s the quality of your prayer at six on good zeal? You show up for Office, you sit there, you= re a body but how do you pray interiorly? What= s going on? If you are seeking God then you have to take Jesus= agenda. The Lord once asked Sr. Josepha Menendez A What do you think is one of the high priorities in my life?@ Jesus asked her. And she says,

"You are crazy about souls!" So if you are crazy about souls in your prayer life you should be praying very hard for the salvation of the world and mean it. Do you? And more so if you have somebody you know that needs grace all the more. So that= s one thing we can all do - pray better. Secondly, all of us can practice mortification. If your number is six what do you have to do to get mortification up to seven? What is the kind of indulgence that really is selfishness running your life? Instead of learning to do what you= re called to do in this world, learning how to love more.

The third one is rather powerful because we as believers know that when we have the sacrifice of the Mass we offer the most powerful prayer in the whole universe. It= s because of the Mass that the Lord does not wipe out the world. That is, the Mass is the continued pleading of Jesus the high priest before the Father to bring salvation to the world. So when you come to Mass how do you come and how do you pray this prayer in union with Jesus and how do you participate your day into that Mass and flow from the Mass? You can= t say that you can= t be renewed or this house can= t be renewed. Those three things are enough to renew you and renew all of us.

So we need to really deepen our faith that the Lord is moving us toward the kingdom, toward himself to a greater union with himself and those are the three areas that we ought to check to see whether or not on the scale of one to ten we are much closer to mediocrity or just survival or we really are beginning to understand what it means to live in good zeal, which is what we= re supposed to be doing as monks.