Transcript of Abbot Clement=s Talk on Monday, December 6, 2004
Everyone knows the aphorism of Sirach that says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord is not a very easy virtue in our day. We see that rather serious sins don
=t seem to disturb even Catholics. So fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom, we=re in trouble. Nevertheless that is the first degree of humility for us and so it is a very important foundation because none of the degrees of humility are something that we leave behind once we get to the second, third, fourth, etc. So we need this all our life.In a lot of ways you have experienced this because it
=s a difficulty to enter the monastery even today. By the time you fill out the papers, and requests, and figure out your job, etc., you have to persevere so you have to have a certain seriousness about what you=re about. You really want to do God=s will in your life so there is the manifestation of the fear of the Lord in your life. You come to the monastery with a certain seriousness about the spiritual life and it shows. So you do have the fear of the Lord.But the question is how does it continue? St. Benedict doesn
=t seem to believe that we are too easy to remember God=s presence, at least not in the first degree of humility. He gives us a number of texts to remind us that God sees everything. So when your hand is in the cookie jar your mother knows. This kind of fear of the Lord presupposes that we really see that God hates sin. Benedict kind of lays it out. If you really have fear of the Lord then you=re going to do good and avoid evil.In other areas Benedict kind of helps that by reminding us that we
=re going to have to face God=s judgment. At God=s judgment you=re going to stand there and you=ll have to be accountable for the way you shaped your life and what you have become. Someone said it would be a good idea to practice writing your own obituary. One guy put down I=m a well muscled golf machine. I don=t think that will go too well with the Lord but it would be a good idea to write your own spiritual obituary so that you have some idea of just how much fear of the Lord is alive in you. There are no excuses when we stand before the Lord in his presence. Everything trembles in his presence unless they are in totally in tune with the Lord and of course then they can vibrate and dance.Nevertheless, our life does allow us to modify and deepen this particular beginning movement in us, that is the beginning of our spiritual life, the fear of the Lord. Because we have a life style that puts us in the presence of the Word of God in liturgy, in the Office, and in Lectio, we begin to see things and begin to follow more concretely and specifically the call to grace and we do well. But Benedict is no blind person. He knows that there is in each of us a need for deep transformation and that vices will occur as life goes on. In this particular period the problem will be to what degree do we take our spiritual reading seriously and do we really let it impact our life?
Another area of difficulty will be that our jobs really become the place where we end up neglecting the spiritual life instead of the opposite but the spiritual life penetrate our jobs. This is a real task and it
=s easily neglected and becomes superficial because even the Desert Fathers said that the real work of the monk is to fight the demons. What they meant was you passed the surface of serious exterior sins but you began to see the tendencies in you of self-will and other vices that need to be attacked and with the help of God=s grace overcome them so that you can modify this movement of the Spirit in you in terms of the fear of the Lord to even further heights.There is a further height and that is: why do you think God became man? He certainly didn
=t become man to do something new in terms of his power and his abilities. He became man so he could get close to us. He wants union with us. Union on the personal level means I have to grow in greater sensitivity to Jesus. I must grow in greater sensitivity to how I am really relating to Him and doing everything in union with him, 24 hrs. a day, seven days a week.I think this is where we really fail because we fail to realize that a lot of times what we do and say to others we
=re doing this to Jesus. We sluff it off. Like it doesn=t matter. But you hurt Jesus. If you really believe that you are in the mystical body, that Christ is in you and in each of us, then you really believe that what=s going on between us is a question of touching the Lord, then you have to begin to say that this is the case. This is not my private opinion. This is even the church in its official teaching on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus is complaining that he is not loved. That he is total commitment to the human race especially in the gift of himself on the cross and in the Eucharist is not really appreciated. This is really the goal of the fear of the Lord to move us to the point of doing everything in union with Jesus. Growing in sensitivity, growing in a real awareness at what I say and do really affects the way I am relating to the Lord.This first degree of humility should be reflected on often because it is of place, the foundation for the spiritual life. It has energy and movement toward the fullest of the spiritual life by growing into even union with the Lord.