Reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said to his apostles, do not suppose that my mission on earth is to spread peace. I repeat that. Our blessed lord said to his apostles, do not suppose that my mission on earth is to spread peace. My mission is to spread not peace, but division.
I have come. Notice this is Christ talking. This is a direct quotation. I have come to set a man at odds with his father, a daughter with her mother, a daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law. In short, to make a man's enemies those of his very household.
Whoever loves father or mother, son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He who will not take up his cross and come after me is not worthy of me. He who seeks only himself brings himself to ruin, whereas he who brings himself to naught for my sake discovers who he is. He who welcomes you welcomes me, and he who welcomes me welcomes him who sent me. He who welcomes a prophet because he bears the name prophet receives a prophet's reward.
He who welcomes a holy man because he is known as a holy man receives a holy man's reward. I promise you that whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of these lowly ones because he is a disciple will not want for his reward. When Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples, he left that locality to teach and to preach in the neighboring towns, and this is the good news, the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Today is the feast of Saint Benedict associated with Monte Cassino in Italy.
Associated, of course, is the founder of the Benedictine order, which compromises which comprises both men and women. Furthermore, the rule which is attributed to Saint Benedict has become down the centuries the basic rule, and until the middle ages, the only rule, practically, for monastic life. That is saying something. Benedict, born in April, died in May. Notice those dates, April, about a hundred years after Saint Augustine of Hippo.
April is born down in Italy. He dies in May in Monte Cassino, about an hour and a half train ride from Rome on this very high superb mountain, stands out alone. This man with his sisters, Saint Scholastic, began something which is extremely flourishing in The United States Of America and in the world today, 1983. Remember, when Ignatius Loyola there's a there's a plaque in the in the church at Mont at Montserrat. When when Ignatius of Loyola came to Montserrat, which was a foundation, of course, of the Benedictus, when he came there in the sixteenth century around 1550, Montserrat was over a thousand years old.
A thousand years old. But Enacious came there. And, so that what the one point I wanna make this morning morning is is the the continuity continuity of of our our religion. Religion. The con that is the company we keep.
You you may get tired of my saying this, but I don't want you to forever forget it. We are not Johnnies think how late the sixteenth century is compared to May. And yet almost all the non Catholic Catholic sects which we know of in this country, they all come from the sixteenth century or considerably later, considerably later. And here we, sitting in this church in Garrett Park in July 1983, here we are establishing a bond. We're not establishing the bond.
Forget that. Wipe it off the record. What we are doing is reaffirming our consciousness of a bond. The bond is there. It's only for us to be aware that it's there, that we go back in a living way, in a living vital way to Jesus Christ.
And to that day, up in that north country, up in Caesarea Philippi, when he says to Peter, on you, Peter he called him a rock. Peter means rock. You are now rock, and on that rock, I'm going to build my church, my my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The keyword there is not prevail. This is the here we have a continuity.
We have a a vitality. We are in this company that in the twentieth century, we are here celebrating, not a memory, the actuality. The as our holy father would say, he loves this word, existential. But we are celebrating the reality of a Benedict who was whose foundation was over a thousand years old when Ignatius came on the scene in Manresa, which is just a long walk from Montserrat near Barcelona in Spain. Now, I have visited a number of Benedictine houses.
The first one that I came to really acquaint with was Salem, and I've been there about four or five times. Maria Lot, Boren, Montserrat, Monte Casino, and then in England, Downside. And you feel so much part of something bigger than yourself and so much vaster than the problem of the day. Monte Casino has been built has been built and destroyed three or four times. We had the honor, The United States, of destroying it the last time.
Now, it's huge building on top of the hill, this mountain. You wonder how in the world a taxi will ever get up there. It get it gets there. And it's built in the in the they tried to replace the old building, so you have a tremendously long corridor with these monks rooms opening out on each side. And I was walking there with a guest master, trying to converse with him in in language then we had no common language, but we were getting along in some way or other.
And I asked him what he thought of Hans Kane, and he just turned to me and smiled. He says, it will pass. It'll pass. They've when you when you're living in a monastery that's been built and rebuilt three or four times, that's over well, as I say, Benedict died in May, and it's still up there, it's still very much alive, what's a Hans King coming along? Just a little feather on the water, hardly a disturbance.
Hardly a disturbance. Because you see, what we think is is an immediate problem, and it can be. I'm not under under I'm not underestimating this because we have to deal with immediate problems, but we mustn't lose sight of the vastness of Christ's church. Remember when the when Europe was being torn apart by Luther and Calvin and Zwingli, when England was all up in arms, you scarcely get an echo of it in Spain. So I when we have a feast like this of Saint Benedict, dies in May, he's buried in Monte Cassino with his sisters, Saint Celestica, here's an opportunity for us to rejoice in what we have.
What we have. We are in in a great company. We are living our daily lives. We take courage. We take enlightenment.
We take vitality from these people. Now, you see, when we talk about the saints, we are so prone to get up to awful, I say awful, false impression. We think of their lives as being one flight upwards, real flight upwards, where everybody sees the goodness of their lives, the worthiness of their goals, everybody pitches in to give them all the encouragement and support and cooperation and sympathy and love that they could possibly get. I challenge you to give me one saint that fulfills that ideal, which is totally false. False.
In most instances, what we call canonized saints, they drove into darkness. In many instances, their what they had to go through to achieve what they seemed what seemed to them god's work was horrible. They got no support. Take Newman. What happened to him after he became a a Roman Catholic?
They nearly threw him out of the church. That's just one little so let's let's realize that we belong to the militant church. We belong to the fighting church. We belong to the church in the trenches. That's where the saints became saints, and that's the company we keep.
And Saint Benedict is certainly way up there. Remember, can you can you remotely estimate the influence that a man of the sixth century has had when you think of the thousands and thousands of men and women who have gone into a through the portal of a Benedictine convent or monastery or abbey or priory, lived their lives, and left scarcely awake, Think that that is the company we keep. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen.