A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. You must be clever as snakes, as innocent as doves. Be on your guard with respect to other people. They will hail you into court.
They will flog you in their synagogue. You will brought to be brought to trial before rulers, before kings, to give witness before them and the gentiles on my account. When they hand you over, do not worry about what you will say or how you will say it. When that hour comes, you will be given what you are to say. You yourselves will not be the speakers.
The spirit of your father will be speaking in you. Brother will hand over brother to death. The father, his own very child. Children will turn against parents and have their parents put to death. You will be hated by all on account of me.
But whoever holds out until the end will escape death. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. I solemnly assure you, you will not have covered the towns of Israel before the son of man comes. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
I'm willing to bet you my right arm and I'll give you the left with it that you never found this text on a Christmas card or an Easter card. But our lord said what we just read. He said that. It's horrible to think about it. And the only way we really live with it is not to think very much about it.
I mean, to live without changing our lives. Notice what our lord prompts as the expected expected consequences of being his father. It's gruesome. Actually, there's nothing short of it. But we we don't think about this enough.
Somehow or other, we think that following Christ should lead us into a life of tranquility, that we should be at peace, whatever that means. But one thing everybody thinks it means is tranquility of not being bothered, having everything we need. And, you know, all the rest of that. And, of course, there's not the slightest suggestion in the gospel that that's what a Christian has a right to expect. What have we a right to expect?
Just think of what our lord said this morning. And yet, that's what we're called to to do is to follow Jesus Christ. And we say salvation lies in following Christ. Now I cannot let this day go by without bringing in my date, dear and late friend, Saint Benedict. And that's tied in with this.
Because when you say, Lord, what kind of a life should I lead to be your follower? Now there's no pat answer to that because every human being is an individual. And every human being lives his individual life. And that individual life is peculiar. By that I mean there's nothing like it before or after.
There's no duplication, not even of an ear or of a fingerprint. Think of that. So let's not think of human beings as one great melting pot where we all go down the same chute like a bunch of cattle coming out into a bull ring or something. Our lord knew that very well. Saint Benedict knew it very well.
You know, he died in May. That's an easy date to remember. May. But notice, was born about April. And he established this order which has his name today and which is still very vigorous.
Believe me. And, of course, there's a corresponding congregation of women, also. In my short and misspent life, have had the the opportunity and the great privilege of spending time in a number of, at least, European monasteries, Salem, Montserrat, Maria Locke, Boren, and then in England, The Downside, to name a few of them. And I have been tremendously impressed with what I have found in a Benedictine monastery. Now it's 's true that Saint Benedict, withdrew.
The monasticism of Saint Benedict is agricultural. He put his monasteries outside the cities. See, that's how he differs from Dominic and and Saint Francis of the thirteenth century. They they brought their Catholicism right into the marketplace in the towns in the city. Benedict withdrew.
Why did he withdrew? Because they were running farms. That's how they lived. They were farmers and keepers of the vine, vineyards. They made wine.
One of our best encourages has the say insignia of Saint Benedict on it and is called, I'm sure you've never heard of it, Benedictine. Well, here's his idea, you see, was for men and then women, his sister founded the congregation for the women, to withdraw from the world because that's how and so in order to run their farms, they had to withdraw from the cities and the towns. They had to be where the land is, obviously. And they hatched they set up their own life. That is true.
It was not the normal ordinary life. They didn't take unto themselves spouses. That is very true. So we're not holding this up as an ideal and saying all people have to to be out in monasteries and draw apart from the cities and the towns. This has all been tried, you know.
This has all been tried even in the time of Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine. Just think of the deluge of people that inundated the Nile Valley in Egypt and became hermits. There's always been a lot of crazy people around, you know. We have them with us all the time. Now if there's one thing, and this is what I wanna insist upon.
There's one thing you can say about Saint Benedict and the rule of Saint Benedict, which became the basic rule for most religious orders with Saint Augustine, is that it is sensible. Sensible. It takes into account the humanity of human beings in its completeness. That's one thing you can say, and that's true to this day. The Benedictine rule is a very sensible, reasonable, common sense rule of life for men and women who say, I want to follow Jesus Christ in a very extraordinary way.
I will live in a community. I will live a very, very disciplined life. That's one of their main points. Obedience. Obedience.
Now, I don't I I didn't see this in other monasteries, but at Salem, where you know they made a great thing of the chant, Gregorian chant. They played a big role. Dom Gajard and Dom Macaro played a big role in the restoration of the Gregorian chant, which we now, of course, have thrown out. Because it was so beautiful, and, of course, we mustn't have anything beautiful attached to worship these days, you know. When they when those monks sang the office, and they sang the whole thing, mappings, laws, the whole business, they made a mistake.
They came out and did a prostration in the sanctuary as penance. This is done out of a sense of obedience. If when they were working in their cell on something that they wanted to do with a guy working out in the field, When the bell rang to leave to go to to for the office, you dropped your hole, you dropped your pen, you dropped whatever you were doing and you went. You didn't say I'll work another minute or two. You did it immediately.
Obedience. That was the there was when they had a mass at Salem, there wasn't a thing done in the sanctuary without a gesture from the master of ceremonies. Now today, we don't even have masters of ceremonies. Everybody does what they please. But this was done out of a sense of obedience and discipline.
Not my will, but thine be done. That's the idea. Obedience. Now what I'm saying is not everybody's called upon to be a Benedict. None or a priest or a brother or what have you.
But we're all called upon to follow Jesus Christ in our way of life. Our way of life. And to work our salvation in our way of life. That came with a the Vatican two brought this out magnificently. Magnificently.
We are not all called to be priests at the altar, but we're all called to be priests. We are all called upon to offer sacrifice. Not all called upon to say mass, but we're all called upon to offer sacrifice. You are priests, a royal priesthood. Whether you're in your home, with your family, whether you're single, whether you're a widow, whether you're a widower, or what have you, we're all called to the same goal.
We have no choice about it except to reject or accept it. And what matters is doing it in fact. Did you notice the opening prayer today? We will follow Christ. How?
By keeping his commandments.