been exercised in a spirit of true Christian charity, surrounded moreover with the safeguards St. Benedict himself prescribed, the monks, far from suffering from these visits of Christ, have received abundant blessings from them because they have known the Divine Guest in fractione panis1.

This love of the neighbour, the fruit of true love of God, has necessarily led monks to occupy themselves directly with the care of souls. This is one of the most fruitful aspects of monastic zeal.

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The normal and habitual place of the monk is in his monastery. It is there that he was hidden with Christ 2 on the day of that second baptism which is the religious profession; it is there that he diligently works out his sanctification; there is properly speaking the workshop where he is to spend his activity: Officina ubi haec omnia diligenter operemur claustra sunt monasterii 3. Thus St. Benedict desires that the monks shall be able to find in the enclosure all that is necessary to their existence and occupations 4. However if we study the question in the light of the example that our holy Father St. Benedict himself gives us, we see that this cloistered or enclosed" life is not to be understood in too absolute and too exclusive a sense. St. Benedict was the perfect imitator of Christ. Christ is before all things the Adorer of the Father, and this is why the great Patriarch wills that no work be preferred to the Opus Dei. But he does not forget that Christ is also the Saviour of men, that He consecrated to them three years of preaching, that He shed for them the last drop of His blood; and therefore St. Benedict also, so steeped in the true Christian spirit, wished to devote himself to the salvation of the neighbour. He tells us that the Abbot ought to instruct his community especially by his example, and that he ought not to do anything that he teaches his brethren to avoid in their own conduct: Omnia vero quae discipulis docuerit esse contraria in suis factis indicet non agenda 5. St. Gregory assures us that St. Benedict's own life was the authentic commentary on his Rule 6, and he adds how The man of God by continual preaching, converted many of the people thereabout" Vir Dei commorantem circumquaque multitudinem praedicatione continua ad fidem vocabat. And elsewhere the great Pope remarks that in a certain town not far from the monastery, no small number of people, by the exhortations 1. Luc. XXIV, 35. — 2. Cf. Col. 11, 35. 3. Rule, ch. IV. 4. Ibid. ch.LXVI. Cf. above p. 72 sq 5. Rule, ch. II. 6. Dialog. lib. II, c. 36: Vir sanctus nullo modo potuit aliter docere quam

vixit.

7. Ibid. c. 8.

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of Benedict1 were converted to the faith of God." Saint himself therefore evangelised the neighbouring populace. We read too that he sent certain of his monks often," crebro, to instruct some nuns who were at a distance from the monastery 2.

What St. Benedict taught his monks by word and example, the best traditions of the Order have consecrated by the practice of centuries 3. Without touching the integrity of the community, nor the essential exigencies of stability, the monastic Order has exerted this fruitful apostolate which has converted so many nations to the light of the Gospel and extended the boundaries of Christ's Kingdom. None can deny the title of true sons of St. Benedict to those great monks, full of the love of souls, such as were St. Gregory, St. Augustine of Canterbury and his companions, St. Boniface, St. Anscar, St. Willibrord, St. Adalbert and, nearer to our selves, Mgr. Marty, Bishop Polding and Archbishop Ullathorne, Bishop Salvado and so many others, "men powerful in word and deed," according to the expression of Dom Guéranger, "illustrious Saints of the monastic order, great religious souls who were at the same time by their whole life the most vivid expression of the spirit which our great Patriarch has laid down in his holy Rule 4. The zealous life of these great monks constitutes one of the most beautiful pages of monastic holiness; they are themselves the purest glory of a past singularly fruitful for the Church of Christ 5.

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One of the most remarkable characteristics of the life of these great monks is their boundless devotion to the Apostolic and Roman Church. This union with the Apostolic See was, to our fathers, always an assured pledge of vitality and glory. Wherever the Benedictine monk turned his steps, he was considered as the born representative of Roman influence. Whether he is called Augustine in England, Willibrord in Frisia, Boniface in Germany, Adalbert in the Slav countries, it is always Rome who sends him, who blesses his beginning, seconds his efforts, hallows his success. Having 1. Dialog. c. 19. 2. Ibid. 3. Cf. L'Apostolat Monastique, in Berlière, 1. c. 4. Notions sur la vie religieuse et monastique. 5. See at the end of this conference a quotation from Dom Maurus Wolter and one from D. Gueranger, too long to be inserted here. - 6. Of these great monks may be said what G. Kurth wrote of St Boniface : Perhaps no part of his correspondence places the greatness of his character in a more striking light than his letters to the Sovereign Pontiffs. It is known with what devotion, faith, and tenderness, his heart turned towards St Peter's See. He never loved anything here below so much as the Holy See, and all the glory that he coveted consisted in being the minister of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. S. Boniface, P. 119.

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lent its concourse to the great liturgical work of Rome, and, side by side with the Roman faith, introduced civilisation to the farthest boundaries of Europe, the Monastic Order [whose power was then concentrated at Cluny] will be called to a still higher mission. Identified for the time being with the destinies of Rome, it will furnish, inspire, and support in every way those great Popes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the heroic defenders of the sanctity and independence of the Church1.

After this epoch it begins, from various causes to play a less important part. Nevertheless, it is an established and significant fact that the Popes have never ceased their efforts to protect and uphold it, and to attach it to themselves as the principal member to the head velut principalia capiti suo membra 2 to use the expression of Pope Gregory VII. Have we not ourselves had the happiness and consolation of witnessing the attachment of the last Pontiffs to our Order? It is to the princely munificence of Leo XIII, of glorious memory, that we owe the erection in Rome of the international college of St. Anselm ; and without speaking of other facts, the Roman Church has asked the monks of the French Congregation to place at her disposal the results of the admirable work they have done for sacred music, that all Christian assemblies may benefit by it: she has confided to St. Benedict's sons the arduous and delicate task of the critical revision of the biblical text of the Vulgate. These are undubitable marks of singular confidence. Let us see that we respond to it, "ever remembering that the monk to be faithful to his mission, must show himself 'St. Peter's man, the servant and the devoted son of the holy and Apostolic Church of Rome.” And what was the source of this zeal? Where did these holy monks find the secret of becoming, when God called them by obedience or circumstances, great apostles and wonderful men of action ? Whence did they obtain that irresistible ardour, that generous and indomitable strength which enabled them to accept every labour, confront every difficulty, endure every suffering for the extension of the 1. Cf. Mgr. Baudrillart, Cluny et la Papauté. 2. S. Gregor. p. vii, Epist. 69. P. L. 118, 420. 3. D. Morin, The Ideal of the Monastic Life found in the Apostolic Age, translated from the French by C. Gunning, p. 74. --4. D. Morin, l. c. p. 75. Let us say by way of completing these statements, that, given the extreme variety of Benedictine works, not only does the Abbot proportion and distribute tasks to each monk, but each monastery has in some way its own part in this vast inheritance; and furthermore, we have seen and still see Benedictine Congregations, according to the period and the country, specialise, here in the direction of colleges and of the sacred ministery, there in matters of Liturgy and sacred learning, etc.

Kingdom of Jesus Christ? The love of God and of Christ was the inward furnace where the living flame of zeal was enkindled.

It was the great monk, and at the same time great apostle, St. Bernard, who wrote these lines: "It is the characteristic of true and pure contemplation that it not only in flames the soul with the fire of divine charity, but it also occasionally fills her with such zeal and desire to gain others to God who shall love Him as she loves Him herself, that she gladly interrupts her contemplative repose and devotes herself to the labour of preaching. Afterwards, having satisfied this longing at least to a certain extent, she returns to her solitude with all the more eagerness in proportion as she knows that her apostolic efforts have been fruitful. Then when she has recruited her strength once more with the sweet food of prayer, she again issues forth with renewed zeal and energy to resume her work for souls 1.

This was also the opinion of St. Gregory: "If it is a good thing," he writes, " to pass from the active to the contemplative life, it is generally also useful for the soul to return again to the active life: the ardour obtained in contemplation allows the works of the active life to be all the better accomplished... 2"

St. Teresa does not speak otherwise: "Oh, the charity," she writes, " of those who truly love our Lord and who understand their own state! How scanty the rest they will be able to take if they but see they can in any degree help a single soul to advance, and to love God more, or be able to comfort it in any way or rescue it from any danger! How ill at ease such souls will be when they are at rest! And when they cannot help them in act they have recourse to prayer, beseeching our Lord on behalf of the many souls whom it grieves them to see going to ruin; they abandon their own comfort, and look on it as well lost, for they think not of their own rest, but only how they may more and more do the will of our Lord 3.

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1. In cantica,Sermo LVII, translated by a Priest of Mount Melleray. And again: Zelum tuum inflammet caritas (In cantica Sermo xx, 4. Ibid. col. 868); Est enim tantum lucere vanum, tantum ardere parum, ardere et lucere perfectum (Sermon on the Nativity of St John the Baptist). 2. In Ezech. lib. II, Homil. II, no II. Cf. also Ibid. lib. I, Homil. v, no 12. 3. The Foundations, ch. v. Translated from the Spanish by David Lewis. All this remarkable chapter should be read. The Saint seeks to discover whence comes that inward dissatisfaction which we generally feel when we have not passed the greater. part of the day alone and absorbed in God. according to the Saint, from two causes : self-love, which thrusts itself in here in a most escapes detection; that is, we would please

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This dissatisfaction proceeds, One, and this is the chief, is subtle way, and accordingly ourselves rather than God...

For us, who must do all things in obedience, the outward exercise of this zeal has its limits fixed by the kind of activity assigned to the monastery by traditions, circumstances, and above all by the orders of the Abbot. But each one of us, in the sphere given to him, ought to become Jesus' apostle. Although we ought deeply to love and eagerly to seek solitude, recollection, the hidden life, we must, when obedience imposes charges upon us or active offices to fulfil in the monastery or outside, give ourselves wholly up to them. It is not to leave Christ when we give ourselves to His members by obedience. Quite the contrary! All that we do for the love of our brethren of His brethren touches Christ Himself. This is what He Who is the infallible Truth and unique Fount of our perfection has told us in His own words.

VIII.

Does not St. Benedict himself give us to understand this capital truth that good zeal springs from the love of God and of Christ? Indicating the different forms which good zeal ought to take in regard to our brethren, the great Patriarch adds, in the same page of the Rule, three precepts concerning the exercise of this zeal. He repeats to us once more, as if he wished to sum up his thought before leaving us, to fear God, to love the Abbot with a humble and sincere affection, finally, never to prefer anything to Christ." A passion for the rights of God, the Sovereign Master; obedience to His representative; the love of Christ : have we not here the most life-giving and purest springs for the nourishing of zeal ?

We need not come back to the two first points; we have seen, in other conferences, what an important place they occupy in the monk's life. Let us insist only, like our Blessed Father himself, upon the last phrase of this chapter of Good Zeal," with which the great Patriarch has chosen to close the holy Rule: "Let monks prefer nothing whatever to Christ" Christo omnino nihil praeponant. It will be good for our soul to stay a few seconds to consider this absolute love which we ought to bear to the Person of Christ Jesus. The second source of this dissatisfaction, in my opinion, is that the soul seems to live in greater purity when left in solitude, because there are fewer opportunities therein of offending God." The Saint admirably shows how this second cause itself, is not always sufficient and how one may have illusions on this point. The Eternal Father likewise showed to St Catherine of Siena how, in this matter, spiritual self-love may be a deception for the soul. Dialogue, ch. xxxix.