Tertia Pars
Lecture 97: Christ's Life: Austerity, Poverty, and Common Living

Transcript
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So I wanted to make sure I got the proper music there, you know, the Palestrina and some Bach, you know. Not just those operatic masses of Mozart, you know. I remember my shock when I first went to Mozart's masses and across the… He took for one of the arias in the Marriage of the Figaro, right? He took, you know, the August day, right? Made him to a beautiful aria, you know. I guess this was fairly common in those days, you know. I mean, the same music would some days be used in a secular setting and in a church, you know, that shows us something. Yeah, well, that's very common in Maryland. I think that a lot of their melodies, the ancient melodies as far as I know, is that they came from folk music. Yeah. But then they went from religious poetry. Yeah. Or Greensleeves, you know, the Second Words and religious words and so on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess Benedict is saying that the Hervorian chant is the official music of the Roman rite, you know. Yeah, yeah. But that's fairly severe, you know. We're pulling around there. Not even this… We hope to get a restoration. Not even a restoration, you know. A restoration, yeah. Yeah. You see, Mozart says in an opera, the words ought to be altogether the obedient servant of the music. But with church music, you have to see the reverse, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, Gregorian chant, there is a sort of emphasis upon the words there, right? And the… We shouldn't go to Palschmina, there's more, you know. The music has a little more to say. I don't think it's… I didn't get to Mozart. I don't know. I used to try to get around there saying, well, Mozart's… A Christian gentleman can listen to these in his house, you know. But I had these beautiful words of John Paul II, you know, when they performed the Mozart's Reckuum, you know, during one of the Anniversary of Mozart. Beautiful words about Mozart, you know. The church could not fail to do homage to the genius of Salzburg, you know. So… I don't know how ex-confident these statements are. I used to protect myself, you know. Yeah. The incomparable botette, he says, you know, the Ave Verum. It's very beautiful. The introduction and conclusion there, his litany of the Blessed Sacrament, you know, that's really beautiful, I think. It's got something like the Ave Verum corpus, you know. Of course, and the astonishing gross mass, you know, the Greek Mass, you know. It didn't finish it. So, I mean, you know, say a few things, good things about Mozart, huh. But the discretion about Mozart. So, whether Christ ought to have led an austere life in this world, right? I told you when I reminded me of that word austere. When I asked Monsieur Dionne, do you prefer, you know, Bach or Mozart, right? And he prefaced his remarks by saying, you know, they have no authority or whatever. But he found Bach, you know, pro austere, you know. So, we were talking, how should he translate that to ask a word, you know. But, you know, I can't see what he means, you know. They had on EWTN, they have to catch, not the whole thing, but kind of a little life of Handel, right? And I don't know how authentic it was or authority it was. It's kind of fun to watch, though. And he was kind of in trouble with the king and so on and so on. And then, finally, somebody comes to see him with the idea of the Messiah, right? To write in these things. And all of a sudden, he strikes the fancy of him and he works on Chanana Chris. You know, what he said he thought when he was writing it, he saw the heavens opening up, you know. So, they do this beautiful thing. He's looking out the window, you know, and all of a sudden, you see, you know, some scene of Christ's life there. Kind of, you know, the window and then disappear, these kind of clouds and sky and so on. And so, the thing ends up at the end, you know, the performance of it there when the king is there. And you just wait for the king to stand up, you know, because that's what started the whole thing, right? The king stood up, you know, because everybody else saw the king stand up. Everybody else stand up, the whole audience stands up, you know. And that's become the tradition, right, you know, during the final hallelujah or whatever it is, that everybody stands up and they still do it now. But it was all started by the king, you know. He stood up to give his approval? Yeah, yeah. The king stands up and, you know, everybody, oh! Everybody see the king standing up and everybody stands up, you know, and, you know. And so, that's really a great work, you know. I think it was for the hallelujah chorus. Yeah. The scene they had to prepare for it was, we were in church. Yeah. The altar and procession starting down the aisle. And one of the kids from school was playing Isaiah the prophet. An old man with a stamp. He walks down the hall and gets up to the altar and just looks up to heaven. And he raises up and then the whole scene of the nativity unfolds while we're singing hallelujah. That was great. I didn't really serve it. Did the principal stand up? I don't remember. Sister Mary Cyril, she didn't stand up right. Sister Mary Cyril. Well, actually, we were going to Mass at 830 there, my wife and I. Once in a while, the school kids are there, you know. Usually it kind of draws it out, you know. But at the end of the Mass there on Wednesday, the first grade got there to sing their little song about the thing. Who was impressed by it? What was it now, you know. Usually those things are pretty, you know. First grade. Yeah. I mean, it's very nice. The thing they sang. They sang it well. I don't know why they got it. Okay. Who the Christ ought to have led a steer life in this world. The second one proceeds thus. It seems that Christ. Yeah. The way it says it. It seems that Christ. Who would be appropriate for him to be coming. And be coming. That Christ should lead a steer life. Yeah. Okay. That's the opposite of what he's going to say. No. Yes. He's going to say yes, he should have led a steer life. He's going to argue on the opposite side, isn't he? Mm-hmm. Do you have a negative there? No. That it would be coming. Yeah. That it would be coming. That it would be coming. Yeah. That it would be coming. Okay. Well, I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. continents, right? For he said in Matthew chapter 19 that there are eunuchs who castrate themselves on account of the kingdom of heaven. And that he who is able to embrace this, embrace it. Okay, therefore it seems that Christ in himself and in his disciples ought to observe austerity of what? Life, huh? Moreover, it seems ridiculous that someone begins a, what, more strict life, is it? And that from that he goes back into a more lax life, huh? Because, it could be said again, such a one that this man began to build and was not able to, what, finish, yeah. But Christ began a most strict life after baptism remaining in the desert and fasting 40 days and 40 nights. Therefore, it seems it was not suitable that after such a strictness of life he would return to the common life, huh? But against this is what is said in Matthew 11 that the Son of Man came eating and drinking. I answer it should be said, as has been said, that it was suitable to the end of the Incarnation that Christ not only led a solitary, that Christ did not lead a solitary life, but that he conversed with men, right? But the one who converses with others, it is most suitable that he can form himself to them in his way of, what, life, huh? I've seen Augustine say that sometimes, you know, because one should dress according to those he associates with and so on. According to that of the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 9, I was made all things to, what, all men, huh? The priest said to me in high school, Dwayne, don't you want to be all things to all men? Well, I don't know if I'd be capable of being all things to all men. I see that picture of Benedict, he was a bishop or something, you know, at the festivals there, and there was a big star, you know? And you notice he's smiling. Yeah. He's happy with his beard. That's what's important. And so in that line about someone asked him if he ever has tended to become Protestant or something, but no. No beer, no fun. No beer, no fun. I'm growing up in the very end now. And therefore it was most suitable, right? Convenientissimum, right? That Christ in food and drink had himself as others commonly have themselves, right? When Augustine says against Faust, that John has said, what? Not eating or drinking, right, huh? Because that, what? The Jews used, he did not use, huh? But this, unless the Lord used, it would not, in comparison, have been said to be eating and drinking. So he's conforming himself, right? I had this painting in my house there, right? By the, I forget the painter. It's one of the Phoenician painters. But it was supposed to be at the Last Supper. It was a little bit too worldly, so he had to change the title to Feast at the House of Levi, right? And I had it hanging in the diagram, right? I said, you know, it comes even to these feasts that I have at the diagram. But it's kind of striking painting, you know. And your eyes are drawn right to Christ here in the center painting, you know. There's these pillars here, you know, and food, you know. It's not the Last Supper. It's the Feast at the House of Levi or somebody with the sinners and so on. But it comes even to these, you know, you know, sinners' banquets there. Now, the first objection here, right? Isn't Christ preaching a more perfect life even than John is, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said, our Lord in his way of living, right, gave an example of perfection to all which, what, in those things, in all those things, which per se pertain to, what, salvation, huh? But the absence of food from food and drink does not per se pertain to what? There's hope for us. According to that of Romans 14, that the kingdom of God is not food and drink. That's kind of an unusual use of that text, right? Yeah, well, that's why I remember when we had a monk who made his final vow and said, well, congratulations. And now that you've taken your vows, you know, what are you going to do? He says, I want to eat and drink. The kingdom of God has nothing to do with eating and drinking. He's celebrating it. I want to be pleased. Nothing to do with eating and drinking. And Augustine says in the book on the questions of the gospel, expounding that in Matthew chapter 11, that wisdom is justified by the sons, by its sons, right? From its sons. Because the holy apostles, right, understood the kingdom of God not to be in food and drink, but in the, what? Tolerating with people, evenness and so on. Yeah. Which neither abundance raised up, nor need depressed, right? And St. Paul says something about that. He doesn't know about sometimes he was in great need, and other times he was not carried away by one or the other, right? That Shakespeare's, I mean, Hamlet's praise to Horatio, right? Is that he stays a level key, whether he's, you know, good fortune or bad fortune. For he says both lives are, what? Licit and praiseworthy, right? That someone segregated from the common, what, consortium of men, right? Should observe abstinence, right? And that the one placed in the society of others should use the, what, common life. Like John XXIII, right? When he was a diplomat. She went to many a banquet, huh? Yeah. And therefore the Lord wished, what? Example of both, two men, right? John, however, as Christendom says upon Matthew, nothing more showed apart from life and justice, but Christ also had testimony from his miracles. So John worked no, what? Miracles in order to, I didn't want to detract from Christ, right? Call attention to life and grace. So you just get at it, give the example of his life in a very severe way. Leaving there for John to shine by fasting, right? He came in the contrary way, entering to the meals of the publicans and eating and drinking with them, huh? To a second, it should be said, huh? That just as other men, by abstinence, acquire the virtue of, what, contain themselves, so also Christ in himself and others, through the power of his divinity, compress them, the flesh, huh? He came in the middle of his life. He came in the middle of his life. He came in the middle of his life. He came in the middle of his life. He came in the middle of his life. He came in the middle of his life. Whence it is read, it said in Matthew 9, that the Pharisees and the disciples of what? John fasted, but not the disciples of Christ. Which, Bede expounding, says that John did not, what? Drink wine and found drink. Because, to him, abstinent increased merit, to whom there was what? No power of nature? But the Lord, to whom naturally, yeah, who can make more pure, right? Those whom he can make more pure than those abstaining, right? By his power. It's a sense of it anyway, I think. The Lord, to whom naturally, what? Sepete bat, given to forgive defects, forgive sins. Why would he decline or avoid those whom he was able to render more pure than those abstaining, right? Yeah. Yes. Because he would drink with being accompanied with those who needed to be made earlier than those who were abstaining. You know, at the Last Supper, when our Lord says, you know, those who washed, you know, have their feet washed, right? You know? But, you know, I'll take that as implying that what, that the apostles have been purged of their sins, right? They just have these minor things, right, that have to be washed. So they're more pure, right, than those, than the disciples of John, who were kind of doubtful about Christ anyway, right? You know? That guy can be baptized. He's out there baptizing. He's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there. He's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there, he's out there. The wicked woman, John told her to do penance, but penance is hard and she wouldn't do it. And don't punish it until she hasn't done it. It's so funny. It's a little leg play, but they're hilarious by the way children are. The cartoons are cute. Okay, now what about Christ doing one thing and then not being consistent, right? Perseverant, right? No, thanks. To the third, it should be said that as Christendom says upon Matthew, that you might learn, right, how great a good is fasting, right? And what way it is a shield against the devil, right, and that after baptism, one ought to aim not at luster or indulgence, one could say, but to fasting, right? He fasted not needing to do so, but instructing us. So we kind of imitate that with the four days of Lent, but he did not proceed fasting more than Moses or Elias, right? Nay, unbelievable, should seem the assumption of what the last flesh. So Moses and Elias, they're... But according to the mystery, as Gregory says, the number 40, right, is kept by the example of Christ in, what, fasting? Because the power of the Decalogue through the books of the four Gospels is fulfilled, right? So four times ten is forty. Tenarius inum quatraductus, in quadrogenarium surging. Or because in this mortal body, from the four elements we subsist, right, huh? To whose will, right, we contract the precepts, Dominican, I mean, the lordly precepts, which are taken by the Decalogue. Or according to Augustine in the book on the 83 questions, huh? All discipline of wisdom is to know the creature and the creator, the creator and the creature. The creator is the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The creature is partly invisible as the soul, to which the, what, third number is attributed. Because we're ordered to love God threefold, from our whole heart and from our whole soul and from our whole mind, huh? Partly visible as the body, to which the number four, I suppose, is owed, appropriated, on account of hot, cold, I mean, hot, wet, cold and dry. The number ten, which insinuates the whole discipline, led by four, that is the number which is attributed to the, what, body, multiplied by that. Because through the administration of the body, it is, what, carried on, makes the number forty. Forty, and therefore the time in which we moan and suffer and stuff, is celebrated in the number forty. It is not however incongruous that Christ, after fasting in the desert, returned to the, what, common life, huh? This belongs to the life according to which someone, is a Dominican, contemplata, how he's tried it, right? Which we say Christ took on, right? That first he might give way to contemplation, and afterwards to the public life of actually descended, living with others, huh? Whence Bede says upon Mark, Christ fasted, lest he, what, depart from the precept, he ate the sinners, that, um, uh, deserving, or observing his grace, he would know his power, recognize his power. It's a lot of those Dominican, a little break now, contemplata, how he's tried there, right? Whether Christ in this world ought to live a pauper's life, right? To the third one goes forward thus. It seems that Christ in this world ought not to have led a pauper's life. For Christ ought to take on the most choosable, right? The most eligible life. But the most choosable life is that which is a mean between wealth and poverty. For it is said in Proverbs 30, Do not give to me mendicity of poverty, or wealth, but give me what is necessary for my little. Therefore Christ ought not to have led a pauper's life, but a modern one, right? Christ Alice is virtualized in the middle, right? Moreover, exterior outside wealths are ordered to the use of the body as regards its food and clothing. But Christ, in his food and clothing, led the common life, right? According to a way of others with whom he lived. According to a way of others with whom he lived. Therefore it seems that in wealth and poverty, he ought to observe the common way of living, and not the greatest what? Poverty, right? That seems reasonable, right? Moreover, Christ, most of all, invited men to the example of humility. According to that, Matthew 11. Earn from me, because I am meek and humble. But humility is most of all commended in the wealthy. For it is said in 1 Timothy, chapter 6. Give this precept to the wealthy. Do not savor high things, right? Do not. Therefore it seems that Christ ought not to lead a pauper's life. That's, you know, we're down near the Vanderbilt's house there in North Carolina there, you know. One of the stories you heard was, I guess, they had hired a new servant, and she was bringing in, you know, to this pretty gorgeous dining room, you know, this plate of dishes, right? And she dropped it. Well, of course, Vanderbilt himself got up and helped her to pick him up, you know. So that's very commendable. It gives a very good impression of him, you know, just trying to relieve her embarrassment and so on. So it was commendable for that, you know. Christ should have had a little bit of wealth, I guess. He could have been. Yeah, sure does he worry. Yeah, yeah. Of course, they do say, you know, I mean, being God, you know, his ability is more impressive, right? Mm-hmm. But against all this is what is said in Matthew chapter 8, that the Son of Man does not have any place where he can recline his head, right? As if you were to say, according to Jerome, why me, on account of wealth and the lucre of the age, do you wish to follow, right? Since I'm of such poverty, you know, I do not even have a little place to stay, right? And that of Matthew 17, that you should not be scandalized. You should not scandalize them. Go to the sea. I understand that. I think that was when we were to hate the temple pacts. Oh, oh, oh, that's where it's old. Peter said. Oh, okay, oh, okay. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. For this, simply understood, builds up the hearer when he, what, hears that the Lord was in so great poverty that he did not have tribute for himself in the apostle, right? Okay. Well, I answer. It should be said that Christ, it was befitting Christ in this world to lead a pauper's life, huh? First, because this was fitting or congruent with the office of preaching, huh? On account of which he said he himself had come. Let us go into the, what, nearby villages and cities that I might also preach there, because for this I have come. Go to me if I don't. That's like Paul, right? It's necessary, however, for preachers of the word of God that they be given over entirely to, what, preaching. Being freed entirely from the cure of, what, sacred things. That's a philosophy, we should be freed entirely. I was doing that, I was doing the deck yesterday. Whence we cannot, which they're not able to do when they possess, what, wealth. Whence the Lord himself, sending the apostles to, what, to preach, said, do not possess any gold nor silver, right? And the apostles themselves say, it's not right for us to leave the word and to minister to the tables, huh? Secondly, because he took on a, what? Yeah, he assumed a bodily death, right? That he might give a spiritual life to us. So he sustained bodily poverty that he might give us spiritual, what? Riches. According to that of 2 Corinthians. Know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who on account of us was made needy, I guess. And that by his lack of things, we might become, what? Rich. Yeah. It's interesting. Ego would like this, I guess. Ego would like this, you know. One opposite giving rise to the other, but it's not to be understood in the way Ego understood these things. Third, if he had wealth or riches, the preaching would be ascribed to his, what? Greed. Greed, yeah. When Jerome says upon Matthew that if the disciples had wealth, it would seem not for the sake of the salvation of men, but for the sake of what gain that they taught, or preached. And the same reason would be about what? Fourth, that so much more would the power of his divinity be shown, as he was seen to be more abject to his poverty. Whence it is said in the same sermon of the, in a certain sermon of the Council of Ephesus, that he chose all things that are poor and vile, all, what, mediocre and obscure to many, and that his divinity might be, what, known to have transformed the earth. On account of which he chose a, what, poor mother, a poor father, or poor country, needing, what, money. He chose to you in the manger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I suppose that his, referring to the world, would not contribute to his wealth. Kind of funny with this father, Delzone, of course, he comes from a wealthy family, right? Of course, he's trying to try to start this Catholic college and school, and of course, he's always asking his mother for money, right? Of course, anything he gets, of course, he gives away, and so it's, to keep on giving this son money, you know? Got kind of interested, you know, and for a while, he got a whole bunch of refuse, and finally, you know, the last request, he sends his mother a letter, she sends the money that he needs. Kind of funny. His sister, she didn't live with him, or he would go to town, and they would send him to town and get something. He'd always give the money, but he wouldn't come back with the money. Yeah, and they'd be curious. Oh, he's actually going to get... That's something they'd really need. You know, I didn't give the money away. I think the one time she had saved up all that money for some new sheets or something like that. And she gave it to him and he gave it all the way out of the way to pick him up and she burst into tears. I told you about my pastor when I was a little boy. You know, everything goes to church, nothing to the parish house. So the linen was, you know, crummy and so on. And finally, kind of the housekeeper, whatever else, was so embarrassed that the bishop comes for dinner or something, you know. You know, the things. So discreetly, she told some of the ladies in the parish about this, you know. So they decided to raise a little bit of money just for that, you know. He didn't like that at all. They had real trouble over trying to do this go around him, you know. They had this surprise party and they're surprised. I don't celebrate birthdays anymore. Everyone's like, what are you doing? My CSA was a tough old enough. We were all kind of scared of the old pastor because I met myself and he says, Dwayne, he says, how did you get baptized? That's another saint's name. Well, because I was baptized, you go Dwayne. So he didn't get switched around. I didn't know what had happened to me. I always thought I was baptized. He was laid out there and he finally died because he laid him out in the church itself. You know, it's like the thing. We're all kind of much afraid to go, you know, to the launch, you know. That's the last thing that Brother Mark said. But if he didn't go to heaven, I don't know who does. Marvelous man in some ways. Okay, now, what about the most choosable life, right? To the first, thereof it ought to be said that the abundance of wealth and the poverty or mendicant, that's what the word mendicant, the begging stage, should be, seem to be, or seem to be avoided, right? By those who wish to live by virtue, right? Insofar as they are occasions of what? Sinning, that's the thing. For the abundance of wealth is the occasion for being proud. And poverty or very bad is the occasion for stealing and lying or for perjury, right? Okay. But because Christ was not capable of sin, right? On account of this cause of which Solomon, what? Avoids these things, right? Or to Christ they were not to be, what? Yeah. Of course, Solomon was crept by his wealth, wasn't he? By his wife. Very well and wise. Yeah. Nevertheless, not any, what? Or every, poverty is an occasion of what's stealing and, as Solomon seems there to join, right? Or to add. But only that which is, what? Contrary to the will, right? As if you're poor without choosing to be poor, right? To which, to avoiding which man steals and commits perjury, right? But voluntary poverty, poverty does not have this, what? Danger. And such a poverty Christ, what? Chose. Chose to be poor. Now, the second objection is saying, shouldn't he accommodate himself to what other people, right? Change a little bit. The second should be said, the common life in which, to use a common life as regards food and drink, I mean, food and clothing, someone can do, not only by possessing wealth, but also by taking necessary things from the rich. Which also Christ did, right? Was done among Christ. For it's said in Luke chapter 8, that a certain woman followed Christ, who would minister to him from their faculties, right? From their wealth, right? For as Jerome says, against, what? Vigilantium, right? It was a judgeic custom, right? Nor was it leading to guilt, right? In the old habit of the Gentiles, that women of their substance, right, ministered food and clothing to their right teachers, right? But this, because it would have made scandal in the nations and the Gentiles, I suppose, right? Paul says that he avoided this, right? He, he kind of supported himself, right, but worked out, tense or whatever, what was he doing? If, therefore, the common food and so on, could be without, what, the solicitude impeding the officer of predication, not, however, the possession of what? Divine things, right? That corrupted, what's his name? Judas, right? Wealthy and corrupts all that women did. That's what, that's the old saying among us, they say, you're not wiser than King David. Or, if you're not wiser than Solomon, you're not more pious than King David. You're not stronger than Samson. No. Watch out. I used to read the things here, Albert there, talking about women, you know. Because he ends up, you know, after this question, and if I said everything I know about women, the whole world, he says, would be stupefied. Which work is that from, Albert? Yeah, I used to like to be there, you know, to talk to the girls that are in the faculty, you know, studying, you know. Now, he says, in the one who from necessity is a pauper, right, humility is not much, what, commended. But in the one who voluntarily is a pauper, as was Christ, huh? This pauperty, poverty, poverty, poverty, is a sign of the greatest, what, humility, right? Could be, in-deaching, that's the word? Yeah, a sign, a sign. Yeah, this one, this book has you-deaching. Oh, in-deaching. It is inverted, yeah. Yeah. Time for one more article, then? Yeah. Okay, whether Christ should be living a...