LIFE OF SAINT BENEDICT OF NURSIA
LIFE OF SAINT BENEDICT OF NURSIA
THEME: SAINT BENEDICT OF NURSIA—FATHER OF WESTERN MONASTICISM
Saint Benedict was born of noble parents in Nursia in Italy, Benedict spent his youth in Rome, but the dissolute lives of his fellow students and the state of the country, then under the Arian Theodoric the Goth, prompted him at age 16 to seek salvation as a lone hermit in a hidden cave. In time, maturing rapidly in mind and character, his sanctity, miracles, and his gift of directing souls attracted numerous earnest disciples whom he organized into 12 monasteries, each comprising 12 monks, with its own superior.
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Accepting a donation of land on Monte Cassino, he established the great abbey which became the motherhouse of the Benedictine Order for the reclamation and regeneration of Christian Europe, an accomplishment that was to earn him the title “Father of Europe” from Pope Pius XII, and “Patron Saint of all Europe” in 1964 from Pope Paul VI.
His monks vested manual labor with a new dignity, adding to it prayer, the “Opus Dei”, the humble acknowledgment of God’s presence throughout the day by brief public acts of faith, praise, and adoration. Their vows comprised poverty, chastity, obedience and the stable attachment to one monastery for life. In contrast to the later Franciscan idea of poverty, the Benedictine monastery was to be not only self-supporting but in a position to succor the poor, the sick, the afflicted and give shelter to the stranger.
By their teaching, studying and copying of manuscripts, the Benedictines preserved the Greek and the Roman classics through the Dark Ages. Though not a priest himself, Benedict’s Order has given the Church no less than 24 popes, 4,600 bishops and over 5,000 saints!
Reflection: “Ora et labora”—“Pray and work” (Saint Benedict).
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