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Saint Benedict is famous for founding at least 12 religious communities of monks in Italy. He traveled to Montecassino where he established a monastery and wrote “The Rule,” which is a set of guidelines for how the life of a monk should be lived and has since then become one of the most influential works of Catholicism.
Saint Benedict was born in Norcia, Italy in 480 AD along with his twin sister, Saint Scholastica. After attending primary schools in Norcia, Benedict went to Rome to study law and literature. His favorite class was rhetoric, which is the art of persuasive speaking. He became a successful speaker and one of the best to convey the truth.
However, he soon became disillusioned with the lifestyle of his peers and thus retired to Affle with a group of priests and his old nurse. In that small town Saint Benedict performed his first miracle restoring to perfect condition an earthenware wheat sifter which had been accidentally broken. The fame of this miracle and the people looking for him drove Saint Benedict to live in the caves in Subiaco, where he began to live as a hermit immersed in solitude. His only contact with the outside world was with another monk named Romanus, whose monastery was nearby. He gave St. Benedict a monk’s habit and provided spiritual and material needs to him. One day, during his time living in the cave, the Devil presented Benedict’s imagination with a beautiful, tempting woman. Benedict resisted by rolling his body into a thorn bush until it was covered with many wounds. It is said that through these body wounds, he cured the wounds of his soul. In addition, during his time in living in a cave, nearby monks came to ask for his leadership. He warned them that he would be too strict for them, but they insisted. When his words were proven true, the monks tried to poison St. Benedict, but when he prayed a blessing over the cup and it shattered.
Afterwards, St. Benedict returned to his solitude and then he was motivated to found twelve monasteries and assigned twelve monks to each of them. He, also, founded in 525 and 529 AD a thirteenth monastery for novices and those needing further education. This monastery, the Abbey of Montecassino, became the root of the Church’s monastic system. On the remains of the altar of Apollo, he built a chapel dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and the temple of Apollo itself was turned into an oratory for the monks which was dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. So, instead of founding different communities, he gathered his disciples into one whole community. Benedict was an innovator. No one had ever set up communities like is before and directed them with a rule. Benedict had the holiness and ability to direct the religious life of his brothers and priests. His beliefs and instructions on religious life were collected in what is now known as the “Rule of Saint Benedict,” still directing religious life after 15 centuries.
In this short but powerful rule, St. Benedict put what he had learned about the power of speaking and oratorical rhythms at the service of the Gospel. In fact, scholars have confirmed that his Rule reflects a great understanding of and the skill with the rhetorical rules of that time. So, Benedict never rejected rhetoric, even though it had been used to seduce people to vice, what he did was reform it to bring people to God. He realized hat the strongest and truest foundation for the power of words was the Word of God itself. He said, “For what page or word of the Bible is not a perfect rule for temporal life?” However, it was not enough to just speak the words, Benedict instructed his monks to practice sacred reading, the study of the Scriptures they would be praying in the Bible. In this lectio divina, he and his monks memorized the Scriptures, studied them and contemplated them until they became apart of their being. Four to six hours were set aside each day for the sacred reading. If monks had free time he thought that “it should be used by the brothers to practice the psalms.” At Montecassino Saint Benedict demonstrated prodigious activity. He supervised the building of this monastery and established a monastic order, the Benedictines. He also performed many miracles. He brought back from death a youth, miraculously supplied the monastery with flour and oil in its time of need and displayed the gift of prophecy. In addition, he devoted himself and his monks to evangelizing the local population who practiced pagan worship. Shortly before he died, Saint Benedict saw the soul of Saint Scholastica, who also lived a religious life, rising to heaven in the form of a dove. This vision happened a few days after their last talk together at the foot of Montecassino. Pope Gregory the Great stated that this vision showed a close union between God and Benedict, a union so intense that the Saint was given the share of an even more glorious vision, the whole of creation gathered in a sunbeam.
Saint Benedict died on March 21, 547 AD. He foresaw his death, informing his disciples that the end was near. Six days before dying, he had the grave which he was to share with his deceased sister, Saint Scholastica, opened. Then, completely exhausted, he asked to be taken into his oratory where, after receiving Holy Communion, he died supported by his monks. Saint Benedict’s feast day is July 11th.
Saint Benedict, pray for us and show us the way to heaven!!!
The Rev. Gus Puleo serves as director of the English as a Second Language (ESL) program and the Spanish Department at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, where he also teaches English and Spanish. He is a graduate of Norristown High School and attended Georgetown University, where he received B.A. and B.S. in Spanish and linguistics. He has master’s degrees in Spanish, linguistics and divinity from Middlebury College, Georgetown University and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the former pastor of St. Patrick Church in Norristown.
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