By DEB PIROCH
“The abbot . . . must be chaste, sober and merciful, ever preferring mercy to justice, that he himself may obtain mercy. Let him hate sin and love the brethren. And even in his corrections, let him act with prudence, and not go too far, lest . . . the vessel be broken. Let him keep his own frailty ever before his eyes, and remember that the bruised reed must not be broken . . . and let him study rather to be loved than feared.”
St. Benedict of Nursia, the St. Benedict who invented the Rule and co-patron of Europe with Saints Cyril and Methodius, was the pontifical patron saint chosen by our dear departed Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. (He also chose the name in honor of former Pope Benedict XV, who worked so hard for peace in World War I.) Born in AD 480, what we know of the ancient Benedict’s biography is taken from the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great.
He was born at a time when the old Rome was falling into ruin, and the papacy would end up filling an important vacuum. Born in Nursia, he was well-educated by Roman parents. His twin sister was St. Scholastica. About the time he was 20, he abandoned the licentiousness of Rome and set forth.
Leaving the city behind, and taking an old nurse with him as a servant, he left for Enfide, as the name of the town was then known. He met some of like mind, but there worked the first of many miracles, mending his servant’s wheat-sifter, which attracted too much attention.
He opted to seek more isolation in Subiaco, entering a narrow valley that gradually ascended toward the mountains. In doing so he ran across the ruins of Roman baths and palace of Nero, the monster emperor who had murdered members of his family and played the lyre as Rome burned.
He traveled on, discovering a cave about ten feet deep, high up in the mountain. Another hermit by name of Romanus had a cave a little higher, and he gave Benedict a habit. He also brought him food a few times a week, and for three years they stayed there for, as St. Gregory wrote, he left wealth behind and “sought to serve God.”
Indeed, at the first Wednesday audience after his election to the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI quoted the Rule, chapter 72, stating, “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ.”
The saint’s piety must have been known for a group of monks nearby eventually prevailed upon him to join them as their head. Benedict had doubts about uniting with them, for his ways were not theirs, and soon they regretted asking him as “their crooked conditions could not endure his virtuous kind of government.” They set about to poison him. But when Benedict went to bless the cup, on making the Sign of the Cross it shattered and he knew what they had planned; for he had the gift of prophecy, too.
So, Benedict returned to Subiaco and then went on to start his first twelve monasteries, with a dozen men at each location, himself as abbot of all. Man is social at heart, and most are not coined to be hermits. He would develop The Rule, a model that helped form a basis underlying Western civilization. Here were hours of the day divided for prayerful communities united for life. They joined together throughout the day regularly for prayer, then they worked, and they prayed privately. Pray and work. Ora et labora. They vowed obedience to The Rule, where all was spelled out and made sense. So, whether monasteries were destroyed, or rulers died, or marauders invaded, nothing changed. They rebuilt, and went on.
Pope Benedict spoke on the patron saint of his pontificate during his Wednesday audience in 2008:
“Benedict states that in the first place prayer is an act of listening, which must then be expressed in action. ‘The Lord is waiting every day for us to respond to his Holy admonitions by our deeds.’ Thus, the monk’s life becomes a fruitful symbiosis between action and contemplation, ‘so that God may be glorified in all things.’ In contrast with a facile and egocentric self-fulfillment, today often exalted, the first and indispensable commitment of a disciple of St. Benedict is the sincere search for God on the path mapped out by the humble and obedient Christ, whose love he must put before all else, and in this way, in the service of the other, he becomes a man of service and peace.”
Here the Holy Father gives us an important instruction.
Benedict left Subiaco for Monte Cassino, supposedly after an envious and troublesome local cleric caused him trouble. Among other things, he poisoned his bread, but Benedict was again saved, this time by a raven who flew away with the food. Our Pope Emeritus believed that his patron left not because of the priest, but instead after maturing to a new level of monastic experience, for there he founded another monastery. It is uncertain precisely when the Rule was written, but it could have been at this point, the culmination of so many years of experience.
He also had great prudence, like the deceased Pope. The men under his care fasted only as the Church required, and slept enough hours during the night. They needed energy to work, as well as pray. And instead of begging alms, his order provided alms, to feed the hungry and care for the poor.
After he left, on the site of his new monastery, there had been worship of idols and devils. Our saint cleared them all out and built a chapel where there had been a temple to Apollo, and the monastery where another had been. He chased away all the witchcraft. Perhaps this is one reason that, among other things, he is the patron saint of those fighting witchcraft, as well as those spelunking. The man who founded Western monasticism prophesied his own death, dying on March 21, 547. In the old calendar, this was his feast, now changed to July 11.
Now we go ahead in time some 1,500 years. In 2005 at the papal conclave, Joseph Ratzinger prayed not to be chosen Pope. Yet surely here was Pope St. John Paul II’s close friend, perhaps the closest, who knew all the problems of the Church as head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. And the Holy Ghost intervened, because He knew the problems within the Church needed another Benedict of Nursia.
Those who like to bash the Church say he worked for the “inquisition,” but that Congregation defrocked 848 priests and sanctioned roughly 2,500. With his record, Pope Benedict did more than any other previous Pope to fight molestation in the Church, by persuading the Pope John Paul to let him take over the problem at the Congregation and fast-track those bad men coming before Rome out of the priesthood. He continued to pursue them out of the Church as Pope.
“How much filth there is in the Church, especially among those who, in the priesthood, are supposed to belong to Him,” he said in spiritual meditations for the Stations of the Cross in 2005. Like Benedict of Nursia rode roughshod over pagan temples, like our Lord drove the moneylenders out of the temple, Pope Benedict XVI did his best always to put God first. This is the curse of our times. Pope Benedict also said, “We delude ourselves if we think that the prophetic mission of Fatima has come to an end.”
But now our gentle Pope, like the first Benedict, has met his end. May the Angels lead you into paradise, Holy Father! May the martyrs greet you at your arrival and lead you into the holy city Jerusalem. Please continue interceding for God’s Church on Earth in Heaven. Amen.
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