Before we begin, three things:
1 You can find my old Post on Saint Patrick at the bottom this Post.
2 I should have mentioned this earlier: If during Lent you would like to pray some of the daily Offices of the Church – Matins, the day Hours, Vespers, Compline – here is a source which lays them out clearly (once we learn to cope with the many available options), from the Greek Archdiocese: https://dcs.goarch.org/goa/dcs/dcs.html
3 “There are six things which the LORD hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers.” Proverbs 6:16-19
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Saint Benedict of Nursia
March 14 in the Orthodox Church, July 11 in Western Christianity
Those of you who read last week’s Post know: What we’re talking about are some saints whom we often lose or ignore because their commemorations fall during Great Lent, when so much else is going on. How many of you have noticed, for example, that today is Saint Benedict’s day? You see.
Saint Benedict had the additional disadvantage of being born on the wrong side of the Adriatic – from the Orthodox perspective, that is. He was Italian. Sinve died in the Sixth Century, we Orthodox officially recognize him as a saint. * However, we rarely pay much attention to the saints on the other side of the line “where the Filioque drops out”, as Englishman Patrick Leigh Fermor so cleverly described it. Too bad. We thereby miss many examples of great holiness and the prayers of many great saints.
- Check orthodoxwiki.com for March 14. Benedict is in the middle of the list of about sixty other saints of the day.
Introduction
In the title ‘way above, I mentioned Saint Benedict’s “moderation”.
Unlike many who traveled far seeking enlightenment – to Egypt or the Holy Land or farther – Benedict stayed home. His entire life was spent in central Italy, traveling no more than about 140 miles. Sometimes our popular image of monastics comes from those who wear hair shirts or don’t sit or sleep for years at a time or who (like Saint Gerasimos last week) ate nothing during Lent. None of that here. Saint Benedict did not favor extreme asceticism.
He was hard on himself at the very beginning, but he learned better. His Rule for monks was noted for not being extreme in any way. For that reason I believ e he was some good advice for those of us who are not monastics..
Saint Benedict’s Life
Benedict (“Benedetto”) was born in the Italian city of Nursia in the year 485, it is said to notable parents. Most accounts say he and his sister Scholastica (who comes into the story later) were twins.
As Benedict was coming of age, his parents sent him to Rome for education. (Some say they also moved to Rome.) This was not long after the Fall of Rome, and the great city was, to put in bluntly, a mess – the former civil government no longer in control, people of all sorts milling about, trying to get along or ahead however they could manage it.
Benedict’s training was chiefly in rhetoric. He and his classmates had everything: wealth, education, youth – and he watched them squander it in pursut of cheap pleasures, ruining their lives. Benedict was horrified by the immorality and stupidity. (His parents must have raised him right.)
Afraid for himself and his own soul lest he also fall, he literally “fled for the hills”, to a place in the mountains east of Rome called Enfide (modern-day “Affile”), near the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. But even that wasn’t quite enough. He escaped again to nearby Subiaco where he lived in a cave, essentially as a hermit for three years, where he prayed and drew near to God.
Point of information: Should people who want to escape run off by themselves like this to be hermits? No! It’s dangerous. It can lead people into insanity, not piety. With very rare exception, first a person needs to be fully shaped by living in community. Christ brings us into community, into the Church, as members of His Body. “Me and Jesus” religion is wrong now, and it was then. Saint Benedict made this very clear in his Monastic Rule, of which we’ll speak in a moment. Benedict learned this the hard way.
There was another lone monastic at Subiaco, Romanus, who tonsured Benedict a monk – this obviously was done more casually in those days – and brought him food from time to time, so he wasn’t completely alone. But since he had little human support, the devil went after him. He was tempted in many ways: To go back into society, to return to Rome and his friends and his parents. Once the demon of lust came at him so strongly that the only way he knew to deal with it was by rolling in a patch of briars. If he had been in community, the regular worship would have supported him, and an abbot or igumen (the Orthodox title) could probably have advised him how to deal with it. He attained holiness the hard way.
But he did, and in time people began to gather ‘round him, seeking guidance and direction. People gather around God’s holy ones. He sends them. Also there were rumors of miracles. The number of disciples who stayed permanently with him was so great that he had to divide them into – imagine this! – twelve sketes *, each with about twelve monks. Each skete had an experienced monk to direct it. Only novices remained with Saint Benedict for direction.
- A skete consists of small cells centered around a church and dependent upon a parent monastery.
This was not exactly the life of a hermit which Saint Benedict originally sought. He was never to have that again. He could not in good conscience turn away all these needy men (and eventually women) who sought his wisdom, protection and direction.
There are different stories about why he left Subiaco. Some say his monks rebelled against him. Or perhaps, since Subiaco was well established, he felt he could seek some peace and quiet again. If so, it definitely didn’t work. He went south to Campagna on Mount Cassino, where again great crowds came to him.
He founded Monte Cassino Monastery.
Learning from his experience at Subiaco, now he built one large monastery, which quickly became a center of theological education, not only in Italy but throughout the Western Catholic Church. It long possessed one of the greatest theological libraries in the Church, which preserved many documents from early Church history which otherwise would have been lost.
Can we visit the original Monte Cassino today? No. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1349, then rebuilt. It was destroyed again by Allied bombers during the Battle of Monte Cassino during World War II, in the belief it was a Nazi command post. It was not. “The fog of war”.
It has again been rebuilt.
Now his sister Scholastica came to join him, and a convent for women was established nearby.
There Saint Benedict wrote his Rule for Monasteries which was the dominant Rule for all Western monastics till more recent times. It is still the rule for Benedictine, Cistercian and Trappist monasteries. (Western monasteries are organized into different “orders”, following different Rules. There are no distinct “orders” in the East, only monasteries which follow The Rule of Saint Basil, in various iterations.)
Saint Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries
Here is an excellent edition, published by Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota: https://saintjohnsabbey.org/rule
It is not very long. You’ll note that, though there are 73 chapters, most chapters are fairly short.
As I said above, there is nothing extreme in his Rule. “Moderation in all things” (in a monastic way, of course) could have been his motto. Though we who live “in the world” * should not try to imitate it, I think there is much we can learn from its spirit.
- An odd way of speaking. Are monastics not equally “in the world”? just living in this world in a different way.
Where did Benedict get this Rule? Certainly, to some extent, from his own considerable personal experience. But to a greater extent from previous monastic experience in the East – the Egyptian Desert Fathers and The Rule of Saint Basil the Great. This came to Saint Benedict by way of Saint John Cassian, who had visited the Eastern world, was ordained Deacon in Constantinople, and then established the Monastery of Saint Victor in the south of France.
Please note that, like Saint Francis, Saint Benedict was a layman.
For practical reasons all monastics must renounce personal possessions and vow obedience to superiors. (Can you imagine what such a close community would be like otherwise?)
What else do I know about monastic Rules? Not much. So let me quote from “Catholic Online” (catholilc.org) Their source of information is one of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great (Sixth Century).
“Later, the Church imposed the clerical state upon Benedictines, and with the state came a preponderance of clerical and sacerdotal duties, but the impress of the lay origin of the Benedictines has remained, and is perhaps the source of some of the characteristics which mark them off from later orders.”
“Another characteristic feature of the saint’s Rule is its view of work. His so-called order was not established to carry on any particular work or to meet any special special crisis in the Church, as has been the case with other orders. With Benedict the work of his monks was only a means to goodness of life. The great disciplinary force for human nature is work; idleness is its ruin.”
“The purpose of his Rule was to bring men back to God by the labour of obedience, from whom they had departed.”
“The Benedictine takes no explicit vow of poverty; he only vows obedience according to the Rule.” *
- The Anglican Benedictine Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan, with which I was associated many years ago, understood there to be three vows: Poverty, Chastity and Stability – i.e. “bloom where you are”.
Regarding the Psalms in the various daily Offices:
“Characteristic of the freedom of his Rule and of the ‘moderation”of the saint, [is] that he concludes his very careful directions by saying that if any superior does not like his arrangement he is free to make another; this only he says he will insist on, that the whole Psalter will be said in the course of a week. The practice of the holy Fathers, he adds, was resolutely ‘to say in a single day what I pray we tepid monks may get through in a whole week’ . On the other hand, he checks indiscreet zeal by laying down the general rule ‘that prayer made in common must always be short’. It is very difficult to reduce St. Benedict’s teaching on prayer to a system, for this reason, that in his conception of the Christian character, prayer is coexistent with the whole life, and life is not complete at any point unless penetrated by prayer. ”
“Let the sick be served in very deed as Christ Himself” … “Let all guests that come be received as Christ” . “Whether we be slaves or freemen, we are all one in Christ and bear an equal rank in the service of Our Lord”
“Public prayer: This is short and is to be said at intervals, at night and at seven distinct hours during the day, so that, when possible, there shall be no great interval without a call to formal, vocal, prayer. The position which St. Benedict gave to public, common prayer can best be described by saying that he established it as the centre of the common life.”
“”Our [private] prayer ought to be short and with purity of heart, except it be perchance prolonged by the inspiration of divine grace”.
What can we who live in “the world” learn from Saint Benedict?
Here are my thoughts.
1 Moderation in all things. No excessive devotion beyond our capacities.
2 The virtue of work.
3 The centrality of prayer. All we do should be surrounded by it.
4 In worship and prayer, the centrality of the Psalms.
5 Chastity: celibacy for single persons, faithfulness for those who are married
6 Stability. If God needs us to move on, He can and will make this plain to us. (Have I ever told you the story of how He made it plain to me that I should leave the Episcopal Church and become Orthodox?)
7 “Let all guests be received as Christ Himself”. Each stranger who walks in the door of our church on Sunday morning is Jesus Christ. We do not dare ignore him/her.
I’m sure there’s much more to be discovered therein,
Saint Benedict’s Later Years
A number of miracles were attributed to him, and also the gift of foreknowledge. Search “Miracles of Saint Benedict”.
Totila, king of the Goths, came to visit him. Benedict told him “You daily do much that is wicked. You have committed many sins.” He told him he would would rule the city of Rome for nine years, and in the tenth he would die. It was written that Totila was “much less cruel” after that. Ten years later he died.
Benedict and his sister Scolastica met for the last time three days before her death. On the third day he saw the soul of his sister being taken to Heaven. He had her body laid in the grave which he had prepared for himself.
Six days before his own death, he gave orders for the sepulchre to be opened, He then fell ill with a high fever. On the sixth day he commanded his monks to carry him into the oratory where he stood, held up by a brother on either side, received the Body and Blood of His Savior Jesus Christ, and so still standing he gave up his spirit. It was March 21 in the year 547. He was buried with his sister Scholastica.
Holy Father Benedict, pray to Christ our God for the salvation of our souls.
Sources consulted in writing this Post:
Orthodox Church in America: Venerable Benedict of Nursia
NEW ADVENT (newadvent.org) and CATHOLIC ONLINE (catholic.org) Both these sources have extensive well-written information about Saint Benedict
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Benedict_of_Nursia
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/07/11/st–benedict–abbot–patron-of-europe.html
The Next Two Weeks: more Lenten Saints. Who? Time will tell.
57. Saint Patrick: Celtic, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican – and Coptic!