The Life and Prayers of Saint Benedict Read online

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  Table of Contents

  About Wyatt North Publishing

  The Life and Saint Benedict

  Introduction

  St. Benedict and the Monastic Tradition

  Early Life and Beginnings

  Solitude at Subiaco

  Miracles at Subiaco

  Battling the Devil at Monte Cassino

  St. Benedict’s Gift of Prophecy

  Miracles at Monte Cassino

  Last Days and Heavenly Longings

  The Rule of St. Benedict and His Legacy

  Prayers by Saint Benedict

  Prayer for the Gifts to Seek God and Live in Him

  Saint Benedict on Prayer

  Prayers to Saint Benedict

  Prayer I

  Prayer II

  Prayer III

  Prayer IV

  Foreword

  St. Benedict was not interested in fame, power, or legacy. He was only interested in living the Christian life to the fullest and helping those around him to do the same. The rest is history—and the work of Providence.

  St. Benedict is regarded as the Father of the Benedictine Order of both religious men and women that follow his Rule, a key principle of which is ora et labora—pray and work.

  Today, many people wear holy medals of St. Benedict, invoking his intercession for protection against the powers of evil. Not only consecrated religious but also many lay people find inspiration in his call to balance, discipline, and prayer. Historically, St. Benedict helped bridge the early Church with the medieval period by standing on the shoulders of the fathers of the monastic tradition and bringing that tradition solidly into a new era.

  The Life and Saint Benedict

  Introduction

  St. Benedict of Nursia (480–547), the “Father of Western Monasticism,” is both challenging and inspiring to us. In the midst of our busy lives, it is good for us to pause to reflect on the life of a great man of our ancient heritage who marched to the beat of a higher drummer. St. Benedict’s serene trust in God, his battle with the devil and with his own tendencies, his discipline and leadership, and his life of prayer beckon us to look within and to sharpen our resolve. St. Benedict’s story is also important in appreciating an institution that was central to the development of Western civilization—the monastery.

  St. Benedict earnestly believed that one who is a spiritual leader for others must first conquer himself. This is precisely what St. Benedict did, and the fruits were manifold not only for his own monks but for all Europe and the Church for ages to come. He is revered for his holiness of life, for his silence, penitence, and wisdom, for his many miracles, and for his dramatic fight against demonic forces. Living at a time of great social and political upheaval in central Italy during the decline of the Roman Empire, St. Benedict helped provide peace and stability within the walls of the monasteries. He is particularly remembered for his monastic rule, appreciated for its balance, moderation, wisdom, and universality, which spread as a guide for monastic life throughout Europe for centuries and became foundational centers for its often troubled society. Largely due to the influence of his rule in equipping monasteries to play a key role in the formation and edification of Europe, St. Benedict was proclaimed co-patron of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Because of his influence on Europe, Pope Benedict XVI chose the saint for the patron of his pontificate, which was dedicated to the rebuilding of Christian Europe. St. Benedict's feast day is July 11.

  St. Benedict is regarded as the Father of the Benedictine Order of both religious men and women that follow his Rule, a key principle of which is ora et labora—pray and work.

  Today, many people wear holy medals of St. Benedict, invoking his intercession for protection against the powers of evil. Not only consecrated religious but also many lay people find inspiration in his call to balance, discipline, and prayer. Historically, St. Benedict helped bridge the early Church with the medieval period by standing on the shoulders of the fathers of the monastic tradition and bringing that tradition solidly into a new era.

  St. Benedict was born in 480 in Nursia, a town in the midst of the beautiful hills, valleys, and lakes of central Italy. Sent in his adolescence to complete his classical education in Rome, the young St. Benedict was scandalized by the lax morality and wild partying of his fellow students and left to find peace as a hermit, stopping first at Enfide and then settling in a cave among the hills of Subiaco. St. Benedict later became a leader of a number of monastic communities—most famously Monte Cassino—and a writer of his influential monastic rule intended for governing that community.

  Politically, his time in history was very turbulent as “barbarian” tribal armies slowly pillaged and seized key parts of the once glorious Roman Empire, including Rome itself. Civilized people had begun losing confidence in earthly rulers. Christianity had emerged as the dominant religion, yet morals were often lax and paganism still had its adherents, especially in the countryside. Many of the barbarian conquerors had been converted to Christianity but often in a heretical Arian form that denied the full divinity of Christ, as taught to them by Arian missionaries years before their conquest.

  The only source contemporary to St. Benedict that documents him is the Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory the Great (540–604), a man who provided strong leadership in Rome in the absence of stable secular authorities. St. Gregory, a monk himself raised to the See of Peter, wrote his Dialogues in the form of a dialectic conversation with his subdeacon Peter about saintly miracle workers in Italy, in effect contrasting the impotence of secular powers to the power of God. He writes of St. Benedict in the second book of his Dialogues, giving us a patchwork of inspirational stories from the saint’s life that paint a picture for us of his holiness, miracles, exorcisms, and monastic community. St. Gregory also praises St. Benedict’s Rule, which likewise gives us a picture of St. Benedict’s values and lifestyle.
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  St. Benedict and the Monastic Tradition

  While St. Benedict is indeed known as the “Father of Western Monasticism,” Benedictine scholars remind us that he was not alone in his influence but emerged as a key leader within the monastic tradition for the West (see RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, edited by Timothy Fry, O.S.B., to look further into the historical background on monasticism presented here). Monasticism, which entails a permanently celibate Christian life set apart from society for the pursuit of spiritual perfection, grew as a movement several centuries prior to St. Benedict. In the early days of the Church, heroic virtue was clearly seen in the sacrifice of the martyrs during the Roman persecutions. But after the Emperor Constantine not only legalized Christianity in 313 but later even granted Christians a privileged place under the law, this led to a new laxity within the Church. More believers came to the Church with insincere motives and lack of fervor. As a response, some of those that desired the full vitality of Christian life as witnessed in the martyrs set out for a separate life of prayer and fasting in the desert—a white martyrdom of death to self each day.

  Finding its roots in the New Testament itself, monasticism has for its archetype St. Antony of Egypt (251–356), whom St. Benedict likely took as a model for himself. As recorded by St. Athanasius in his famous “Life of Antony,” the saint personally responded to the counsel of Jesus to the Rich Young Man: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Mt. 19:21 [NABRE]). Upon being struck by this passage of Scripture, St. Antony did just that, and like Jesus in his temptation in the desert, set out alone to the desert to seek perfection and hence to battle against the forces of evil, both in their temptations and physical manifestations. During his long life in the desert, St. Antony deeply contemplated short passages of Scripture and strove to live them out perfectly.

  Monastics accepted the teaching of St. Paul: “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13 [NABRE]). They discerned a great discrepancy between our bodily tendencies and the law of God. Monastics strove to return as far as possible through prayer and self-denial to the original state of harmony from which humanity had fallen through sin and hence to experience Christ more deeply.

  While St. Antony spent much of his time alone as a hermit, those later seeking this kind of life would often come together, actively practicing the communal dimension of Christ’s teachings on love of neighbor. In the East, St. Pachomius (292–348) in Egypt and St. Basil (330–379) in Asia Minor established monastic communities and wrote monastic rules to govern them. In living out their communities’ rules, obedience became key for monks in order to direct their fallen tendencies back to the Creator’s intent and to serve the greater good of the community.

  Monasticism slowly spread from the eastern part of the Roman world to the western part in which St. Benedict lived. Other monasteries were established prior to St. Benedict in the West. St. Martin of Tours (316–397), for example, had established monasteries in Gaul, and St. Augustine (354–430) did the same in Roman North Africa; soon monasteries sprouted throughout the West. St. Benedict emerged out of the monastic tradition that came before him. But he became known as “Father of Western Monasticism” largely due to the widespread use of his rule in the West, providing organization and discipline for monasteries, bridging these traditions to medieval Europe, and paving the way for the monastery to become a bedrock of society in the midst of troubled times.

  Early Life and Beginnings

  Not many details are known about St. Benedict’s early life, but St. Gregory’s Dialogues—from which is derived most of what we know and which is retold below of the saint’s life—provides us with some important background. He was born in Nursia, about 100 miles northeast of Rome, to noble parents. He had a sister named Scholastica—Bede tells us she was his twin—who became a nun and abbess and always maintained a close spiritual relationship with her brother. We are also told that St. Benedict had a nurse during his childhood and youth who loved him dearly and that he was provided a classical liberal education. Such an education would involve the study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, which would prepare him to write his rule (see Carmen Butcher’s A Life of St. Benedict: Man of Blessing for more details on the education St. Benedict would have received).

  Just four years before the saint’s birth in 480, Odoacer proclaimed himself king of Italy in 476 after deposing the boy emperor Romulus Augustus, placing imperial Rome under barbarian rule for the first time and foreshadowing things to come. His reign was ended in 493 by another barbarian, Theodoric the Great, who reigned for thirty years, establishing the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy.

  St. Gregory tells us of St. Benedict that “during his boyhood he showed mature understanding, and a strength of character far beyond his years kept his heart detached from every pleasure” (quotes from the Dialogues of St. Gregory are translated by Odo J. Zimmermann, O.S.B. and Benedict R. Avery, O.S.B.). Perhaps this is why he was so shocked at the hedonism of his fellow students at Rome when he was sent there to complete his education. For the adolescent St. Benedict, such an environment of gluttony, drunkenness, and lust was no place for the contemplation of truth. So St. Benedict set out eastward with his nurse and stopped at the town of Enfide (later known as Affile), finding a number of holy men there.

  While in Enfide, St. Benedict stayed at the Church of St. Peter, but he would not remain there for long. His nurse accidentally dropped and broke a wheat sifter she had borrowed from a neighbor. Since his nurse became quite distressed over it, the young St. Benedict knelt down and prayed, and the sifter miraculously became whole again. But St. Benedict’s charity and first miracle cost him the peace he sought and made him a celebrity in the town, so much so that the sifter was even displayed for a long time in the entrance of the church there. So St. Benedict ensconced, leaving not only his prospect of a career and whole former way of life as when he left Rome but now even his beloved nurse. This time he settled down alone in the nearby wilderness of Subiaco, with its steep crags and a lake fed by a clear stream.

  Solitude at Subiaco

  St. Benedict found peace at Subiaco living in a cave there, and for a while he was not found by anyone who disturbed his peace. A monk named Romanus from a nearby monastery did find St. Benedict and gave him support in his new way of life by providing him with a monastic habit and regularly sharing bread with him from his own allotment. St. Benedict knew he could trust Romanus, who kept his presence there a secret, sneaking out through the untamed wilderness to bring bread and lowering it by a rope down to his cave. Romanus’ kindness, however, provided the occasion for the first demonic manifestation recorded in St. Benedict’s life. Once while Romanus was lowering the bread, a demon is said to have thrown a stone and shattered the bell attached to it which let St. Benedict know when to fetch the bread.

  But the demons had only begun their assault on the saint. Later a demon came in the form of a blackbird fluttering about the saint’s face. He banished it with the sign of the cross. But after the blackbird flew off, the demon continued its assault with an almost irresistibly strong temptation of the flesh, which St. Benedict overcame by throwing his naked body onto a thorn bush. Though badly bruised and bloodied, the saint had won a key victory in mastery over his passions such that he was never again seriously tempted to lust.

  Soon St. Benedict’s hiding place would be found, and it was indeed the Lord’s plan since he was preparing the saint for spiritual leadership. First God revealed St. Benedict’s cave to a nearby priest by way of a vision, prompting the priest to bring St. Benedict some food on Easter Sunday. Then some shepherds stumbled across St. Benedict’s hiding place and experienced an interior conversion under his influence. News of him spread around the area and many were drawn to him because of his wisdom and virtue. St. Gregory tells us that after St. Bened
ict’s victory over his passions, he was then prepared for spiritual leadership—although it would not at all be easy.

  The abbot of the monastery at Vicovaro died, and the monks were in need of a replacement. They sought out St. Benedict because of his fame, but the saint warned them that he would be strict and that his leadership would clash with their lax lifestyle. However, the monks persisted, and St. Benedict finally agreed to go to them. But as time went on, the monks became displeased with the discipline that he brought to the monastery, preferring to do as they liked as before rather than to do battle with their passions and sinful tendencies. Several of the monks even went so far as to poison St. Benedict’s drink given to him at dinner. But when the saintly abbot said the blessing, making the sign of the cross, the glass shattered, and their plot was uncovered. He said, “May Almighty God have mercy on you!” And then he left those wicked men and returned to the solitude of Subiaco, realizing they would not be converted by either his leadership or example. But soon other more sincere spiritual seekers would flock to Subiaco, and some would seek to live a monastic life under him there.