Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictines.

Holiday: July 11

* about 480 Nursia, today Norcia, Umbria, Italy

† March 21, 547 (or 560 ?) Montecassino monastery, Italy

The meaning of the name is the one who blesses and wishes well (lat.)

Attributes: cup, pastoral (bishop’s staff), raven

Patron of Europe, monks, speleologists, architects, engineers

Saint Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism and the foremost patron saint of Europe, was born in Nursia (now Norcia in Umbria, Italy) around 480 in a noble family. However, only a few historical documents regarding his person have been preserved. He was sent to Rome to study. The main subject of his studies was rhetoric – the art of persuasion through the spoken word. The successful speaker could have had better arguments or expressed the truth but used rhythm, eloquence, and technique to persuade without involving the heart. This philosophy was also reflected in the students’ lives.

Seeing the moral and intellectual decay, he fled from his studies in Rome with the thought of a monastic life. He renounced his inheritance and began to live in the small village of Subiaco in the Sabine mountains. There, he lived as a hermit under the leadership of another hermit named Romanus. In the following years, he founded twelve monasteries in the Sabine Mountains, where the monks lived in separate communities of twelve monks, each according to the number of apostles. Later, however, he suddenly left these monasteries when the envious attacks of another hermit prevented him from continuing the spiritual leadership of these monks. Subsequently, he became superior to the nearby monastery in Vicocaro, where – when part of the community rebelled against him and even wanted to poison him – he left with a group of faithful disciples to find his monastery. After many difficulties, he settled in Monte Cassino, which was dedicated to him by the Roman rich man Terculius, the father of St. Placid. Benedict, Placidus, and others, in 529, began the construction of a massive monastery. The building was already completed in 532, and in 536, the monastery became a refuge for monks and the surrounding people during the war. At that time, the Ostrogothic king Totila was preparing for an expedition against Rome. In 542, Totilo visited Benedict on Monte Cassino. As a follower of the Arians, he was deeply moved by the meeting with the founder of the Benedictine order. Benedikt predicts his future fate – r. In 546, he conquered Rome, in 549, then Sicily; in 552, he was defeated by the Byzantine duke Narzes and died.

Regula Benedicti, which he wrote shortly before his death, was the fruit of his lifelong search. It draws a lot from the results of the monastic movement of that time, from the rules and principles that were already created then. He skillfully composes and modifies them to correspond to his vision of man and the path by which he comes to the depth of knowledge of God and spiritual love. It was a view – as it turned out – far beyond the time frame in which Benedict lived. The rule became the cornerstone of the European monastic tradition.

Instead of establishing small, separate communities, he gathered his followers into a large community. His own sister st-Scholastica, settled nearby and lived her religious life here. After almost 1,500 years of monastic tradition, it seems obvious to us that Benedict was an innovator in his time. No one else before him had attempted to create such communities and to create some rules for them. What is now only a part of history for us was then a bold and risky step into the future.

Benedict valued ancient literature and had it described in his monastery, thus laying the foundations for developing post-antique literature in Europe.

In the time of St. Benedict, monastic life was already extended to the entire eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, especially Egypt and Syria. It was characterized by a multifaceted departure from civilization – to the desert, to uninhabited territories, unencumbered by complicated administrative management. The monks here had great freedom, their organization, and at the same time, the choice of various forms of life – from giant monasteries (e.g., the community of five thousand St. Pachomius) to the respectable performances of individual ascetics. Precisely at the border of civilization, when antiquity was already formally Christian but constantly carried in its bosom much of the ancient pagan nature, its way of life became a suitable ground for the fiery zeal of the early Church, in which it found ideal conditions for its spiritual development. At that time, almost all prominent figures of the Church and theologians went through the monastic life. In the West during this period, the situation was completely different – it was necessary to consider the presence of warlike tribes. Building a monastery in these conditions was a significant risk.

The regulation was not a collection of legal tricks or principles for life. With its excellent internal organization, it opened space for the presence of the mystery of Christ both in man and in the community through the performance of the Office (Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours), work and personal study of the Holy Scriptures (Lectio Divina). Organized this way, the monastery did not become a closed, elitist world. As it were, it became a miniature of the Church, which for the first Christians was not only a community of the baptized but, above all, a solid school of initiation under the guidance of the Supreme Shepherd himself. Sv. Benedict reserved the name School of the Lord’s Service for the monastery, in which he lays down the individual elements so that the monk, adhering firmly to them, gets to know himself and develops the graces and gifts acquired in baptism. He should find Christ’s presence in the community more and more deeply and consciously participate in His paschal mystery, made present in the sacraments and the liturgy. Loyalty to the Rule thus inevitably leads to an encounter in truth with Christ, as the Master is the King and the only High Priest.

A monk’s primary task has always been – as Regula says – the search for God and unity with him. This individual dimension of opening to grace and obedience to God’s will was transformed by God himself into a larger dimension, into the history of the Church, culture, and civilization. Therefore, every true monk was always a person of the Church in the complete sense of the word, even when he lived alone, as a hermit (hermit). The Benedictine monastery realized life in community (cenobitic), forming at the same time also those who wished to go to the hermitage when they were mature enough to combat evil even alone. A universal way of monastic life emerged in which people of different temperaments and life stories could be found. This miniature nature of the Church determined the special relationship between the monastery and the world. The community of monks was not directed to the outside, to various initiatives in the Church, or the world, but to the inside, in such a way as to reveal the very supernatural nature of the Church in the given common and historical conditions. In this way, it wants to be its visible sign and help people immersed in the reality of the present time. The task of the monks of St. So Benedict became, so to speak – not entering the world but living in a monastery so that the world could come to it to meet the Benedictine community and, in this way, find the ways of God for themselves.

All the initiatives, including pastoral ones, that the Benedictine monasteries undertook were always subordinated to this style and thinking in their actions.

There were at least 30 different rules in the 5th-7th centuries, but the Benedictine rule still needs to be achieved more successfully. Unlike most, it was not just a calculation of individual regulations, prohibitions, and punishments. Its advantage was systematicity, thanks to which it became a practical guide for organizing and managing all areas of monastic life, and a balance between strictness and moderation, the authority of the abbot and respect for the peculiarities of individual monks, pious acts and spiritual and physical activity.

Abandoning worldly society, choosing individual asceticism and obedience, and searching for God in prayer and meditation were essential prerequisites of the monastic life, which in St. Benedict by the School of the Lord’s Service (schola Domini servitii). The fundamental pillars of Benedictine monasticism were daily glorification of God (opus Dei), vows of obedience (oboedientia), change of morals (conversatio morum), poverty (paupertas sancta), binding stay in the monastery until death (stabilitas loci).

In these small but mighty rules, Benedict incorporated everything he had learned about the power of spoken language and the rhythm of speaking in the ministry of the Gospel. He compared rhetoric to a hammer that can be used to build a house but can also be used to hit someone over the head. Rhetoric can also be used for the sake of evil… but also for the sake of God. Benedict did not avoid rhetoric because it helps evil; he wanted to reform it and use it in the interest of God. Benedict did not want to give up the power of the word just because others used it for their destruction.

Benedict realized that God’s word is the most robust and factual basis for the power of words: Which words from the Bible are not perfect rules for contemporary life? He had experience with the power of God’s word expressed in the Scriptures: Just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return until they have watered the earth to make it fertile and able to bear fruit so that the world will yield to the one who sows so that it will yield bread to him that needs to eat, so is it with my word that proceeds from my mouth; He does not return to me empty, but accomplishes my will, accomplishing what I sent him to do (Isaiah 55:10-11).

Benedict chose Psalms, the most beautiful songs of the Jewish liturgy, for his prayer, which Jesus himself prayed. Benedict believed with Jesus that “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.” (Matthew 4:4)

But just speaking words is not enough. Benedict urged his followers to read sacred texts to study the Scriptures. In his Lectio Divina, he and his monks memorized Scripture, studied it, and contemplated it until it became part of their being. They sat beside each other for four to six hours daily and read like this. If the monks had free time, the brothers had to read psalms. They had to know parts of the Scriptures by heart. Such sacred reading was meant to study love, not reason. It was not just an exercise of the mind; it was an exercise of contemplation so that “our hearts and voices harmonize.” Every word that has entered their mind, heart, and soul must then spring forth, not from memory, but from the interior of the being. “We realize that we will be heard for our pure and contrite heart, not for the number of words spoken.” The heart is pure when it is empty and filled only by God’s word and our desire to remain in God’s word.

Lectio Divina begins by reading the Scriptures until we find a place that inspires us and stops. We reread it, think about what it might mean, and then move on. But this is not sacred reading. His method is memorizing a specific phrase from Scripture. Repetition over and over memorizes without further reading, without thinking, just simple repetition, until it seems to come not from the mind but directly from the heart until the power of God’s word enters us. Only when the phrase has lost all meaning and only that power remains does a person shut up, remain silent without thinking, and let himself be inspired by the Holy Spirit, who will speak to us about the meaning in our hearts. And finally, one should plunge into contemplation, continue without speaking, without thinking, just sitting in the presence of the living God and God’s word.

An incident from Benedict’s life has been preserved, such as when a beggar came to the monastery and asked for some oil. The administrator refused because they had little left. Nothing would have been acceptable for the monastery if he had given these alms. Benedict was angry at the administrator’s lack of trust in God. He knelt and prayed. As he prayed, a bubbling sound came from the oil jar. The monks watched in fascination as God filled the vessel, and the oil overflowed, broke the lid, and poured onto the ground. In Benedictine prayer, our hearts are empty vessels in which there are no thoughts or intellectual struggles. Trust in God is the only thing that remains there and fills our hearts. Emptying our hearts brings us the overflowing contemplative love of our God.

Benedict founded Western European monastery-type monasticism (monasticism), which prevailed over its older hermit form. In 543, St. died. Scholasticism. Six days before his death, he had a prepared grave opened next to his sister, and on March 21, 547, at 9 a.m., he died standing in prayer before God.