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Solemnity of Saint Benedict.Sermon in the Community Chapter by Br. Philip
Chapter Sermon - Solemnity of St Benedict 2015. Br. Philip
A young monk said to a senior "What
is a monk?" The senior replied "A monk is one who asks everyday -
what is a monk?" The question must indeed be put every day, and the answer
can only come from living.
The paths leading to the monastery are diverse.
But one day they will all converge and form a single way, converging on Him who
said "I am the way". The Christian who becomes a monk seeks no other
way than this. As St Benedict put it in the Prologue of the Rule, "Let us
set out on this way, as the gospel for our guide". In saying this St
Benedict is saying no more than St John who said "We must live the same
kind of life that Christ lived".
About two centuries after St Anthony, at
the end of the first great period of monastic history, St Benedict of Nursia
appears. He was born in the year 480 and died about the year 547.
Benedict had no pretensions about being
a founder. He merely wrote a way of life for the little community which
depended on him. He did not set out to write an original work. He was inspired
in large measure by a recent work which is now known as The Rule of the Master,
so called because we do not know who wrote it. Where the Master id long winded,
Benedict is concise. He has softened a rigidity in the Master's work. But, above
all, he has centered the life of the monk on the person of Christ. He speaks of
the love which the monk owes Christ. The love of Christ which must become before
all else. St Benedict found the phrase in The Rule of the Master, but he gives it
and the idea it embodied, a centrality and importance that the Master does not.
Benedict is wide ranging in his use of
sources and likes to refer to the whole monastic tradition. He recommended his
monks to read the works of St Basil. He ordered everyday that some parts of the
writings of John Cassian be read in public in the community, or something from
the sayings of the Desert Fathers.
Benedict produced the most powerful and
influential document of the monastic tradition in the Western Church. His rule
carries that imprint of that grace which was personal to himself.
In addition, special attention must be
given to the virtue of discretion which permeates the whole Rule. This is
neither caution nor prudent moderation, but a kind of insight which enables the
Abbot to adjust the demands of the monastic life to the grace which is given to
the community as a whole and to the individual monk. St Benedict calls this the
mother of all virtues and urges it on the abbot.
In speaking of the action of grace and
the advance of the monk in the spiritual life, St Benedict uses the phrase "our
hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love"! Such love is a
sure sign of the action of the Holy Spirit.
The Rule of St Benedict was not
immediately adopted by all monks, but eventually only St Benedict's survived
for monks and that of St Augustine's for Clerics.
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The Supreme Personality of Godhead:
The Supreme Personality of Godhead:
The God appears to us as a Light !!!
http://www.thegodmanscience.com/r18.html
The man of God, Benedict, being diligent in watching, rose early before the time of matins (his monks being yet at rest) and came to the window of his chamber where he offered up
his prayers to almighty God. Standing there, all of a sudden in the dead of the night, as he looked forth, he saw a light that banished away the darkness of the night and glittered with such brightness that the light which shone in the midst of darkness was far more clear than the light of the day.
During this vision a marvelously strange thing followed, for, as he himself afterward reported, the whole world, gathered together, as it were, under one beam of the sun, was presented before his eyes. While the venerable father stood attentively beholding the brightness of that glittering light, he saw the soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua, in a fiery globe, carried up by Angels into heaven.
Then, desiring to have some witness of this notable miracle, he called Servandus the Deacon with a very loud voice two or three times by his name. Servandus, troubled at such an unusual crying out by the man of God, went up in all haste. Looking out the window he saw nothing else but a little remnant of the light, but he wondered at so great a miracle.
The man of God told him all that he had seen in due order. In the the town of Cassino, he commanded the religious man, Theoprobus, to dispatch someone that night to the city of Capua, to learn what had become of Germanus their Bishop. This being done, the messenger learned that the reverent prelate had departed this life. Enquiring curiously the time, the messenger discovered that he died at the very instant in which the man of God beheld him ascending up to heaven.
Saint Benedict: How he saw the whole world represented before his eyes.
{Bengali} When it was time to go to rest, the venerable Father Benedict retired to the top of a tower, at the foot of which Servandus the Deacon was lodged. One pair of stairs went to them both. Before the tower there was a large room in which both their disciples lay.The man of God, Benedict, being diligent in watching, rose early before the time of matins (his monks being yet at rest) and came to the window of his chamber where he offered up
his prayers to almighty God. Standing there, all of a sudden in the dead of the night, as he looked forth, he saw a light that banished away the darkness of the night and glittered with such brightness that the light which shone in the midst of darkness was far more clear than the light of the day.During this vision a marvelously strange thing followed, for, as he himself afterward reported, the whole world, gathered together, as it were, under one beam of the sun, was presented before his eyes. While the venerable father stood attentively beholding the brightness of that glittering light, he saw the soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua, in a fiery globe, carried up by Angels into heaven.
Then, desiring to have some witness of this notable miracle, he called Servandus the Deacon with a very loud voice two or three times by his name. Servandus, troubled at such an unusual crying out by the man of God, went up in all haste. Looking out the window he saw nothing else but a little remnant of the light, but he wondered at so great a miracle.
The man of God told him all that he had seen in due order. In the the town of Cassino, he commanded the religious man, Theoprobus, to dispatch someone that night to the city of Capua, to learn what had become of Germanus their Bishop. This being done, the messenger learned that the reverent prelate had departed this life. Enquiring curiously the time, the messenger discovered that he died at the very instant in which the man of God beheld him ascending up to heaven.
Norcia (Perugia), ca. 480 - Monte Cassino (Frosinone), March 21 543/560
It is the patriarch of Western monasticism. After a period of solitude at the Sacred Cave of Subiaco, he passed to form coenobitic first at Subiaco, then at Monte Cassino. His Rule, which sums up the Eastern monastic tradition, adapting it with wisdom and discretion to the Latin world, opens a new path to European civilization after the decline of the Roman one. In this school of the Lord's service have a key role the meditative reading of the word of God and liturgical praise, alternating with the pace of the work in an intense climate of fraternal love and mutual service. In the wake of San Benedetto they sprang up on the European continent and in the islands prayer centers, of culture, of human promotion, of hospitality for the poor and pilgrims. Two centuries after his death, will be more than a thousand monasteries guided by his Rule. Paul VI proclaimed him patron of Europe (24 October 1964). (Avvenire)
Patronage: Europe, Monks, Cavers, Architects, Engineers
Etymology: = Benedict hopes that the good, from the Latin
Emblem: Stick pastoral Cup, Raven
Martyrology: Memory of St. Benedict, abbot, who was born in Norcia in Umbria and educated in Rome, he began to lead the life of a hermit in the region of Subiaco, gathering around him many disciples; He spostatosi then Cassino, where he founded the famous monastery and wrote the rule, so that it spread to every lugo meritargli the title of Patriarch of monks in the West. It is believed to have died on 21 March.
(March 21: A Montecassino, the anniversary of the death of Saint Benedict, abbot, whose memory is
celebrated on 11 July).
http://www.ibreviary.com/m/breviario.php?s=ufficio_delle_letture
SECOND READING
From the Rule of Saint Benedict, abbot (Prologus, 4-22; cap,72, 1-12; CSEL 75, 2-5, 162-163) Put Christ before everything Whenever you begin any good work you should first of all make a most pressing appeal to Christ our Lord to bring it to perfection; |
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http://spirituality.ucanews.com/2015/07/10/the-rule-of-st-benedict-2/ The Rule of St Benedict
Jane Michele McClure OSB
The entire document is less than a hundred pages. The author, with characteristic self-effacement, called it “a little rule for beginners.” Written in the sixth century for a collection of serfs, scholars, shepherds, and wealthy scions of nobility-a motley group of would-be monastics, the Rule of St Benedict survives today as a masterpiece of spiritual wisdom….
In the Rule’s prologue, Benedict said he intended to prescribe “nothing harsh, nothing burdensome” for his followers. His approach to seeking God was both sensible and humane. For Benedict, a spiritual pathway was not one to be littered with weird and unusual practices; rather, all that is needed is to be faithful to finding God in the ordinary circumstances of daily life. How to prepare oneself for this simple-but not necessarily easy-way of life is the substance of the Rule.
Benedict envisioned a balanced life of prayer and work as the ideal. Monastics would spend time in prayer so as to discover why they’re working, and would spend time in work so that good order and harmony would prevail in the monastery. Benedictines should not be consumed by work, nor should they spend so much time in prayer that responsibilities are neglected. According to Benedict, all things – eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, working, and praying – should be done in moderation….
Benedict stressed the importance of work as the great equalizer. Everyone from the youngest to the oldest, from the least educated to the most educated, was to engage in manual labor – a revolutionary idea for sixth-century Roman culture. Prayer, in a Benedictine monastery, was to consist of the opus Dei (the work of God – Psalms recited in common) and lectio (the reflective reading of Scripture whereby God’s word becomes the center of the monastic’s life). Prayer was marked by regularity and fidelity, not mood or convenience. In Benedict’s supremely realistic way, the spiritual life was something to be worked at, not merely hoped for.
The importance of community life is another great theme of Benedict’s Rule. Prior to Benedict, religious life was the life of the hermit, who went to the desert and lived alone in order to seek God. Benedict’s genius was to understand that each person’s rough edges – all the defenses and pretensions and blind spots that keep the monastic from growing spiritually – are best confronted by living side by side with other flawed human beings whose faults and failings are only too obvious. St Benedict teaches that growth comes from accepting people as they are, not as we would like them to be. His references to the stubborn and the dull, the undisciplined and the restless, the careless and the scatterbrained have the ring of reality. Though Benedict was no idealist with respect to human nature, he understood that the key to spiritual progress lies in constantly making the effort to see Christ in each person – no matter how irritating or tiresome….
Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ,
and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.
Rule of Benedict 72:11-12
and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.
Rule of Benedict 72:11-12
From www.e-benedictine.com
How Benedict saw the whole world represented before his eyes.
His aristocratic family sent him to Rome to study, that he never complete. It attracts the monastic life, but his initial plans fail. For some people it is a saint, but some people do not understand it and fight it. Some scoundrels robed abbot and then they want to try to poison him. In Italy the Byzantines tear to the Goths, with years of war, a land ravaged by hunger, disease and terror.Moreover, in Gaul succession to the throne they are resolved in the family with the murder.
"We should ask ourselves to what excesses he would push the people of the Middle Ages, if he had not raised this voice big and sweet." He says in the twentieth century historian Jacques Le Goff. And the voice of Benedict begins to be felt from Montecassino to the 529. It has created a monastery with men in harmony with him, that refer liveable those lands. Year after year, that's fields, orchards, vegetable gardens, the laboratory ... Here we begin to renew the world: here become equal and brothers "Latin" and "barbarians", former pagans and former Arians, former slaves and former masters of slaves. Now all are one, the same law, the same rights, the same respect. Here ends the antiquity, at the hands of Benedict. His monasticism does not flee the world. Serving God and the world in prayer and work.
It radiates examples all around with its legal system founded on three points: stability, so in his monasteries entering to stay there; compliance time (prayer, work, rest), with whom Benedict reassesses the time as an asset to not squander ever. The spirit of brotherhood, finally, encourages and cheers obedience: there is the authority of the abbot, but Benedict, with his deep knowledge of man, taught to exercise it "with great vocals and sweet".
The founder given to new times what they vaguely expected. There were already so many monasteries in Europe before him. But with him the monastic refuge become monasticism-action. His rule is not Italian: it is now the European Union, because it adapts to all.
Two centuries after his death, will be more than a thousand monasteries guided by his Rule (but we do not know for sure if he will be the first author. As we continue to be uncertain on the year of his death at Monte Cassino). Pope Gregory the Great has dedicated a book of his Dialogues, but only to edification, neglecting many important details.
In the book, however, there is an expression recurring: visitors Benedict - kings, monks, farmers - often find it " intent to read. " Even the monks study and learn. The monastery is not a simple association of scholars for the recovery of the classics: the study is running dell'evangelizzare. But this work also makes it a haven of culture in the time of the big blind.
Author: Domenico Agasso