St. Bendict of Nursia

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Feastday: July 11
480 - 547

St. Benedict, the Father of Western monasticism and brother of Scholastica, is considered the patron of speliologists (cave explorers). He was born in Nursia, Italy and educated in Rome. He was repelled by the vices of the city and in about the year 500, fled to Enfide, thirty miles away. He decided to live the life of a hermit and settled at the mountainous Subiaco, where he lived in a cave for three years, fed by a monk named Romanus. Despite Benedict's desire for solitude, his holiness and austerities became known and he was asked to be their abbot by a community of monks at Vicovaro. He accepted, but when the monks resisted his strict rule and tried to poison him, he returned to Subiaco and became a center of spirituality and learning. He left suddenly, reportedly because of the efforts of a neighboring priest, Florentius, to undermine his work, and in about 525, settled at Monte Cassino. He destroyed a pagan temple to Apollo on its crest, brought the people of the neighboring area back to Christianity, and in about 530 began to build the monastery that was to be the birthplace of Western monasticism. Soon disciples again flocked to him as his reputation for holiness, wisdom, and miracles spread far and wide. He organized the monks into a single monastic community and wrote his famous Rule prescribing common sense, a life of moderate asceticism, prayer, study, and work, and community life under one superior. It stressed obedience, stability, zeal, and had the Divine Office as the center of monastic life; it was to affect spiritual and monastic life in the West for centuries to come. While ruling his monks (most of whom, including Benedict, were not ordained), he counseled rulers and Popes, ministered to the poor and destitute about him, and tried to repair the ravages of the Lombard Totila's invasion. He died at Monte Cassino on March 21 and was named patron protector of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964. His feast day is July 11.

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1 - 9 of 9 Comments

Joseph Mathew
10 months ago
St. Benedict of Nursia, please safeguard me against all evil influences, which lie hidden in my life.
Mona
10 months ago
Dear Saint Benedict of Nursia please pray for Jacob that he finds the right path, for his parents that they find the strenght and wisdom to guide him and it is God's will that my cancer is healed., Thank you.
Christian Adams
10 months ago
St. Benedict, please pray for myself and my family during these trying times.
Edward Wang
1 year ago
Dear St. Benedict please pray for my family thanks you!
michael varger
1 year ago
Dear St Benedict, the first time I ever came in contact with you was in 1978, at age 18, when I rang the bell of a very large and imposing monastery gates of New Norcia in Western Australia, and there I was standing at the gates talking with the Spanish gatekeeper who asked me in broken English what it was I wanted. I was welcomed by the abbot to live among the monks 2 weeks, and that's how it all began. My Beneditine story is too long to write here but simply put it continues to this day and it will be an on-going tale of love, laughter, discovery and adventure till the day I die. What a miracle God performed in introducing us, and what little miracles God performed in the many lives we touched over these many years of our life's journey. GOD BLESS
Alwin Joshy
1 year ago
Very helpful site to understand the essence of christianity.
Theresa Mc Lean
1 year ago
St. Benedict, please pray for the conversion of the Rampersad Family as well as their deliverance from all evil that might be attacking them, Deliverance from all court cases as well as they turning away from all sin and turn to Jesus our saviour. Thank you St. Benedict for all favours granted. Help us to be prosperous and avoid all evil.
Joseph Mathew
1 year ago
St. Benedict of Nursia, please pray for me!
J Christian
4 years ago
Saint Benedict of Nursia pray for us all; pray for Europe in her so called decline that seems to have started before Romulus was weaned; pray for Romanus and Florentius and the yin and yangs of our lives too; pray for those who are offered the mind numbing poisons of modern society and succumb to the trances of dancing shadows on the cave walls of their televisions; pray for those seeking the ancient imageries in the caves of France and Spain; pray for His Holiness and His Holiness' College of Cardinals in the finery of their good thoughts; pray for the roughness of me in my own hermitage and the loose edges of my life that sometimes fall like broken shale shelves in some unknown unlit cave; pray for my brothers and sisters as I pray for yours -- towards the Light of the Lamb in that sparkling Eternal City of Light where Yahweh and Jesus walk ever together flowing with the Saints by the River of Life and the Trees, Amen

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