St Benedict and the Virtue of Moderation
On July 11, we celebrate the feast day of one of the Church's greatest saints - St. Benedict. Benedict was born into a wealthy family north of Rome in 480, but gave up his studies and life of comfort to purify his soul and live in conformity with God's will. As a young man of twenty and appalled by the degeneracy of his schoolmates, he became a hermit, hoping to root out vice within himself. After living in a cave for three years, he went on to establish twelve small monasteries. However, his crowning achievement was his establishment of a monastery in Monte Cassino. Here, instead of small, loosely associated groups of hermits, men could live out their religious calling in true community. Binding them together was St. Benedict's Rule - standards and guidelines for daily life in the monastery. The monastery at Monte Cassino and the Rule of St. Benedict began the Western Church's proud history of monasticism, and Benedict has rightly been titled the Father of Western Monasticism.
The Rule of St. Benedict includes 73 short chapters on proper, disciplined behavior as a monk. The Rule focuses on community stability, obedience, humility, and prayer. Importantly, the Rule does not call for severe penances or deprivations. Instead, St. Benedict emphasizes moderation - "Let all things be done with moderation, however, for the sake of the faint-hearted." Though this particular verse was written in regards to manual labor during the harvest, its spirit is carried throughout the Rule. The spirit of the Rule can also summed up in the Benedictines' motto, Ora et Labora (Prayer and Work). Much of the monks' day was consumed by prayer, especially reading the Scripture, and work, for, as St. Benedict warned, “idleness is the enemy of the soul.” The beauty of the Rule of St. Benedict is that while written for monks choosing to live a monastic life, it is eminently appropriate for any layperson hoping to order their life and grow in virtue.
While desert fathers such as St. Anthony launched the earliest vision of Christian monasticism, it was under St. Benedict that monasticism was given a stable, enduring, and community-based structure that has endured for 1,500 years. The monastic tradition established by St. Benedict not only produced countless religious vocations that have done immeasurable good for the Church, but also shaped the development of European culture and education, and eventually that of the world. Throughout the centuries, European monasteries increasingly became centers of education, preserving ancient texts and interpreting new social and medical discoveries. Eventually, the modern university evolved from the fruits of monasteries. Today, many monastic orders, including the Benedictines, continue to live out their vocations with zeal. While their numbers may have dropped in the modern era with the secularization of Western culture, monasteries continue to offer a simple life of respite and virtue in a world growing more chaotic by the minute.
St. Benedict died less than a decade after founding the monastery at Monte Cassino. He is buried next to his twin sister, St. Scholastica, whom he helped in founding a monastery for women, also guided by his Rule. In addition to being the patron saint of monks and religious orders, St. Benedict was also declared the Patron of Europe by Pope Paul VI.
By Anna Neal