St. Benedict

Benedict was born at Norcia in central Italy around 480, into a family able to send him to Rome for his education. The conduct he encountered among other young people troubled him. He left the city to seek a life in which he could give himself more completely to God. That decision eventually brought him to the rocky country near Subiaco.

There a monk named Romanus gave him a religious habit and helped him find a cave in which to live. Romanus secretly brought him food. Benedict spent about three years in this solitude, learning to pray and to resist temptation. When people began to discover him, some brought provisions and received spiritual instruction in return. The young hermit gradually became a guide to others.

His first experience of governing monks was painful. A nearby community asked him to become its abbot, although he warned that their habits differed from the life he intended to lead. They soon resented his discipline. St. Gregory's account, followed by Butler, relates that some tried to poison his wine, but the vessel broke when Benedict blessed it. Benedict left the community and returned to Subiaco.

More disciples gathered around him. He established twelve small monasteries, each with its own superior, while continuing to form a smaller group himself. The communities received people of different backgrounds. Butler describes Benedict's insistence that noble birth should bring no exemption from the common work or discipline. Prayer, manual labor and obedience belonged to the life of every monk.

Benedict later moved to Monte Cassino, where Butler places the foundation of his monastery in 529. The account describes a place where pagan worship still continued. Benedict preached to the people nearby and dedicated chapels to St. John the Baptist and St. Martin. The monastery became a center of worship, work and Christian instruction.

His Rule gave practical shape to this common life. It arranged the monks' prayer, sacred reading and daily labor, and placed the community under the care of an abbot. Obedience involved the surrender of self-will as well as the performance of outward tasks. The discipline was meant to form men who sought God together, with a steady pattern of duties rather than a succession of private enthusiasms.

Butler draws the story of Benedict's last days from St. Gregory. Benedict received Holy Communion and died in prayer, supported by his disciples. The exact year is left open here. His Rule continued to shape monasteries long after his death, passing from one community to another and giving generations of monks a way to join the worship of God to the ordinary work of each day.