Today we celebrate the feast of our founder ST. BENEDICT. He was born in Nursia in Italy and lived from about 480 to 550 AD. After studying in Rome, he tried to live in solitude as a hermit in a cave at Subiaco, but was soon joined by others eager to learn from him. Eventually he organized these followers into small communities, bound together by a common rule of life. St. Benedict is regarded as the founder of Western monasticism and he is the patron saint of Europe.
He left us a Rule which is still is use today, by monks and nuns everywhere and which has many implications for our modern world. The Rule of St Benedict is essentially a simple and practical guide for daily living: a balance between physical work, intellectual study and common prayer. During the 1500 years of its existence, it has become the leading guide in Western Christianity for monastic living in community.
The spirit of St. Benedict's Rule is summed up in the motto: pax ("peace") and the traditional ora et labora ("pray and work").
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To find peace and happiness, St. Benedict calls us to “listen carefully” for the voice of God speaking in the depths of our hearts. By making our hearts attentive in trust and hope toward the heart of Jesus, we become more and more capable of hearing God’s will for us.
Listening with our heart is key to spiritual growth, but it has to be more than a passive hearing. We must actively put into practice the tenets set forth in the Rule, with humility and obedience to Christ.
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One might say he is the author of common-sense living! Balance is what so many of us strive for these days and St.Benedict has much to teach us all !!