St Benedict Novena Day 3: Apprenticeship at Affile?

So continuing from the last part of my series on the Life of St Benedict (you can find the first part with the novena prayer ...

Some modern Benedictine commentators have difficulty reconciling St Benedict's comments in his Rule on the importance of undertaking an apprenticeship in a monastery before trying the life of a hermit with the saint's actual life history.

Elsewhere in the Dialogues, St Gregory discusses this problem in relation to some other holy men whose lives he recounts, concluding in essence that although apprenticeship in monastic life before becoming a hermit is the norm, God does sometimes lead people to be the exceptions. 

The ascetic community of Affile

That he does not suggest this in the case of St Benedict perhaps points to an alternative explanation, namely that the saint in fact did serve his apprenticeship, in the ascetic community based at Affile that he went to after he left Rome.  Affile is around 50 miles from Rome - the Church of St Peter, which dates from the sixth century though later remodelled, there is pictured below.  St Gregory comments:

"Benedict having now given over the school, with a resolute mind to lead his life in the wilderness: his nurse alone, which did tenderly love him, would not by any means give him over. Coming, therefore, to a place called Enfide [Affile] and remaining there in the church of St. Peter, in the company of other virtuous men, which for charity lived in that place...."

The town of Affile seems to have been a much more significant community at this time then now, but nothing is known of the particular group of ascetics St Benedict joined.  However it is clear that Italy at the time was full of monastic communities of all kinds.  Not all followed strict Rules; nor was the presence of servants uncommon. 

The Rule, in chapter one, provides a thoroughly disparaging commentary on the state of many of these monastic communities;  St Gregory on the other hand suggests in Book I of the Dialogues that "there be many such holy men now living; for though they work not the like miracles, yet for all that, may they be as virtuous and as holy." 

First Miracle

Though St Gregory goes on to say that holiness does not necessarily reside in the performance of miracles, nonetheless, St Benedict's own first recorded miracle - performed, like Our Lord's first miracle at Cana in response to the desire to avoid someone else being publicly shamed - perhaps presents to us a proof of his acquisition of a high degree of virtue even at this relatively early stage in his life:

"...it fell so out that his nurse borrowed of the neighbours a sieve to make clean wheat, which being left negligently upon the table, by chance it was broken in two pieces: whereupon she fell pitifully a-weeping, because she had borrowed it. The devout and religious youth Benedict, seeing his nurse so lamenting, moved with compassion, took away with him both the pieces of the sieve, and with tears fell to his prayers; and after he had done, rising up he found it so whole, that the place could not be seen where before it was broken; and coming straight to his nurse, and comforting her with good words, he delivered her the sieve safe and sound: which miracle was known to all the inhabitants thereabout, and so much admired, that the townsmen, for a perpetual memory, did hang it up at the church door, to the end that not only men then living, but also their posterity might understand, how greatly God's grace did work with him upon his first renouncing of the world. The sieve continued there many years after, even to these very troubles of the Lombards, where it did hang over the church door."

And to read the next part of this series, go here.

Novena to St Benedict Day 2 (March 13): St Benedict of Rome

So picking up from the first part of this series, throughout the early Middle Ages, St Benedict was generally viewed as Roman abbot, probably as a result of St Gregory the Great's efforts.  St Gregory relates that though St Benedict was born in Norcia, he studied in Rome (the house he may have lived in, which was owned by his parents, is pictured above).  St Gregory says that he was:

"...brought up at Rome in the study of humanity. But for as much as he saw many by reason of such learning to fall to dissolute and lewd life, he drew back his foot, which he had as it were now set forth into the world, lest, entering too far in acquaintance therewith, he likewise might have fallen into that dangerous and godless gulf: wherefore, giving over his book, and forsaking his father's house and wealth, with a resolute mind only to serve God, he sought for some place, where he might attain to the desire of his holy purpose: and in this sort he departed, instructed with learned ignorance, and furnished with unlearned wisdom."

The collapse of Rome

Rome in St Benedict's time was in a sorry state.  At the height of the Empire, its population had been over a million people.  By 450 AD that had been reduced to 500,000.  By 500 AD epidemics, floods and war had reduced this to around 100,000.

It was also a time of great political tensions: in 493, when Benedict was thirteen, the Arian Ostrogoth Theodoric conquered Italy.

The old system of classical education was still in place, as the work of Boethius, born the same year as Benedict, 480, attests.  But it was in the process of collapse in the face of the inability of cities to pay for the system of tutors it required, and the continuing tension between the classical tradition of training in rhetoric on the one hand; and the Christian claim to be a philosophy in its own right, with its focus on the study of Scripture and the Fathers on the other. 

The tension is illustrated in the approaches of Benedict's two contemporaries Boethius and Cassiodorus: Boethius worked to preserve the study of Greek, attempting a synthesis of the Graeco-Roman heritage and Christianity, but ending up imprisoned for his efforts on suspicion of collusion with the Eastern Empire; Cassiodorus (b circa 485) on the other hand, though not rejecting altogether the use of classical works, saw the Fathers as the Christian answer to the classical oeuvre, and tried (unsuccessfully) to found a Christian University in Rome to preserve Christianized versions of the classical tools of grammar for the purpose of the study of Scripture. 

St Gregory's description of St Benedict's 'unlearned wisdom', which does not mean unlearned in modern terms, but rather not fully trained in the classical curriculum, suggests that he was in the Scripture as philosophy camp.  And there were good reasons for this given the association of the classics with a lingering attachment to paganism.

Paganism and immorality

Historian Peter Brown argues that the old Senatorial aristocracy maintained Rome as a kind of theme park celebrating its pre-Christian glory. 

In 495, for example, the pope was horrified when, despite his repeated warnings, a group of (nominally Christian) Roman senators insisted on organising the annual pagan lupercalia ceremonies to 'cleanse' the city and appease the pagan gods after a string of natural disasters. 

Was it the debate over this, and perhaps pressure to join the gang of well-born supposedly Christian youths ("the young wolves"), who ran naked through the streets of Rome, that made St Benedict flee? 

Whether it was that year or later that the saint fled, the incident certainly illustrates the immorality and tensions that might have contributed to St Benedict's need to flee the city in order to save his soul.

You can find the novena prayer to St Benedict here.

And you can read the next part of this series on the Life of St Benedict as told by St Gregory the Great here.

A note on the date of the Feast of St Benedict...

In the Benedictine calendar, there are three feasts of St Benedict - his death (March 21, Class I); the translation of his relics (July 11, Class II); and the Illation of the relics of St Benedict (December 4, generally suppressed and now celebrated only in a few monasteries).

In the Roman Extraordinary Form calendar, only the first of these is celebrated (as a third class feast).

And of course in Lent (as is the case this year), it is reduced to a commemoration.

In the Ordinary Form, his feast is celebrated on July 11, presumably to avoid the potential clash with Lent (although in fact it is a solemnity in Europe and many other places).

Novena to St Benedict: Day 1 (March 12): St Benedict of Norcia

Here is the novena prayer to St Benedict:

"O glorious St. Benedict, sublime model of all virtues, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me, humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thy loving heart to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in all the dangers which daily surround me. Shield me against my enemies, inspire me to imitate thee in all things. May thy blessing be with me always, so that I may shun whatever God forbids and avoid the occasions of sin.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces of which I stand so much in need, in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life. Thy heart was always so full of love, compassion, and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. Thou didst never dismiss without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to thee. I therefore invoke thy powerful intercession, in the confident hope that thou wilt hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I so earnestly implore (mention your intentions here), if it be for the greater glory of God and the welfare of my soul.

Help me, O great St. Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to be ever submissive to His holy will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven. Amen."

About St Benedict...

St Benedict and his twin sister St Scholastica were born in the Italian town of Norcia, near Rome, in 480 AD.  The present-day Church, whose crypt dates back to this era, is pictured above.

St Gregory the Great relates that he was a serious young man of noble birth, who was sent to Rome, as was the norm, to receive a classical education:

"There was a man of venerable life, blessed by grace, and blessed in name, for he was called "Benedictus" or Benedict: who, from his younger years, carried always the mind of an old man; for his age was inferior to his virtue: all vain pleasure he contemned, and though he were in the world, and might freely have enjoyed such commodities as it yieldeth, yet did he nothing esteem it, nor the vanities thereof. He was born in the province of Nursia, of honourable parentage, and brought up at Rome in the study of humanity." (from the translation of the Dialogues, Book II, by Edmund G. Gardner)

These days Norcia is of course, the home of the excellent, rapidly growing international community, the Monks of San Benedetto, led by Prior Cassian.

And you can read the next part in this series on the Life of St Benedict for the Novena here.

March 12: Pope St Gregory I the Great, OSB, Class II

Pope St Gregory I (540-604), known as 'Dialogus' in the Eastern Churches because of his Dialogues, Book II of which is the Life of St Benedict, is one of those few popes who truly deserve the accolade 'the Great'.

St Gregory was born into a noble and pious Roman family.  He had two popes in his ancestry; both of his parents Gordian and Sylvia, are venerated as Saints; and his father's sisters, Aemiliana and Tharsilla, lived in their own home as consecrated virgins.

St Gregory he initially pursued a secular career, and at one time was Prefect of the city of Rome.  St Gregory's decision to became a monk around 574, and to convert his family home into a monastery, was almost certainly inspired by the arrival in Rome of Benedictine monks fleeing from the destruction of Monte Cassino around that time.  Indeed, St Gregory explicitly drew on their testimony when he came to write his famous Life of St Benedict.

In 578 the then pope appointed him a deacon, and he was sent as ambassador to Constantinople in 579, where he spent six years, embroiled in the complex ecclesiastical politics of the East.

He was elected pope in 590.

St Gregory's renown arises on several fronts: his theological works, homilies and commentaries on Scripture; his great liturgical reforms; his dispatch of a monastic mission to convert England and much more.

St Gregory's Life of St Benedict

From the point of view of Benedictine spirituality however his greatest importance lies in the composition of the Life of St Benedict. 

The Life has been much disdained in recent years: ignored and disparaged as mere hagiography intended to edify rather than actual fact by many; and even its very authorship impugned by a revival of sixteenth century protestant attacks enthusiastically embraced by many even of St Benedict's own order! 

Fortunately as even the most eager advocates of this conspiracy theory have been forced to admit, the case for St Gregory's authorship of the Life is actually clear cut.  Whether that will lead to a true revival in the use of the Life as one of the two foundational documents of the Order, as tradition has always held, or instead see modernist-rationalist attempts to undermine its historicity and validity remains to be seen, though there are some promising signs, as I've pointed out over at my other blog.

In any case, St Gregory the Great is an important saint for the Church in general and Benedictines in particular.  Pope St Benedict XVI has given two General Audiences on the saint, the first of which can be found here.

Novena to St Benedict - get ready for March 12

St Benedict's feast is coming up shortly and so if you wanted to do the Novena to the saint in the lead up, you need to start on March 12.

Watch this space....

March 10: The Forty Holy Martyrs, memorial

From the martyrology for March 9:

"At Sebaste in Armenia, under the governor Agricolaus, in the time of Emperor Licinius, the birthday of forty holy soldiers of Cappadocia.  After being chained down in foul dungeons, after having their faces bruised with stones, and being condemned to spend the night naked, in the open during the coldest part of winter, on a frozen lake where their bodies were benumbed and covered with ice, they completed their martyrdom by having their limbs crushed.  The most noteworthy among them were Cyrion and Candidus.  Their glorious triumph has been celebrated by St. Basil and other Fathers in their writings.  Their feast is kept tomorrow."

The story of their martyrdom in 320 is very well-attested to, being the subject of a sermon by St Basil of Caesarea around fifty or sixty years after the event. 

According to St Basil, forty soldiers who had openly confessed themselves Christians were condemned by the prefect to be exposed naked upon a frozen pond near Sebaste on a bitterly cold night, that they might freeze to death. Among the confessors, one yielded and, leaving his companions, sought the warm baths near the lake which had been prepared for any who might prove inconstant.

One of the guards set to keep watch over the martyrs beheld at this moment a supernatural brilliancy overshadowing them and at once proclaimed himself a Christian, threw off his garments, and joined the remaining thirty-nine. Thus the number of forty remained complete.

At daybreak, the stiffened bodies of the confessors, which still showed signs of life, were burned and the ashes cast into a river. Christians, however, collected the precious remains, and the relics were distributed throughout many cities; in this way, veneration of the Forty Martyrs became widespread, and numerous churches were erected in their honour.