St Benedict Novena Day 4: A hermit of Subiaco

You can find the novena prayer to St Benedict and first part of this series on his life here.

And continuing on from  on the life of St Benedict, drawn from St Gregory the Great's Dialogues Book II....

Fear of fame - the flight to Subiaco

Yesterday, I related the story of St Benedict's first miracle, performed as a member of the ascetic community based at Affile.  The miracle brought him much acclaim - but fearing the sin of pride, St Benedict fled the scene, ending up in the wilds of Subiaco a few miles away from Affile:

"But Benedict, desiring rather the miseries of the world than the praises of men: rather to be wearied with labour for God's sake, than to be exalted with transitory commendation: fled privily from his nurse, and went into a desert place called Sublacum, distant almost forty miles from Rome: in which there was a fountain springing forth cool and clear water; the abundance whereof doth first in a broad place make a lake, and afterward running forward, cometh to be a river."

Clothed in the habit

On the way there, however, he met a monk of a nearby monastery named Romanus, who clothed him in the habit, and thereafter managed to keep the saint from starvation by lowering down a portion of his own allocation of bread each day:

"As he was travelling to this place, a certain monk called Romanus met him, and demanded whither he went, and understanding his purpose, he both kept it close, furthered him what he might, vested him with the habit of holy conversation, and as he could, did minister and serve him. The man of God, Benedict, coming to this foresaid place, lived there in a strait cave, where he continued three years unknown to all men, except to Romanus..."

St Gregory then goes on to relate how, as a hermit St Benedict suffered and eventually overcame many temptations and trials (photo of St Benedict's cave below, by Holly Hayes).




Historical value of the Life

At the beginning of the Life, St Gregory makes it clear that the Life is based on eyewitness accounts, including those of St Benedict's successor abbots from Monte Cassino, and monks who had fled the Lombard invasion to Rome.  And he gives collaborating details throughout - the sieve St Benedict miraculously mended still hung above the door of the church at Affile for example.

But one of the strongest factors attesting to its historicity is surely the confronting strangeness of some of the incidents included in the Life.

Why did St Benedict not simply join this nearby community for example, particularly if he was still new to the ascetic life?  He must have been utterly convinced  - and able to convince another - that it was too the heremitic life that God was directing him at this time.  Though perhaps, given the provisions of his Rule and his later strictness with his own monks, providence also guided through necessity: a community where a monk could sneak out regularly to feed a hermit unbenownst to his abbot was surely a little too novus ordo in flavour for St Benedict!

Discovery of the hermit

And then there is this story, strange surely, even to contemporary ears, albeit reminiscent of some of the Desert Fathers, of his re-entry into the broader community ready to play a more active role, a symbolic resurrection after three hidden years without even the solace of the sacraments:

"At length when almighty God was determined to ease Romanus of his pains, and to have Benedict's life for an example known to the world, that such a candle, set upon a candlestick, might shine and give light to the Church of God, our Lord vouchsafed to appear unto a certain Priest dwelling a good way off, who had made ready his dinner for Easter day, and spake thus unto him: "Thou hast provided good cheer for thyself, and my servant in such a place is afflicted with hunger": who, hearing this forthwith rose up, and upon Easter day itself, with such meat as he had prepared, went to the place, where he sought for the man of God amongst the steep hills, the low valleys and hollow pits, and at length found him in his cave: where, after they had prayed together, and sitting down had given God thanks, and had much spiritual talk, then the Priest said unto him: "Rise up, brother, and let us dine, because today is the feast of Easter."

To whom the man of God answered, and said: "I know that it is Easter with me and a great feast, having found so much favour at God's hands as this day to enjoy your company" (for by reason of his long absence from men, he knew not that it was the great solemnity of Easter). But the reverent Priest again did assure him, saying: "Verily, to-day is the feast of our Lord's Resurrection, and therefore meet it is not that you should keep abstinence, and besides I am sent to that end, that we might eat together of such provision as God's goodness hath sent us." Whereupon they said grace, and fell to their meat, and after they had dined, and bestowed some time in talking, the Priest returned to his church."

And on to Day 5.

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....