SAINT BENEDICT ABBOT
Saint Benedict
was born about the year 480 at Nursia, in the province of Umbria, in north
central Italy, and that his family was probably of noble lineage. We also know
that he had a sister called Scholastica, who from childhood vowed herself to
God.
Saint Benedict was sent to Rome to be
educated but he was quickly revolted by the licentiousness of his fellow
students. He decided to go away from Rome to live in some remote spot. No one
knew of his plan except an aged family servant, who loyally insisted on
accompanying him to serve his wants. Benedict and this old woman made their way
to a village called Enfide, in the Sabine Mountains, some thirty miles from
Rome. In the Dialogues, Saint Gregory gives us a series of remarkable incidents
associated with Benedict's life, one of them occurring at this time. While
staying in the village, Benedict miraculously mended an earthen sieve which his
servant had broken. Wishing to escape the notice and the talk which this
brought upon him, he soon started out alone in search of complete solitude.Up
among the hills he found a place known as Subiaco or Sublacum, beneath the
lake. It was near the ruins of one of Nero's palaces. He made the acquaintance
of a monk called Romanus, and to him Benedict revealed his desire to become a
hermit. Romanus, who lived in a monastery not far away, gave the young man a
monastic habit made of skins and led him up to an isolated cave.
According to Pope Gregory, the first
outsider to find his way to the cave was a priest, who while preparing a
special dinner for himself on Easter Sunday heard a voice saying to him:
"Thou art preparing thyself a savoury dish while my servant Benedict is
afflicted with hunger." The priest immediately set out in search of Benedict,
and finally discovered his hiding place. Benedict was astonished, but before he
would enter into conversation with his visitor he asked that they might pray
together. From that time on, others made their way up the steep cliff, bringing
such small offerings of food as the holy man would accept and receiving from
him instruction and advice.
Saint Benedict had to struggle with
temptations of the flesh and the devil. One of these struggles is described by
Saint Gregory. "On a certain day when he was alone the tempter presented
himself. A small dark bird, commonly called a blackbird, began to fly around
his face and came so near him that, if he had wished, he could have seized it
with his hand. But on his making the sign of the cross, the bird flew away.
Then followed a violent temptation of the flesh, such as he had never before
experienced. The evil spirit brought before his imagination a woman whom he had
formerly seen, and inflamed his heart with such vehement desire at the memory
of her that he had very great difficulty in repressing it. He was almost
overcome and thought of leaving his solitude. Suddenly with the help of divine
grace he found the strength he needed. Seeing near at hand a thick growth of
briars and nettles, he stripped off his habit and cast himself into the midst
of them and plunged and tossed about until his whole body was lacerated.
Through those bodily wounds he cured the wounds of his soul." Never again
was he troubled in the same way.
Between Tivoli and Subiaco, at Vicovaro,
on the summit of a fortified rock overlooking the Anio, there lived at that
time a community of monks. Having lost their abbot by death, they now came in a
body to ask Benedict to accept the office. He at first refused, assuring the
monks that their ways and his would not agree. They persuaded him to return
with them. It soon became evident that the severe monastic discipline he
instituted did not suit their lax habits, and in order to get rid of him they
finally poisoned his wine. When he made the sign of the cross over the cup it
broke as if a stone had fallen on it. "God forgive you, brothers,"
Benedict said serenely. "Why have you plotted this wicked thing against
me? Did I not tell you beforehand that my ways would not accord with yours? Go
and find an abbot to your taste, for after what you have done you can no longer
keep me with you." Then he bade them farewell and returned to Subiaco.
Disciples now began to gather around Saint
Benedict. At last he found himself in a position to initiate the great work for
which God had been preparing him. This was the idea that had slowly been
germinating during his years of isolation: to bring together those who wished
to share the monastic life, both men of the world who yearned to escape
material concerns and the monks who had been living in solitude or in widely
scattered communities, to make of them one flock, binding them by fraternal
bonds, under one observance, in the permanent worship of God. His scheme was
for the establishment in the West of a single great religious order which would
end the capricious rule of the various superiors and the vagaries of individual
anchorites. Those who agreed to obey Benedict in this enterprise, he settled in
twelve monasteries of twelve monks each. Although each monastery had its own
prior, Benedict himself exercised general control over all of them from the
monastery of Saint Clement.
The town of Cassino, formerly an important
place, had been destroyed by the Goths, and the remnant of its inhabitants,
left without a priest, were relapsing into paganism; the once-fertile land had
fallen out of cultivation. From time to time the inhabitants would climb up
through the woods to offer sacrifices in an ancient temple dedicated to Apollo,
which stood on the crest of Monte Cassino. Benedict's first work, after a
preliminary forty-day fast, was to preach to the people and win them back to
the faith. With the help of these converts, he proceeded to overthrow the pagan
temple and cut down the sacred grove. He built two oratories or chapels on the
site; one he dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and the other to Saint Martin.
Round about these sanctuaries new buildings were erected and older ones
remodeled which was to become the most famous abbey the world has known. The
foundation was laid by Benedict probably about the year 520.
It was probably during this period that
Benedict composed his famous Rule. Gregory says that in it may be perceived
"all his own manner of life and discipline, for the holy man could not
possibly teach otherwise than as he lived." Although the Rule professes
only to lay down a pattern of life for the monks at Monte Cassino, it served as
a guide for the monks of the whole Western Empire. It is addressed to all who,
renouncing their own will, take upon them "the strong and bright armor of
obedience, to fight under our Lord Christ, our true king." It prescribes a
diversified routine of liturgical prayer, study, and physical work, in a
community under one father. It was written for laymen by one who was not a
priest; only after some five hundred years were clerical orders required of
Benedictines. Its asceticism was intended to be reasonable; the monks abstained
from flesh meat and did not break fast until mid-day.
Benedict extended his solicitude to the
people of the countryside. He cured the sick, relieved the distressed,
distributed alms and food to the poor, and is said on more than one occasion to
have raised the dead. When Campania suffered from a famine, he gave away all
the provisions stored in the abbey, with the exception of five loaves.
"You have not enough today," he said to his monks, noticing their
dismay, "but tomorrow you will have too much." Benedict's faith had
its reward. The next morning a large donation of flour was deposited by unknown
hands at the monastery gate. Other stories were told of prophetic powers and of
an ability to read men's thoughts. A nobleman he had converted once found him
in tears and inquired the cause of his grief. Benedict astounded him by
replying that the monastery and everything in it would be delivered to the
pagans, and the monks would barely escape with their lives. This prophecy came
true some forty years later, when the abbey was wrecked by a new wave of
invaders, the pagan Lombards.
Totila, King of the Goths, had defeated
the Emperor Justinian's army at Faenza and in 542 was making a triumphal
progress through central Italy towards Naples. On the way he wished to visit
Benedict, of whom he had heard marvelous tales. Totila now came himself to the
abbey and was so awed by Benedict that he fell prostrate. Benedict, raising him
from the ground, rebuked him sternly for his cruelties and foretold in a few
words all that should befall him. "Much evil," he said, "dost
thou do and much wickedness hast thou done. Now, at least, make an end of iniquity.
Rome thou shalt enter; thou wilt cross the sea; nine years thou shalt reign,
and die the tenth. Benedict did not live long enough to see the prophecy
fulfilled.
He who had foretold so many things was
forewarned of his own death, and six days before the end bade his disciples to
dig a grave. As soon as this was done, Benedict was stricken with a fever, and
on the sixth day, while the brethren supported him, he murmured a few words of
prayer and died, standing, with hands uplifted towards Heaven. He was buried
beside his sister Scholastica, on the site of the altar of Apollo which he had
thrown down. His symbols are reminders of various incidents in his life: we see
him with a blackbird, a broken sieve, a rose bush, a scourge, a dove, a globe
of fire, or a luminous stairway up which he is proceeding to Heaven;
occasionally he is depicted with King Totila at his feet. The order which
Benedict founded has spread over the earth. It was mainly responsible for the
conversion of the Teutonic races, and has left its mark on the education, art,
and literature of Europe. Within its cloisters, always marked by an atmosphere
of industry and peace, were copied and recopied the great writings of the past,
to be cherished and passed on to succeeding generations.
Sven ran great, and I barely did anything to it for a couple of years. One day, I pulled off from a light, and feeling frisky, put the gas pedal to the floor, and hit second gear, when Sven shook his head, and gasped for air, and we drifted over to the side of the road. I popped the bonnet, and looked about. I popped the distributor cap and laughed. There were points under the cap! Burned to a crisp points, today. I ripped some material off a matchbook, and stuck it under the actuator nub on the points to force them to open some. I turned the key, and Sven started, but had little power. I limped a little down the road and came to an auto parts store. There, I got points, condenser, cap, roter, wires, plugs, and hand cleaner. I limped home, about four miles. Confident that to my casual observance, a tune up should take care of everything, I went to work. Things changed quickly when I found all the slop in the distributor shaft. Time for a beer and make a few calls. While I was having the beer, I did locate a distributor at a junk yard, the next town over. I brought my old one to make sure, and sure enough, it was a sure thing. I went home with my new/old distributor, and went to work. Things came to a screech when I discovered the hold down screw for the condenser was all buggered up. I had to cut down a screw to fit and not interfere with the spin of the distributor. Soon poured and roared into action! 
