“We must know that God regards our purity of heart, and tears of compunction, not our many words.”

Benedict was born in Nursia, Italy, in 480 to a Roman noble.  He had a twin sister, Scholastica and was sent by his parents to good schools in Rome under the care of a servant. 

His major subject was rhetoric, the art of persuasive speaking, but it did not always mean telling the truth.  The students had everything handed to them which was all spent in the pursuit of pleasure.  Benedict was greatly troubled as vices unraveled the lives and ethics of his companions.

Afraid for his soul, he fled and gave up his inheritance.  God called him to a life of deeper solitude and went to the mountains of Subiaco where he lived in a cave above a lake near the ruins of Nero’s palace. He lived as a hermit for 3 years furnished with food and garb by Romanus, a monk of one of the numerous monasteries nearby.

Word of his holiness spread, and nearby monks requested his leadership and counsel.  He warned them of his strictness, but they insisted, and he became abbot.  Even with warnings, his reforming zeal was resisted, and they attempted to poison him.  He returned to his cave, but even more disciples flocked to him.

It had been a time when Rome still retained the old government but was changing due to attacks and reconquests of power.  The Papacy thus began to fill the vacuum, eventually becoming the sovereign power.  Benedict served as a link between the monasticism of the East and the new age which was dawning.

With a surge of followers, he founded 12 small monasteries, with himself in general control.  Patricians and senators of Rome offered their sons to become monks under his care, producing 2 of his most known disciples, Maurus and Placid.

An envious neighbor priest began to attack and disrupt, making it impossible for him to continue, and so he left and headed South where he settled with a few disciples on Monte Cassino.  The area was still largely pagan, but the people were converted by his preaching.

There he founded the monastery that became the roots of the Church’s monastic system. His own sister settled nearby to live a religious life.

He was an innovator by setting up large communities instead of small and guiding them with a code of Rules to follow.  It was risky and had never been done before.  His beliefs and instructions on religious life were collected in what is now known as the Rule of Saint Benedict and it is still directing the religious life after 15 centuries.

He died on March 21, 543, not long after his sister, of a fever on the day God told him he would. 

He is the patron saint of students and Europe.

His feast day is July 11.

For God’s Glory.

Monte Cassino, Abbey and Tomb of Saint Benedict:

The cave in which he lived: