Homily for the Feast of St. Benedict – July 11, 2024

Today is the feat of the St. Benedict of Nurcia.  Father of Western Monasticism.  Founder of the famous monastery of Monte Casino where he wrote his rule and where he is buried with his Sister St. Scholastica.

Other than that, we know very little facts about the life of Benedict.  All we know comes from the writings of Pope St. Gregory the Great who wrote 50 years after Benedicts death. But we do know a lot about him from his rule. A practical man who was committed to a disciplined life of prayer seeking holiness in Christ grounded in scripture as the way forward.

His rule is a very humane example of community life giving everyone the chance to find their place in the community. His rule engages people at a real human level of understanding.  Calling men and women to holiness within the truth of their human experience. Benedict had a good psychology and understood how to form a social structure for it.

He gives us a community life that manages human needs with a call to discipline and sacrifice fitting for monks who are seeking transformation into Christ. And a life that knowledges the interior desire for God and sets up all the components for a viable spiritual journey.

Benedict’s rule is a balanced life of prayer and work together with a community life attentive to each person.   The rule has passed the test of time – for 1500 years, it has been a vital source of life for western civilization and for the Universal Church.

The rule from the first word of the Prologue – Listen, my son, to the master’s instruction and attend with the ear of your heart — still rings true right to his last words  —  let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may be bring us all together into everlasting life. The chapters in between – lay out what one can do to fulfill this life in Christ. That is, a life of obedience and humility.

Benedict helps us by his rule to acquire the wisdom it takes to understand the process of following Christ into his suffering to deeper prayer and live in the obedience of community life.

Thar’s how we allow our hearts to be enlarged, to become like Christ, to live in the fullness of faith in Him.

Chapter 4 on the tools of Good Works, is the powerful scriptural commentary on the Law of God.  Chapter 7 is on humility and is the first 12 step program that is the foundation of monkhood lived out.  And the rule ending with Chapter 72 – The good zeal of monks.  That tells us to truly come to Prefer nothing whatever to Christ and may he bring us all together into everlasting life.

So here we are today celebrating the life we seek to live with sustained fidelity and fraternal caring.   We are blessed to be called to Mepkin’s Benedictine Cistercian life.  In harmony with the beauty of God’s creation, in a spiritual communion with the monks who have gone before us, also with a consciousness of the history of this land and with recognition of our neighbors of the Low Country – and a deep sense of unity with our Cistercian brothers and sisters of the Order.

This Benedict Option is recognized as a way forward for the world community. Pope Benedict only a few years ago, choose his name to underline the validity of the Benedictine way of life as a way to reengage the world in the dialogue to reach sustainability. This struggle continues in our day… Seeking to invite all to realize our interdependence on one another and on God.

We take our place as witnesses to this truth by our hidden apostolic fruitfulness: that is our life of prayer in silence and solitude.  Pope Pius XI testified to the ecclesial character of contemplative vocation when he made Therese of Liseaux the co-patroness of the Missions.    Our cloistered Contemplative life is a needed and a key dimension of the Church.

So we honor Benedict by a firm commitment to live well our call to monastic life in his name.  Let us continue this wonderful life by a deepening of our prayer and silence, by an attentiveness to our solitude, our desert days, that can recreate our spirits and refresh our bodies to embrace again and again the rigors of our unique Cistercian life. Our founding fathers so powerfully enhanced Benedictine monastic life by their Cistercian vision.   We want to honor them by faithfully living out this deepening of our cloistered life for God alone.

Happy feast day brothers and to all who life the rule of Benedict.