St. Benedict

July 11 is the feast of St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-547), the father of Western monasticism and the patron of Europe. Born at Nursia, in Umbria, he was sent to Rome for his schooling, but left the city — which he found ruined by the Gothic wars — to live as a hermit at Subiaco, in a cave above the Anio. After years of solitude he founded twelve small monasteries in the valley, and finally, around 529, he moved to Monte Cassino, where he wrote his Rule and died.

The Rule of St. Benedict — seventy-three short chapters on the life of the monk — became the monastic rule of the whole Western Church. Its central principle is Ora et labora, "pray and work," and its balance of prayer, manual labour, and lectio divina gave the Benedictine monasteries the cultural role they played through the early Middle Ages: the copying of manuscripts, the clearing of land, the schools that kept learning alive. The Benedictine order is the oldest religious order in the Church.

Benedict died at Monte Cassino around 547, and his body, with that of his sister Scholastica, lies under the high altar of the abbey church. He was canonized in 1220 and proclaimed patron of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964. From Nursia, where he was born, to Subiaco, where he lived as a hermit, to Monte Cassino, where he died, the July 11 feast is the feast of the founder of Western monasticism.