The month of July gives us the feast of a great man saint-St. Benedict on July 11 who is hailed as the father of western monasticism . St. Benedict represents a movement of men and women, who in the late Roman Empire and early years after its fall, desired to live a more austere and frugal life in order to radically conform their lives to Jesus Christ. Since the years of persecution had come to an end, they sought to continue the spirit of martyrdom through such a radical lifestyle in order to carry out a daily "putting on of Christ." St. Benedict himself was born in 480 A.D., and educated in Rome. He then set out to lead the eremitic life at Subiaro and Monte Cassino where he also drew disciples to himself. For these disciples he drew up his famous Rule. The followers of St. Benedict were very instrumentals in evangelizing Europe and in converting and civilizing countless barbarian tribes. Thus, because St. Benedict and his followers were instrumental in the forming of European culture, He, along with Sts. Cyril and Methodius, is also called the patron saint of Europe. St. Benedict and his followers were instrumental in the formation of Christendom, i.e., a society of christianized culture.
In the early twenty-first century the west is in great need of the intercession of St. Benedict. It has been said that in west Christendom has been replaced by indifference and by materialism or a kind of neo-paganism which denies any kind of immaterial or supernatural reality. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, called for a re-evangelization of the west. Is it any wonder that now as Pope, he would take the name of Benedict, the name of the great western patriarch? As Prefect, he wrote that the Church has definitely gone beyond western territory. "But in spite of this the western heritage… will retain its great weight in history. For not only in art did the old Church-via the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and so on-give mankind things of enduring value, but the great saints marked the dawn of forms of life and thought wherein Christianity has nobly and lastingly expressed itself…" ( Salt of the Earth , by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger).
Let us pray that through the intercession of St. Benedict, western society may once again re-create herself through the embracing of that Catholic Christian faith which is ever ancient and ever renewing.
