Homily for the Memorial
of St. Benedict
Thursday, 14th
Week of Ordinary Time
Year II
July 11, 2024
Collect
Hos 11: 1-4, 8-9
Christian
Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.
The
collect for St. Benedict stresses love for God.
That was the core of his life and of his teaching.
St. Benedict of Nursia
Writing the Benedictine Rule
(Hermann Nigg)
He
was born a few years after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Western civilization descended into
political, social, and moral chaos.
Benedict fled that. How
appropriate that today’s 1st reading states, “Out of Egypt I called my son”
(Hos 11:1). God “taught Ephraim to walk,
took them in [his] arms” (11:3), and that’s what he did thru Benedict for the
reconstruction of civilization in Europe, drawing him and succeeding
generations “with bands of love” (11:4).
Benedict
and the monastic community that grew up around him focused their lives on
“divine service,” as the collect says.
That meant prayer, especially the Liturgy of the Hours, and hard,
self-sustaining work. Thus the motto
“Work and Prayer.” Their prayer centered
them on God but interceded for the world.
Their work was their livelihood but enhanced the world around them. The word monk may be rooted in solitude,
separation from the world. But
Benedict’s monks offered a “school of divine service,” teaching their neighbors
not only how to pray but also how to improve their fields and to learn
artisanal skills and to study. They laid
the foundation for a new civilization in Europe. That’s why St. John Paul II declared Benedict
one of the continent’s patron saints.
Benedict
XVI recognized Benedict as the patron of his pontificate.[1] He also recognized in our time a decline of
European civilization like that in the 6th century. Europe, he lamented, has lost its Christian
roots. We see new forms of political,
social, and moral chaos, and not only in Europe. The solution now is the same as in the 6th
century: to seek God alone, to love God
above all else, and to share that love with our brothers and sisters. “The great monk,” Benedict XVI believed, “is
still a true master at whose school we can learn to become proficient in true
humanism”[2]—a
humanism that knows who we are and what a great destiny God has chosen us for.
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