St Benedict: Stability and Community

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Today on this feast of St Benedict, patron saint of European and father of western monasticism, Sharon, photographer, poet, professor, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother and blogger from California who now blogs in Duluth at Clairity's Journal, has posted some reflections on this great saint who has inspired our Holy Father that she had posted some time ago.

If St. Anthony was the father of monasticism, leading countless young men into the desert to a life of asceticism and commitment to Christ, St. Benedict was the father of the common life. He built monasteries as the Roman Empire waned, and his institution spread throughout Europe and is singly responsible for preserving books and learning during the political and social chaos which spread through the centuries of the early middle ages. Along with his rule of obedience and conversion of life, he introduced the vow of stability which tied his monks to their monasteries. This vow was a built-in antidote to the kind of spiritual wandering that caters to personal taste. Stability meant that no man was left behind. Even when monasteries were attacked and burned to the ground, the monks rebuilt and replanted their crops and continued. Around the monastery, families settled down and built their lives again. Stability was responsible for preserving and rebuilding a new society out of the ruins of a fallen civilization. [snip] Read More