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St. Benedict of Nursia
Ora et Labora
(Pray and Work)
St. Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480 – ca. 547) profoundly
impacted the life of the Church in the West. As
the founder of Western monasticism, his Rule has been
the model for most religious orders founded over the
last 1500 years. He is the patron saint of Europe
(declared by Pope Paul VI in 1964, declared co-patron
with Saints Cyril and Methodius by John Paul II in 1980)
as well as the patron of monks, speleologists (the study
of caves), farmworkers and victims of poisoning.
 St. Benedict was born at Nursia, a small town near
Spoleto in central Italy. He is known to be the
twin brother to St. Scholastica. Their mother died
at their birth. St. Scholastica and St. Benedict
developed a close relationship early in life that lasted
throughout their lives.
His parents were wealthy landowners
(but not part of the aristocracy). St. Benedict
was sent to Rome to study around 500a.d. but decided to
drop out after he was distressed by the immorality of
the Roman culture and the lackadaisical attitude of his
fellow students. He then headed south to the
mountains. There he met a monk named Romanus who
showed him a cave where he could live as a hermit in the
area called Subiaco, which had a spectacular view of the
mountain gorge. Romanus, sensing the specialness
and holiness of St. Benedict, brought food to St.
Benedict every day by lowering it in a basket from the
edge of the cliff. A bell at the end of the rope
would indicate to St. Benedict that his meal had
arrived. He lived like this for about three years.
One day, nearby shepherds stumbled
upon his cave. At first, they were frightened by
the site of St. Benedict (who dressed in animal skins
and looked more like a wild man than a monk). As
they began to speak with St. Benedict, they realized
they had found a saint. So they began a reciprocal
relationship… the shepherds brought him food and he
taught them about the faith.
St. Benedict’s reputation for
sanctity spread throughout the region and men who wanted
to pursue the religious life flocked to him. He
organized them into twelve communities of ten monks each
and an abbot. He stayed there for about
twenty-five years, as roman nobles would send their sons
to St. Benedict to be educated. Among the first
were Saints Maurus and Placid, who came as young boys
and stayed on to become two of St. Benedict’s most
faithful disciples.
During these twenty-five years that
he stayed in Subiaco, he met resistance regarding the
strict regime he required of the communities. The
success of his communities brought about envy and
jealously, at least with one priest named Florentius.
Florentius was known to spread lies about St. Benedict,
though no one believed him. He tried to keep men
from joining St. Benedict, but men kept coming. It
was said that Florentius even tried to poison a loaf of
bread and deliver it to St. Benedict, begging him to
accept it as a token of remorse. By the grace of
God, St. Benedict realized the bread was poisoned.
He was said to have given it to a raven, commanding the
raven to take the bread to a place where no one would
find it. In a final effort to ruin St. Benedict’s
reputation, Florentius hired prostitutes in vain, hoping it
would seduce the monks.
Realizing that Florentius would
never stop his attacks on the community, St. Benedict
moved his monks to Monte Cassino, in the imposing
mountains of the central Apennines in Italy. They built
a new monastery on the summit, converting an old temple
of Apollo into a chapel dedicated to St. Martin.
His sister, St. Scholastica, established a community of
nuns nearby, and they would meet half-way in between
once a year to break bread and discuss spiritual
insights. It was at Mount Cassino where he wrote the
final version of his Rule (of life) (known as the Rule
of St. Benedict). Drawing ideas from monastic
writers such as Saints Basil, John Cassian, Augustine,
the Desert Fathers, Pachomius in Egypt and the Regula
Magistri (“Rule of the Master”), he developed his Rule
to assist the monks to grow in holiness and to live in
community. The Rule of Benedict he wrote for his
monks was in part a reaction against the extremes
practiced by some monks, particular those who lived in
the deserts of the East. Left to their own
devices, these monks, almost all of whom lived as
hermits, would literally torture their bodies by
depriving themselves of sleep, food and water. St.
Benedict’s response was to develop a method that was
practical, made no irrational demands of the body and
could be flexible without compromising its spiritual
principles. It was designed as a different way to
achieve holiness and connection to God. The rule
is divided into 73 short chapters, which focus on three
main themes: Stability, Obedience and Conversion
in Life.
St. Benedict never became a priest,
nor did he intend to form a new religious order.
However, his Rule and his spirituality not only
influenced the growth of Western monasticism, but of
Western civilization itself. He was able to
influence/shape a culture that he once found to be
despicable. He died on March 21 (ca. 547) and is
buried in the Oratory of St. John the Baptist at Cassino
alongside his sister, St. Scholastica. His
monastery in Mount Cassino was destroyed by the Lombards
(ca. 577). St. Benedict’s Rule was followed in
France, England and Germany by the seventh and eighth
centuries. When the emperor Charlemagne (ca.
742-814) initiated a reform of monasticism, he chose the
Rule of St. Benedict as his model. His son and
successor, Louis the Pious imposed it on all monasteries
within the empire. His motto is “Ora et Labora”
which means “Pray and Work.” We celebrate his
feast day on July 11.
Resources on St. Benedict
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