Saint Benedict and his friend the raven

| | Comments (0)
St Benedict with the Raven.jpg

One of my favorite parts of the Saint Benedict's hagiography (iconography) is the narrative of the "man of God" (Benedict) and the raven. It is related by Saint Gregory the Great (+603) that in the wilderness Benedict fed a raven with some a portion of his bread.  When a jealous and wicked priest tried to kill Benedict with poisoned bread, Benedict coached the raven to take the deadly bread to place where it couldn't harm another. The raven complied.

In his Dialogues Gregory writes, "Then the raven, opening its beak wide and spreading its wings, began to run around the bread, cawing, as if to indicate that it wanted to obey but was unable to carry out the order. Again and again the man of God told him to do it, saying, 'Pick it up, pick it up. Do not be afraid. Just drop it where it cannot be found.' After hesitating a long time, the raven took the bread in its beak, picked it up and flew away. Three hours later it came back, after having thrown the bread away, and received its usual ration from the hands of the man of God."

Leave a comment

About the author

Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

Categories

Archives

Humanities Blog Directory

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Paul Zalonski published on July 11, 2011 7:25 AM.

Aidan Kavanagh, monk, priest, liturgical scholar: 5th anniversary of death was the previous entry in this blog.

A Benedictine's art collection is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.