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Why is Saint Benedict so important for us today? Why spend so much energy trying to promote his cause and to recall his influence upon civilization? One answer is: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." You may want to read "Translating St Benedict" by Dom Hugh of Douai Abbey (UK) who does a fine job at locating a piece of our interest.

I also think it's a good day to remember that Europe --and the USA-- needs its heavenly patron to get it out of the moral, political and human confusion that is wreaking havoc today. I wonder what life in the USA would be like if we had a "new" Benedict? The Servant of God Pope Paul VI wrote Pacis Nuntius (1964), an Apostolic Letter by which he names Saint Benedict as the principle patron of all of Europe. In this document we read in an abbreviated form why Abbot and Saint Benedict was important not only to the Pope, but to a continent.

In everlasting memory

Messenger of peace, molder of union, magister of civilization, and above all herald of the religion of Christ and founder of monastic life in the West: these are the proper titles of exaltation given to St. Benedict, Abbot. At the fall of the crumbling Roman Empire, while some regions of Europe seemed to have fallen into darkness and others remained as yet devoid of civilization and spiritual values, he it was who, by constant and assiduous effort, brought to birth the dawn of a new era. It was principally he and his sons, who with the cross, the book and the plow, carried Christian progress to scattered peoples from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, from Ireland to the plains of Poland (Cf. AAS 39 (1947), p. 453). With the cross; that is, with the law of Christ, he lent consistency and growth to the ordering of public and private life. To this end, it should be remembered that he taught humanity the primacy of divine worship through the "opus Dei", i.e. through liturgical and ritual prayer. Thus it was that he cemented that spiritual unity in Europe, whereby peoples divided on the level of language, ethnicity and culture felt they constituted the one people of God; a unity that, thanks to the constant efforts of those monks who followed so illustrious a teacher, became the distinctive hallmark of the Middle Ages.

Most people conceive of living the Benedictine charism --the Benedictine way of life given to us first by Saint Benedict in his Rule, and many centuries of living that Rule-- as only being suited for life in monasteries.  In history Benedictine monks and nuns have indeed been missionaries. Think of Augustine of Canterbury, Anselm, Boniface, Frowin, Conrad, Martin Marty and many more. Men and women following the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the needs of the Church have been called from the monastery to make new foundations, often they have moved from one culture to another sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. You might say that they raised the bar in the way the Christian life is lived.

In the USA Benedictine life has great diversity: monks, nuns, sisters, and lay oblates; Benedictines with schools, retreat houses and farms; others with focussed contemplatives and others ready to do what is asked. We also have Cistercians of two observances, the Camaldolese and a growing population of laity who live the Rule in secularity. What is true, Benedictines evangelize culture and build society by their presence. Some monasteries having the members doing everything imaginable for one reason: that in all things God would be gloried. How else would you live your life if you truly believed in the Incarnation?

There is a group of Benedictine sisters whose vocation is to be missionary. Either they are sent as apostles to another place, or they are missionary in the place where they are. Since July 31, 1923, The Norfolk Priory of Missionary Benedictine Sisters have ministered here in the USA. The sisters bring the gift of St Benedict's wisdom to the health care and education ministries, but there are engaged in Hispanic ministry, domestic service, ecumenism, environmental concerns, justice and peace issues, parish ministry, and religious education. Share the idea of following to women who want to serve the Lord in community, as a missionary, and in prayer and service of the neighbor.

Here is a video on the Norfolk Benedictine Sisters.

The Missionary Benedictine Sisters belong to  serving Christ and the Church in various parts of the world.

On Sunday the American Cassinese Congregation Benedictines will meet for its 51st General Chapter at St. Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, PA. The capitulars, the sitting abbots and priors plus one delegate meets every three years to work on matters common to the monasteries of the Congregation. Abbot Hugh Anderson serves the body as it President.

The Congregation has 768 (2012 numbers) in 20 autonomous monasteries with 8 dependent priories in the USA, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia and Mexico. But with these monasteries there remains to be seen how many can survive as some are in a fragile situation given demographics and economics.

It's finally been decided: Abbot Pietro Vittorelli has resigned the abbacy and his ministry of Ordinary of Cassino. Pope Francis invoked the Code of Canon Law 401.2 regarding matters of health.

Last year I asked readers of Communio to pray for Abbot Pietro here.

He now needs to pay more attention to his health for his own good, that of the monastic community that he intensely loves but also for the diocesan community.

Until the monastic community of Montecassino can be called together to elect a new abbot, the Prior of Sacro Speco at the Abbey of Saint Scholastica (on Subiaco) and the Director of the Library in the City there, Dom Augusto Ricci will serve as the Apostolic Administrator.

Dom Pietro was born on 30 June 1962, professed of vows in 1991, ordained priest in 1994, elected and confirmed in the abbatial office and Diocesan Ordinary of Montecassino in 2007. The great abbey of Montecassino is a territorial abbey. The stats of the diocese in 2004 state that there were 79,000 souls, with 68 priests (secular and religious) serving in 53 parishes.

From the Italian media.

Through the intercession of Blessed Columba Marmion we pray,

O God, Almighty Father, who, having called the blessed abbot Columba to the priesthood and to the monastic way of life, wonderfully opened to him the secrets of the mysteries of Christ, grant, in Thy goodness, that, strengthened by his teachings in the spirit of our adoption as Thy sons, we may pray to Thee with a boundless confidence, and so obtain, through his intercession, the full restoration to health of Dom Pietro Vittorelli, Abbot of Monte Cassino. We ask this grace for the joy of Thy Church, for the consolation of the community of Monte Cassino, and for the praise of Thy glory, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

One of the weekly gifts for me is to read the reflections of Abbot Philip of the Abbey of Christ in the Desert (Abiquiu, NM). Abbot Philip is a real good man with a practical spiritual insight and tons of experience. He's been a religious superior for a long time. This week's reflection in part dealt with the abbot's fraternal visit to the Monastero de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (Monastery of Our Lady of Solitude) located outside of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, México.

The Benedictines of Our Lady of Solitude started very modestly in 1974 by Father Aelred Wall. Though a long time since the founding, Our Lady of Solitude now has ten monks who are dependent on the assistance of Christ in the Desert. 

The Mexican monasteries seem to be doing well. And they deserve our fraternal and material support. 

Though a little dated, this video of the monastery of Soledad reflects certain beauty.

To answer that question let's turn to the late Dom David Knowles, from Downside Abbey in England, who offered a timeless definition half a century ago. He wrote: "Benedictine monachism presents an objective form of life, sane, strong, unchanging from year to year, a life of work and liturgical prayer which can be seen and heard, lived in conditions which aim at representing all that is best in the basic family life of Christianity, aided by all human courtesies, reverences, and affections. It is nothing secret or esoteric, nor an impossibility, but an ordinary form of ordinary life." (Benedictine Peace, 49-50)

You know from a previous post here that Mother Dolores Hart, OSB, nun of the Abbey of Regina Laudis (Bethlehem, CT) published her autobiography, The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (Ignatius Press, 2013). The book is co-authored with lifelong friend Richard DeNeut. There was a book signing this past Sunday.

After a career in acting, Mother Dolores entered Benedictine life Regina Laudis Abbey in 1963. The abbey was founded in 1947.

Joseph Pronechen of the National Catholic Register interviewed Mother Dolores at the Abbey. One of the things worth hearing from Hart is:

The one thing is the Gregorian chant, and what a gift it is to be able to sing and to pray at the same time. I think that I would hate to see people lose that part of the Tradition of the Church, because the chant goes back over a thousand years.

Mother Dolores has been featured on the Communio blog in the past. See a post here and here.