DEATH | St. Benedict (480-529)

 St. Benedict writing The Rule.
Painting by Herman Nieg,
Heiligenkreuz Abbey, Austria.

March 21, 2021—The death of St. Benedict is remembered today or tomorrow. Its sesquimillennial* will be celebrated in A.D. 547. Even before that, Benedictines around the world will be celebrating another sesquimillennial in eight years, namely the foundation of the first Benedictine monastery in Subiaco, Italy (east of Rome, near the ruins of Nero’s ancient palace) in A.D. 529.

*Sesquimillennial is a mashup of four Latin words, semi+que+mille+annus. It means half+and+thousand+years, in other words, fifteen hundred years.  

St. Benedict founded twelve monasteries, each with twelve monks, before moving on to Monte Cassino, where he built a large monastic town for monks and nuns. He died there from an illness at sixty-seven years of age. Historians have noted that he died not long after when the Justinian plague pandemic (541-542) swept through Italy, leaving the impression that this probably killed him. 

His Rule of St. Benedict has guided many men and women in their monastic communities to follow the teachings of Jesus. How many? Well consider that in A.D. 1100, the monastery of Cluny (in Burgundy) alone controlled one thousand independent abbeys. In 1912 there were 700 Benedictine communities with twenty-three thousand monks and nuns. Projecting from those numbers back over fourteen centuries and forward to another century, one gets to a likely million professed Benedictines and counting, even with the periodic persecution of monks and disestablishment of monasteries and convents. http://archive.osb.org/gen/hicks/ben-15.html#TopOfPage. 

Some monasteries have relied on contributions from the faithful, guest house fees, or land rents in places where they have had land to rent. Their primary mission from St. Benedict’s time was to educate children—mostly, historically, boys. A subsidiary role, which became preeminent in some monasteries, was copying sacred texts. These copies were extremely valuable and could be sold. The monasteries and convents have also earned income by making wine and famed eponymous liqueurs, cheese and a variety of other products (candles, cups, soaps, cakes, chocolates, herbs). The Trappists make beer.

The Benedictines were divided by gender, but women were allowed to become heads of their communities. The Abbess of the French Fontevraud Royal Abbey, which followed the Rule of St. Benedict, was in charge of a huge abbey with monks as well as nuns.

Benedictines are by design not worldly, but they have income from their work. In this way they are not beggars (the Franciscans and Dominicans rely on gifts). But Benedictines are contemplative rather than worldly; the Jesuits are by design active in the world. Of the 266 popes to date, only eleven were Benedictines. Benedict XVI said in his first papal appearance that he named himself for St. Benedict of Nursia, and also Benedict XV, who was an active peacemaker in World War I. Most monks in the middle ages were Benedictines. Most of the other western monastic orders were created as spinoffs of the Benedictines, for example, the Cistercians, and their spinoff the Trappists (who are vegetarians, for example)..

The above note was prompted by emails from Ampleforth College, York, England, which your blogger attended for three years and from Portsmouth Abbey School, which I also attended for three years. Here is the Portsmouth celebration:

https://mailchi.mp/portsmouthabbey.org/the-transitus-of-st-benedict?e=63e11c9b6b.