Message of Abbot Paul - Monday 21st March
Message from Fr Paul for Monday, 21st March 2022
On this day, in the year 560, St Benedict passed to his eternal reward in his monastery at Monte Cassino, some 150km south of Rome and 120km south of Subiaco, where his first monastery was situated. By the time he died at the age of 80, he had written his Rule for Monks and founded several monasteries. His twin sister, St Scholastica, died before him, having had a marked influence on her brother. It’s interesting to detect the mind of a woman in several chapters of the Rule. For us Benedictines and Cistercians, today is the main feast of St Benedict and the original one, as saints are always remembered on the day that they left this life and entered Paradise. Today is also, traditionally, the first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere and in many parts of Europe there are ancient traditions connected with this day and the feast of St Benedict. Today let us pray for monastic communities throughout the world that live according to the Rule of St Benedict and let us pray for all those who are spiritually connected with our monasteries: oblates, parishioners, students, relatives, benefactors, friends, tourists and casual visitors. No one comes to a monastery in vain. Guests are welcomed as Christ.
---
As this feast is now found only in the calendars of the monastic orders and in the dioceses of central Italy, I’ll just say a few words about the Gospel passage for Monday of the Third Week of Lent, which is taken from Luke, (Lk 4: 24-30). Jesus comes to Nazareth, where he was brought up, and as he speaks in the synagogue, he senses a certain spirit of rejection on the part of the congregation, so he says to them, “I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.” He then gives two similar examples from Old Testament times, that of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and that of Elisha, his disciple, and Naaman, the Syrian. Neither Elijah nor Elisha worked miracles for the people of Israel, but for foreigners, for Gentiles. Jesus’ words infuriated his hearers. “When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.” Even from the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus is rejected by his own, indeed, they weren’t far off lynching him for the things he said. From the beginning of his preaching, Good Friday and his Passion and Cross pervade the Gospel narrative. Let us not forget that at Vicovaro, the monks were ready to kill St Benedict in his first experience of coenobitic life, as they felt he was being too strict with them.
Let us ask St Benedict, Patron of Europe, to pray for an end to the savage war in Ukraine. Yesterday I was speaking with a Romanian driver, who was telling me that his fellow countrymen and women fear that Putin might well have his eyes set on their country next, for “a madman is capable of anything.” Let us pray that he be stopped before he gets that far, that he be stopped now.
