To St. Benedict

GLORIOUS ST. BENEDICT, sublime model of all virtues, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me, humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore your loving heart to pray for me before the throne of God. To you I have recourse in all the dangers which daily surround me. Sheild me against my enemies; inspire me to imitate you in all things. May your blessings be with me always, so that I may shun whatever God forbids and avoid the occasions of sin.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favours and graces of which I stand so much in need in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life. Your heart was always full of love, compassion, and mercy towards those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you. I therefore, invoke your powerful intercession, in the confident hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favour I so earnestly implore (mention it), if it be for the greater glory of God and the welfare of my soul.

Help me, O great St. Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to be ever submissive to His holy will, and to obtain the eternal happiness of heaven. Amen.


The Life of St. Benedict
from: www.officine.it/montecassino/storia_e/benedett.htm

ST. BENEDICT, founder of Montecassino and great legislator of Western monasticism, was born to a patrician family in Norcia (Perugia) in or about 480 A.D.

After his initial studies, he went to Rome. Disgusted by rampant vice, he abandoned everything and retired to the lonely rocks of Subiaco where he led a hermit's existence: "soli Deo placere cupiens" as his biographer St. Gregory Magnum wrote - "with the only desire to be agreeable to the Lord".


Some monks living in his neighbourhood and attracted by his saintly life, begged him to become their Superior and Teacher. Benedict accepted, but when he tried to correct their far from exemplary way of life, they made an attempt on his life with a goblet full of poison. But he shattered the goblet with a miraculous sign of the cross.

After having founded twelve small convents, St. Benedict left Subiaco and went southward with a few disciples. The reasons which made him chose the mountain "a cui Cassino è nella costa" (on which flank Cassino is located, Dante, Parad. XXII, 37) are not known but it may be related to some patrician benefactor.

Benedict who was gifted with practical sense, adjusted the existing temple, the actual entrance cloister, to become an oratory for his community, while using the remaining buildings to house the monks and pilgrims, as well as for various activities.

Another small oratory dedicated to St. John the Baptist is built at the mountain top where the graveyard will be located. It is still the site where the grave of St. Benedict and of his Sister St. Scolastica are venerated and it is exactly coinciding with the lower part of the High Altar in the Basilica.

In addition to founding his monastic order, St. Benedict also spread the Gospel to the population of the down below Plain. This mission is still entrusted to this monastic Community, so that the town of Cassino and its 20 surrounding municipalities all belong to the pastoral jurisdiction of the Abbot of Montecassino.

At Montecassino, St. Benedict completed writing his Regula monachorum, i.e. the Order Rule, while according to Bossuet, can be defined as a small compendium of the Gospel.

Nearing his 70th year, the Great Patriarch closed his hearthly life in Montecassino. Just before he died, as he felt his forces ebb away, he asked to be carried to the S. Martino Oratory where he was administered the Holy Communion and passed away while raising his arms to heaven. The date of his death is traditionally established on March 21, 547 A.D.

His mortal remains, and those of his sister Scolastica, rest beneath the High Altar (70). St. Benedict, Patron Saint of engineers, speleologists and of "Opera della Bonifica" (land reclaiming) was proclaimed main Patron of Europe by Pope Paul VI on the occasion of his visit to Montecassino on October 24, 1964 with the following motivation: "Messenger of Peace, Unifier, Master of Civilization and in particular Herald of Faith and Iniziator of monastic life in Western Europe". (Papal Brief - Pacis Nuntius).

Feast, March 21 and July 11.