+ Today we celebrate the feast of our great Holy Father Abbot Benedict of Nursia. Benedict was originally a caveman. He was repelled by the vices of the city of Rome and in the year 500 he sought refuge in a cave thirty miles away in order to "get his spiritual focus and reorganize his life." He lived there for three years, fed by a monk named Romanus. Despite Benedict's desire for solitude, his holiness and way of life became known and he was asked to be the abbot of a small community of monks at Vicovaro. He accepted, but when the monks resisted his strict rule and tried to poison him he returned to Subiaco and it became a center of spirituality and learning. He was soon led y the Spirit in 525 to settle at Monte Cassino where he built a monastery that was to be the birthplace of Western monasticism. Soon disciples flocked to him as his reputation for holiness, wisdom, and miracles spread far and wide. He wrote his famous Rule prescribing common sense, a life of moderate asceticism, prayer, study, and work and community life under one superior. It stressed obedience, stability, zeal and had the Divine Office as the center of monastic life; it has affected spiritual and monastic life in the West to this day – even to this place, here and now. He died at Monte Cassino on March 21 and was named patron protector of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
The first reading today from the Book of Proverbs sounds like it comes from the mouth of a very gentle and loving abbot: my son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands, turning your ear to wisdom, inclining your heart to understanding, then you will understand the fear of the Lord, the knowledge of God you will find; he has counsel in store for the upright, he is the shield of those who walk honestly, guarding the path of justice, protecting the way of the pious one. Then you will understand rectitude and justice, honesty, every good path.
Are not these the very gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon baptized Christans the day of their Confirmation? We have these powerful gifts of Divine Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fortitude and Fear of the Lord residing deep in our hearts, by means of the amazing presence of the Holy Spirit! They are there for our use in keeping us faithful, true and strong Christians, and for us to help others become so.
In the gospel passage Peter asks Jesus a question that only Peter could ask: Lord, if we follow you, what is in it for us? Jesus probably gently smiled at Peter and thought – you are slow learner but once you are lit by the fire of the Holy Spirit – you will have no more questions, and you will simply know what everything is all about: and so he answered him: Peter, much later on, if you are faithful to me and the mission I give you, you shall follow me into the Kingdom where you will sit upon one of the Twelve thrones set up and waiting right now; but furthermore everyone who has given up everything for me to put me first in their lives, will receive all those left behind and so many more in the future! I MUST COME FIRST IN YOUR LIFE – all else follows from that!
Monastic life is just that: a kind of spiritual laboratory of seeking perfection, where we learn precisely how to put JESUS and HIS FATHER FIRST – while living in a oft-times hostile world, demonstrating what we have learned!
Blessed are the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!
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