St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547 A.D.)
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Benedict was born at Nursia (Norcia) in Umbria, Italy, around 480 A.D.
He studied in Rome but became disheartened by life in Rome and withdrew
to a solitary life at Subiaco. Monks called upon him to be their abbot,
which he agreed to do, founding twelve communities over the next few
years. His primary abbey was Monte Cassino, which stands to this day
and is the mother house to the now world-wide Benedictine order.
His biographer, St. Gregory the Great, pope from 590-604, does not
record the dates of his birth and death. St. Gregory wrote about St.
Benedict in his Second Book Of Dialogues. Gregory’s purpose in writing
Benedict’s life was to inspire readers, but he did not really write
about the particulars of Benedict’s daily life. Gregory attempted to
explain that the saints of God, and in particular St. Benedict, were
still alive and well in the Christian Church.
Benedict drew up a rule of life for monastics, a rule he calls “a
school of the Lord’s service, in which we hope to order nothing harsh
or rigorous.” This rule gives instructions how to organize a monastery
and what the monks are to be doing with their time. An average day
would include four hours in prayer (called the Divinum Officium—the
Divine Office), then five hours was spent in spiritual reading and
study, with six hours of labor, one hour was given eating, and then
eight hours were permitted for sleep. The Book of Psalms was said in
its entirety every week as a part of the Office.
In
Benedict’s time, the monks were both workers and scholars. Monks, after
spending a few hours doing some laborious task by hand often would
think to themselves, “There must be a better way of doing this.” The
result was a development of windmills and water wheels for eradicating
the labor of grinding grain, sawing wood, and pumping water. The monks
also introduced the rotation of crops and other agricultural advances.
The monks were displaying a dignity for laboring and the importance of
planning.