Benedict: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Benedict of Nursia, the founder of Western monasticism, was born in the Italian town of Nursia around the year 480. At fourteen he was sent to Rome to study, but the immorality he saw there troubled him, and he chose instead the ascetic life. He lived first beside a church at Effide; as his fame grew, he went into the mountains, where the hermit Romanus clothed him as a monk, showed him a remote cave at Subiaco and brought him food from time to time. After three years of solitary struggle against temptation, disciples gathered around him. He arranged them in twelve communities of twelve monks each, keeping the novices under his own guidance, and his strictness drew slander and hostility from some. He later founded the monastery of Monte Cassino, which became a great centre of learning for the Western Church, with a notable library. His Rule, drawn from the experience of the Egyptian desert fathers and from St John Cassian, asked of monks obedience, the giving up of all property and constant work; older monks taught the young and copied ancient books, and novices spent a year learning the Rule. St Benedict was given the gifts of foresight and healing, and he foretold the day of his own death, which came in 547. His sister St Scholastica is also venerated as a saint. The Church remembers him on 14 March (27 March on the Old Calendar); his hymn calls him a healer of the sick and a swift intercessor for our souls.

What the faithful pray for

• monks, nuns and all who live in community
• obedience and diligence in daily work
• the sick, for healing
• a good and prepared Christian death