Saint Benedict, known as “the patriarch of monastic life in the Western World”, was born in Nursia, now known as Norcia, in the Italian province of Umbria, in 480 A.D.
Pope Gregory the Great (590 - 604) who encouraged the Benedictine Order, wrote in the 7th Century a legendary biography about the life of the “father” of the Benedictine monastic way of life, (the Second Book of the “Dialoges”). One reads therein that Benedict interrupted his studies in Rome because he was overcome with the desire to serve only God from that day on. Thereafter he lived for several years as a settler occupying a cave in Subiaco, in the Roman province of the Aniene Valley. He attracted many followers and a small monasteries were founded.
Around 529, together with several monks, he moved to Montecassino, a height above the city of Cassino. It lies between Rome and Naples in the present day province of Latium. It was here that he founded a monastery at the site of pre-Christian temple ruins. Here he drafted the Benedictine Rule, the “Regula Benedicti”, the most important document for the conduct of monastic life in the West, for his ever-increasing community of monks. He died on 21. March 547 at Montecassino.
Benedict was influenced by the early Christian monastic movement, its search for God, and the “yearning for the fundamental Church”, which was regarded with heart and soul (fourth Chapter from the Apostles). Benedictine’s rules call out for common cause, yet they also leave room for the uniqueness of the individual and each individual’s own way to God and a singular approach to individual creativity or work in attaining fulfillment.
