Memorial of St. Benedict

"Listen carefully, my child, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice."

– The Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue

On July 11, the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Benedict, honored as the father of Western monasticism, as his twin sister, St. Scholastica, is honored as the patroness of women’s religious orders. St. Benedict was born around AD 480 in Nursia, Italy, and died around AD 547. The Rule of Saint Benedict was written in the early sixth century. In it, St. Benedict set out guidance for monks living in community. Its 73 chapters cover everything from the kinds of monks, to the proper amount of food and drink and the assigning of impossible tasks to the brothers. Benedict’s Rule provided those who wish to live in community with fundamentals of how to do so in harmony.

There is no Western religious order who does not owe Benedict a debt. While each order has its own Rule (or, in the case of the Jesuits, Way of Proceeding), all are derivative from this first Rule of Saint Benedict. Growing up as he did in the transition from the Roman empire to what we call the Middle (or Dark) Ages, Benedict saw firsthand the harm which resulted as the legal, moral, and practical framework of empire dissolved. As the state institutions disappeared, it became clear that the men, and later women, who chose to pray, work, and study together in community and in the service of God and God’s people would need to look elsewhere for the discipline and structure that the empire had once provided. Once established, this Rule would spread around the world and down through the years to our own time, where it is still observed not only by religious communities, but also by communities of lay persons who have come together with the mission of ora et labora: pray and work.

Pray and work is what I think about when I think of my uncle Martin, whose birthday falls on July 11, the same day we celebrate the life of one of the most famous monks of all time. 

Uncle Martin was the oldest of my mother’s three brothers, smart as whip but traumatized by growing up with my grandfather, a vicious alcoholic who spent most of his life, drunk or sober, tormenting his children, especially his oldest son. Practically a monk himself, Martin never married and never had children, but my fondest childhood memories are of the summers when my mother would bring my younger sister and me to visit him for a week before school started. We would stay in his one bedroom apartment where he lived alone on the Near North Side of Chicago, sleeping on his pullout couch, sweating through the last days of August in Chicago. 

It was from my Uncle Martin that I learned how to ride the El, count change, shop in a grocery store, and love good books. He gave me C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia for Christmas the year I turned 9 and Gone With The Wind (all 1,024 pages of it) when I was 11. Unfamiliar with children except for my sister and me, he treated us like adults, taking us to movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and plays like The King and I. He asked us what we thought like he really wanted to know. He taught me how to read a street map and to feel comfortable in a city, how to argue about politics, and how to stand up for those less fortunate.

I missed him, and one day I told him how much he had meant to me growing up and how grateful I was for all of his care and all he had taught me.”

Self-effacing and shy, my uncle rarely talked about himself and never sought the limelight or attention. He worked for the Social Security Administration until his retirement due to his own disability resulting from the Type One diabetes which came on when he was 34 years old. As he grew older and public transportation became harder for him to navigate (he never learned to drive), he came to family gatherings less and less. I missed him, and one day I told him how much he had meant to me growing up and how grateful I was for all of his care and all he had taught me. He looked at me with bright eyes and said, slowly and a little awkwardly, “Well, that’s very nice of you, Lisa.” That was it. But I knew he was pleased. A few years ago he moved to the Veterans’ Home in Quincy, Illinois. The diabetes is taking its course and his mind is not what it was. But I am hopeful that, attending with the ear of his heart, he can still hear what I said.

Photos: (top) Saint Benedict writing the Rule. Painting (1926) by Hermann Nigg (1849–1928). Wikimedia (cc); (middle) Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois. Flickr /  Ken Lund (cc)