Daily Gospel Reflection
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July 11, 2024
Jesus said to his Apostles:
“As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.
Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts;
no sack for the journey, or a second tunic,
or sandals, or walking stick.
The laborer deserves his keep.
Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it,
and stay there until you leave.
As you enter a house, wish it peace.
If the house is worthy,
let your peace come upon it;
if not, let your peace return to you.
Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—
go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.
Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment
than for that town.”
Saint Benedict lived at a time of downward drift in the life of the church and Western Civilization. The political turmoil of his beloved Italy and the moral decadence of the surrounding culture led him to establish a rule of life for monastic communities that could withstand the tides that threatened Gospel life. In recent years, some have called this the Benedict Option. In truth, it was an effort to implement the invitation Jesus extends in the Gospel today to evangelize in the face of challenges.
The injunctions of Jesus that Matthew’s Gospel evokes are familiar to us: travel light; the laborer deserves his keep; shake the dust from your feet. I would prefer to point to two efforts proposed by Jesus that are indispensable to effective evangelization.
Let your peace come upon the place you occupy and give without thinking about the cost. Along with the well-known Benedictine motto of prayer and work is that of peace. This latter one has a timeliness today that no one can deny and is an indispensable property for anyone who wants to be receptive to the Word of the Gospel. Giving without cost implies that one can draw from a storehouse of gifts—the resources of a monastery and the individual gifts of its members.
Pope St. Paul VI put it well fifty years ago in Evangelii Nuntiandi: “The world calls for and expects from us simplicity of life, obedience and humility, detachment and self-sacrifice.” Fifteen hundred years after Saint Benedict, the recipe for holiness is as relevant as ever.
Prayer
Loving God, You call us your beloved sons and daughters by name. May we not be afraid or lack trust in letting Jesus heal what is broken in our mind, body or spirit. May Jesus lead us outside of ourselves to the immigrants, refugees, poor, imprisoned and homeless, seeing his compassion is for all of us. We ask this through Jesus the Shepherd and our Brother. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Benedict is often called the father of monasticism in the Roman Catholic Church, but his influence extends beyond monasteries—the rule of life he wrote 1,500 years ago is still a pillar of Christian spirituality today.
He was the twin brother of St. Scholastica—the two were born in 480 to a noble family in Italy. Benedict was educated in Rome, but as a young man became repulsed by the laziness and promiscuousness of his classmates. In about 500, he left the city to live in the countryside about 40 miles away.
There, he met a hermit living nearby, St. Romanus, who saw something special in Benedict. He encouraged the young man to take on a life of solitude and offered him the use of a cave near his hermitage in an area known as Subiaco, and Benedict lived there for three years. Romanus would visit him on a regular schedule and bring him food.
Soon, people in the region started hearing stories of Benedict’s holiness and wisdom, and many sought him out. When the abbot of a nearby monastery died, the monks asked Benedict to lead them. He agreed and imposed on them a strict way of life. They soon changed their minds about him and tried to poison him.
On the first attempt, they poisoned his drink. Benedict received the cup, and when he blessed it, the cup broke (notice this cup in the painting of him from the Basilica, shown below). Undeterred, they poisoned his bread next. When he received it, he blessed it, and a raven flew by and stole it away (the raven symbolizes him in the stained glass window below from the chapel in Dillon Hall).
Benedict returned to Subiaco and gathered people around him, founding 12 different monasteries and transforming the region into an area of learning and spirituality.
In 525, Benedict left Subiaco and settled in Monte Cassino between Rome and Naples. He destroyed a temple to Apollo there and evangelized the people living nearby. He eventually built the famous monastery and wrote a rule of life for its monks. This “Rule of St. Benedict” has shaped Christian spirituality and monastic life for centuries.
The Rule offers practical advice for living a Christ-like life and for the administration of a monastery. It is based on common sense and encourages moderation, especially in asceticism and discipline. Prayer (especially with the psalms), study, work, obedience, stability, zeal, community, and hospitality are benchmarks of the Rule, which can be summed in the famous phrase, ora et labora, “pray and work.”
Benedict grew in holiness and became famous for his holiness and wisdom. He advised kings and popes and could read people’s consciences. He had the gift of prophecy and worked miracles.
He died on March 21 in 543, but this date almost always falls in Lent, so the Church moved his memorial to July 11. He was named the co-patron of Europe in 1964 and is the patron saint of students.
The relics of St. Benedict rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica, and he is depicted there in a wall mural. His image also stands in a stained glass window in the chapel in Dillon Hall.
St. Benedict, your common-sense rule of life still shapes Christian spirituality—pray for us!