FEBRUARY 12, 2024 – ST. BENEDICT OF ANIAN.

• Seven Holy Founders of the Order of Servites (1233). Founder or Foundress, Religious. (Traditional)
• St. Eulalia (304). Martyr, Virgin. Patroness of Barcelona. (Historical)

BENEDICT was the son of Aigulf, Governor of Languedoc, and was born about 750. In his early youth he served as cupbearer to King Pepin and his son Charlemagne, enjoying under them great honors and possessions. Grace entered his soul at the age of twenty, and he resolved to seek the kingdom of God with his whole heart. Without relinquishing his place at court, he lived there a most mortified life for three years; then a narrow escape from drowning made him vow to quit the world, and he entered the cloister of St. Seine. In reward for his heroic austerities in the monastic state, God bestowed upon him the gift of tears, and inspired him with a knowledge of spiritual things. As procurator, he was most careful of the wants of the brethren, and most hospitable to the poor and to guests. Declining to accept the abbacy, he built himself a little hermitage on the brook Anian, and lived some years in great solitude and poverty. But the fame of his sanctity drawing many souls around him, he was obliged to build a large abbey, and within a short time governed three hundred monks. He became the great restorer of monastic discipline throughout France and Germany. First, he drew up with immense labor a code of the rules of St. Benedict, his great namesake, which he collated with those of the chief monastic founders, showing the uniformity of the exercises in each, and enforced by his “Penitential” their exact observance; secondly, he minutely regulated all matters regarding food, clothing, and every detail of life; and thirdly, by prescribing the same for all, he excluded jealousies and insured perfect charity. In a Provincial Council held in 813, under Charlemagne, at which he was present, it was declared that all monks of the West should adopt the rule of St. Benedict. He died February I1, 821.

REFLECTION: The decay of monastic discipline, and its restoration by St. Benedict, prove that none are safe from loss of fervor, but that all can regain it by fidelity to grace.

WORD OF THE DAY

RELIGION. The moral virtue by which a person is disposed to render to God the worship and service he deserves. It is sometimes identified with the virtue of justice toward God, whose rights are rooted in his complete dominion over all creation. Religion is also a composite of all the virtues that arise from a human being’s relationship to God as the author of his or her being, even as love is a cluster of all the virtues arising from human response to God as the destiny of his or her being. Religion thus corresponds to the practice of piety toward God as Creator of the universe. (Etym. probably Latin religare, to tie, fasten, bind, or relegere, to gather up, treat with care.)

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)

This article, FEBRUARY 12, 2024 – ST. BENEDICT OF ANIAN. is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/february-12-2024-st-benedict-of-anian/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.