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111.1 First
Point
When Saint Benedict was a student in Rome he left the city in order
to avoid the bad example of his fellow students, and withdrew to a very
wild solitude where he practiced continual prayer and very great
austerity. By doing this he prepared himself to become the father of a
great number of religious, to whom he gave a very wise rule that insists a
great deal on seclusion, and leads a person to great perfection. It was by
this holy rule and by his very exact and very regular guidance that he
drew a great number of souls to God, separating them from the world and
from all human conversation so that they might be in a position to
converse with God alone.
This is indeed one of the greatest advantages you can possess in
this life and one of the main means you can use to give yourself to God.
The more regular you are, the more you will acquire the perfection of your
state; the less you communicate with people, the more God will communicate
himself to you.
111.2
Second Point
This
saint exercised such great vigilance and such great attention over himself
to preserve purity that when he felt himself a prey to temptations he
practiced great mortifications to help himself overcome them. Once, when
harassed more violently than usual by these temptations, he even rolled
himself over thistles and thorn bushes with such violence that his body
was all covered with blood. He avoided any conversation with women to such
an extent that, however holy his sister, Scholastica, was, he saw her only
once a year, and even then remained only a short time with her and spoke
only about God.
If you wish to be as pure as your state requires, mortify your mind
and your senses, and use them only when necessary. Above all, have a fear
of all familiarity with women, and speak to them only when obliged to do
so by necessity.
111.3 Third Point
The
education of children was regarded of such great importance by this saint
that he educated and cared for a great number of them in his monasteries.
He took care to have them instructed in learning and in piety. He even put
in his rule a number of practices which he wanted to see observed in
receiving them and guiding them.
He welcomed Saint Maurus, who was only eight years old at the time,
and a number of others at an early age. These children were brought up
with so much care and attention that they were never allowed to go
anywhere alone; a religious accompanied them at all times. As a result
they acquired more of the purity of angels as they knew less about the
evil of people.
Are you careful to keep your students away from whatever might
corrupt their morals, especially bad company, and do you inspire them with
a horror of such companions? Are you so vigilant over their conduct that
you prevent them from doing the least thing wrong when they are in your
presence? Do you show them how to avoid all occasions of evil when they
are no longer under your supervision? Learn from Saint Benedict how to
bring up properly the children whom you have to guide. Act so as to obtain
from him by your prayers the grace of guiding them well.
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Benedict
(ca 480 - ca 547) was born at Nursia in Umbria and educated in Rome.
He began at an early age to lead the life of a hermit in a cave at
Subiaco on Monte Calvo about 35 miles from Rome, probably in reaction to
the corrupt morals he witnessed as a student in the imperial city. Others
eventually joined him, and he set up small hermitages for them. But he was
led to leave this way of life with several companions and establish a new
kind of community monasticism on Monte Cassino. There he composed the Rule
which influenced the whole monastic movement for the next six centuries,
earning for him the title of Patriarch of Western Monasticism. De La Salle
was obviously influenced by the Benedictine way of life in the development
of the Institute and the Rule of the Brothers with its emphasis on
silence, obedience, penance, and attention to detail. But he was also
affected by Saint Benedict's insistence on fraternal union, stability, and
the common-sense balance that Saint Benedict taught to temper all things,
that the strong may still have something to long for and the weak may not
draw back in alarm. There is also a touch of irony and kindly humor in
Saint Benedict's Rule, of which there is a trace in the letters of De La
Salle. The feast is now celebrated on July 11; this is the day the
Benedictines have traditionally celebrated, which commemorates the
transfer of the saint's relics from Italy to France in the seventh
century, though this event is under dispute.
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