ALL SAINTS OF THE ORDER OF ST BENEDICT - 13 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 13th of November 

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ALL SAINTS OF THE ORDER OF ST BENEDICT

Saint Benedict of Nursia

The collective feast day for all members of the order is celebrated annually on November 13 as the Feast of All Saints of the Order of Saint Benedict, who composed the Benedictine Rule, a book of strict yet balanced guidelines for monks living in community. Its core principles focus on prayer, manual labour, and obedience.

Illuminated manuscript, c. 1260:
Saint Benedict blessing a group of monks

ORIGINS OF THE BENEDICTINES

The origins of the Benedictines are not the same as most religious orders. Saint Benedict did not set out to found a religious order. Instead he wrote the Rule for his monastery at Monte Cassino and for the other monasteries he founded. He made the Rule freely available to any other community who wanted it, and over the centuries it was taken up by thousands of individual communities, of men and of women, who used it as their guide. Originally these communities had no formal ties with each other as each community retained its own autonomy. Gradually they have come together to form a vast global family of Benedictines.

SAINT BENEDICT’S RULE

Saint Benedict was not the first person to write a guide for monastic living. Other people, including Saint Basil and Saint Augustine, had written rules for monks before. Benedict’s Rule is special because it is a comprehensive user manual and guidebook for living in a community based on prayer. Here are some of the things the Rule describes:

• How an abbot should rule with fairness

• How monks should be obedient

• How silence is important

(though there is no vow of silence in Benedict’s Rule).

• How no one should have private possessions

• How food and fasting should be a part of spiritual life

• How manual work is an important part of a spiritual life

• How to maintain good community relations.

Perhaps most importantly it sets out a pattern of prayer for each day. Praying in a regular pattern was not new, but Benedict was the first in Western Christianity to write down a detailed manual that covered every day with lists of psalms and readings to be used in the liturgy and included different prayers for different times of day. Today, versions of Benedict’s Liturgy of Hours are an important part of life for many Christians, not just those who would call themselves Benedictine.

– This is an excerpt from 'Sunday Bulletin'. For more information, please contact: Redemptorist Publications, Alphonsus House, Chawton, Hampshire GU 34 3HQ, United Kingdom

"At the beginning of the fourteenth century the order is estimated to have comprised the enormous number of 37.000 monasteries, giving the Church no less than 24 popes, 200 cardinals, 7.000 archbishops, 15.000 bishops, and over 1.500 canonized saints."

Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913