Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,
As we have two feasts of Our Blessed Father Saint Benedict every year, there is no need today to multiply words and to produce a long homily. Saint Benedict was a man of few but extremely well chosen words. His silence speaks as eloquently as the words he wrote and uttered. We will do well to imitate on this feast that falls during Lent.
At Easter we will celebrate the passing of Our Lord, the Savior of the World, the Messiah, who passes out of the earthly phase of His existence. This will be Christ’s transitus or excessus (in Greek: exodus) as is said in the Gospel relative to His transfiguration.
And behold two men were talking with him. And they were Moses and Elijah, appearing in majesty. And they spoke of his decease (exodus) that he should accomplish in Jerusalem. (Lk. 9:30-31)
Today’s feast celebrates the transitus or passing out of this world of Saint Benedict, who was a great and holy disciple of Christ. Like the Lord’s, though in a fashion befitting the disciple, Saint Benedict’s death was marked with supernatural signs of God’s favor. As his biographer, Pope Saint Gregory the Great, tells us, the Patriarch of monks foretold the day of his death and he breathed his last breath in the chapel, having received the Body and Blood of the Lord, held up by his own sons in the monastic life. About that time, two monks also had a vision of a beautiful road stretching up to Heaven. A man of majestic appearance told them that “This is the road taken by blessed Benedict, the Lord’s beloved, when he went to heaven.”
May these signs of God’s favor encourage us, who are the sons of Saint Benedict and the followers of the form of monastic life he taught the world. Some say that the world is awaiting now a “new Benedict.” Perhaps. In the mean time, we will do well to remember and learn from the first one, whose contemplation truly changed the face of the earth for the better and still does so. Amen.
