Quotes Worth Contemplating for the Feast of St. Benedict
Most of us probably have some fuzzy notion that Saint Benedict and his medal are good for getting rid of demons in general. But how many of us associate the holy patriarch with demon-scattering powers at the hour of death specifically? We should.
The following passage was taken from Chapter XV of Dom Prosper Guéranger’s work, The Medal or Cross of Saint Benedict:
God has vouchsafed to make choice of his servant Benedict, and to associate the merits of this holy Patriarch with the divine virtue of the sacred cross engraved on the medal which we have described in these pages. This fact seems to require that we should add, in conclusion, a few words, in order to recommend to the faithful a devotion towards so powerful a protector.
The motive for our having a special devotion to any particular saint, is generally based on the merits of that saint, merits which give more than ordinary power to his intercession with God for us. Now, if we consider all that grace has worked in St. Benedict, and all that St. Benedict has done, by himself and by his children, for the honour of God, the salvation of souls, and the service of the Church, we are led to think that amongst the friends of God, and amongst those whom he has mercifully glorified, there are few whose intercession can be more powerful.
That Rule, so holy and so full of wisdom, which for more than five centuries was the only one in all the monasteries of the West! May we not justly consider it as dictated by the Holy Ghost, to the man who was chosen to write it, and to give it his own name? Those thousands of saints which it has produced, and who gloried in being children of St. Benedict, are they not so many stars which shine in heaven round this bright sun? Whole nations converted from Paganism to the Christian faith by his disciples, do they not proclaim him to be their father? The numerous bands of martyrs who honour Benedict with the title of their leader, do they not give him the right to claim a share in the merits of their combats? That almost countless multitude of sainted bishops who have governed so many churches, and that constellation of holy doctors who have taught the sacred sciences and fought against the heresies of their time, do they not also render homage to him whom they all honoured here on earth as their master? The thirty Sovereign Pontiffs whom the Benedictine Rule has given to the Church, and of whom so many were engaged in carrying out measures of the highest importance to the defence and well-being of Christendom, do they not also bear testimony to the deep wisdom of the inspired legislator, under whose guidance they passed so many years in the cloister? In a word, so many millions of souls who have, during the last thirteen hundred years, consecrated themselves to God under the holy and immortal Rule of St. Benedict, do they not form round his venerable head an everlasting crown, which is the admiration of the elect?
All these motives justify every effort which we can make, to persuade Christians, who love to honour those who have been heroes of sanctity, to cultivate a devotion towards the great Patriarch, in whom God seems to have united everything that can give us an idea of the immense glory wherewith he has crowned him in heaven. Let us therefore have recourse to St. Benedict in our necessities; he has power to grant all we ask him; and that wonderfully paternal lovingness which formed quite a leading characteristic of his soul, whilst he was here on earth, (as we learn from the account of his admirable life given us by St. Gregory the Great), that same paternal sweetness is still, now that he is enjoying the happiness of heaven, the peculiarity of his intercession for his clients on earth.
He appeared one day to St. Gertrude, his illustrious daughter. The holy virgin, overwhelmed with admiration at the contemplation of his merits, reminded him of his glorious death, when in the church of Monte Cassino, on the 21st of March 543, after having received the Body and Blood of Our Lord, supported in the arms of his disciples, and standing, as it were, in the attitude of a valiant combatant, he breathed forth his soul to his God whilst uttering his last prayer. She then ventured to ask him, in the name of this his so precious a death, that he would vouchsafe to assist by his presence, at their last moments, each of her Religious who were then living in the convent of which she was abbess. Relying upon the credit which he possessed with the Sovereign Lord of all things, the holy Patriarch thus answered her, with that sweet authority which accompanied his words even whilst he was here on earth: “Every one who shall honour me for the privilege wherewith my Divine Master so graciously enriched my death, I promise to be present at his death and assist him. I will be to him as a protection against all those snares which the devils will cruelly lay for him; and comforted by my presence, he shall escape them all, and obtain the bliss of heaven, and there be for ever happy.”
So consoling a promise made by such a servant of God, and authenticated by such a noble spouse of the Saviour of the world, has inspired the children of St. Benedict with the pious thought of composing a special prayer, in accordance with the intention specified by their Patriarch, in order thus to ensure, to those who recite it, the blessing which he has deigned to promise them. We here give this prayer, with the desire that it may become known and used by the faithful, and secure to them a happy death.
Benedict, the beloved of our Lord, whilst standing in the church, having been fortified with the Body and Blood of the Lord, supporting his failing limbs on the arms of his disciples, with his hands upraised to heaven, breathed forth his soul amidst words of prayer, and was seen ascending into heaven by a path most richly hung with tapestry, and lit up with countless lamps.
V. Thou didst appear glorious in the sight of the Lord
R. Therefore did He clothe thee with beauty.
O God! who didst adorn the precious death of most holy Father Benedict, with so many and so great privileges; grant, we beseech Thee, that at our death we may be defended from the snares of our enemies, by the blessed presence of him whose memory we celebrate. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
