Journal

St. BENEDICT

11 July 2010

A reading from a sermon of St. Aelred for the Feast of St. Benedict

Our Father, Saint Benedict, has passed from earth to heaven, from prison to the kingdom, from death to life, from misery to glory.  He came from where we still are, and he has gone on to that place to which we have not yet come.  Since we know where he passed from and to, let us now see how he passed.  For it would be of no profit to those wishing to follow him if they knew only where he passed from and to, unless they also knew how he passed.
Truly, he went through Christ to Christ.  Through faith in Jesus Christ, which worked in him through love, he passed to the vision and contemplation of Jesus Christ, by which is satisfied the desire for all that is good.  His way therefore was Christ, who said of himself in the Gospel:  I am the way, the truth and the life.
The most direct way of our Father was the very best way of life.  The way of life was holiness.  Blessed Benedict found the way narrow at the beginning of his conversion.  But in the end, he found it wide open.  Was not the way narrow for him, when, as we read in his Life, he threw himself naked into a thorn bush to avoid consenting to lust?  But when he found the way narrow, what did he do?  Did he ever depart from it?  No. he kept to it, and firmly stood his ground.  First he did what he later taught, so that he could teach us, his followers, what he himself had done.  He could not teach other than he lived.
How he stood firmly in the way of God we can glean from his own words, since in his Rule he warns anyone daunted by fear not to flee the way of salvation.  Experience had taught him that there is no beginning except by the narrow trail.  But he was aware that however extraordinarily narrow the way might be, it nevertheless let to life.
Along this way, Saint Benedict passed, from death to life, from Egypt to the Promised Land, from the darkness of this world to Jerusalem, which is a vision of peace.  He passed along this way with Moses, and saw a great vision, how the saints of God forever burn with love, and in them that love never grows cold.
Let us too so pass through this life that we see that great vision.  Let us follow in the footsteps of our Holy Father Benedict.  We have a very direct way of which we may arrive there, namely, his Rule and teaching.  If we hold to this as we ought, and if we persevere in it, without doubt we too shall arrive there, where he is.
1st Sermon for St. Benedict

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