Monte Cassino This is Me

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   Published on: 11/21/2001   Last Visited: 8/23/2002

   And that was how, after a journey of two weeks, they at last came to that spectacular height which because of Benedict was to become famed throughout all the world - Monte Cassino.
   ...
   Although Theodoric had brought order from the anarchical conditions which had for so long prevailed, yet when Benedict founded Monte Cassino there remained from the long racial upheavals a great restlessness and shifting of population - and neglected stretches of land laid waste by the trampling of armies. Displaced and unhappy Italians resented the barbarians not only as intruders and self-appointed rulers, but also as Arians, and thus not followers of the orthodox Christian faith.
   
   In such conditions had the monastery of Monte Cassino risen upon its heights. There it stood like a rock, casting its spirit down upon the restless throngs treading the Via Latina and influencing them despite their unawareness. Up above them dwelt and worked the only men of the time who seemed "to know where they were going"; and they were about the only ones who were not on the march.
   
   Among the hapless wanderers there was a class of monks whom Benedict termed Gyrovagues. They did not attempt to dwell in community, but lived on the road, journeying from monastery to monastery; and of these he wrote that they were "ever roaming and never stable, given up to their own wills and the allurements of gluttony." He knew them well, for they had often visited Subiaco.
   ...
   Monte Cassino was launched, it is estimated, with about one hundred and fifty monks, of whom the larger number were sons of the nobility. Benedict clad them in a rough habit of woven cloth, with long sleeves, a hood, and a scapular-apron to wear when at work. From the monastery, food and alms were generously dispensed to the poor, and hospitality rendered to travelers. The fields were cultivated, the Gospel was preached, and youth was educated. In the scriptorium which the abbot set up, the monks were set to copying the manuscripts of Sacred Scripture and of the Fathers of the Church, which were to become the priceless heritages of succeeding generations.
   
   It would seem that the founder's monastic family soon outgrew even the widespread mountain summit, for not many years later he established another monastery near the seaport of Terracina, some thirty miles to the southwest.
   ...
   As Monte Cassino became the important focal center in the life of the area, beggar and prince sought out the holy abbot. But it was his reputation as a wonder-worker, which drew to him so many of the sick and the suffering. He made nothing of his part in the miraculous cures, fleeing in terror as he had long ago fled Enfide, at any resultant adulation. Yet in his kindness he never turned anyone away. With strangers, as with his monks, he could look deep down into the dark well of men's hearts, and read all that rested there. And he possessed in high degree the gift of prophecy.
   
   When the powerful King Totila of the Goths came to visit him in the year 542, Saint Gregory relates that Benedict "rebuked him for his wicked deeds, and in a few words told him all that should befall him, saying: 'Much wickedness do you daily commit, and many great sins have you done: now at length give over your sinful life. Into the city of Rome shall you enter, and over the sea shall you pass: nine years shall you reign, and in the tenth shall you leave this mortal life.' The king, hearing these things, was wonderfully afraid, and desiring the holy man to commend him to God in his prayers, he departed: and from that time forward he was nothing so cruel as before he had been.
   ...
   Similarly in later years, the abbot prophesied to his sons that their beloved Monte Cassino would one day be destroyed by the Lombards, but that none of the monks would be harmed. This indeed came to pass, long after his death. But during his later years the turmoil of war surged back and forth on the highway, below the house of peace that was Monte Cassino. It continued to remain aloof in the contemplation of God, and its pax, which he had so firmly established, was undisturbed. In the year 536, the general Belisarius from the Eastern Empire landed in Italy and seized Naples, bent upon winning back the Western Empire from the barbarians.
   ...
   In the year 589 Monte Cassino was attacked and destroyed by the Lombards. As he had foretold, none of the monks was harmed, but all sought refuge in Rome, where they were welcomed and given shelter by Pope Pelagius II. He was soon succeeded in the Papacy by a man who, as a monk, had himself followed the Rule of Benedict and who now, in the Chair of Peter, determined that the good Father's plan of monasticism should be spread over Christendom.
   ...
   They were based on testimony from those still living who had been disciples of the Saint: Constantinus, Valentinian, and Honoratus, who had been the immediate successors of the founder as abbot of Monte Cassino.
   
   ...
   Following their long exile, Monte Cassino had been restored to the monks in the eighth century, and shortly thereafter was visited by Charlemagne himself who had the Rule of Saint Benedict copied so that he might distribute it among all the monasteries of his empire. His son, Louis the Pious, further promoted it; and the monk, Benedict of Aniane, Charlemagne's adviser, who was later to be canonized, firmly established the Rule generally in the monasteries of France. Within the next two or three centuries it had become strongly rooted in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bohemia, Poland, all Scandinavia, and even Greenland and Iceland. Because of its practicability and moderation, it had supplanted earlier Rules, among them that of the Irish Saint Columbanus which had first guided monastic life in Europe and the British Isles. When the Middle Ages dawned, the Benedictine system was supreme, and the "Black Monks," as they had now come to be called because of their garb, had converted all pagan Europe, and revivified the Faith in old Christian lands. For almost seven centuries, they were to be the only monks in Europe.
   
   They had cleared and cultivated the waste places; they had taught the people the agricultural arts and had educated them.
   ...
   The sparkling simplicity of the early Monte Cassino had become tarnished and dull.
   
   From time to time, reforms were launched by the Benedictines themselves, as one group would separate from their parent abbey, and set up a new monastery for stricter observance of the Holy Rule. Such a movement was that of Cluny, launched in the year 910, and which soon multiplied its monasteries until it came to be the most powerful ecclesiastical force in Europe for almost two centuries; and that of Citeaux, founded in 1098, which soon overtook and passed Cluny. Both these reforms themselves became in time targets of reform, with branches shooting forth, ever reaching upward toward the dimming light of the lost purity of the first days. For the spirit of Benedict never died, but remained vibrant, constantly beckoning and urging his sons toward the lofty heights which early Monte Cassino on its mountaintop had symbolized.
   
   The thirteenth century ushered in a new trend away from the traditional monasticism. Francis of Assisi and Dominic launched their Orders of mendicant friars to live by alms, and to preach to the poor, with no vast monasteries to call their home, but with "the wide world as their cloister." They were at once a reaction against the old system, and an answer to the needs of the changing times, as feudalism struggled to its death and the Middle Ages got into their stride. Correspondingly, the more aloof Benedictine system began to wane. But for long it was to continue as the greatest cultural force in Europe.
   
   ...
   Since the day of its foundation early in the sixth century, the great Monte Cassino, their cradle, has suffered destruction three times: by the Lombards in 589; by the Saracens in 884; and finally in our own time in World War II, when, since it was held by the Germans, the American air force was obliged to bomb it. But the spirit of Benedict is indestructible, and the immortal lines of the Rule he composed still echo down the centuries: "The Lord says to thee: My son, give Me thy heart, and let thine eyes keep My ways."
   
   Notes
   
   1. It is now generally agreed that Benedict died in 547 A.D.