A Novena to Saint Benedict
Ora et labora
What the Sources Are
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
Benedict left a Rule but no account of himself. Nearly everything told of his life comes from the second book of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, written around 593, some two generations after he died, and composed to edify rather than to document. The Rule is the firm ground; the life is tradition.
Nursia, c. 480
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
Benedict was born around 480 at Nursia in Umbria, the son of a Roman noble, and had a twin sister, Scholastica. His parents sent him to Rome for the standard classical education in rhetoric and law.
Walking Out
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
Benedict abandoned his studies and left Rome, by Gregory's account because he found the life of the students there corrupting. He was still a young man, and he gave up a career that was expected to end in public office.
Three Years in a Cave
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
Benedict lived as a hermit in a cave at Subiaco for around three years, fed by a monk named Romanus who lowered bread to him on a rope. He was found by local monks who asked him to lead them.
The Poisoned Cup
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
The monks who had asked Benedict to govern them found his discipline harder than they had bargained for, and Gregory says they tried to poison his wine. He left them and returned to Subiaco, which is where his own foundations began.
Twelve Monasteries
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
At Subiaco Benedict established twelve small monasteries of twelve monks each, rather than one large house. The pattern is deliberate and survives in the Rule's assumption that a community is small enough for an abbot to know every member of it.
Monte Cassino
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
Around 529 Benedict moved to Monte Cassino, a hilltop between Rome and Naples that still held a temple to Apollo, and founded the monastery where he wrote the Rule and where he was buried. It has been destroyed four times since, most recently by Allied bombing in 1944, and rebuilt each time.
Nothing Harsh
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
The Rule runs to seventy-three short chapters and legislates for sleep, food, clothing, wine, the reception of guests and the treatment of the sick and the old. Its prologue promises to establish nothing harsh or burdensome, and its moderation, rather than its severity, is why it displaced the more extreme rules in circulation.
Patron of Europe
The Novena Prayer
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace: behold me humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thee in thy loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbour. Inspire me to imitate thee in all things. Obtain for me the grace to keep myself unstained by sin, and at the hour of my death to be received into the company of the saints.
Benedict died at Monte Cassino around 547 and is buried there with Scholastica. Pope Paul VI proclaimed him principal patron of the whole of Europe in 1964, at the dedication of the monastery rebuilt after the war.
The prayer that opens each day is the traditional novena prayer to Saint Benedict, of unknown authorship and long in circulation, given here as it is commonly printed. Almost everything known of his life comes from the second book of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, written around 593, roughly two generations after his death; it is a work of edification rather than biography, and the first day says so. The Rule itself is his own and survives. Ora et labora is a later motto, not a phrase of his.
