GROUP 5

CIABAL, RANCI KYLE DS.ERSANDO, CHRISTINE DANIELLE B.

BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ON THE

TIME OF BENEDICTINE AND THE EARLY BENEDICTINES

…During the Byzantine Era

St. Benedict is regarded as the Father of Western Monasticism. St. Benedict was made famous by The Rule which can be summarized to Ora Et Labor (Prayer and Work)

Ora et Labora refers to the monastic practice of working and praying, generally associated with its use in the Rule of St. Benedict.

In the time where he was born it was the “Dark Ages” and there was rampant killing and evil around that time and he was still able to find peace and love with his surroundings.

Italy was a war zone. In 410 Rome had been conquered by the Visigoths. By 476 the Western Roman Empire had collapsed. Nonetheless, battles for power continued on two fronts. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian was attempting to reclaim Italy. Barbarian tribes in and around Italy were fighting amongst themselves. This is the era into which Benedict was born.

…During the Medieval Era

Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, Italy before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy.

Benedictines, founded in 529 by Benedict at Monte Cassino, stresses manual labor in a self-subsistent monastery. They are less of a unified order than most other orders.

He founded the Abbey of Monte Cassino. It would become the most famous abbey in continental Europe.

At Monte Cassino, he brought back from death a youngster, miraculously supplied the monastery with flour and oil in its time of need and displayed the gift of prophecy. 

Western Monasticism

Monasticism or monkhood is a religious way of life in which one renounces worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic life plays an important role in many Christian churches, especially in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Monasticism is similar to the first apostolic parishes, not only in their common belongings and common daily prayers, but primarily in their common therapeutic treatment. In the ancient Church, the catechumen would pass through the stage of purification. A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decided to dedicate his life to serving all other living beings, or to be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live his life in prayer and contemplation.

Christian monasticism first appeared in the Eastern Roman Empire a few generations before Benedict of Nursia, in the Egyptian desert. Under the great inspiration of Saint Anthony the Great (251-356), ascetic monks led by Saint Pachomius (286-346) formed the first Christian monastic communities under what became known as an Abbot, from the Aramaic abba (father)

Within a generation, both solitary and communal monasticism became very popular and spread outside of Egypt, first to Palestine and the Judean Desert and thence to Syria and North Africa. Saint Basil of Caesarea codified the precepts for these eastern monasteries in his Ascetic Rule, or Ascetica, which is still used today in the Eastern Orthodox Church.In the West in about the year 500, Benedict became so upset by the immorality of society in Rome that he gave up his studies there, at age fourteen, and chose the life of an ascetic monk in the pursuit of personal holiness, living as a hermit in a cave near the rugged region of Subiaco. In time, setting an example with his zeal, he began to attract disciples. After considerable initial struggles with his first community at Subiaco, he eventually founded the monastery of Monte Cassino in 529, where he wrote his Rule near the end of his life. Thus making him the FATHER OF WESTERN MONASTICISM

THE LIFE OF A MONASTIC

The monastic life was called the “apostolic life” in the ancient church

It imitated – and still imitates – the life of the first Christians, who lived under the direct or indirect spiritual direction of the Apostles. In essence, it is a life of repentance and purification of the heart from our passions, while fulfilling the commandments of the Lord. The beatitudes of the Lord find their fulfillment in monasticism, and more generally in ascesis, just as in the time of the ancient church. The ascetical life of the monasteries is just like the ascetical life of the first Christians They led a philosophical life. The monastic way of life was a normal phenomenon who lived by the way of God. They are secluded from society. They sleep in a cell to be more focused and to worship god.

THE ROLE OF THE MONASTERIES IN PRESERVATION OF EUROPEAN CULTURE

Monasteries grew out the hermit movement in early Christianity. They were intended to allow devoted Catholics to spend their lives focused on God.

On a government level they frequently were the main governing body in the area and served as a replacement for lost Roman leadership. They usually owned tracts of land worked by peasents, and in many ways functioned like any manorial system. Abbotts were powerful men during the middle ages.

Monasteries also preserved the works of Roman and Greek authors. This is often ignored by revisionists who are trying to bend history to fit an agenda. Monks were allowed to copy pagan works, and were allowed to read them; they were cautioned against having to much interest in them because many things they speak of runs counter to Catholic teaching. Without the monks hand copying work many of the Roman and Greek texts we have today would have been lost to western society. Monasteries were frequently the last places to preserve literacy.

European monasteries that largely preserved a great deal of classical knowledge, along with Baghdad's House of Wisdom and the Eastern archives in Constantinople. They also produced new knowledge. Bede's exegetical works were produced in 'his' monastery of Jarrow. Bede also stipulated that the moon influenced the tides in De ratione Temporibus (also: De opera temporum) in 725.

Monasteries were 'spiritual' powerhouses. Often, a king would give land to monks so that they might pray for their souls. They were also good ways for nobles to get rid of lands that were too far for them to control directly, and that they did not want to fall into someone else's hands.

St Benedict's model for the monastic life was the family, with the abbot as father and all the monks as brothers. Priesthood was not initially an important part of Benedictine monasticism – monks used the services of their local priest. Because of this, almost all the Rule is applicable to communities of women under the authority of an abbess.

St Benedict's Rule organises the monastic day into regular periods of communal and private prayer, sleep, spiritual reading, and manual labour – ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus, "that in all [things] God may be glorified" (