Our venerable father Benedict was born in the Italian province of Nursia in the year 480, to wealthy and distinguished parents. He did not remain long in school for he realized himself that through book-learning he could lose “the great understanding of his souls.” He left school “an unlearned wise man and an understanding fool.” He retreated to a monastery, where he was tonsured by the monk Romanus, after which he withdrew to a steep mountain where he remained in a cave for more than three years in a great struggle with his soul. He gathered many disciples around himself, and then went to Monte Casino. There he founded his celebrated monastery and composed his “Rule for Monks.” This rule spread so widely that he has deserved to be called patriarch of monks in the West. It is said that he died on the twenty-first day of March in 550.
The divine image was clearly preserved in you, O father; you took up your cross and followed Christ, teaching us by your life not to favor the passing flesh but attend to our immortal souls. O venerable Benedict, your soul now rejoices with the angels.
You were enriched by God’s grace and sealed your calling with works. Pleasing to Christ God in prayer and fasting, you have shown yourself filled by the Spirit’s gifts, O Benedict, champion against the enemies, healer of the sick, and swift help for our souls.
When Noah was five hundred years old, he begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
When human beings began to grow numerous on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of human beings were, and so they took for their wives whomever they pleased. Then the Lord said: My spirit shall not remain in human beings forever, because they are only flesh. Their days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.
The Nephilim appeared on earth in those days, as well as later, after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of human beings, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men renown.
When the Lord saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil, the Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved.
So the Lord said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them. But Noah found favor with the Lord.
Observe, my son, your father’s command, and do not reject your mother’s teaching;
Keep them fastened over your heart always, tie them around your neck.
When you lie down they will watch over you, when you wake, they will share your concerns; wherever you turn, they will guide you.
For the command is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and a way to life are the reproofs that discipline,
Keeping you from another’s wife, from the smooth tongue of a foreign woman.
Do not lust in your heart after her beauty, do not let her captivate you with her glance!
For the price of a harlot may be scarcely a loaf of bread, but a married woman is a trap for your precious life.
Can a man take embers into his bosom, and his garments not be burned?
Or can a man walk in live coals, and his feet not be scorched?
So with him who sleeps with another’s wife– none who touches her shall go unpunished.
Thieves are not despised if out of hunger they steak to satisfy their appetite.
Yet if caught they must pay back sevenfold, yield up all the wealth of their house.
But those who commit adultery have no sense; those who do it destroy themselves.
They will be beaten and disgraced, and their shame will not be wiped away;
For passion enraged the husband, he will have no pity on the day of vengeance;
He will not consider any restitution, nor be satisfied by your many bribes.
My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands.
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Thursday, March 13 –
