The right direction” “

At the start of the Third Millennium, while so much is being spoken of the construction of the new Europe, and of the enlargement of the European Union, it is worth returning to the origins of our history by commemorating the life and work of St. Benedict. Commemoration is a personal act that involves the memory and consists in re-examining its contents. It has nothing to do with superficial celebration: it is not intended for others, but for ourselves. Each European, if he is to understand himself and continue the history of his own family, city, nation and continent, ought to seek the traces of the work and witness of life of St. Benedict in his own memory, in his own identity. The first great merit that makes St. Benedict a true master consists in his ability to transform the knowledge he received in subjective form into an objective teaching, universally valid for every person of every age. He had the talent of an infectious enthusiasm, capable of inspiring others to acquire the same wisdom and to use it in the daily ora et labora. He contributed in a significant way to the construction of Europe, though he limited himself to designing its project and barely beginning the work that disciples and heirs, from St. Boniface to St. Adalbert to De Gasperi Schuman, Adenauer and others, have continued down to our own day. St. Benedict, moreover, did not arrogate to himself any claim to change the world in a spectacular way. He aimed merely to form small communities of people who together would seek to build their own house and order the way in which it is run. Using the terminology of our own day, it might be said that he was contrary to globalization and favourable to the autonomy of small communities; however it would be more correct to say that he proposed their complementarity in being and doing. If he wished for the unity of Europe, he conceived it as a great abbey, a community formed of small groups of families and friends with shared cultural values and not political. So the patron of Europe was not a dreamer. He was humble realist. He formulated grand programmes not for future decades or for the centuries to come, but for the present. He did not propose to change the whole empire, the whole Church, still less the whole world, i.e. Europe. He wanted, rather, to render perfect and tranquil the community of his confreres and pupils, who lived in a little “lab-oratory” of faith and culture. Each European who is faithful to his own original identity is in some sense a son or daughter of St. Benedict, his/her heir and as such is obliged to continue the work he planned and began. So we are all called to a faithful and constant continuation of his work in the intimacy of the small communities in which we live, in our many different abbeys. It is up to us to enable the Benedictine heritage to bear fruit in our hic et nunc, to preserve it and to transmit it to our heirs. Perhaps we are gradually realising that in the Third Millennium we shall have more than ever need for the teaching and heritage of St. Benedict. We have the privilege of benefiting from so many unparalleled discoveries, that help us to live better, and undertake various activities that make life more interesting, but we are unable to appreciate and contemplate everything we have at our disposal in our own home, our own family community. We leave home to seek felicity instead of fostering it in our daily life . At the start of the Third Millennium man has more than ever a need for silence and harmony. To survive spiritually he must order the space and time in which he lives; he must submit his cultural and political activity to fundamental truths, such as respect for each person and the value of human work. Benedict’s two words ora et labora indicate the direction in which man needs to go.