"A man of great culture and rich in the gifts of grace, both as an indefatigable builder of monasteries and an uncompromising penitential preacher, he spent all his energies in feeding the Christian roots of the Europe that was being born". This is the portrait of Saint Colombano, the Irish abbot born in 543 and died in 615, the focus of today’s audience. The Pope defined him a "European" saint, because "as a monk, a missionary and a writer, he worked in many countries of Western Europe". "Along with the Irish of his time", Saint Colombano "was aware of the cultural unity of Europe": in one of his letters, written around 600 to Pope Gregory the Great, "we can find for the very first time highlighted Benedict XVI the phrase ‘totius Europae of all Europe’, speaking of the presence of the Church in the Continent". Saint Colombano’s "message", according to the Pope, "focuses on a firm reference to conversion and the detachment from earthly goods, with a view to eternal inheritance". In particular, "with his ascetic life and uncompromising behaviour before the corruption of the powerful, he recalls the severe figure of John the Baptist". An "austerity", that of Saint Colombano’s, which however "is never an end in itself". Comece has recently proposed to appoint Saint Colombano the patron saint of Western Europe. (continued)
