Last week, the Church commemorated the feast of one of Europe's patron saints.
It was Blessed Pope Paul VI, who, in his apostolic letter Pacis Nuntius, proclaimed Saint Benedict the patron protector of the Old Continent. The Holy Father described him as a "messenger of peace, moulder of union, magister of civilization, and above all herald of the religion of Christ and founder of monastic life in the West: these are the proper titles of exaltation given to St. Benedict, Abbot". Moreover, Blessed Pope Paul VI praised the Benedictines for spreading faith and culture in a time of political and spiritual crisis. "It was principally he and his monks, who with the cross, the book and the plough, carried Christian progress to scattered peoples from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, from Ireland to the plains of Poland. With the cross, that is, with the law of Christ, he lent consistency and growth to the ordering of public and private life."
But today's Europe is on its knees because it is gradually losing its Christian roots. Thus, this year's liturgical feast of Saint Benedict is an apt time for our continent to start a new way of seeing and doing things.
Saint Benedict primarily instructs us Europeans to use our time intelligently and fruitfully. Concerning time, the Rule of Saint Benedict is a basic guide to living a Christian life. A Benedictine monk's day is composed of labour, study and prayer. The community should live by the work of its hands. Everyone must work but it is the superior who determines the kind of work each monk is able to do, depending of course on his condition and abilities. The balance of the day's rhythm is aimed towards that state of being conscious of joyfully approaching God in everything one does.
In our continent, are we not living in a culture of anxiety since work and leisure are becoming inhuman and obsessive forms of living? Is it human to be engaged in a 24-hour business? Is economics only about setting up goals to achieve them at all costs? Or is work an environment which promotes human development, intelligence and awareness? Does the European community present a model of collaboration where wealthier and poorer states can work together? Do European states really want to utilize their internal resources for a more humane education? As for the environment, are we, as Europeans, honestly learning to see the world around us as belonging to us in the sense of being the object not merely of our work but, most of all, of our contemplation? Can we let our humanity flourish by espousing space to contemplate God's creation which we only received and not planned let alone asked for?
Pope Francis has a splendid passage about this point in his recent encyclical Laudato Si'.
"God has written a precious book whose letters are the multitude of created things present in the universe. The Canadian bishops rightly pointed out that no creature is excluded from this manifestation of God: 'From panoramic vistas to the tiniest living form, nature is a constant source of wonder and awe. It is also a continuing revelation of the divine'. The bishops of Japan, for their part, made a thought-provoking observation: 'To sense each creature singing the hymn of its existence is to live joyfully in God's love and hope This contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us, since 'for the believer, to contemplate creation is to hear a message, to listen to a paradoxical and silent voice'. We can say that 'alongside revelation properly so-called, contained in sacred Scripture, there is a divine manifestation in the blaze of the sun and the fall of night'Paying attention to this manifestation, we learn to see ourselves in relation to all other creatures: 'I express myself in expressing the world; in my effort to decipher the sacredness of the world, I explore my own'" (no 85).
May we contemplate nature and let its Divine Maker bring in our lives that much-needed balance of work, leisure and prayer.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
Paola