BUONA FESTA PAPA BENEDETTO!!!!!

Today* is the feast day of Saint Benedict (Benedetto). What we know about him comes mostly from Pope Saint Gregory the Great's "Dialogues". The Rule he wrote gives us some insight into how his mind functioned as well as his spirituality.

Many people hated him because he was faithful to Christ & by his very actions convicted them of their sins. Rather than repent they tried to poison him. Naturally, Satan hated him even worse & did all he could to destroy St. Benedict.

He struggled with temptations of the flesh. & while I don't recommend it for everyone, he did come up with a unique way to deal with it that solved the problem once & for all. (Or I should say, God came up with it & inspired St. Bendict to respond as he did.

"On a certain day being alone, the tempter was at hand: for a little black bird, commonly called a merle or an ousel, began to fly about his face, and that so near as the holy man, if he would, might have taken it with his hand: but after he had blessed himself with the sign of the cross, the bird flew away: and forthwith the holy man was assaulted with such a terrible temptation of the flesh, as he never felt the like in all his life.
A certain woman there was which some time he had seen, the memory of which the wicked spirit put into his mind, and by the representation of her so mightily inflamed with concupiscence the soul of God's servant, which so increased that, almost overcome with pleasure, he was of mind to have forsaken the wilderness. But, suddenly assisted with God's grace, he came to himself; and seeing many thick briers and nettle bushes to grow hard by, off he cast his apparel, and threw himself into the midst of them, and there wallowed so long that, when he rose up, all his flesh was pitifully torn. So, by the wounds of his body, he cured the wounds of his soul, in that he turned pleasure into pain, and by the outward burning of extreme smart, quenched that fire which, being nourished before with the fuel of carnal cogitations, inwardly burned in his soul: and by this means he overcame the sin, because he made a change of the fire.
From which time forward, as himself afterward reported to his disciples, he found all temptation of pleasure so subdued, that he never felt any such thing. Many after this began to abandon the world, and to become his scholars. For being now freed from the vice of temptation, worthily and with great reason is he made a master of virtue: for which cause, in Exodus, commandment is given by Moses that the Levites from twenty-five years and upward should serve, but, after they came to fifty, that they should be ordained keepers of the holy vessels. [Numbers 8:24-26] Dialogues Book 2, Chapter 2"

* The Benedictines celebrate it on 21 March, the actual date of his death. It was moved to this day in the Latin Rite because of the March date being in Lent. The Byzantine Rite calendar has it on 14 March.