Archbishop of Valencia encourages deepening the rule of San Benito: it is useful for all Christians

The Archbishop of Valencia (Spain), Mons. Enrique Benavent Vidal, has encouraged the faithful to take advantage of summer holidays to read and deepen The San Benito ruleit contains “intuitions that are useful” for the daily life of all Christians.

In his weekly letter From July 5, the Prelate recalls that next Friday 11 the Catholic Church will celebrate the feast of San Benito, Patron of Europe that lived between the 5th and 5th centuries.

“The goal that totally guided his life,” explains Mons. Benavent, “is reflected in the prologue of the rule he wrote for the monasteries founded by him: ‘Who is the man who wants life and wants to see happy days?'”

Saint Benito “at all times lived with wanting to reach the authentic life, ‘The true and perpetual life’, which can only be achieved in the tabernacle of God, in his holy mountain. All his gaze is set on this goal. He lives and teaches the monks to live this life with his eyes on the true life, in God,” he adds.

However, the Spanish archbishop points out that while San Benito originally wrote this rule “to serve as a spiritual path for monks and to organize the life of monasteries, we find intuitions that are useful for all Christians.”

In his letter, Mons. Benavent puts as an example the rule that calls “not put anything to the love of Christ.”

“Nothing must be brought between the Lord and the disciple. The authentic Christian – explains the prelate – is the one that in the life of each day values, above all, the friendship with the Lord and lives all the dimensions of his life (work, goods, family life) so that nothing or no one will lose that friendship with him.”

Then, he quotes part of the prologue of the rule that ensures that “(they will rest in your holy mountain) those who, fearing the Lord, do not puff up for the righteousness of their behavior.”

The Archbishop of Valencia indicates that “in this advice, San Benito enters into the deep heart and prevents us from a temptation that is very frequent in those who consider themselves’ good ‘: who strives to live holy, easily attributing to his own strength the good works already praise himself, forgetting that’ by the grace of God I am what I am Mister'”.

Finally, he mentions the exhortation of St. Benito to “not wish to call a holy before being, but first be.”

The prelate indicates that this is “a warning against those who live thinking more about the appearance than in the truth of life”, because “who lives in appearance cares more than what others may think or say about him, than of the authentic reality of his life. The Christian seeks first of all to live in the truth.”

Mons. Benavent concludes his letter indicating that “these advice are not only for those who have embraced monastic life, but are criteria that, if we turn them into a norm of life, they brightly guide the spiritual life of every Christian.”

“A good reading for meditation during the summer could be this rule that San Benito wrote for his monks,” he reiterated.