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Extract from Aelred of Rievaulx's sermon 6, for the Feast of St Benedict, 21 March I know that you are used to welcoming with utter joy the feast days of the saints whenever they occur and that you heighten your fervour by recalling and meditating on their lives and perfections. Yet, I think that this feast of our holy Father Benedict means more to you than others and is in some way more welcome – not because it is a greater feast than all others but because he, our own Father, is closer to us than the other saints. For in Christ Jesus through the Gospel he has given us birth. Whatever purity you possess through chastity, all the spiritual delight you take in charity, all the glory you are aware of having by despising worldliness, by labours, by vigils, by fasts, by voluntary poverty – all this comes through his teaching. Whatever progress you have made in meditation, in compunction, in prayer, in devotion and the rest of the spiritual exercises, has not all of this been brought about in you – by God’s grace – through his ministry and example? Therefore he is closer to you than the rest of the saints, so his feast ought to be for you a day of greater joy. … What does it mean to
have come into solitude? It means to consider this whole world
a desert, to desire the Fatherland, to hold on
to only as much of this world as is necessary to complete the journey,
not as much as the flesh craves. Offer sacrifices, therefore, to
God. Put to death within yourselves those things which the world
loves. Love to be insignificant for Christ, to be paupers for Christ,
to be rejected for Christ. This our blessed Father Benedict teaches
us. Follow his footsteps, his teaching, so that he may deign to
recognise you among his own, as the shepherd does his sheep, the
father his children, the master his disciples. And by his intercession
may you come to the pasture of eternal happiness, to the inheritance
of the children of God, to the joy of the disciples of Christ,
through the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ who, as God, lives
and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit through all the ages
of ages. |