That inspiring Subiaco

Recently Dame Inspiration drove me to Subiaco, Italy, which is about 40 miles east of Rome. Subiaco is a very sacred place for the Benedictine family because it was a very young Saint Benedict who came to this place.

Benedict was a student in Rome but the teenager was so put off by the rowdy immorality of the city that he set out on his own. He came to Subiaco. The cave where Benedict lived for about three years is still there and is now a monastic shrine. Today you can see part of it. Anyone passing by this area back in those days and heard about a teenager living in a cave might have thought that this poor young man had lost his mind. However, from that strange beginning came the Benedictine movement which, in time, re-civilised Europe.

The stability lost at the end of the Roman Empire was restored largely through the Benedictine movement. Who would have guessed that this kid, living in a cave, on the hillside, was the seed from which would come the reflowering of western civilisation. The fact that we still read texts by Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Sophocles, and Aeschylus is due, largely, to patient Benedictine monks. They were the ones who transcribed these works from the ancient world.

Prevalent in Subiaco is the master seed principle. In other words, how truly great things come from every small beginnings. Among the wonderful things present in Subiaco are the frescoes from the 13th and very early 14th century. They are very much like those of the period of Giotto. In fact their style resembles to them. A short time ago these beautiful frescoes were beautifully restored. In one of these frescoes there is a portrait of Pope Innocent III. This early 13th century Pope was one of the most important Roman Pontiffs in history. He was the Pope who called the Fourth Lateran Council and inaugurated the Franciscan movement. There is also a wonderful portrait of Saint Francis himself in these frescoes. It is totally credible that Francis would have come to a place like this. And there is a portrait down the fresco which they say it is done from life. So there he is! And it is still very fresh looking! It is incredible how one is struck by that powerful figure!

What the Benedictines gathered over many centuries the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Mendicant Orders scattered. Thus the grain that was stored by this great contemplative tradition was then spread by the Mendicant preaching Orders. In all this, there is a certain tidal equality within the Church’s life. There is a tide that comes in and goes out. There are certain moments in the Church’s life when we regroup and retrench. We hunker down so as to preserve revelation and the best of secular culture, and so on. And then comes the moment when we go out in a more missionary spirit.

Hence, by hunkering down in his cave, Saint Benedict and the whole Benedictine movement represent that sort of patient contemplative act of hanging on to the wealth of the tradition. But then there might be other moments in the Church’s life when we go forth. After Vatican II, the tide was going out. It was going out to meet the world. It was getting out of the confines of the Church to be in dialogue with the culture. Having said that, one begins to wonder if there is still time for a certain retrenchment now. Are we going through a time, to some degree, of a civilizational crisis, not unlike the one Saint Benedict faced when we too have to remember to hunker down, to hang on to what is good and true, beautiful and endurable in the great tradition?

Let us not forget that a too open attitude can lead to a loss of identity. Can we take from Subiaco a renewed inspiration and perhaps rededicate ourselves to a study, a prayerful consideration of our great Catholic tradition?

Thus, hunkering down and going out, the tide coming in and going out is part of the rhythm of the Church’s life.