And what a better way to remember and to be challenged in our daily lives by this great saint than to read what Pope Benedict XVI had to say about him even before he became pope in one of his socio-political essays:
We need men who keep their eyes fixed on God, learning from him what true humanity means.
We need men whose intellect is enlightened by the light of God, men whose hearts are opened by God, so that their intellect can speak to the intellect of others and their hearts can open the hearts of others. It is only by means of men who have been touched by God that God can return to be with mankind.
We need men like Benedict of Nursia, who, in an age of dissipation and decadence, immersed himself in uttermost solitude. Then, after all the purifications he had to undergo, he succeeded in rising again to the light. He returned and made his foundation at Monte Cassino, the “city on the hill”where, in the midst of so many ruins, he assembled the forces from which a new world was formed.
Ratzinger, Joseph. Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006), 52-53.
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