Author: Odon De Castro

The monastic life is patterned on the Holy Family, who lived together for 30 years in what we describe as the “hidden life of Christ.” The word “hidden” is why monasteries have walls. St. John Chrysostom has a treatise on how to live the monastic life, as he described it, within the family. Hans Urs von Balthasar described the early life of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, the little flower, as monastic in its rigor and discipline.

There is nothing special about monastifc life. It was first instituted for Christians who wanted to live the Gospel seriously. It was not meant, only, for religious, priests or nuns. It was, in fact, first instituted for lay people. Charlemagne was described as to have imposed it on his kingdom.

And so, since monastic life is simply the life of the Gospel lived by laymen, it is a formula for the family and for the local church to attain maturity of faith.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton noted that the family is the only institution in the world that one enters into freely and out of love. No other human institution may be described thus. Well, the monastery is, also, a place where one enters freely and out of love for God and neighbor. Both are described as the pillars or foundation of any society. Both are the foundation of Christian civilization.

The Latin title of Pope Benedict XVI, “Gloria Olivae,” in the list of St. Malachy, had sparked conjectures on the impending end of the world, since “gloria olivae” is the second to the last Pope in the list.

Well, for those who die, that is the end of the world for them. Let us not deal with all the complications of raptures and the following millenium; nor attempt to note dates. What St. Peter said is enough for us. We prepare for our death or the end times with a pure heart and an unblemish soul. That’s all. We leave everything else to the Providence of God.

The Benedictine way of life, which tragically is not reflected in many monasteries today, is supposed to show the union of three visions: the vision of the life in the monastery, the celebration of the liturgy of the Mass and the Apocalyptic vision of heaven. The life in the monastery is the process by which one purifies his heart, the mass is the sacrament by which he expresses his communion with the will of God, and hopefully this will make him deserving to be part of the joys in heaven as portrayed in the Apocalypse.

Catholics do not look at the end times the way other Christians do. The concern of other Christians is on the chastisements, the raptures, the dates, the scientific explanations and the anti-christ. Unfortunately, Catholics are not interested at the end times at all. But one’s true concern must be in preparing one’s soul to face the Divine Judge with a pure heart and unblemish soul. And this the soul does through a fervent monastic life, by daily expressing his desire in the Divine Liturgy with the hope of being part of that heavenly host pictured in the Apocalyse. In this sense, a true Christian soul lives in the sacrament of the present moment, a witness to the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and hopeful of eternal life in heaven.

The PAROUSIA is the combination of a way of life in communion with God’s will, the celebration of the Liturgy that expresses the desire to be in communion with God’s will and the hope that one attains eternal life in communion with God in heaven.

St. Malachy assigned the latin phrase “Gloria Olivae” to the Pope after “de labore solis.” Ronald Knox, convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism, who later on became a Catholic priest, in his homily on the feast of St. Benedict observed that the Benedictine way of life was the way to obtain the peace of Christ, which the world could not give. And so the word “peace” had been the singular trademark of the Benedictines.

I studied in a Benedictine Monastery and the word “Pax” was all over the place. It was on top of door posts, on vestments, on stationaries, on the floor tiles. And the word was framed by two olive branches. This was standard symbol in Benedictine monasteries. And Knox noted that there is only one other place that has the same word plastered all over. And that is in a cemetery. The Benedictine monastery is meant to be a place where one becomes dead to the world to be alive in Christ. Thus the comparison.

Because the Benedictine monks lived in such a way enabled them to combine the wisdom of the Greeks, the skills of the Romans and the religion of the Jews which today is exemplified in Western Civilization. Christian Europe was the product of Benedictine monasteries. Europe was raised from the darkness of paganism to the bright light of Christian Civilization by the followers of St. Benedict.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is aware that the whole world had sunked back into paganism. And he knows of no other way to raise the world back to the light of Christ except in the way St. Benedict of Nurcia did it before… by the sparks of little monastic communities living the maturity of their faith.

He was no Benedictine. And “gloria olivae” did not refer to any Benedictine. The latin phrase referred to a way of life by which we can gain the peace of Christ which the world cannot give – “PAX”. Ronald Knox reminds us that this is an inheritance given by God to the Benedictines, who once upon a time raised civilization from paganism to Christianity. St. Benedict did it once. Cardinal Ratzinger knows of no other way of doing it. Bent on doing exactly the way St. Benedict did it, he takes the name of “Benedict” as his papal name.

One sister of our Lay Benedictine monastery wished that Cardinal Ratzinger would be Pope but was not certain of the Holy Spirit’s choice. But she seemed to have gotten an insight into St. Malachy’s prophesies. She blurted out, almost with certainty, the next Pope will have to take the name “Benedict.” She got it right on the name. And she got Card. Razinger to boot.

The sun shines and sheds its normal light and heat. Imagine if it has to give more light and heat. As of now, we have the right amount of light and heat. Though Rome is too hot during summer.

The prophecies of St. Malachy, now familiar with so many, assigns the short latin phrase “de labore solis” to Pope John Paul II who just passed away. Prophecies are easier to interpret either when they are happening or have already happened. It can describe many things; the origin of birth of the Pope, his coat of arm or the manner in which he served as Pope. In the case of Pope John Paul II “de labore solis” describes how he served his office.

Pope John Paul labored in making the message of Christ known. He wrote much and traveled much. He met with all religions. Even when he was weakened by his illness, his efforts to continue with his task was heroic. He was like the sun attempting to bring the light with great effort to an unbelieving world. And after he passed away comments were… he showed the world that the Christian solution is the only solution, or at least the more reasonable alternative.
This was evident to all who attended his funeral. It is admirable that St. Malachy had described the efforts of John Paul II the way the head of states did. Don’t you think “de labore solis” fitted him well?

Pope Benedict XVI does not expect busloads of both converts and born Catholics to be flocking to the standard of the Catholic Church. He expects them to come in trickles.

To establish small communities of souls with mature faith, one has to expect a few to come in. A big crowd will be unmanageable and, nearly impossible to attain mature faith. And like the Chosen people in the Old Testament, they have to be separated from the rest of the world. The Jews did not observed this necessary separation, so they found themselves, constantly, contaminated by the paganism of their neighbor.

We are surrounded by modern paganism, which is worst than the paganism of old. And this for only one reason. The modern pagans came from the Catholic Church. They could only be worst than the first pagans because the corruption of the best is the worst.

Pope Benedict XVI enunciated that we are faced with a crisis of great proportions, because it is not merely a social or economic crisis but a spiritual one. Of course, the Catholic Church has a catholic solution to all problems but will man take up that solution or invent his own, once more.

We have a crisis of faith wherein the very existence of God is being denied, not by any logical reasoning but a way of life that excludes everything divine from the human picture of the world. The thought of God is an obstacle to man’s desire for instant pleasures. It has to go.

The crisis is world wide, including in known Catholic nations. It had been existing for many centuries but the Catholic intelligentsia noticed it only at the beginning of the first world war. The Jesuit spiritual writer Coleridge, Gilbert K. Chesterton, Hilaire Beloc noticed it and wrote about it. They described it as a return to paganism. Pope Benedict described it as the dictatorship of relativism.

St. Benedict of Nursia promulgated in his Rule that the monks should stay inside a monastery. The walls are his protection against the encroachment of the world. He must not leave the walls that protect him from the corrupting influence of the world that has turned pagan. He can only grow in maturity of faith inside the walls.

And it is their maturity of faith inside the monastery that will attract outsiders to follow and be one with them. They cannot, ordinarily, go out and recruit. The pagan world will swallow them up. So when St. Boniface and his small community went to Germany to evangelize them, he followed the same procedure. He brought the monks there to live a community and monastic life hoping that the German pagans would be attracted to the life and join them.

Today, both Benedictine monks and nuns had committed the fatal mistake of leaving the safety of the monastery to go out and “save” the world. Most of them, if not all had been swallowed by the paganism of our world.

The new Pope took “Benedict” as his Papal name. This spells the way he will run the Church, a sure model of the early Church that, once upon a time, evangelized Europe. St. Benedict of Nursia is one of the patron saints of Europe. His monk, St. Boniface, and a small community evangelized Germany. And the Benedictines are known in Bavaria. There are twelve Benedictine monasteries there. So Joseph Ratzinger would have been acquainted with the order.

His contacts with the Benedictines in Italy, specially in Monte Casino and Subiaco, had made him a familiar figure in their monasteries. But it was the theologically minded Pope that saw the spirituality of the order and the keen realization that this spirituality is the solution to the present evil of relativism that has engulfed the Catholic world, that inspired him to choose the name “Benedict” as his papal name. His plans for the future of the Catholic Church is 1,500 years old.