Benedict: From Sixth Century Italy to the Pacific Northwest

One great blessing about being home with my parents is that they live very near to a Benedictine monastery – I know…”What a NERD! I’d rather they live near a mall or megaplex theaters…” – No, I am glad they live near this monastery. St. Martin’s Abbey was founded in 1891, the year Salt Lake became a Diocese and roughly the days when our own Bishop Scanlan was raising the money and drawing up the plans to build his new cathedral – The Cathedral of the Madeleine. St. Martin’s Abbey was established by a larger monastery located in Minnesota. They sent a group of monks to start the new monastery in the west as greater numbers of people began to immigrate to the western United States.

The monks set themselves up in temporary quarters and immediately began an ‘apostolate’ – a 50-cent (or is it fiddy-cent?) word that means their ‘mission’, or the work they would specifically do in order to advance the Kingdom of God. In this new monastery under the patronage of St. Martin of Tours (you all remember the day that Mrs. Malinka drags around one of the younger classes singing a song about a goose or something? That is St. Martin’s Day – big in Germany even though Martin settled in what is today France!) the apostolate would be education, and they opened what would become St. Martin’s University.

St. Martin’s Abbey has over 35 monks who live by the Rule of St. Benedict, a guide for living often summed up with the motto Ora et Labora, or pray and work. Now all of you who have had my Church History Class know that I practically hyperventilate when it comes to teaching about the Rule of St. Benedict. Why? Well, I find it fascinating that this simple manual for Christian people seeking God’s kingdom and living together in community was written in the fifth century it continues to be a wildly successful guide today. There are thousands of monasteries scattered throughout the world where this rule is still used as their guide for living together.


The rule begins with the word Obsculta or Listen and continues “…carefully, my son, to the master’s instruction and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” Now I may know very little about biology and human physiology, but I do know that the heart does not have an ear! Benedict, in this strange expression is getting at one of the challenges we face throughout life – we really do not listen very well. We tend to tune out our parents, our teachers,

[I KNOW some of you think my classes sound like this..."> ]

our coaches, our friends and others. We are masters at filling up our heads and our hearts so that we don’t listen, especially the listening required for hearing the one who is closer to us than we are to our selves – God. Benedict starts with listening, because he knows that no progress will be made if people are not willing to open their hearts, examine themselves and truly listen.

How do monasteries, with a group of people locked up behind walls, serve the church today? How can they possibly fulfill their responsibility to be ‘evangelical’ or spreading the good news – news that happiness is not truly found in lives lived for consumption, greed, personal satisfaction and material possessions? These monasteries aren’t exactly media powerhouses, getting the word out in attractive, glitzy and star-powered ways? No, they quietly and steadily do their ‘ora et labora’ or prayer and work. They are like the deep roots planted to allow the vine to grow in a healthy and steady way, bearing fruit for God’s kingdom.