St benedict the moor church

J:  Wasn’t St. Benedict asked to be the abbot at an existing monastery in Subiaco? How did that go?

G:  Yes, to your first question, and not well, to your second. After that community had literally begged him to become their abbot, they regretted their eagerness.

J:  Why was that?

G:  Everyone seems to want an easy life, right, and to do what they want to do whenever it suits them.

Benedict asked the community to live by a rule that had a greater strictness from what they had been following. As I wrote in the Dialogues, “unlawful things were no longer lawful, and they were aggrieved at having to abandon their habits.”  To solve this problem, the community decided to rid themselves of this man who was cramping their style of life.

So, one day they poisoned his wine.

St benedict the moor school

But when he blessed that tainted cup, it shattered. [6]

J:  Great story! Did Benedict leave that monastery?

G:  Absolutely. He knew that if he had stayed in a place with so much resistance an