FIRST BENEDICTINE MONASTERY COMMEMORATES 1,500TH ANNIVERSARY

VATICAN CITY, JUL 11, 1999 (VIS) - The Pope wrote a letter to the abbot of Subiaco, Italy, Dom Mauro Meacci, on the 1,500th anniversary of the founding there of the first monastery by St. Benedict.

In the letter, dated July 7, the Holy Father writes that the Benedictine monastic community is called to "live the Jubilee of its 15 centuries of life and (the Jubilee) of the Holy Year as moments favorable for renewed devotion to the 'patrimony' of the holy patriarch, entering more profoundly into the original charism.

"The example of St. Benedict and of the Rule itself ... call, above all, for a testimony of persistent faithfulness to the Word of God, meditated upon and received by means of the 'lectio divina.' This presupposes keeping silence and an attitude of humble adoration before God."

John Paul II indicates that prayer "constitutes the primary source and expression of the unity of the monastic community which has its roots in the unity of faith. ... Today more than ever before, there is an urgent need to cultivate fraternal life within communities which practice a type of friendship that is no less real because it maintains those distances that safeguard the liberty of others. This is a witness that the Church expects from all religious, but most of all from monks."

"I sincerely hope," the Pope concludes, "that the celebrations marking 1,500 years since the start of monastic life in Subiaco may constitute, for this community and for the whole Benedictine Order, a renewed occasion for faithfulness to the charism of the holy patriarch and for fervor in communal life, a life of listening to the Word of God, of prayer and of commitment to announcing the Gospel, in keeping with the tradition of the congregation of Subiaco."

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