Typically when we think of someone who founds a monastery, we may imagine an old man or woman who has years of experience behind them.
Yet St. Benedict, the "Father of Western Monasticism," began his first experiments with monastic life when he was around 20 years old.
Into the wilderness
St. Benedict did not plan to found a monastery when he fled 40 miles from the city of Rome and found a cave near Subiaco, Italy.
Initially he lived the life of a hermit after meeting the abbot of a nearby monastery, as the Catholic Encyclopedia explains:
Benedict met a monk, Romanus, whose monastery was on the mountain above the cliff overhanging the cave. Romanus had discussed with Benedict the purpose which had brought him to Subiaco, and had given him the monk's habit. By his advice Benedict became a hermit and for three years, unknown to men, lived in this cave above the lake.
This solitude did not last long, as "on the death of the abbot of a monastery in the neighborhood ... the community came to him and begged him to become its abbot."
He eventually consented, but it did not go well as the community tried to poison him.
A grain that bore fruit
But soon St. Benedict was surrounded by a new group of men and went on to found several monasteries in the area.
St. John Paul II commented on this remarkably wise young man in a letter to the Abbot of Subiaco in 1999:
Illumined by divine light, Benedict became a beacon and guide for poor shepherds in search of faith and for devout people who needed direction in the way of the Lord. After a further period of solitude and difficult trials, 1,500 years ago, when he was barely 20 years old, he founded the first Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, not far from the Sacro Speco.
In this way the grain of wheat that had chosen to hide itself in the soil of Subiaco and to waste away in penance for love of Christ, gave rise to a new model of consecrated life, becoming a fruitful ear of wheat.
This experience would lay the foundation for what would later become the Rule of St. Benedict and the official Order of St. Benedict.
St. Benedict was wise beyond his years and everyone could sense his openness to the Holy Spirit and receptivity to the will of God in his life.
