mind, and contain the genetic material of my own personality, history, beliefs, and sense of humor. If given proper watering and cultivation by you in the form of reading and perhaps even praying about them, I hope you will observe them grow, and perhaps even sprout roots and furnish you with vitalizing intellectual and spiritual nutrients. If they don’t accomplish this admittedly grandiose purpose, at least I can take comfort knowing that I did a little digging in the garden of my soul, and harvested much fruit for myself in the process.
God bless,
Fr. Thomas
1. Heaney, “Digging,” 3–4.
2. Esposito, Letters of Fire, xi–xii.
3. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 38.
4. Ibid., 139.
Saint Benedict5
To my dear abbot, gratia Benedictus et nomine,
Please consider me a son who has listened to his father’s instructions for a mere decade, and has tried, with small success, to incline the ear of his heart to them. What I cannot show by obedient actions, I can attempt to express in gratitude through these poor but fervent words. The centuries separating us have vindicated your wisdom and faithful insight, both of which are timeless because they guide time-bound souls to the eternal God. A desire to inquire deeper into your monastic wisdom has prompted me to write you today.
In your Rule, you regard the gyrovague monk, always restless and bound to no permanent home, as the most wretched creature on earth. I often think of the possible scorn you would heap on me for my frequent travels. When I joined my monastery, I did not foresee the great amount of roaming I would have the privilege to undertake (always with my abbot’s permission, of course!). In fact, I like to joke that I made my vow of stability on an airplane 30,000 feet above land (though considering your disposition against boisterous laughter, I doubt you would approve of such frivolity)!
I can assure you that I have but one monastic home to which I happily return after each voyage, but I have spent a significant amount of time outside the cloistered paradise of my abbey in Texas. I do not apologize for my travels, though, because among the myriad blessings I have received as a Cistercian monk on the go, standing in the places you graced with your presence rank among the highest. I have scaled the massive heights of Monte Cassino on multiple occasions, climbing switchbacks to venerate your mortal remains, as well as those of your sister, Saint Scholastica, who is buried next to you.
Almost 1,500 years after your death, the monks living there were forced to flee as the Nazi army took command of the majestic mountain on which the abbey stands. The American army, trying to reach Rome from the south, bombed the monastery to heaps of rubble in March of 1944, thinking that the Germans still occupied it. The dreaded Nazis had, in fact, evacuated just before the shelling began. Sadly, the church and monastic cells were pummeled and destroyed. Only the crypt, containing your remains and those of Scholastica, emerged intact.
Fortunately, the Americans eventually seized Rome, and the Allied forces gradually secured a total triumph over the Nazi regime in Europe. Thanks to the Marshall Plan, a strategic effort to rebuild the continent ravaged by war, Monte Cassino was restored to its former glory; the cornerstone of the reconstructed church has “1949 AD” inscribed on it. I once went on a tour of the grounds with a group of Cistercians from various parts of the globe. When the guide described the Allied bombing of Monte Cassino, everyone glared at me, the lone American, with mostly feigned anger. But one elderly Italian woman with sharp elbows nudged me and shoved a picture book depicting the devastation under my nose. Her face was contorted into an accusatory snarl; I translated her menacing glance as, “Look whatchya did, ya little jerk!” Sheer charity prevented me from reminding her to be grateful that she spoke Italian and not German.
This is not, however, the only Benedictine rebuilding project I wish to share with you.
Monte Cassino is undoubtedly a glorious and sacred place. It is a city set on a hill, and its white stones transmit inspired light to all who pass by. You finished writing your Rule for monks while guiding the community there as abbot during the last years of your life. My favorite place to follow in your footsteps, though, is the cave where you first found refuge from the noise and distraction of the world. The bus ride to Subiaco, east of Rome, takes about 80 minutes, and ends at the foot of the modern town. I always brought at least one fellow monk along with me when I visited. My confreres and I would amble up the gradual road to the base of the mountain where you made your first retreat from the world. The climb to Sacro Speco, your holy cave, is shortened by a rocky trail leading more directly upward than the winding road used by automobiles. Your humble cave was eventually engulfed by a modest monastery and church complex, but the silence you craved is still available today, in spite of frequent tourists and pilgrims.
I must point out a humorous example of the rivalry amongst your spiritual sons, one enshrined in the church above Sacro Speco. You have heard from the heavenly newsroom, I presume, that your Benedictine Order became rich and lax in the centuries following your death, and was reformed in the twelfth century by a group of men who came to be called Cistercians. One of the Benedictine monks decorating the Subiaco church in the fourteenth or fifteenth century got the brilliant idea to portray the enmity between his Order and the renegade reformers in paint. In the frescoes depicting scenes from your life lining the main nave of the church, that artist-monk put the black-and-white Cistercian habit on the wicked monks who tried to poison you. The distracted monk pulled out of choir by the devil also sports those same robes. The proud Cistercian in me objects to the roguish treatment we received at the hands of your black-robed children, not to mention the anachronism of Cistercians living during your lifetime!
My favorite spot in Subiaco stands below Sacro Speco, about halfway between your cave and the gorgeous waterfall and lagoon where you obtained water. A complex of ruined brick buildings lies beside the road. According to tradition, this was originally the site of Emperor Nero’s summer estate—the same Nero who unleashed a vicious persecution of Christians by scapegoating them for the fire which ravaged Rome in AD 64. By the time you arrived on the historical scene in the early sixth century, the place had been abandoned for many years. The story goes that when you began to attract disciples to share your solitary life, you realized that you would have to relinquish the peace of Sacro Speco, and a larger communal home needed to be found. You apparently did not search very far for such a place—you and your first followers inhabited the remains of Nero’s house, and requisitioned it for your prayerful purposes.
The magnitude of that historical fact struck me quite powerfully as I stood before those brick fragments. It prompted me to compose a poem when I returned to Rome that day. Though poor in form, it is rich in the zeal I tried to channel for your monastic house. The first part of the poem, which I simply titled “Subiaco,” treats of your moving in and the gradual explosion of monastic life inspired by your example:
The man of God removed himself once more.
The world was lost, now Sacro Speco too;
His dwelling with himself could not be kept
A secret light submerged in silent caves.
He took his heart, a bursting flame, and stood
Above; not far below, he found a heap
Which Nero, devil’s fire, once
