St Benedict Renewed Europe of Old - Today we Need Another Benedict for Renewal - the Pope

There have been different times when it has looked like mankind would collapse in on itself. God's plan in times like these is to send us saints. One of these times was in the 4th century, when bands of roving hoards of pagan tribes were attacking what was left of a corrupt and crumbling Roman empire. God's reply was to send St Benedict, who renewed the entire Church and sanctified the world with the Ora et Labora of Christ, the prayer and work of Jesus. He presented a whole new way of living the Christian life, and from the stability of monastic communities there emerged a new balanced way of living that was fundamentally Catholic. The arts, sciences, music, agriculture, and all were developed as man worshiped God in a whole new way of being human that was offered to the Lord in the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy - a whole civilization that flowed from Eucharistic worship.

What is necessary today is a similar kind of renewal, this time from another

Benedict, the Pope. Our Holy Father presents a blue print of a new civilization, a new humanity, a new way of living out the Catholic faith that is deeply in touch with that same glorious patrimony of Catholic tradition to which St Benedict had both passed on and contributed. The Pontiff inherited much of this work in our day from the great Blessed Pope John Paul II, who had given the Church a new way of presenting the ancient Catholic faith to people of our times. This is in fact what a saint does. They present Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, to our time in a completely new way.

It is up to us to keep pace with the Holy Father. To know his teachings, to understand why he insists on the reform of the reform of the Sacred Liturgy, that we may live once again a Eucharistic civilization, where all things flow from and are ordered to the only place on earth where what is human can truly be divinized and offered to God.

The Immaculate Virgin Mary helps us first and foremost to offer our hearts on the altar, and allow the sacrifice of the Lamb to transform us, and allow his blessing to send us into the same world by which he spoke of the Eucharistic fruitfulness, "I give my flesh for the life of the world" (Jn 6:51). May the prayers of St Benedict, patron of Europe, and the intercession of the Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, inspire us to follow the Lamb of God into the renewal of all mankind.