On feast of St. Benedict, pope begins summer vacation

Published: 2005-07-11

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI celebrated the feast of his patron, St. Benedict, by flying to the northern Italian Alps for a July 11-28 vacation, but first he shared some reflections about the saint. Addressing visitors in St. Peter's Square July 10, the pope said St. Benedict of Norcia, the fifth- and sixth-century Italian monastic whose feast is July 11, is "a saint who is particularly dear to me, as you can intuit from my choice of his name." The monasteries founded by the saint, he said, gave life "to a fraternal community founded on the primacy of love for Christ, in which prayer and work harmoniously alternate with praise for God." He said, "Benedict did not found a monastic institution aimed principally at the evangelization of the barbarians, like other great missionary monks of his age, but taught his followers that the basic or even only aim of their existence was the search for God."

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