Prayer Life

Along with listening to God’s Word there is the commitment to prayer. The Benedictine monastery is above all a place of prayer, in the sense that everything in it is organized to make the monks attentive and responsive to the voice of the Spirit. This is why the complete celebration of the Divine Office, whose center is the Eucharist and which structures the monastic day, is the “opus Dei” in which “dum cantamus iter facimus ut ad nostrum cor veniat et sui nos amoris gratia accendat”.

The Word of Sacred Scripture inspires the Benedictine monk’s dialogue with God; in this he is helped by the austere beauty of the Roman liturgy in which this Word, proclaimed with solemnity or sung in plainchant .. The primacy of the Word is thus affirmed in life .. Once it has been accepted, the Word searches and discerns, imposes clear choices and thus brings the monk, through obedience, into the historia Salutis summed up in the Passover of Christ, who was obedient to the Father (cf. Heb 5:7-10)

It is this prayer, memoria Dei, which makes unity of life possible in practice, despite multiple activities: as Cassian teaches, these are not demeaned but are continually brought back to their centre. By extending liturgical prayer to the whole day through the free and silent personal prayer of the brothers, an atmosphere of recollection is created in the monastery in which the actual times of celebration find their full truth. In this way the monastery becomes a “school of prayer”, that is, a place where the community, by deeply encountering God in the liturgy and at various moments of the day, introduces those who seek the face of the living God to the wonders of Trinitarian life.

Pope St John Paul II

From a homily at the canonization of Saint Maria Goretti

From Maria’s story carefree children and young people with their zest for life can learn not to be led astray by attractive pleasures which are not only ephemeral and empty but also sinful. Instead they can fix their sights on achieving Christian moral perfection, however difficult and hazardous that course may prove. With determination and God’s help all of us can attain that goal by persistent effort and prayer.

So let us all, with God’s grace, strive to reach the goal that the example of the virgin martyr, Saint Maria Goretti, sets before us. Through her prayers to the Redeemer may all of us, each in his own way, joyfully try to follow the inspiring example of Maria Goretti who now enjoys eternal happiness in heaven.

Trust in God, be faithful, and trust in God!

My God, you are the source of innocence, of purity, and you have given young Maria Goretti the grace of martyrdom; please give us, thanks to her intercession, the courage for respecting your commandments like that girl who received the right reward to have defended her virginity till the death.

Pope Pius XII

Rome, June 24, 1950