MARCH 21 FEAST OF SAINT BENEDICT

If there is anything to remember about Benedict of Nursia, it is that he did not purport to be a wonder worker. He did not stump miracles. So, the setting of this story is an interesting one. One day Benedict was working in the fields when one of the local farmers came running to the monastery carrying the dead body of his only son. Beside himself with grief, the father begged Benedict to bring his son back to life. Benedict was reluctant even to try. “Stand back, Brothers,” he said to the monastics there. “Only the Holy Fathers, the Apostles, raise from the dead.” The message was a clear one: our work is to be mindful, perhaps, but our work is not to be miracle workers.

And then Benedict asked the question that gives us pause. “Why,” he said to the distraught farmer, “are you trying to avoid what befalls us all?” Death, he implied starkly, is a part of life.

But the farmer would not relent. This boy was his past and his future, the center of his world. Enraged, he swore at Benedict and refused to leave until Benedict did what he could to reverse his life’s tragedy.

And Benedict understood. He threw himself down beside the boy, prayed his heart out, and the boy stirred to life again.

It is a story of human suffering and human response that is repeated every day of our lives. The implications are clear:

Every day the suffering of the world look to the secure of the world to do something to save them from even more disaster.

No one has a right to preach platitudes to the poor. We must each do something in their regard.

It is not our job to work miracles, but it is our task to try.

Death is indeed a necessary part of life, but everything that looks dead is not and, in fact, may really be the beginning of new life in us.

—from The Radical Christian Life: A Year with Benedict by Joan Chittister (Liturgical Press)