The feast day of Saint Benedict will be celebrated this Friday! I am looking forward to our family vacation to Mount Angel Abbey to celebrate this feast day and the Saint Benedict Festival with the monastic community.

In 2006, when I first stepped foot onto the property, the seminary had an overflow of seminarians, so they placed the first year men in Subiaco, a trailer of rooms located at the base of the property right next to the monastic cemetery.

That initial year, I met Father Martin Grassel, OSB. He lived with us at Subiaco. He modeled prayer for us as we sat at the Subiaco porch and prayed Compline. We were visited by a certain pregnant cat who Father Martin adopted. He named her Cecilia. I remember the evening when I was awaken by the moans of Cecilia to find a liter of kittens in a makeshift home that Father Martin made for her in the porch. The friendship between Father Martin and Cecilia lasted for many years.

Later in the year, we moved into Anselm Hall. Father Martin lived right across from me. He often had his room lights on as early as 4am. I knew at that time, he was up praying. While my eyes were often still struggling to stay open, I opened my door to make my way to the communal showers only to find Father Martin opening his door at the same time with Cecilia leading the way.

Father Martin, while often quiet and reserved, was a joy to be with. He later become my formation director as Cecilia sat on his lap or played around in his office. These days, Father Martin works as general manager and head brewer at Benedictine Brewery located at the bottom of the hilltop.

This is a snapshot into the vast memory bank of my hilltop stories. The Benedictine spirit is something I treasure in my heart. What was it about Saint Benedict that made his spirituality attractive?

Pope Saint John Paul II called Saint Benedict a luminous star. He was radiant during a time when values and institutions were comprised at the fall of the Roman Empire. Benedict emphasized the values of the individual, the dignity of work, and priority of prayer. Benedict proposed an invitation to the interior life. We must first know ourselves, go deep into the depths of who we are, we encounter the living God through work, silence, and a contemplative way of life.

There is a saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. Benedict would agree. We must always place ourselves before God who lives in us, meet him in our work, do away with the noise of the world, and understand the signs of the the times.