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Good morning. When in 1944, the Allies鈥� flags flew over the ruins of the monastery at Monte Cassino, it signalled the end of a fierce battle and a bitter victory that cost the lives of tens of thousands. One of those who fought there was my own grandfather: afterwards he could never bring himself to speak of the horrors he witnessed.
Those terrible events would have been unimaginable in the fifth century, when Monte Cassino was the home of Saint Benedict, a monk who established a community there and wrote a rule to bring order and structure to the monks鈥� lives.That rule is full of practical wisdom and even today people from very different walks of life look to its balance of prayer, work, community and service to orientate their own lives.One of the pillars of Benedict鈥檚 rule is peace. The prologue states: 鈥淟et peace be your quest and your aim.鈥澛�
It is tragic that a place like Monte Cassino, founded for the pursuit of peace, should have known such violence and bloodshed. But that terrible contrast reminds us that peace is a choice we all have to make, day by day, in our relationships and our dealings with each other.聽
Despite the personal trauma he had faced, my grandfather, and many others like him, responded after the war by choosing to 鈥渕ake peace his quest鈥�: something he lived out in his family life every day.
Few of us today live in monasteries, but I think we can agree with Benedict on the necessity of choosing to make peace our quest and aim by practical choices, not only in our personal lives, but also in our families, communities and the world.
St Benedict composed the following prayer: Almighty God, give me wisdom to perceive you, intelligence to understand you, diligence to seek you, patience to wait for you, eyes to behold you, a heart to meditate upon you and life to proclaim you. Amen.鈥�