St. Benedict
He left the loud city for a cave. People followed him there.
Benedict was a student in Rome when he decided the whole place was too loud to think in, so he walked out and went to live in a cave in the hills.
That was supposed to be the end of the story. Instead people kept finding him. They wanted to live the way he lived, so he wrote down some rules, and the rules were short and unglamorous and mostly about praying and working and eating together at normal times.
Monks are still living by that little book nearly fifteen hundred years later. His whole idea was that holiness does not require anything fancy. Ora et labora. Pray and work. That is the entire program.
St. Benedict facts for kids
- His motto was ora et labora, pray and work
- His twin sister is a saint too. St. Scholastica.
- The Rule he wrote is still followed by monks worldwide, ~1,500 years on
- Patron saint of Europe, and of students
Feast day: July 11 · Patron of Europe and students
St. Benedict, help me do today's ordinary work with love.
We mailed this one
St. Benedict wrote a letter to the kids on our list, and it went out with a hand-drawn prayer card, a sticker, and an 8-page zine.
See St. Benedict's letter