It is to St Gregory the Great that we owe the ‘Dialogues’, in which is to be found the only ‘Life’ we have of St Benedict.

Here is the beginning of this work: ‘There was a man of venerable life, blessed by grace, and blessed in name, for he was called “Benedictus” or Benedict. From his younger years, he always had the mind of an old man; for his age was inferior to his virtue. All vain pleasure he despised, and though he was in the world, and might freely have enjoyed such commodities as it yields, yet he esteemed it and its vanities as nothing’. These words have been ‘worked in’ to the liturgy for St Benedict, and thus are familiar to all Benedictines.

A monk himself, he nevertheless had a missionary heart and he was the Pope who sent Augustine to England to evangelise the Anglo Saxons in 597.

May he pray for us, and may God bless you this day.