Fr Philippe Rouillard osb

Monk of Wisques

Vice-postulator for the cause of Abbot Columba Marmion
 
 
 
 

All the Abbots of the Benedictine Confederation, and those who accompanied them, experienced an exceptional Congress at Rome in September 2000. In this Holy Year, marked among other things by the beatification of Dom Columba Marmion, abbot of Maredsous from 1909-1923, it was right and proper that all the participants of the Congress should go together to the four great basilicas of Rome for the liturgical celebrations which Ð we believe Ð was without precedent in the history of our Confederation.

Saint Peter at the Vatican

On Sunday 3 September, all the abbots were gathered in the square of Saint Peter's basilica, not far from the altar where John Paul II presided over the Eucharist before proceeding to the beatification of John XXIII, Dom Marmion and the three other servants of God. Under a hot sun fortunately tempered by some clouds, we could admire the facade of Saint Peter's, carefully cleaned and restored from 1997-1999, inaugurated by John Paul II on 30 September 1999 during a ceremony which finished with fireworks covering the whole facade and rising to the sky in an extraordinary burst of light. Fortunate indeed were those who had the chance to be present at this exceptional spectacle.

We returned to Saint Peter's on Monday 4 September at the end of the afternoon to sing Vespers in the apse. On our way into the basilica we passed through the holy door, three by three, kneeling at the entrance. Through this door which only opens every twenty-five years, every Christian is invited to enter the church, but no one leaves by this door, in recognition that one day we will enter paradise without any intention of leaving it. This was the first time that we sang the office in this apse, generally reserved for the liturgy of the Chapter of Saint Peter.

Cardinal Noè, archpriest of the basilica, who shows great friendship towards the Benedictines and who shared our celebration while allowing the Abbot President to preside, spoke at the end of the office for a fraternal and, as always instructive, catechism. He pointed out that at the entrance to the apse, on the left, there is a large statue of St Benedict (the work of the sculptor Antonio Montauti in 1735): Benedict holds a crook in his left hand with the open Rule on his right arm and watches over all the liturgies celebrated at Saint Peter's.

Cardinal Noè also recalled for those abbots less familiar with monastic history, that from the beginning of the VIIth century to the Xth, the divine office was celebrated at Saint Peter's by Benedictine monks who had had to leave Monte Cassino when it was sacked by invaders from the north. The Vespers which we sang on that Monday 4 September at the dawn of the third millennium continued a Benedictine tradition from the end of the first millennium.

Here are a few details concerning this liturgical service which the sons of St Benedict gave in Saint Peter's for four centuries. About 580, as St Benedict predicted (Life, ch.17) a band of Lombards seized Monte Cassino and destroyed the monastery; the monks had to escape and found refuge in Rome where Pope Pelagius II (579-590) welcomed them and put them up first in a small monastery dedicated to St Pancras near his cathedral of the Lateran.

Very soon, he entrusted some of these monks with the celebration of the divine office at Saint Peter's in the Vatican. Since the 7th century, the basilica has been flanked by three Benedictine monasteries: SS. Peter and Paul to the north-east; behind the apse to the west, Saint Stephen the Great whose church, with a 9th century nave and a 12th century doorway, is now part of the Ethiopian College in Vatican City; and to the south-west, Saint Martin of Tours. In the 8th century Pope Stephen II (752-757) added a fourth monastery, modestly called Saint Stephen the less and situated to the south of the basilica; it lasted until the end of the 18th century when Pius VI (1775-1799) had it demolished in order to build the there the monumental sacristy which we know. But in the 10th century all the monks of these monasteries, whose proper task was to sing the office, became canons.

Saint Benedict, in the apse of Saint Peter's, must have rejoiced to see and hear his sons coming from the ends of the earth to take up this evening praise in the year 2000.

Saint Paul-outside-the-walls

On Tuesday 5 September in the morning we went by coach to Saint Paul-outside-the-walls to celebrate, under the presidency of the Abbot Primate, a Mass of thanksgiving for the beatification of Dom Marmion. Many pilgrims from Italy, Belgium, Ireland and the United Sates (in particular Mrs Patricia Bitzan who was miraculously healed in 1966 through the intercession of Dom Marmion), took part in this Mass, during which Fr Nicolas Dayez, Dom Marmion's successor as Abbot of Maredsous, gave a very beautiful homily in five languages(!); he took as his text the very appropriate declaration in the gospel of the day (Tuesday of the 22nd week): "You are the holy one of God".

Everyone knows that the basilica of St Paul is served by a community of Benedictine monks of the Cassinese Congregation which lives in the vast monastery next door. The descendants of St Benedict have been there since the 7th century, as they were at St Peter's, but here the monks were preceded by the nuns. The oldest monastery in the complex is actually a monastery of women, constructed at the beginning of the 7th century and dedicated to St Stephen; it was only a century later, at the beginning of the 8th century, that a men's monastery dedicated to St Cesarius, was also built near the basilica. This men's monastery soon absorbed the women's convent; for some time it took the name of St Stephen and St Cesarius, then it was

only known under the name of the Abbey of Saint Paul, and it is still so to this day.

It was at Saint Paul-outside-the-walls - not in the basilica destroyed by a bomb in 1823, but in the sacristy - that Dom Guéranger, who restored the Benedictines to France, made his monastic profession on 26 July 1837, after a novitiate, or rather a retreat of fifteen days. In this Holy Year 2000, Benedictines from different countries and speaking different languages came to lend a hand to the monks of Saint Paul to give the sacrament of reconciliation to the many pilgrims who requested it.

Saint John at the Lateran

In the same afternoon of 5 September, we continued our jubilee tour by going to sing Vespers in the basilica of Saint John Lateran, which is the cathedral of Rome. Having passed through the holy door, we entered the huge nave where we were welcomed by the twelve apostles whose monumental statues, recently cleaned, stand on columns in the nave.

Here again, we were in a place where the disciples of St Benedict celebrated the divine office for a long time. Two monasteries were constructed beside the basilica. The first, dedicated to Saint Pancras, seems to have been started very soon after the death of St Benedict, and was the oldest abbey to be founded in Rome; it was there - as we saw - that the monks of Monte Cassino fled from the Lombards; this monastery was to the south of the basilica, and the present cloister of Saint John Lateran, which dates from the beginning of the 13th century, is in the same place as the Benedictine cloister. The other monastery, dedicated to the apostles Andrew and Bartholomew, was founded by Pope Honorius I (625-638). It was situated near the baptistery and one can see its little church facing the entrance door of the hospital of Saint John. This two monasteries, where the monks sang the office, alternatively or simultaneously, in the cathedral of the Lateran existed until the Xth century. At this time the monks abandoned the Rule of St Benedict to adopt the canonical observance. The Chapter of canons of Saint John Lateran is thus the remote successor of the Benedictines, and here again we were in touch with an ancient tradition by coming to sing Vespers in the cathedral of Rome.

Saint Mary Major

Finally, in the evening of 8 September, on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, the abbots went to the basilica of Saint Mary Major on the Esquiline Hill. They entered by the holy door and sang Vespers of the feast. The canons of the Chapter serve the basilica assisted by the Dominicans for the sacrament of reconciliation. But from 8-10th century, it was again the Benedictines who were here. Three monasteries surrounded the basilica, of which one was dedicated to Saint Andrew, another to SS. Cosmas and Damian and the third to SS. Laurence and Adrian. It would be possible, but a bit lengthy, to give the history of these monasteries.

Rather let us conclude by saying that the abbots and the others monks who, coming from all parts of the globe and representing the Benedictine Confederation, have taken part in the Congress of this year 2000 have indeed made the pilgrimage ad limina apostolorum, to the threshold of the basilicas of the apostles Peter and Paul, to the cathedral of Rome and to one of the oldest churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary; but at the same time they have celebrated the liturgy, the Eucharist and Vespers, in the sanctuaries where, very soon after the death of St Benedict and for many centuries following, the divine office has been celebrated by Benedictine communities. Though the monks interrupted their service in these places at the end of the first millennium, other monks have taken it up again, at least for a few days, at the beginning of the third millennium.

Fr Philippe Rouillard was born in 1926 and professed in the Abbey of St Paul, Wisques (France) in 1946. He has been Professor of Sacramental Theology at Sant'Anselmo.