The Saints associated with St Martin's
Feast of Saint Lawrence - 10 August
Patron saint of the monks of Ampleforth
Lawrence, or Laurence, lived in third-century Rome at a time when Christianity was outlawed. As a deacon, he was responsible for alms-giving. On 6 August 258 the Emperor Valerian had Pope Saint Sixtus II and six deacons beheaded, leaving Lawrence as the senior church official. Four days later Lawrence was summoned to appear before the Prefect of Rome and told to bring the treasures of the Church with him. He arrived accompanied by beggars, the sick, and the crippled, those who survived on his charity. "These", Lawrence said, "are the treasures of the Church".
For such insolence he was sentenced to death by grilling over a slow fire. After suffering a long time, he said with a cheerful smile: "Turn me over, one side is done". The Prefect of Rome ordered this to be done, whereupon Lawrence invited him to test whether he tasted better cooked or raw. Then, having prayed for the conversion of Rome that the faith of Christ might spread from there throughout the world, Lawrence died. He was buried in Rome where the church of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura now stands. He is depicted in art with the gridiron on which he was roasted to death, and is the patron saint of deacons, librarians and archivists, and cooks.
Feast of St Martin of Tours - 11th NovemberPatron saint of St. Martin's AmpleforthMartin lived in the fourth century. In early life he was a soldier, but on becoming a Christian he left the army and embraced the monastic life. Such was his zeal and holiness that he soon acquired a considerable reputation, and has many miracles credited to him. He was chosen as bishop of the French city of Tours, and while a bishop continued to live the monastic life. In his day Christianity was still largely an urban religion, and Martin was one of the first to begin to preach to the country people in the villages around Tours; this he did with great success.The most famous episode in his life occurred while he was still young: as a soldier on patrol on a freezing winter day he entered the town of Amiens. At the gate a beggar sat, asking passers-by to have pity on him. Martin had no money with him, so he took off his military cloak and cut it in two, giving half to the beggar. A later vision of Christ confirmed that "in so far as you do this to one of the least of my brothers, you do it to me".On the feast this event is commemorated, after Mass, by a symbolic cutting of the cloak by three of the school prefects.
Feast of St. Alban Roe - 21st January
Patron saint of St. Martin's Ampleforth
Fr Alban Roe was baptised Bartholomew sometime in 1583, in Suffolk. He attended Cambridge University, and while there experienced something that caused his conversion to Catholicism.
While visiting in St Alban's, he heard that a Catholic recusant had been put in prison there for his beliefs, and chose to visit the prisoner, in order to argue him out of his superstitious ways. It did not work out like that, and the Catholic prisoner instead, persuaded Bartholomew that he needed change.
In February 1608 he took up a place in the English College (a seminary) in Douai, eager to become a priest. He was expelled in 1611, however, for criticising the principal.
It so happened that a Benedictine house was given permission to establish itself at Douai in December of 1608, and it seems likely that young Bartholomew was acquainted with it. At any rate, wishing to avoid further embarrassment in Douai, he joined the noviciate at another English monastery, St Laurence's at Dieulouard in 1613. Once ordained he went to England where he worked in secret as a priest.
In 1618 however he was imprisoned for being a priest in England - a crime which carried the death penalty. Fortunately, he was released by King James I in a general amnesty in 1623 and banished. He returned to England however, and was re-arrested in 1625 and imprisoned in St Alban's where his adventure had begun so many years before.
Luckily for him, his friends had him removed to the Fleet prison in London where circumstances were much better. Indeed, like many others, he was allowed out into the streets of London by day so long as he gave his word that he would return by nightfall. He used his freedom to minister to many.
While King Charles I governed without parliament, no imprisoned priests were executed. When the Long Parliament convened, however, the hangings began again in earnest (20 between 1641 and 1646 including Fr Alban). On the 21st January 1642, he and Fr Thomas Reynolds, a priest in his 80s, offered their last mass and were led to the gallows. They gave each other absolution.
Just before his death, Alban asked the sheriff if his life would be spared if he renounced his Catholic religion and became an Anglican. The sheriff swore he would be spared if he did. Alban then said to all: "See, then, what the crime is for which I am to die, and whether my religion be not my only treason... I wish I had a thousand lives; then would I sacrifice them all for so worthy a cause." They were allowed to hang until they were dead before being quartered.
St Alban Roe was canonised in 1970. He is one of the patron saints of St Martin's Ampleforth.
Feast of St. Benedict - 11th July
St Benedict was born in Norcia, Italy, around 480 AD.
As a young man he went to Rome for study, but was unimpressed by the quality of learning and life there. He decided to seek God alone and seek sanity in doing so. St Gregory, the Pope who wrote Benedict's biography ,describes his untutored instinct for the solitary life: scienter nescius et sapienter indoctus, (knowingly unknowing and wisely untaught).
He found a lonely mountain 40 miles from Rome at Subiaco. The gorge was wild but at its foot was a deserted memorial of Roman luxury: a pleasure villa of Nero's and an artificial lake. Benedict climbed up the cliff face and lived in a cave to be alone, to pray and to surrender his life utterly to God. The cave is still there and the monastery which was later built round it. Nero's villa, though, was in time swept away when the lake burst its dam. Nothing of it is left today.
Although Benedict sought the life of a hermit, when others sought him out for his guidance and help, he responded. Instead of the solitary search for God he taught them to seek God together in community. Benedictine monks and nuns are those who still follow that way in the strength of common prayer and a common life.
That community at Subiaco, however, did not appreciate the rigour of Benedict's way and tried to poison him. The legend says that when the saint blessed the cup of poisoned wine, it shattered miraculously. He is usually shown in images with a broken cup for this reason.
He left Subiaco and founded instead the great monastery of Monte Cassino. There he wrote his Rule for Monks, which is the only surviving writing he left. He died in 547. His life had spanned a period of dramatic change from the last uncertain flare-ups of the light of Roman order to the beginning of the Dark Ages.
The last of the barbarian invaders - the terrible Lombards - sacked Monte Cassino 34 years after Benedict's death. They left it in ruins: but this was the seed that died in order to bear fruit a hundredfold. The monks themselves escaped and carried the treasured manuscript of the Rule to Rome. The Pope helped them to re-establish themselves in a monastery on the Caelian Hill. A few years later, in 597, a monk of this community, called Augustine was sent under orders from the Pope to convert the wild and heathen inhabitants of England. Both Gregory and Augustine are regarded as secondary patrons of English Benedictines for this reason.
Anyone who believes that there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will, may be inclined to see the hand of God in the way the text of the Rule of St Benedict was preserved. To others it may seem to be no more than a matter of historical luck. But there is one strange point to be noted. The Rule was written for Benedict's own community in his own time. You might expect it to be such a product of its time that it would have become out of date long ago. Not so!
The text assumes that the Abbot should have the liberty to apply the Rule in any situation or circumstance. There is in it both a firmness of principle, and a flexibility of application that means it has continued to guide and inspire monks, nuns, and lay people too, for 1500 years.
Apart from the Rule itself, we have one other document that tells us about Benedict: the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. This is a narrative in the form of a conversation, which tells the stories of the holy men of the previous hundred years. The whole of the second book is dedicated to Benedict's life. Some have maintained that Gregory, who had been a monk before he was Pope, used Benedict's Rule himself.
The most striking feature about Benedict that Gregory highlights is the centrality of prayer. Miracles are performed through Benedict's prayer and intercession, even in his own lifetime. This reflects again the central message of the Rule: for prayer to be the beginning of any work that is done. For Benedict "nothing should be accounted of more importance than the work of God", that is, the common prayer of the community.
The snake in the chalice recalls how a poisoned cup, given to Benedict by recalcitrant monks at Vicovaro, shattered after he blessed it with the sign of the cross. He abandoned that "laura" (semi-anchoretic monastic community) and returned to the solitude of his cave at Subiaco.
