Norcia

Norcia's main square, with the Basilica of Saint Benedict in the center right.

Last weekend the other Little Rock seminarians and I took a trip to Norcia (known in ancient times as Nursia), a town in southeastern Umbria on the border of the Marche, overshadowed by the Sibillini Mountains, part of the Apennines. It was the monthly travel weekend for the NAC students, and it was a chance for us Little Rock guys to spend some time together and get out of Rome for a bit.

Norcia is the birthplace of St. Benedict, the founder of western monasticism and the author of one of the more famous religious documents in history, his eponymous "Rule" for monastic life. Not much is known of his life; the information that is known comes from a biography written by Pope St. Gregory the Great around the end of the sixth century. Benedict and his twin sister Scholastica, also a saint, were born in Norcia about 480 and probably belonged to a noble family. Benedict was educated in Rome but eventually left there disillusioned by the immorality he witnessed in the lives of his fellow students. He retired to the hills east of Rome and lived in a cave as a hermit for several years near Subiaco, named after the artificial lake that Nero built for his personal baths and summer villa, both in ruins at the time of Benedict. Eventually, because of his holiness and his reputation as a worker of miracles, he began to instruct disciples that came to him in the monastic life. He founded some twelve communities, the first and most famous at Monte Cassino, and lived at a 13th where he taught some monks personally. Though each community had a superior, he remained the abbot of all of them. If you want to know more about Benedict's life, you can read a good summary of Gregory the Great's biography.


Around the year 530, he wrote a monastic rule, a set of precepts intended to guide the monks in their monastic vocation. Monasticism had long been prevalent in the East ever since the time of St. Anthony of the Desert but, before Benedict, had never really caught on in the West in any organized manner. Benedict's rule was decidedly more moderate than many of the Eastern rules because he felt it was more important to live a simple and moderate rule well than to fail at following a more stringent manner of life. The Rule of St. Benedict taught that a monk's daily work should be occupied with two tasks, Ora et labora, "Pray and work." It also preached the virtues of obedience (to one's superior), stability (not moving from place to place), and chastity (remaining celibate). Benedict stressed that hospitality should be shown to all visitors, each of whom should be greeted as Christ himself, and that education of the youth was a worthwhile enterprise for larger communities. Because of this, the university tradition is often originally traced back to Benedict because the earliest universities were connected to and sustained by monasteries. Few men in Christian history, or even Western history in general, have had as far-reaching and long-lasting influence as St. Benedict, although it seems fairly clear that he was unaware his legacy would be so significant.

We made our way to Norcia, hoping to gain a bit better insight into this man and the tradition he started. Although the birthplace of Benedict, Norcia did not have a Benedictine community present there for a long time. About ten years ago, however, a group of American Benedictines, seeking to live a more complete adherence to the Rule, founded a community at the Basilica of Saint Benedict, built atop the ruins of the house where he was born. We were fortunate enough to experience the hospitality of these simple and holy (and English-speaking!) monks, joining them for meals and their various hours of prayer and lodging in their guest rooms.

A display at one of Norcia's pork shops -- complete with pig heads, dried bladders, dried shanks, and lots of meat

Norcia is known for its rich, hearty food. Two particular specialties are tartufi, truffles (usually black), and cinghiale, wild boar, and there are various forms of each found throughout the area. The aroma of the latter is especially prevalent around town, which is, depending on the meat's present stage of preparation, either a good or a bad thing. We sampled some at dinner one of the nights, though, and it was quite tasty, much stronger in taste than traditional pork sausage. Norcia is also known as the birthplace of norcina, a delicious pasta sauce, cream-based and made with sausage and mushrooms.

The monastic community with which we stayed is, as I mentioned, quite new and fairly small, although it is growing at a steady pace. In fact, their current quarters will not house them much longer, and thus the community has recently purchased a dilapidated 18th-century Capuchin monastery, now nearly destroyed through neglect and earthquakes, and the land on which it sits. On Sunday, we journeyed to the place, located a few miles outside of town and on the slope of the mountains. There's a lot of work to be done, as you can see from the pictures, but the community hopes that in the future the land will house a new monastery for them and thus further continue the long history that the Benedictine tradition has in the area.

The dilapidated Capuchin monastery which the Benedictines in Norcia hope to refurbish or replace.

Once an abbey corridor, now overtaken by nature.

I think the view was the selling point.

It was a nice weekend -- prayerful, relaxing, and free from the many demands and distractions which seem, at times, to be never-ending here in Rome. I was grateful for the chance to spend some time with my diocesan brothers and to learn a little more about St. Benedict and the important tradition that he founded, so influential and so central to the history of the wider Church.