Tuesday, April 19, 2005

So There's A New Pope
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When a man becomes the Pope, he chooses a new name. Sometimes he will pick a name with political significance. More often, he will choose the name of a person or saint he admires. Cardinal Ratzinger chose Benedict. Here's some tidbits about Saint Benedict:

Benedict means blessed.
He was one of the earlier saints (c. 480-547 AD) and his life is the stuff of legends.
Supposedly he was of noble birth. He had a twin sister who became a nun. Their mother died in childbirth. He studied in Rome, but ran away to live in a cave when he saw how undisciplined the other students were. He was fed by a raven for the three years he lived as a hermit. He left the cave to lead an abbey, at their request. While there, the other monks came to despise his discipline; so they tried to poison his drink. He blessed the cup, which rendered the poison harmless. He left the abbey and went back to his cave, but people wouldn't leave him alone. He had attracted a following. So he started a monastery, which eventually became 12 monasteries. His sister (Saint Scholastica) once summoned a raging thunderstorm, in order to keep him from going home. Three days later, he saw a dove fly out of her nunnery window, and he knew she was dead.
Legends say that Saint Benedict could read consciences, make prophecies, and forestall attacks of the devil. He was known for driving demons from sacred Pagan groves, and he liked to destroy their icons and altars.

Symbols that are used in conjunction with St. Benedict include a bell, a broken cup (with or without a serpent), a crozier, a rod of discipline, and the raven.

He is the patron saint of farmers, coppersmiths, monks, speliologists (cave explorers), schoolchildren, dying people, and servants who have broken their master's belongings. You should pray to him if you're having a problem with any of the following: nettle rash, poison, witchcraft, fever, gall stones, inflammatory diseases, kidney disease, or temptations.

Needless to say, I hope the new Pope chose his name for some reason other than a desire to be like St. Benedict.

3 comments:

achromic said...

I was wondering about that name. Thanks for doing the work of looking it all up.

Optima said...

Some very interesting things there. Thankx for doing the foot-work in finding all that info. I am gonna print it out to share with the kiddos.

It seems to me that this election was really fast, thought it would of taken at least a week.

She Dances in Dragon said...

Oh, good lord! Are you sure you want to share my sarcasm with children?
Saint Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Monks, is a pretty famous guy. Finding the info wasn't hard at all. The difficulty came in telling the story without getting too snarky. 'Cause at least some of his "life" would have been added later. Like the "fact" that he could prophesize and cast out evil, but he attacked other people for doing the same thing.