Sr. Sandra (left) and Sr. Lynne traveled to Rome this past summer.

Sr. Lynne and Sr. Sandra's
Pilgrimage to Rome—2006 part 4

"True pilgrims contemplate with the lenses of their eyes and the lenses of their hearts. They are able to gaze upon, to reverence, to go slowly, to seek treasures that do not rust, to move around the holy ground of the holy sites with staff in hand and bare feet."

This month, we’re continuing a series of articles on our website to share with you highlights from the Benedictine pilgrimage and renewal experience in which Sr. Sandra and I participated in June and July 2006.

The third Benedictine site outside of Rome that we visited on our pilgrimage was the monastery of Monte Cassino. It is located high atop a mountain about 80 miles south of Rome on the way to Naples. St. Benedict founded this monastery about 529 on the remnants of a Roman fortification. A heathen cult was still practiced there in a temple of Apollo and in a nearby holy grove. Here is a picture of a statue of Benedict being held up by two of his monks as he died. The statue is in the monastery garden and is said to be located at the site where there was originally a pagan altar that Benedict destroyed.

The monastery of Monte Cassino was destroyed a number of times in its history. About 577, the Longobards destroyed it. In the early eighth century Pope Gregory II had it rebuilt. This began a period of great splendor for the abbey. Over the years many famous monks came to the monastery, the saxon monk Villibald, Sturmius, disciple of St. Boniface, and Anselm among others. In 787, Charlemagne came to visit and granted the abbey vast privileges.

In 883, the Saracens invaded and sacked and burned the monastery causing the death of the abbot. The surviving monks fled and monastic life only resumed there again toward the middle of the tenth century. The third destruction came about due to an earthquake in 1349.

On February 15, 1944, the abbey was destroyed by allied bombs during World War II, because the allies mistakenly thought the Germans were hiding in it. Here is a picture of a wall along a stairway from the lower chapel which was not destroyed to the upper level of the church. On the wall are fragments found in the rubble after the bombing.  

After the war it took nine years to rebuild the monastery which was possible because a monk-engineer had made a complete plan of the buildings before the war. Hundreds of drawings, designs and sketches that escaped destruction in the monastery library also aided in reconstructing the abbey as it had been. The Italian State financed the reconstruction and continues to maintain the abbey.

Here is a picture of a Polish cemetery seen from the abbey. The cemetery contains the remains of soldiers killed in the war. In the picture, you can also see the storm clouds that came up while we were in the monastery. The rainstorm reminded us of Benedict and Scholastica’s last meeting when Scholastica prayed that her brother would stay with her through the night talking about spiritual matters. When Benedict refused, a rainstorm broke out that made it impossible for Benedict to return to his monastery. The storm over Monte Cassino didn’t last long the afternoon we visited. We moved indoors to tour the museum of manuscripts and artifacts from the monastery over the ages.

I wish you peace in the coming month, and leave you with a picture of the entrance to the monastery with the Latin inscription above it: PAX.

Next month I will write about some of the apse mosaics we saw in churches in Rome.