PATRON SAINT The patron saint of the IHS Academy is Saint Benedict, the founder of western monasticism and one of the first monastic schools. Saint Benedict was born in the year 480, at Nursia, a city in southern Italy. He was descended from the Anicians, a noble Roman family which numbered among its members most renowned men: senators, generals and even saints. His father's name was Eupropius, his mother's Abundantia; his pious and holy twin sister, whom he cherished with tender affection his life long, was called Scholastica. The early years of Benedict were spent at the home of his parents. Even as a boy, he was distinguished for his earnestness and deep piety. Saint Gregory relates of him that even in his youth he manifested the mind and disposition of a mature man, with morals far beyond his age; he despised the amusements of the world and never permitted his heart to be defiled by sensual pleasures. When Benedict had passed his childhood years, his parents placed him in the schools of Rome to have him educated in the fine arts. But now came the turning point in his life. When he saw that many of his companions in the great metropolis were giving themselves up to vice and precipitating themselves into the abyss of destruction, he fled from the world and its corruption. God calling him to higher things and the dangers of the world prompting him to leave it, he quit Rome at the age of fourteen years to seek salvation and perfection in solitude. Benedict left the schools and resolved to betake himself to the solitude, accompanied only by his nurse, who most tenderly loved him. Coming therefore to a place called Affile and remaining for some time in the church of Saint Peter, at the charitable invitation of many virtuous people who lived there for devotion. But Benedict, more desirous to suffer afflictions than covetous of praise, and rather willing to undergo labors for the honor of God than to be extolled with the favors of this world, fled secretly from his nurse to a remote place in the desert called Subiaco, about forty miles from Rome. The man of God, lived here for the space of three years in solitude. He then arrived at Monte Cassino in the year of Our Lord 529 and started one of the very first monastic schools. It was the same year in which Justinian closed the schools of philosophy in Athens, which, by this time had become useless and dangerous fields for empty battles of words. Saint Benedict's school, that is, an association of monks and students in the service of the Lord, lived communally in the fullest sense, where any personal egoism was banned. Their life was organized around the Divine Liturgy, having as a foundation stone against any deviation. Thus the company of monks, under the Rule of Saint Benedict, read, tilled the soil and exercised the arts in the midst of a great society that was coming apart through paganism and barbarism. PRAYER TO SAINT BENEDICT May the intercession of the Blessed Patriarch and Abbot Benedict render Thee merciful unto us, O Lord, that what our own unworthiness cannot obtain, we may receive through his powerful patronage. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.