Description

Oil Dedicated to St Benedict (Protector of Crops)

St Benedict Protector Crops, in full Saint Benedict of Nursia, Nursia also spelled Norcia, (born c. 480 CE, Nursia [Italy]. Died c. 547, Monte Cassino; feast day July 11, formerly March 21). Founder of the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino and father of Western monasticism. The Rule that he established became the norm for monastic living throughout Europe. In 1964, in view of the work of monks following the Benedictine Rule in the evangelization. Civilization of so many European countries in the Middle Ages, Pope Paul VI proclaimed him the patron saint of all Europe.

The only recognized authority for the facts of Benedict’s life is book 2 of the Dialogues of St. Gregory I, who said that he obtained his information from four of Benedict’s disciples. Though Gregory’s work includes many signs and wonders, his outline of Benedict’s life may be accepted as historical. He gives no dates, however. Benedict born of good family and sent by his parents to Roman schools. His life spanned the decades in which the decayed imperial city became the Rome of the medieval papacy. In Benedict’s youth, Rome under Theodoric still retained vestiges of the old administrative and governmental system, with a Senate and consuls. In 546 Rome was sacked and emptied of inhabitants by the Gothic king Totila, and, when the attempt of Emperor Justinian I to reconquer and hold Italy failed, the papacy filled the administrative vacuum and shortly thereafter became the sovereign power of a small Italian dominion virtually independent of the Eastern Empire.