At the general audience Benedict XVI traces the life and legacy of Rabanus Maurus, an “extraordinary figure” from the High Middle Ages, and so called “praeceptor Germaniae”. He teaches that “those who do not dedicate space in their lives to the Lord, deny themselves God’s light and allow their thoughts to be taken over by earthly things”.

Vatican City  (AsiaNews) – At work, “with its pressing rhythm” and on vacation, we must “reserve”  a moment for God, opening up to Him “with a thought, a meditation, a small prayer, and “not forget the Lord’s Day”, which is “the day of liturgy, of sacred music, so we can perceive the beauty of the Church of God and allow it enter our beings: only in this way can our life become true and great life”. 

That was Benedict XVI’s call to 25 thousand people present at his general audience, during which he traced the life and legacy of an “extraordinary figure” from the High Middle Ages, Saint Rabanus Maurus, one of the protagonists of Carolingian culture. Born in Mainz, Germany around 780, Rabanus entered monastic life at a young age as an oblate, in the abbey of Fulda. “This precocious introduction to the Benedictine world and the fruits he reaped from it – observed the Pope – give us an interesting glimpse at the life of the monks and the Church as well as the society of that time, described as Carolingian.  His “extraordinary culture brought him quickly to the notice of the great men of his time, he was an advisor to the princes”.  As the Abbot of Fulda and then as Archbishop of Mainz, “he studied ceaselessly, showing us that you can be available to others without denying yourself of time for study and meditation”.  “He knew how to maintain the bond with the culture of the ancient wise men”, “keeping theological and spiritual culture alive”, so much so he was called Praeceptor Germaniae. He is the author of “De laudibus sanctae Crucis” and among his many writings there is also perhaps “one of the most beautiful hymns; Veni creator Spiritus”.

 With him the mystery of the Cross “becomes poetry”.   But Rabanus, ‘brought’ poetry, as the other forms of art, to the exaltation of faith.  He “proposed the image of the Crucified Christ between the lines of his writings”.  “This method of combining all of the arts, mind, heart and senses” originated in the east, but achieved the “culmination of its heights”  in the west’s miniature, or illuminated, manuscripts. “Poetic art, not as an end itself but a means to an end”, that being “the contemplation of the Word of God in the sacred liturgy”.  Christian Faith, commented Benedict XVI, is not thought alone, it touches us at every level of our being” in as much that “God became man, flesh and blood, he entered the world sensitive to all of the dimensions of being, penetrated the reality of our being and transformed it”.  “We must search for God in all the dimensions of our being”.

 In conclusion, “those who do not dedicate space in their lives to the Lord, deny themselves God’s light and allow their thoughts to be taken over by earthly things”.

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