Cut it Down; It Grows Green by Br. Jean-Marie Hogan
On February 15th, 1944, at the height of Second World War, the Abbey of Monte Cassino was destroyed by a series of air raids. Up until that point, it had been held by German troops, but it came under attack as the Allied forces advanced through Italy. This famous abbey, where St. Benedict wrote his Rule, and where he died and was buried, had been destroyed several times before. In 590, not long after St. Benedict, it was sacked by the Lombards. The monks eventually returned, only to have their monastery attacked again in 883, this time by Saracens. The abbey was leveled by an earthquake in 1349, and subsequently rebuilt again. Today, if you look at the crest of the Abbey of Monte Cassino, you will see an image of a stump, with a green shoot growing out of it. Below the image is the motto, “Succisa Virescit,” which literally means, “Having been cut down, it grows green.” The crest represents the monastery as a tree, which has been cut down, but now has green shoots growing out from the stump. What does the history of Monte Cassino have to say to us? By way of answering this question, I would like to pose another one: Why did those monks keep rebuilding Monte Cassino? Pope Benedict XVI put it this way: “First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: quaerere Deum [to seek God]. Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential – to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself. They were searching for God.” Those monks who came to the mountain overlooking the town of Cassino were not there to develop a new culture. They were not there to save Western civilization. They simply responded to the question St. Benedict poses in the Prologue:
Monte Cassino was built in the sixth century under the guidance of St. Benedict. The site had been home to a Roman temple to Apollo before the Benedictine monks took it over. It has been destroyed and rebuilt many times, most recently during and after World War II. Photo from the Collection of the National WWII Museum, 2013.495.1681
“Who is there who desires life and wishes to see good days?” They came to the monastery, and even rebuilt it, to seek God. This might be the first lesson for us. If you ask yourself, “Why am I here?” you might have several answers. Some of those answers might be somewhat superficial, while others might be deeper and more personal. It’s worth taking some time to address the question, “What are my motivations, and which ones are truly lasting?” Going back for a moment to Monte Cassino, if the reason why the monks kept rebuilding the monastery was to seek God, I think it’s also worth asking the question: How did they go about doing it? St. John Henry Newman comments on this:
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