🗓️ Feb 7St. Romuald, abbot

St. Romuald, born in Ravenna (Italy) around 952 and died in 1027, was a fundamental monastic reformer and father of the Camaldolese Order, which united the Western cenobitic tradition of St. Benedict with the Oriental eremitism of the Desert Fathers. Hailing from the noble Onesti family, he abandoned the world after witnessing his father kill an adversary in a duel, seeking refuge in the monastery of Saint Apollinaris in Classe, but, dissatisfied with the spiritual lukewarmness found there, he departed for a life of rigorous penance and solitude under the tutelage of the hermit Marinus. His work culminated in the foundation of the Hermitage of Camaldoli, establishing a model of life where the solitude of the cell is balanced with communal liturgical prayer, allowing the soul to ascend to God free from secular distractions. Tradition recounts that he lived to be 120 years old, a sign that harsh asceticism does not corrupt, but preserves the vitality of those who feed on the divine will, having died in Val di Castro, where his body remained incorrupt for centuries, witnessing to the purity of his total surrender to Christ.

🕯️ Introit (Ps 36, 30-31 | ib., 1)

Os justi meditábitur sapiéntiam, et lingua ejus loquétur judícium: lex Dei ejus in corde ipsíus. Ps. Noli æmulári in malignántibus; neque zeláveris faciéntes iniquitátem.

The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment: the law of his God is in his heart. Ps. Be not emulous of evildoers; nor envy them that work iniquity.

📜 Epistle (Ecclus 45, 1-6)

Diléctus Deo et homínibus, cujus memória in benedictióne est. Símilem illum fecit in glória sanctórum, et magnificávit eum in timóre inimicórum, et in verbis suis monstra placávit. Glorificávit illum in conspéctu regum, et jussit illi coram pópulo suo, et osténdit illi glóriam suam. In fide et lenitáte ipsíus sanctum fecit illum, et elégit eum ex omni carne. Audívit enim eum et vocem ipsíus, et indúxit illum in nubem. Et dedit illi coram praecépta, et legem vitae et disciplínae.

He was beloved of God and men, whose memory is in benediction. He made him like the Saints in glory, and magnified him in the fear of his enemies, and with his words he made peace with the monsters. He glorified him in the sight of kings, and gave him commandments in the sight of his people, and showed him his glory. He sanctified him in his faith and meekness, and chose him out of all flesh. For he heard him and his voice, and brought him into a cloud. And he gave him commandments before his face, and a law of life and instruction.

✠ Gospel (Mt 19, 27-29)

Sequéntia sancti Evangélii secúndum Matthaéum. In illo témpore: Dixit Petrus ad Jesum: Ecce, nos relíquimus ómnia, et secúti sumus te: quid ergo erit nobis? Jesus autem dixit illis: Amen, dico vobis, quod vos, qui secuti estis me, in regeneratióne, cum séderit Fílius hóminis in sede majestátis suæ, sedébitis et vos super sedes duódecim, judicántes duódecim tribus Israël. Et omnis, qui relíquerit domum, vel fratres, aut soróres, aut patrem, aut matrem, aut uxórem, aut fílios, aut agros, propter nomen meum, céntuplum accípiet, et vitam ætérnam possidébit.

At that time, Peter said to Jesus: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting.

☁️ The divine exchange and the entry into the cloud of God

The liturgy of today invites us to meditate on the economy of salvation, which operates on a logic inverse to that of the world: fullness is reached through radical dispossession. In the Gospel, St. Peter's question reveals the human anxiety for guarantee, but Christ's answer regarding the "hundredfold" refers not to a material multiplication, but to the possession of the very Cause of all goods. St. Romuald understood that leaving "house and lands" is not an end in itself, but the necessary condition to enter the "cloud" described in the Epistle, the same cloud into which Moses penetrated to receive the Law. This cloud symbolizes the sacred isolation of contemplation and the forgetfulness of creatures for union with the Creator. The "hundredfold", therefore, is the freedom of spirit and the consolation of the Holy Ghost which surpass any carnal delight, an anticipation of the celestial beatitude lived already on this earth by those who give themselves totally to the evangelical counsels. Monastic life, exemplified by Romuald, becomes an eschatological sign, proving that God suffices for the human soul. As the Angelic Doctor teaches, the reward of the hundredfold refers, in this life, to the joy of perfect charity and to spiritual goods that immeasurably surpass the temporal goods abandoned, for he who possesses God, possesses the source of all wealth (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 186, a. 3).