At turning points of history God raises up great saints to ensure the fulfillment of the Church’s divine mission for the souls of men. St Benedict was born at Nursia in Umbria in 480 and was sent to Rome to be educated, but soon left the world to live a solitary life at Subiaco. After two years as a hermit in the cave in the mountain he had acquired such a reputation that disciples came in numbers to join him and important Roman families entrusted him with the education of their children. A form of monastic life was organized by him in twelve small monasteries in which under his guidance as abbot the monks, vowed to the seeking of God, devoted themselves to work and prayer. A few years later St. Benedict left the district of Subiaco to found on the heights of Campania the great abbey of Monte Cassino. There he wrote his Rule in which are wonderfully combined the Roman genius and the monastic wisdom of the Christian East. He died in 547.