The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

still a hand in restoring monastic discipline throughout France and
Germany; as he also was the chief instrument in drawing up the canons
for the reformation of prebendaries and monks in the council of
Aix-la-Chapelle, in 817, and presided in the assembly of abbots the same
year, to enforce restoration of discipline. His statutes were adopted by
the order, and annexed to the rule of St. Benedict, the founder. He
wrote, while a private monk at Seine, the Code of Rules, being a
collection of all the monastic regulations which he found extant; as
also a book of homilies for the use of monks, collected, according to
the custom of that age, from the works of the fathers: likewise a
Penitential, printed in the additions to the Capitulars. In his Concord
of Rules he gives that of St. Benedict, with those of other patriarchs
of the monastic order, to show their uniformity in the exercises which
they prescribe.[1] This great restorer of the monastic order in the
West, worn out at length with mortification and fatigues, suffered much
from continual sickness the latter years of his life. He died at Inde,
with extraordinary tranquillity and cheerfulness, on the 11th of
February, 821, being then about seventy-one years of age, and was buried
in the same monastery, since called St. Cornelius's, the church being
dedicated to that holy pope and martyr. At Anian his festival is kept on
the 11th, but by most other Martyrologies on the 12th of February, the
day of his burial. His relics remain in the monastery of St. Cornelius,
or of Inde, in the duchy of Cleves, and have been honored with miracles.
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St. Bennet, by the earnestness with which he set himself to study the
spirit of his holy rule and state, gave a proof of the ardor with which
he aspired to Christian perfection. The experienced masters of a
spiritual life, and the holy legislators of monastic institutes, have in
view the great principles of an interior life, which the gospel lays
down: for in the exercises which they prescribe, powerful means are
offered by which a soul may learn perfectly to die to herself, and be
united in all her powers to God. This dying to, and profound
annihilation of ourselves, is of such importance, that so long as a soul
remains in this state, though all the devils in hell were leagued
together, they can never hurt her. All their efforts will only make her
sink more deeply in this feeling knowledge of herself, in which she
finds her strength, her repose, and her joy, because by it she is
prepared to receive the divine grace: and if self-love be destroyed, the
devil can have no power over us; for he never makes any successful
attacks upon us but by the secret intelligence which he holds with this
domestic enemy. The crucifixion of the old man, and perfect
disengagement of the heart, by the practice of universal self-denial, is
absolutely necessary before a soul can ascend the mountain of the God of
Jacob, on which his infinite majesty is seen, separated from all