In San Romualdo, painted for the Church of San Romualdo, Ravenna, by Guercino, 1641, an angel uses the abbot's baton to chastise an errant figure (Pinatoceca Comunale, Ravenna).
Saint Romuald (c. 951– traditionally 19 June, c. 1025/27) was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century "Renaissance of eremitical asceticism".
According to the vita by Peter Damian, written about fifteen years after Romuald's death, Romuald was born in Ravenna, in northeastern Italy, to the aristocratic Onesti family. As a youth, according to early accounts, Romuald indulged in the pleasures and sins of the world common to a tenth-century nobleman. After watching his father, Sergius, kill an opponent in a duel, however, the 20-year old Romuald was devastated, and fled to the Abbey of Sant'Apollinare in Classe. After some indecision, Romuald became a monk there. Led by a desire for a stricter way of life than he found in that community, three years later he withdrew to become a hermit on a remote island in the region, accompanied solely by an older monk, Marinus, who served as his spiritual master.
Romuald apparently having gained a reputation for holiness, the Doge of Venice, Pietro I Orseolo, accepted his advice to become a monk, abdicated his office, and fled in the night to Catalonia to take the monastic habit. Romuald and his companion, Marinus, accompanied him there, establishing a hermitage near the Abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, at that time in the county of Barcelona, which Orseolo entered.
In his youth Romuald became acquainted with three major schools of western monastic tradition. Sant'Apollinare in Classe was a traditional Benedictine monastery under the influence of the Cluniac reforms. Marinus followed a much harsher, ascetic and solitary lifestyle, which was originally of Irish eremitic origins. The abbot of Sant Miguel de Cuxa, Guarinus, had also begun reforms but mainly built upon a third Christian tradition, that of Iberia. Romuald was able to integrate these different traditions and establish his own monastic order. The admonition in his rule Empty yourself completely and sit waiting places him in relation to the long Christian history of intellectual stillness and interior passivity in meditation also reflected in quietism and in the nearly contemporary Byzantine ascetic practice known as Hesychasm.
His reputation being known to advisors of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Romuald was persuaded by him to take the office of abbot of an ancient monastery to help bring about a more dedicated way of life there. The monks, however, resisted his reforms, eventually causing Romuald to resign his office, hurling his abbot's staff at Otto's feet in total frustration. He then again withdrew to the hermit life. He was drawn, though, throughout his long life to help in the establishment of monasteries and hermitages throughout Italy. The most prominent of these are the hermitages of Fonte Avellana (founded around 1012) and Camaldoli (founded around 1023), both located in Tuscany, where Romuald's daunting charisma awed Rainerius, marquis of Tuscany, who was neither able to face Romuald nor to send him away.[5] Romauld founded several other monasteries, including the monastery of Val di Castro, where he died in 1027
Romuald's own father eventually became a monk in one of his monasteries; when he later wavered in his vows, his son's encouragement helped him remain faithful. The last fourteen years of Romuald's life were spent in seclusion at Mount Sitria, Bifolco, and Val di Castro. St. Romuald died in 1027, and was canonized in 1595.
Like all the saints, Romuald fought a lifelong battle against the assaults of devils and men. In the beginning of his spiritual life he experienced numerous temptations, which he conquered by vigilance and prayer. More than one attempt was made on his life, but Divine Providence enabled him to escape from the danger. Like many servants of God, he also became the victim of calumny, which he bore in patience and silence. In his old age, he increased his austerities instead of diminishing them.
In 1013 he retired to Monte-Sitria. In 1021 he went to Bifolco. Five years later he returned to Val-di-Castro where he died, as he had prophesied, alone in his cell. Many miracles were wrought at his tomb, over which an altar was allowed to be erected in 1032. In 1466 his body was found still incorrupt; it was translated to Fabriano in 1481. In 1595 Clement VIII fixed his feast on 7 Feb., the day of the translation of his relics, and extended its celebration to the whole Church. He is represented in art pointing to a ladder on which are monks ascending to Heaven.
Saint Romuald Quotes:
"Better to pray one psalm with devotion and compunction than a hundred with distraction."
St. Romuald's Brief Rule For Camaldolese Monks
Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish. The path you must follow is in the Psalms — never leave it.
If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind.
And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.
Realize above all that you are in God's presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor.
Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.
Collect from the Mass
Father,
through St. Romuald
You renewed the life of solitude and prayer in Your Church.
By our self-denial as we follow Christ
bring us the joy of heaven.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. +Amen.
