It’s the Feast of St. Romuald, 1st Sat, 3rd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: “Vigilance and Confidence”, today’s news from the Church: “Press Release from the General House: Meeting in Rome”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop.
Saint Romuald was a restless soul whom God transformed into one of the great renewers of Western monastic life. Born around 951 into a noble family in Ravenna, Romuald grew up surrounded by privilege, politics, and violence. His early years were shaped less by prayer than by ambition, and the turning point of his life came suddenly and painfully. When his father killed a relative in a duel, Romuald was shaken to the core. Though not guilty himself, he felt complicit in the culture of honor and bloodshed that surrounded him. Seeking penance, he withdrew to a Benedictine monastery, expecting a temporary retreat. Instead, he found a calling that would claim his entire life.
Monastic life awakened something fierce in Romuald. He embraced fasting, silence, and prayer with intensity, often exceeding the moderation of those around him. His zeal made him difficult. He was dissatisfied with lax observance and frustrated by compromise. Rather than settle, he became a wanderer, moving from monastery to monastery, desert to forest, seeking a form of life that combined deep solitude with genuine fidelity. Romuald believed that the heart of monasticism was conversion, not comfort, and he refused to let routine replace repentance.
Over time, his vision took shape. Romuald began gathering small communities of hermits who lived alone in cells but came together for prayer and obedience. This way of life reached its fullest expression at Camaldoli in the Apennines, where solitude and community were held in deliberate balance. Romuald did not write a formal rule, but his example became a living one. He taught that silence must be filled with Scripture, that solitude must be guarded by humility, and that obedience was the surest protection against spiritual illusion.
Romuald was not only a hermit but a reformer. Popes, emperors, and bishops sought his counsel,...
