The Medal or Cross of St Benedict

How fitting it is that Abbot Dom Gueranger, the modern paragon of filial devotion to the Father of Western Monasticism, should be the one to promote this humble tribute to the Saint Benedict Medal. One of the nineteenth centuryÔÇÖs most feared opponents of the Luciferian revolt against Catholic altars and thrones, the holy Abbot found time to pen this humble accolade to a seemingly insignificant effigy stamped on an almond size cut of metal.

Surely this gifted man had more important things to do? When we assume that incessant pious labours, meritorious as they are, are of more spiritual might than the promotion of modest insignia of inanimate sacramentals we are not being childlike. God can use the meanest things to confound the proud. What may appear to the sophisticated as a superstitious talisman, if venerated with Faith and confidence ( con fides ), has proved many times to be powerfully efficacious.

Dom Gueranger wrote this diminutive compendium on the medal of Saint Benedict with high hopes of vesting every soldier of Christ with a visible shield that would reflect the invisible armour of God and the breastplate of justice.

Prosper Louis Pascal Gueranger was born in France in 1805 at Sable-sur-Sarthe. Ordained a parish priest in 1827, he authored several works on church state relations. In 1836, he and five other cures took solemn vows as Benedictines, having purchased an abandoned priory that was for sale in Solesmes. Until his death there in 1875, Abbot Dom Gueranger devoted himself to restoring the coenobitical life in France as intended by the Father of Western Monasticism. He did much to keep the church in France loyal to the person of the Sovereign Pontiff and away from the dangers of both Gallicanism and Jansenism.