44. To fear the Day of Judgment. 45. To be in dread of hell. 46. To desire eternal life with all the passion of the spirit. 47. To keep death daily before one's eyes. 48. To keep constant guard over the actions of one's life. 49. To know for certain that God sees one everywhere. 50. When evil thoughts come into one's heart, to dash them against Christ immediately. 51. And to manifest them to one's spiritual mother. 52. To guard one's tongue against evil and depraved speech. 53. Not to love much talking. 54. Not to speak useless words or words that move to laughter. 55. Not to love much or boisterous laughter. 56. To listen willingly to holy reading. 57. To devote oneself frequently to prayer. 58. Daily in one's prayers, with tears and sighs, to confess one's past sins to God, and to amend them for the future. 59. Not to fulfill the desires of the flesh; to hate one's own will. 60. To obey in all things the commands of the Abbess, even though she herself (which God forbid) should act otherwise, mindful of the Lord's precept, "Do what they say, but not what they do."61. Not to wish to be called holy before one is holy; but first to be holy, that one may be truly so called.

Benedict lived during a dramatic end-time. Seventy years before his birth Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. A half-century before, Augustine died defending Hippo. Britain fell to the Saxons.

In 451 Attila invades Italy. In 455 the Vandals take Rome and kidnap the Empress Eudoxia. In 476 - four years before the birth of Benedict - the last Roman emperor in the West is deposed by the Ostrogoths. A century of unceasing turmoil descends on Italy.

Shortly after Benedict founded his monastery (529) the bubonic plague killed tens of thousands across the Mediterranean world. The same year in which Benedict issued his Rule was when the Emperor Justinian closed the the Academy and Lyceum in Athens.

From these endings emerged St. Kevin's in Ireland, Iona off Scotland, and Monte Casino in Italy. A millennium of classical civilization was closing. Benedict and others responded creatively to these endings.

But it is hardly surprising to find that, even in his creating, Benedict was preoccupied with death.