St Romuald: Founder of Camaldoli, Rule, Prayer, Feast

St Romuald (c. 950-1027) was a nobleman of Ravenna who, after witnessing his father kill a kinsman in a duel, fled to a monastery and spent the rest of a long life founding hermitages and monasteries across Italy, the most famous of them Camaldoli, in Tuscany, mother-house of the Camaldolese order. His short rule of life for hermits, "Sit in your cell as in paradise", is still quoted a thousand years later. The Roman calendar of 1962 keeps his feast on 7 February. Here is his life, his Brief Rule in Latin and English, what he is patron of, and the prayer of his Mass in the Missal of 1962.

Who was St Romuald?

Romuald was born at Ravenna, probably about the year 950, of the family of the Onesti, dukes of Ravenna; his father was named Sergius. He grew up, Butler says, a worldly youth and "a slave to his passions", yet with occasional longings for something higher.

His conversion came through violence. Sergius had agreed to settle a dispute over property with a relative by a duel, and Romuald, against his will, was present. His father killed his adversary. Horror-stricken, the young man fled to the monastery of Sant'Apollinare in Classe, near Ravenna, to do penance. The Breviary relates that there, moved by the words of a holy religious and after seeing the martyr St Apollinaris twice in the church at night, he asked for the habit and became a monk.

He spent three years at Classe in such fervour and austerity that his life became a reproach to some lax monks, who grew still angrier when he reproved them. With the abbot's leave, he left them and placed himself, near Venice, under the direction of a hermit named Marinus, a man famous for the severity of his life. Romuald and Marinus are said to have had a part in the retirement of the doge of Venice, St Peter Orseolo, to the monastery of Cuxa, in the Pyrenees, and to have lived there for a time as hermits.

His example converted his own father. Sergius entered the monastery of San Severo, near Ravenna, to atone for his sins; when, after a time, he was tempted to return to the world, his son came and persuaded him to stay, and he remained a monk until his death.

The founder of hermitages

For some thirty years Romuald went up and down Italy founding hermitages and monasteries. In a cell near his foundation at Parenzo, in Istria, he passed through a long spiritual dryness; then one day, while he was reciting the verse of the psalm "I will give thee understanding, and I will instruct thee" (Psalm xxxi. 8), he received an extraordinary light and a spirit of compunction that never left him. He wrote an exposition of the Psalms, foretold things to come, and gave counsel to all who came to him.

He always longed for martyrdom and obtained the Pope's leave to preach the Gospel in Hungary; but as soon as he set foot in the country he fell gravely ill, and the illness returned each time he tried to go on, and left him each time he turned back. He took it as the will of God and returned to Italy, while some of his companions went on to preach to the Magyars.

At Monte di Sitrio a young nobleman whom he had rebuked for his dissolute life accused him of a scandalous crime. Incredibly, the monks believed the slander, laid a heavy penance on him, forbade him to say Mass and excommunicated him. He bore it in silence for six months, until God admonished him to submit no longer to so unjust a sentence. In the year 1001 the Emperor Otto III founded for him and St Bruno of Querfurt the monastery of Pereum, near Ravenna, from which monks went out on the missions to the Slavs and the Prussians. A son of Duke Boleslaus of Poland, a monk there, presented him on his father's behalf with a fine horse; Romuald exchanged it for a donkey, saying that he felt closer to Jesus Christ on such a mount.

Camaldoli

About the year 1012 Romuald founded the most famous of his houses, in the mountains near Arezzo, on land given him by a lord named Maldolo, from whom the place took its name: Campus Maldoli, Camaldoli. There, by adding certain observances to the Rule of St Benedict, he gave birth to a new congregation, the Camaldolese, which united in one family the common life of the monastery and the solitary life of the hermit.

The hermitage lies about two miles above the monastery, in a dark forest of firs, with seven clear springs. Each hermit has a little stone house with its own walled garden and its own chapel where he can say Mass. Butler, describing it, says that the very sight of that solitude "helps to fill the mind with compunction and a love of contemplation".

The Camaldolese wear white. The Breviary relates that Romuald saw in a vision a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, like the ladder of the patriarch Jacob, on which men in white garments were going up and down, and understood it to mean the monks of his institute. Butler gives the vision to the benefactor of Camaldoli rather than to the saint, and says that Romuald then changed the habit from black to white. Either way, the ladder became the emblem of the order.

The rule of St Romuald

Romuald left no long rule: his monks followed the Rule of St Benedict with the customs of the hermitage. But his companion St Bruno of Querfurt, for whom and with whom Otto III had founded Pereum, preserved in his Life of the Five Brothers a short rule of life that one of those brothers, John, had received from Romuald. The Camaldolese call it the Brief Rule of St Romuald. Here it is in the Latin they keep, with a close English rendering:

Sede in cella quasi in paradiso; proice post tergum de memoria totum mundum, cautus ad cogitationes, quasi bonus piscator ad pisces. Una via est in psalmis; hanc ne dimittas. Si non potes omnia, qui venisti fervore novicio, nunc in hoc, nunc in illo loco psallere in spiritu et intelligere mente stude, et cum ceperis vagare legendo, ne desistas, sed festina intelligendo emendare; pone te ante omnia in presentia Dei cum timore et tremore, quasi qui stat in conspectu imperatoris; destrue te totum, et sede quasi pullus, contentus ad gratiam Dei, qui, nisi mater donet, nec sapit nec habet quod comedat.

"Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts as a good fisherman watches for fish. The one way is in the psalms; do not leave it. If you, who have come with the fervour of a novice, cannot do everything, strive to sing the psalms in the spirit and to understand them with the mind, now in one place, now in another; and when you begin to wander while reading, do not give up, but hasten to correct yourself by attending to what you read.

Above all, place yourself in the presence of God with fear and trembling, like one who stands before the emperor. Empty yourself completely, and sit like a little chick, content with the grace of God; for unless its mother gives it something, the chick has nothing to taste and nothing to eat."

The heart of it, "the one way is in the psalms", is the life of the hermit given to the psalter, the same prayer that the whole Church sings in the Breviary.

How did St Romuald die?

After some years at Camaldoli, Romuald took to the road again. He died alone in his cell at the monastery of Val di Castro, in the Marches, on 19 June 1027, in the place and in the manner that he had foretold twenty-five years earlier. The Breviary repeats the old tradition, from the Life written by St Peter Damian, that he lived to a hundred and twenty; Butler says that this figure "is now universally rejected" and places his birth about 950, which would make him about seventy-seven at his death.

His body was found incorrupt five years after his burial, the Breviary says. On 7 February 1481 it was translated to Fabriano, where it rests in the church of his order; and it was on the day of this translation that Pope Clement VIII fixed his feast when he added it to the general calendar in 1595. The finding of his body intact puts him in the company of the incorrupt saints of whom the old lives speak.

St Romuald quotes

Besides the Brief Rule, two sayings come down from his life. To the Polish duke's gift of a horse: he felt nearer to Jesus Christ riding a donkey. And the verse at whose words, in the midst of his long dryness, he received the light and the compunction that never left him: "I will give thee understanding, and I will instruct thee in this way, in which thou shalt go: I will fix my eyes upon thee" (Psalm xxxi. 8).

St Romuald prayer (Missal of 1962)

His Mass is from the Common of Abbots, Os justi, with the Gospel of those who have left all to follow Christ (St Matthew xix. 27-29).

Collect, 7 February

Intercessio nos, quaesumus, Domine, beati Romualdi Abbatis commendet: ut, quod nostris meritis non valemus, ejus patrocinio assequamur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

May the intercession of blessed Romuald the Abbot, we beseech Thee, O Lord, commend us to Thee, that what we cannot obtain by our own merits we may obtain by his patronage. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

What is St Romuald the patron saint of?

The Church has given St Romuald no special patronage beyond his own family: he is the father and patron of the Camaldolese monks and nuns, and the ancestor of the hermits of Fonte Avellana, the house of St Peter Damian. These are not assigned patronages, but his life makes it fitting to ask his prayers for hermits and for all who seek silence and recollection, for those who struggle with distraction in prayer, and for anyone falsely accused, as he once was.

When is the feast day of St Romuald?

In the Roman calendar of 1962, the feast of St Romuald, Abbot, falls on 7 February, the anniversary of the translation of his body to Fabriano, as a feast of the third class in white vestments; when Lent has begun, the Lenten weekday takes precedence and the saint is commemorated. The calendar of 1969 moved his feast to 19 June, the day of his death, as an optional memorial. You will find it in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Romuald takes his place in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St Romuald?

A nobleman of Ravenna (c. 950-1027) who became a monk at Classe, a hermit under Marinus, and the founder of many hermitages and monasteries, chief of them Camaldoli, mother-house of the Camaldolese Benedictines.

What is the rule of St Romuald?

The Camaldolese follow the Rule of St Benedict with the customs of the hermitage; the "Brief Rule of St Romuald" is a short rule of life for hermits, preserved by St Bruno of Querfurt, which begins "Sit in your cell as in paradise".

Why do the Camaldolese wear white?

Because of the vision of a ladder reaching to heaven, on which monks in white were ascending; after it, the habit was changed from black to white.

Where is St Romuald buried?

At Fabriano, in the Marches, in the church of his order, where his body was translated on 7 February 1481.

Why is St Romuald's feast on 7 February and not on the day of his death?

Because the feast was fixed on the anniversary of the translation of his body to Fabriano when Clement VIII added it to the general calendar in 1595; the calendar of 1969 moved it to 19 June, the day of his death.

Did St Romuald really live to 120?

No. The figure comes from the Life by St Peter Damian and passed into the Breviary, but historians, as Butler notes, reject it; he was born about 950 and died in 1027.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962, the Breviary with the psalms St Romuald loved, and the traditional calendar, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 7 February (St Romuald, Abbot, Founder of the Camaldolese Benedictines). Roman Breviary (edition before 1960), 7 February, lessons of the second nocturn (in the Breviary of 1962 this third-class feast has a single, contracted lesson). Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 7 February, and Common of Abbots. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, Psalm xxxi. 8; St Matthew xix. 27-29.