St. Benedict’s father sent him to Rome to study science and literature. However, soon after arriving in the city, St. Benedict became aware of the decadent life of the citizens of Rome. He immediately began to discern the situation and decided to flee Rome and go to a place where he could save his faith. His reason for this decision was that he preferred to live ignorant but in accordance with his faith, rather than being learned and living a vicious life.
We can say that St. Benedict put into practice what Our Lord Jesus Christ asks us in the Gospel of St. Luke: Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? (Lk 12:57). Throughout our lives we come across all kinds of people. However, instead of judging what is right or wrong (as Our Lord tells the crowd) in order to discern what action to take, we often allow ourselves to be carried away by the bad examples of others.
Judging what is right is fundamental in the Christian life because it is the only way to avoid occasions of sin. Many times when we fall into sin, we realize that we have not done the right thing. However, our previous actions were the ones that were leading us to sin because we did not judge if those actions were right or wrong.
In order to judge what is right and wrong, it is necessary to have good dispositions and not to be dominated by our passions. Our passions do not allow us to judge reality with clarity, but rather cause us to see reality colored by the inclination of that passion.
The good dispositions which are necessary to have, are the following: 1) Openness to God: to be willing to examine one’s own ideas towards life. To know God’s judgment means that one will always know what is right. The one who does not know this can never discern well what is right 2) The desire to do God’s will in our life: it is not reasonable to know what is right and not do it 3) Detachment from my own will: the one who wants to put his own will before God’s will is disposing himself to do what is wrong. God cannot will evil, hence the one who wants to judge what is right must have the disposition to put the Will of God before his own will, because God always desires what is right.
