As his fame grew, popes asked him to help them with various problems, until in 1057 Pope Stephen IX made him the Cardinal bishop of Ostia, near Rome. But to others, his leadership was a blessing. “Because I am surrounded by the darkness of so many secular interests, I am unable to see the brightness of the interior light,” he glumly wrote to one of his correspondents. He was far more interested in the life of solitude he left behind in his cell. Like so many great leaders, he served because it was right, not because he liked it or wanted power. The monastery thrived, and Peter Damian founded five more monasteries. Throughout his life, Peter Damian hated being in charge of things. After the old abbot’s death, Peter Damian reluctantly took his place. The abbot pressed, and finally compelled him with his vow of obedience. The abbot was dying, and asked Peter Damian to take his place. But in 1041 he was given an order that he found difficult. He took his vow of obedience very seriously, immediately acting at his superiors’ direction. Peter Damian seems to have been an exemplary monk. Alone in his cell, Peter Damian put his powerful mind to work mastering tradition and scripture. Later, when he was advising other monks, Peter Damian had a reputation for being rigorous, but he was very careful to help them choose disciplines that would be appropriate. It was difficult to learn to sleep properly again. But he overdid it, forcing himself to stay awake until he had developed insomnia (here’s a prayer for insomniacs, asking for his intercession). This was what Peter Damian had been looking for. Monks went barefoot, eating only bread and water for four days out of every week, mortifying their bodies and reading psalms late into the night. He was looking for a stricter devotion than the life of a scholar could provide. To master his body and mind he took extremely cold baths. He began to wear a hair shirt, and began to fast and pray. Peter Damian wasn’t an ordinary professor. At the time, students wanted to study with him, and he was well paid, but. He wrote skillfully, and his philosophical writings are still read today by those interested in medieval philosophy. His career seems to have been going well. He read widely, and after his studies, he became a professor in his own right. As a reminder of what his brother had done for him, Peter adopted his older brother’s name and added it to his own, becoming Peter Damian. He took Peter under his wing, helping him to go to school in different towns across present day Italy. Damianus was a priest in Ravenna, in fact he was an archpriest with other priests under his charge. There Peter might have sunk into obscurity, had not another of his brothers, whose name was Damianus, seen something in the boy. He put young Peter to work as a pig herd. Peter had many brothers, but the one who took him in already had a family and seems not to have wanted another mouth to feed. Born in 1007 in Ravenna, present day Italy, his parents died when he was just a boy. Things might have gone very differently for young Peter. But in fact, they were written almost a thousand years ago by Saint Peter Damian, the fiery reformer who was both a hermit and a cardinal, a monk who loved solitude and a man of power who rebuked and guided kings. These words could have been written yesterday. (Translations are from Owen Blum unless otherwise noted.) Decency has gone, honesty disappeared, religious devotion has fallen on bad times, and like an army on the march, the throng of all the holy virtues has withdrawn at a distance.
The world, in fact, is daily deteriorating into such a worthless condition, that not only has each rank of secular and ecclesiastical society collapsed and fallen from its state, but even monastic life, if I may put it so, has declined and lies prostrate, deprived of strength to climb to its accustomed goals of perfection. Join me this week as we encounter Peter Damian, a reformer of the sort that the Church desperately needs.
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