CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 22
AT the time of his death he was seventy-four, having been in priest’s orders for forty-seven years. He had been abbot for thirty-five or, to be precise, forty-three years, having been Benedict’s inseparable companion from the very beginning and having worked with him and having taught the regular monastic life alongside him from the time Benedict first began to build the abbey in honour of the most blessed Prince of the Apostles.2 He would not allow considerations of age or infirmity or the difficulties of travel to soften the rigorous standards he had accepted as part of tradition; so, from the day he set out from his monastery till the day he died (one hundred and fourteen days, from 4 June to 25 September) he saw to it that the psalter was recited twice, right through, every day – and this in addition to the canonical hours.1 And even when he had grown so weak that he could no longer ride but had to be carried in a horse-litter, after Mass was sung he made daily offering to God of the Mass, apart from the one day at sea and the three days before his death.