Observations placeholder
Saint Peter Damien - The Order of Creation
Identifier
014769
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Saint Peter Damian, Order of St. Benedict (O.S.B.) – 21/22 February 1072 or 1073) was a reforming monk in the circle of Pope Leo IX and a cardinal. In 1823, he was declared a Doctor of the Church.
Peter was born in Ravenna, Italy, orphaned early, and after a youth spent in hardship and privation, 'showed such signs of remarkable intellectual gifts' that his brother, Damian, who was archpriest at Ravenna, took him away to be educated. Adding his brother's name to his own, Peter made such rapid progress in his studies of theology and canon law, first at Ravenna, then at Faenza, finally at Parma, that when about twenty-five years old he was already a famous teacher at Parma and Ravenna.
About 1035, however, he deserted his secular calling and, avoiding the 'compromised luxury' [sic] of Cluniac monasteries, entered the isolated hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio. Both as novice and as monk,' his fervor was remarkable but led him to such extremes of self-mortification in penance that his health was affected'.
A zealot for monastic and clerical reform, he introduced a more-severe discipline, including the practice of flagellation ("the disciplina"), into the house, which, under his rule, quickly attained celebrity, and became a model for other foundations There was much opposition outside his own circle to such extreme forms of penitence, but Peter's persistent advocacy ensured its acceptance, to 'such an extent that he was obliged later to moderate the imprudent zeal of some of his own hermits'.
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I was not quite sure what to call this observation, as given what he did to himself it clearly is not wisdom. But it is an interesting viewpoint for discussion
A description of the experience
St Peter Damien
The will of God is truly the cause of the existence of all things, whether visible or invisible, in that all created things, before appearing in their visible forms, were already truly and essentially alive in the will of their Creator.
‘All that came to be’ said John ‘had life in him’ (John 1:4).
And he testified in the Apocalypse to the same statement by the 24 elders.
‘You are worthy, O lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power, because you created all things; by your will they have their being and were created’ (Apoc 4:11).
In the first place it is said, ‘they have their being’ and then that ‘they were created’ because the things that were externally expressed by their making, already existed internally in the providence and in the design of the Creator.