SAINT ROMUALD (c. 951-1027)
June 19
	“God so loved the world,” declares John 3:16. “Do not love the world,” warns 1 John 2:15. The “world” to love: this planet, entrusted to our stewardship, and its people, God’s children all. The “world” to flee: “sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life” (1 John 2:16). Born in nobility, Romuald’s conversion followed the shock of witnessing his father murder an enemy. Renouncing his privileged world, Romuald sought God’s world in monastic life. Its winding turns and several dead ends make Romuald’s journey resonate with all who find life more maze than superhighway. Both the hermit’s solitary struggle and community life’s unique challenges shaped Romuald’s legacy: his vast Camaldolese Benedictine family of monks, nuns, and lay associates who, these thousand years later, from the mountain solitude of Camaldoli, Italy to an urban monastery in Berkeley, California—in Asia, Africa, South America, Europe—integrate Romuald’s experience into their witness of solitary prayer, communal charity and worship, and promotion of contemplative spirituality in this world that can so easily distract us from the God who loves it still.
—Peter Scagnelli