Millennium of the monastery of Montserrat
Next year 2025 we will commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the monastery of Montserrat by Oliba, abbot of Ripoll and Cuixà and bishop of Vic. History tells us that back in 880 on the mountain of Montserrat there was a small hermitage dedicated to the Virgin. It was not until a few decades later, in 1025, that a group of monks from Ripoll, sent by their abbot, built a Benedictine monastery next to the hermitage. Thus was born the monastery of Montserrat, which has always been marked by this double aspect: Benedictine monastery and Marian sanctuary. In other words, a place of prayer, evangelical life, pilgrimage and hope.
The fact that the founder was the abbot and bishop Oliba, one of the most important promoters of peace during the Middle Ages, has deeply marked the monastery of Montserrat throughout its history. For a thousand years, Montserrat has sought to be a place of welcome and encounter, a place of listening, understanding and peace. Thus, the imprint of its founder enhanced the charism that Benedictine monks have tried to live since the beginning of the Middle Ages, in the 6th century. It is not in vain that one of their main mottos has always been: Pax! A simple but profound motto.
Benedictine monastic life was eloquently summed up on 24 October 1964 by Pope St. Paul VI in the Apostolic Letter Pacis nuntius, in which he proclaimed St. Benedict as the patron saint of Europe. He said in this text that St. Benedict and his sons brought Christian progress ‘with the cross, with the book and with the plough’. The cross, the book and the plough. Three symbols that over the course of a thousand years have also been forged in the monastery of Montserrat, not to remain enclosed within the walls of the monastery, but to be shared with the whole of society.
Indeed, over hundreds of generations of monks, the monastery of Montserrat has worked with the cross, a sign of faith and spirituality, with the book, a sign of culture and thought, and with the plough, a sign of social construction and progress. And it has done so with the desire to be rooted in the land where it was born but which, at the same time, has opened it up to the world. Rooted in the land and open to the world, witnesses of faith and welcoming to all, grateful for the past and moving towards the future. This is the spirit in which the monastery of Montserrat is preparing to celebrate its first millennium of existence.
A thousand years walking together (link to the message of Father Abbot Manel Gasch Hurios).
Ready to live a historic moment (link to the message of Fr. Bernat Juliol Galí, Commissioner of the millennium 2025).