The Fellowship of St. Columbanus

The lives of our eremitical and monastic saints present us with the most praiseworthy and moving examples of generosity and self-sacrifice at once with regards to deep-rooted human aspirations, and with the divine injunction: “ If thou wilt be perfect, go  and  sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come  and follow me ” (S. Matthew 19, 21).  Saint Benedict in Subiaco Fra Angelico One of the great tropes of Augustine’s treatise on the City of God is that we all seek peace: nothing could be more human than the desire and the enjoyment of peace, security and tranquillity. Somehow, however, human affairs, in both the public and domestic spheres, almost invariably involve an element of tension, acrimony and conflict, very often about things that, in the grand scheme of this life seen as the preparation of our death, matter but very little. No doubt, all the conflicts and unpleasantnesses of our quotidian lives about trifles, if