Hard time

His job was to be the lookout when the other man was being murdered, but he never forgot the sight of the dead man’s body and he felt the blood on his own hands.

He walked away from his life of easy pleasures and sought balance in a hard life of prayer.

Other men with blood on their hands would be moved to join him in this most austere monasticism: including a very high-profile politician and even his own father.

St. Romuald, Benedictine monk and founder of monasteries, died of natural causes 980 years ago today.

(adapted from an earlier post)