ABSTRACT
The spectacular natural scenery surrounding the Benedictine monastery of the Sacro Speco (‘Holy Cave’) in the Aniene valley, near the town of Subiaco, in central Italy has been long enjoyed by both tourists and pilgrims, in a similar fashion to Meteora (see Figure 5.1). The Catholic tradition, as with the Orthodox one, is also based on an incarnation theology. As we have seen in Chapter 2, both Catholic tradition and popular devotion have always attributed particular significance to the material manifestation of the divine presence. ‘Un-modern’ or unusual as it may seem, Catholics today cherish the physical medium of God’s revelation, as they have always done. The Holy Cave of Saint Benedict exemplifies this Catholic special reverence to the spatial and temporal circumstances of the human encounter with the divine, and the following chapters draw on historical narratives and archive records to illustrate the grounding and expression of these beliefs and practices, past and present.
