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News Archive > SJU and Abbey Announce Apostolic
Blessing from
Pope John Paul II for Bible Project
For Release October, 1999
SAINT JOHN’S UNIVERSITY AND ABBEY ANNOUNCE
APOSTOLIC BLESSING FROM POPE JOHN PAUL II FOR BIBLE PROJECT
Collegeville, Minnesota, October, 1999 – Saint John’s University and
Saint John’s Abbey today announced that The Saint John’s Bible has received
an Apostolic Blessing from His Holiness Pope John Paul II. The Saint
John’s Bible, commissioned by Saint John’s University and Abbey, will be
the first handwritten and illuminated Bible since the advent of the printing
press 500 years ago. The first volume of the seven-volume, 1,150-page Bible
will be unveiled at Easter in 2001, and the entire book is scheduled for
completion by 2004.
A letter dated August 31, 1999, received from the Secretariat of State of
the Vatican, reads:
His Holiness prays that this significant artistic and religious
undertaking will inspire renewed reverence for the beauty, power and truth
of God’s holy word and contribute to the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel
at the dawn of the Third Christian Millennium.
Invoking upon all associated with this worthy endeavor the light and
peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Father cordially imparts his
Apostolic Blessing.
“Saint John’s is deeply honored by His Holiness’ blessing, which will be
a daily inspiration to Saint John’s as we work to create a great work of
spiritual and artistic beauty that will please the Holy Father,” said
Brother Dietrich Reinhart, OSB, President of Saint John’s University. “We
continue in our commitment to use The Saint John’s Bible as a prophetic
witness to the glory of the Word of God and to capture the imagination of
the world in the next millennium.”
Saint John’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery, and Saint John’s University,
founded by the Abbey in 1857, have commissioned one of the world’s foremost
calligraphers, Donald Jackson, to carry out this major artistic, cultural
and spiritual endeavor. Jackson, scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s
Crown Office at the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, will be working
with a team of artists and theologians from Saint John’s Abbey and
University as well as from the Monastery of Saint Benedict and the College
of Saint Benedict.
The Saint John’s Bible will be the first handwritten Bible that
interprets and illustrates scripture from a contemporary perspective,
reflecting a multicultural world and humanity’s enormous strides in science,
technology and space travel. An ecumenical undertaking, The Saint John’s
Bible also will incorporate imagery from Eastern and Western religious
traditions, as well as influences from the Native American cultures in the
Minnesota area. It also will document Minnesota as the birthplace of The
Saint John’s Bible through illustrations of flora and fauna indigenous
to the region. The translation used in The Saint John’s Bible is the
New Revised Standard Version, which employs gender-inclusive language.
For more information please visit The Saint John’s Bible Web site
at www.saintjohnsbible.org or
contact: Greg Hoye |
