Benedictine Tradition

A tradition of calligraphy and learning based on the Bible grew up in monasteries and served to preserve much of what we know about classical culture. The Saint John's Bible draws attention to the core inspiration of Benedictine monasticism, its relationship to the word of God.

For the individual monk, few activities are more important than the practice of each day reading a short passage of scripture and placing that passage in dialogue with one's own life. This practice of lectio, by hand, cultivates an honest sense of self and opens one to the newness of life.

The following remarks were excerpted from a talk delivered by Brother Dietrich Reinhart, OSB, president of Saint John's University, at the Blessing Ceremony for The Saint John's Bible on September 13, 1998 at Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota.

Benedictine

Within the millennial sweep of time, we draw on a fifteen hundred year old Benedictine tradition which is based directly on the Bible. Monastic worship shapes daily life and each year's cycle, and it is replete with biblical texts, recited and sung, proclaimed and pondered. For the individual monk few activities are more important than the simple, unadorned practice of each day reading a short passage of Scripture -- a practice which goes by the name of lectio and concentrates on placing the biblical passage in dialogue with one's own life.

Lectio cultivates an honest sense of self and it opens one up to newness of life. There is a remarkable concreteness in how St. Benedict talks of the Bible. He writes, "What page, what passage of the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments is not the truest of guides for human life?" That statement arises obviously out of the practice of lectio, but perhaps not a little of its concreteness comes from long experience of copying each passage, each page of the Bible by hand, an essential monastic activity which allowed all monks to join together in monastic worship and on their own do lectio.

A tradition of calligraphy and learning based on the Bible grew up in monasteries and, as we know, served to preserve much of what we know about classical culture. Moreover, within the communal life oriented so directly around the Word of God, something of the ethos of early Christian communities lived on. The great divides within Christianity made access to that original ethos narrower and narrower, but monasteries -- because of their antiquity and almost in spite of themselves -- remained precious entry points into the common heritage of all Christians.

If as we enter the third millennium, one Benedictine monastery is linked to a Bible that is being written by hand -- laboriously, joyfully, over many years -- that is a powerful contribution to the entire world. It draws attention to the core inspiration of Benedictine monasticism, its relationship to the Word of God. And it can help thereby to create wider and more comprehensible contact with the spiritual riches which are the common heritage of all God's people.

See full text of Time, Tradition and Place by Dietrich Reinhart.

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