1980 February Saint Benedict's Today

              WE ARE ESTABLISHING A SCHOOL OF THE LORD'S SERVICE 
-Presidential Medal inscription 
Sister Emmanuel's Inaugural Address 


October 6, 1979 



by Sister Emmanuel Renner O.S.B. Seventh President of the College 
I have just accepted the presidential medal, the symbol of the authority vested in me for the administration of the College of Saint Benedict. The highest function of that administration is to carry out the mission of the College, to offer a liberal arts education to women in a Christian, Catholic, Benedictine environment. There�fore, I would like to share with you this afternoon some thoughts on one part of that mission, namely its Benedictine char�acter. It seems doubly fitting that I focus on this aspect today. First, because in 1980 Benedictines throughout the world will be celebrating the 1500th anniversary of the birth of Saint Benedict. Second, because as a historian and as a Benedictine I have developed a profound respect and admiration for the contribution of the Benedictines to Western Civilization over the past 141/z centuries. 
The Ideal of Integration 
The College of Saint Benedict has as its model of liberal education the education of the woman-remembering her intel�lectual, spiritual, moral, emotional, and artistic capabilities. Integration is there�fore fundamental. I refer first of all to the integration of knowledge, because as a liberal arts institution our primary goal is the pursuit of truth and wisdom. But we are also concerned with the integration of her intellectual with her emotional and spiritual development. I wish to speak today about the integrated life as a Bene�dictine value. This emphasis on integration as an ideal is particularly rich since the Rule of Saint Benedict and the centuries�long tradition of Benedictine history wit�ness to a communal way of life in which prayer, learning, work, and celebration were and still are integrated into the daily schedule forming in us habits of mind and action that are deeply influential. 

About Saint Benedict 
I would like to review, briefly, various historic contributions of the Benedictine way of life and attempt to show how that Benedictine environment affects our phil�osophy of education at this College and nourishes an integrated life. I have chosen to dwell on the sixth through the twelfth centuries because it was during that time when Benedictine monasticism was founded in Europe and became one of the great social and cultural movements in the his�tory of Western Civilization. 
Anyone who reads the Rule of Benedict is impressed by its pervading emphasis on community. But not every reader knows the life of Benedict or the extent to which that emphasis was the result of experience and choice. As a young aristocrat, Bene�dict was sent to Rome in the late fifth century for an education. After a short time, he left his studies and went to Subiaco to live as a hermit. He never set out to found a religious community; rather, he had as a goal to seek God more and more completely. However, his reputation for sanctity attracted others to him. Even�tually, Benedict moved to Monte Cassino to live with a group of followers. There, living and reflecting on his own experi�ence and that of other monks, both East�em and Western, he composed his extraor�dinary influential Rule-designed for those who, seeking God, recognize in Benedict's community the milieu in which they can fulfill the deepest of human desires. 

The Role of Community 
As the result, then, of his experience and mature choice, we have what I con�sider his basic contribution: his establish�ment of community. Benedict would have understood the theologian, Bernard Lee, who has said that since integration is deeply personal, participation in com�munity is a more effective way of achiev�ing integration than is the curriculum.1 While I don't believe we should shirk our awesome responsibility of seeking integra�tion through curricular efforts, I do think Lee's comment is worth serious considera�tion. I believe that the role of community in the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development of our students is significant. Community plays an active role in their education-it is not just a happy by�product of education at Saint Benedict's. There is a relationship between integration of knowledge and organic relationships among members of this community. The mutual support given in our community frees our members to become more truly themselves: to seek truth, to risk mis�takes and learn from them, to admit ig�norance or uncertainty while searching for answers, to be able to grow from the experience of tension, anxiety, and psychic pain, to be willing to be open, trusting, and sensitive to others, to be willing and able to rise above illusions and perceive the real ever more clearly, and to experi�ence God's loving presence in the life of others. It seems very likely that Saint Benedict in designing his community un�derstood that without effective personal relationships, personal growth, both spiritu�al and psychological, will be stunted. 

Liturgy and Solitude 
The particular form of communal cele�bration characteristic of Benedictines is that of liturgical worship. This liturgy, too, has proven efficacious in cementing relationships with one another as well as with God. Benedict also understood the indispensability of solitude in the nourish�ing of personal relationships as well as of prayer. As Henri Nouwen says, while much growth certainly occurs in the hu�man interactions of talking, playing, or working together, these interactions derive their fruit from solitude: "Solitude keeps us in touch with the sustaining love from which community draws its strength. It sets us free from the compulsions of fear and anger and allows us to be, in the midst of an anxious and violent world, as a sign of hope and a source of courage. In short, solitude creates a free community that makes bystanders say, 'See how they love each other."'2 That is the ideal of community which plays such an important role in the educational process on this campus. 

Rejoicing in Labor 
Alfred North Whitehead in his excellent book, Aims in Education, credits the mediev�al Benedictines with linking together know�ledge, labor and moral energy in a way the classical world had not. Whereas man�ual work was seen in earlier times as a curse-the Benedictines saw it as a blessing. They rejoiced in their labor because they transfused it with intellectual and moral vision. Work was an integral part of the life of the Benedictines. It was seen as an essential part of their spiritual discipline rather than as a regrettable necessity. 3 
During the medieval ages this Benedic�tine attitude and response to work had two significant consequences. First, Bene�dictines located themselves in rural areas and actively engaged in agriculture as well as in prayer and in study. As a result of their laboring in the fields, they achieved an intimate relationship with the earth. The Benedictine Rule emphasized the spirit of stewardship rather than the idea of domination over nature, a factor that aided in wise management of their land. Because of this attitude of stewardship which nourished a creative and harmonious re�lationship with nature, Rene Dubos, a renowned philosopher-scientist-humanist, has hailed Saint Benedict as the patron saint of conservationists. It is an attitude which is certainly needed today and one that is and shall continue to be nourished here at the College of Saint Benedict.4 

Physical and Intellectual Work 
A second consequence of the Benedictine response to work was that their way of life encouraged them to combine physical and intellectual work. Whitehead suggests they were the first scholars to get dirt beneath their fingernails. Nisbet character�ized the genius of Benedictine monasticism as the insistence upon the harmonious balance between thought and culture, on the one hand, and labor in the fields on the other.5 Manual work was alternated with the mental activity that goes into prayer and study. This combination of practical and theoretical skills in turn as�sisted them in destroying the artificial barrier between technical education and the liberal arts. This new atmosphere proved to be enormously important for the development of technology and science in Western Civilization. Education needs to impart both intellectual vision and technique in order to enable a person to know something well and to do something well. Today, it is our task to carry on that tradition. We seek to assist our stu�dents in preparing for careers as part of their development of the fully human life. Work is not divorced from life, nor do we divorce professional education from liberal education. We approach professional edu�cation humanistically. Most importantly, we recognize the value of liberal arts skills as supplying a firm foundation for satisfying careers. 

Scholarship and Spirituality 

Learning has traditionally been an in�tegral part of the Benedictine way of life. Saint Benedict speaks of his monastery as a school for the service of the Lord. Parenthetically I think it is appropriate that the President's Medal contains the words "We are establishing a school of the Lord's service." Education is not separated from the spiritual effort in monastic life. Knowledge is closely linked to the spiritual goal of the search for God. The Rule pro�vides that lectio divina, a meditative read�ing of the word of God, be a basic part of each day. As the Benedictine scholar, Jean Leclercq describes it, lectio divina involves learning with one's whole being: "with the body, since the mouth pro�nounced it, with the memory which fixes it, with the intelligence which understands its meaning, and with the will which de�sires to put it into practice."� Lectio divina presupposed that spirit of silence and soli�tude which was essential to community living. That same spirit is an integral part of the life of every scholar; in fact one who faithfully participates in lectio divina is developing mental habits suitable to a life of scholarship. Lectio divina also pre�supposed, in the medieval ages, an under�standing of the classics. Through study of the classics Benedictines developed their own intellectual capacity to understand and to appreciate the wisdom and truth found in those literary treasures of the past. They performed the noble service of pre�serving this heritage of the classical world by collecting manuscripts, copying them, and establishing libraries for them. But they did more. These great ideas of the past were continually revitalized by each generation of Benedictines thinking through and rediscovering their value. This assim�ilation of the classical culture provided a powerful impetus to creative effort. In ad�dition, the effect of this daily practice was carried over into the rest of life, form�ing habits of mind which nourished intel�lectual growth, self-discovery, and con�version of morals. Thus the Benedictine Rule was (and is) a method of training which promotes an integrated life. 

Carrying on the Tradition 
The approach to learning as practiced by Benedictine men and women over the centuries, i.e. learning with one's whole being, is excellent discipline for those who seek wisdom as well as knowledge. Con�tinuing in this tradition of Benedict's School of the Lord's Service the faculty of Saint Benedict's challenge the students to accept this discipline. 
This, then, is the tradition which Bene�dictines contributed to Western Civiliza�tion. And we are proud to carry on that tradition of valuing the person, assisting her to pursue a life of learning. That life in this milieu can result in an apprecia�tion of the arts, in being in touch with nature-her own and that which surrounds her-a vision of her own vocation, her own profession as a life in service to others -all in an ever developing relation with God, the Giver of all that is good. 
'Bernard Lee, "Higher Education and Christian Ministry: Areas of Mutuality and Coincidence" (mimeographed paper, 1977). 
'Henri Nouwen, Clowning in Rome (Garden City: Doubleday, 1979), pp. 14-15. 
'Alfred North Whitehead, 'T echnical Educa�tion and Its Relation to Science and Literature;'' Aims of Education and Other Essays (original edition, New York: Macmillan, 1929). 
'Rene Dubos, "Franciscan Conservation Ver�sus Benedictine Spirituality," A God W ithin (New York: Scribner, 1972), p. 168. 
'Robert Nisbet, "The Elements of the Ecologi�cal Community," The Social Philosopher: Com�munity and Conflict in Western Thought, (New York: Crowell, 1973), pp. 326-334. 
'lean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New York: Fordham University, 1961), 
p. 22. 

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