A Benedictine Education

A Benedictine Education presents two essays by John Henry Newman, 'The Mission of Saint Benedic'" and 'The Benedictine Schools,' which together articulate Saint Benedict's vision of a schola servitii dominici, 'a school of the Lord's service.' As Christopher Fisher notes in his Preface, this volume aims to aid in the recovery of the Benedictine principle, a principle animated by a poetic disposition - the capacity to comprehensively and lovingly engage with reality. The Portsmouth Institute, at which Fisher serves as Executive Director, works to develop this disposition and thus provide leaven for a Christian culture. In her Introduction, Margarita A. Mooney bears this point out, emphasizing the eminently practical dimension of the Benedictine principle in its power to purify present-day educational systems. Concluding the volume is an Interpretive Essay by Abbot Thomas Frerking, O.S.B. The graceful and graced fruit of a life of contemplation, Abbot Thomas's words testify to the sublime truth at the heart of Christianity of which the Benedictine charism gives evidence: that the gift of wisdom comes not from literacy or learning, but from love.