The Holy Rule of Our Most Holy Father Saint Benedict; Edited by the Benedictine Monks of St. Meinrad's Abbey
St. Meinrad, Indiana: Grail Publications, 1950. Second printing. Octavo, original mottled green cloth, gilt spine and front board, original printed dust wrapper. Faint toning to original wrapper. A nearly-fine copy. Item #1332
'HEARKEN, O MY SON, TO THE PRECEPTS OF THY MASTER, AND INCLINE THE EAR OF THY HEART"
Second printing of The Rule of St. Benedict—a Grail Publication edited by the Benedictine Monks of St. Meinrad's Abbey—complete in the original dust wrapper.
Any description of the Western Monastic tradition must begin with the Rule of St. Benedict, "a document almost unique in Christian literature, at once impersonal and full of character, which has influenced each succeeding generation of monks in much the same way that the Gospels have influenced religious souls in every age" (Dom David Knowles, The Benedictines). The Rule consists of the Prologue (of Our Most Holy Father Saint Benedict) and seventy-three chapters, adapting and establishing the virtues and practices of Work and Prayer (Ora et Labora) to guide Western monasticism, a corrective antidote to the disrepair of religious life which had accompanied the disintegration of the Roman Empire. "Benedict considered the communal life essential for all who undertake the way of perfection" (Frank Magill, Masterpieces of Christian Literature).
First printed in 1937, this edition is prefaced with a Biographical Sketch of St. Benedict by Aidan Cardinal Gasquet and a Sermon on St. Benedict by Pope Pius XII. The Holy Father's sermon (not included in the 1937 edition) was delivered on the "Occasion of the Fourteenth Centennial of the Death of St. Benedict." Pius emphatically declares "St. Benedict is the Father of Europe" and he asks of the Benedictine motto—"Pray and Work"— "does not this motto of the Benedictines with august brevity contain and convey what is the very law and the chief and immutable foundation of all learning and culture?" Supplemented with an Appendix in two parts: 1. Outline of the Rule of St. Benedict, 2. The Holy Rule Epitomized for Oblates (Henry Brenner, O.S.B.). Printed Jussu Superioris.
Price: $100.00