The Benedictine Vision for The New Evangelization

The Love of Learning and the Desire for God By Jean Leclercq
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to an audience of leaders from the world of culture in Paris, France about the fact that Western civilization has roots that extend into the Benedictine renewal of the Middle Ages. Citing Jean Leclercq’s 1961 book “The Love of Learning and the Desire for God”, Benedict pointed out that it was the monastic communities who preserved the ancient Greco-Roman classics, founded the Western musical tradition through the chants for the Divine Office, and created a new Christian culture in the process. Yet such communities understood all these expressions of their common life to be subsidiary to their core identity: being rooted in the desire for God. Benedict has suggested that it is by returning to the example of these Benedictine monks that we can discover a new monasticism, the creative Christian response to a new Dark Ages, the basis for a new evangelization.

8:30am Mass
9:00 Welcome
9:15 Introduction: Dr. Norm Klassen (St. Jerome’s University)
9:30  The Formation of Monastic Culture
          Dr. Keith Cassidy (Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy)
10:30 The Sources of Monastic Culture
           Fr. Peter Nguyen, S.J. (Regis College, University of Toronto)
11:30 The Fruits of Monastic Culture
           Ania Krysciak (Wilfrid Laurier/University of Guelph)

WHEN:  8:30 AM to 12:30 PM, Saturday, June 16th, 2012
WHERE: St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 45 Victoria Road N., Guelph
FURTHER INFORMATION: Dcn. Charles Fernandes (519-923-0454)
or Fr. Mark Morley (mmorley@communiohamiltondiocese.org)

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.