JUNE

11, the

Memorial of St.

Benedict.

For San

Beda University, it is a solemnity. Some might wonder what Benedictine monks are doing running a university when they are supposed to be fully devoted to prayer and contemplation within the walls of the monastery.

While many know where San Beda University is — since 1902, it has always been around the same area, though not necessarily on the same site — not everyone knows that there is a monastery in the heart of Manila: the Monastery of Our Lady of Montserrat, and within its walls one really finds respite from the ruckus that is the bane of Manila life!

There is, however, a good reason for monks to administer a university — San Beda University is actually their only university in the world, although they have schools and colleges in many other places.

Monks devote themselves to what is their primary “office”: the “opus Dei”... the work of God, which primarily though not exclusively means the Divine Office. They chant the Liturgy of the Hours, and in the Philippines, the major hours like Lauds and Vespers can be followed online. Certainly, it brings their lives of prayer and praise to completion when they can bring others to pray and to praise. So, Benedictine schools are primarily schools of prayer and praise, and it would be the most terrible betrayal of the Benedictine charism for a Benedictine school to be known for topping the bar examination or excelling in various other disciplines but hardly passing on the first of the Benedictine maxims: Ora — Pray! And because labora — work — is the second of these, then the work of forming the hearts of the young into praying and praising hearts is “labora” indeed.

But there is another reason, related to Benedict himself. He instructed his monks to give generous time to “lectio Divina” — literally, the Divine reading — and this meant a contemplative reading and rereading of Sacred Scripture and recognized commentaries, particularly by the saints. Benedictine diligence and studiousness are directed at the “sacra pagina” — the sacred page. And it is from the wellspring of Sacred Scripture that the monks are to nurture the hearts of the young whose education they make their apostolate, their labora.

The Rule of St. Benedict that earned him the title “Father of Western Monasticism” has always received high praise. It is a masterpiece not only of the spiritual life but also of organization and management. But it starts with the beautiful lines: “Obsculta, o fili, praecepta magistri”... Listen, O son, to the precepts of the teacher. To listen — that is a capacity the world is losing at an alarming pace, precisely because it is drowning in noise — noise from within and noise from without. Benedictine education is education in listening — and discerning between what should be listened to and what should be left unattended as mere “noise of the world,” static or distraction! One will have to recognize the Master, the Teacher, the Abbot, the Father. That is what Benedictine monks are to their charges, whether these be in basic, university or graduate education — masters who enunciate precepts that they themselves struggle to live.

There is another mark of Benedictine life to which monasteries all over the world have borne witness: hospitality to visitors and guests. Guests will always be welcome to monasteries — and it is hoped that they too will respect the sacred precincts and help the monks maintain the air of solitude that allows one to look into the depths of one’s soul and there encounter the great Abyss. Benedictine education is training in the hospitality of the heart. The graduate of a Benedictine institution should be one who creates room in his life for the many who the selfimportant and the self-indulgent leave out, for those who find no welcome elsewhere, for the Stranger through whom comes the visitation of the Lord.

Benedict had no pretensions that his would be the final word. In fact, in the 73rd Chapter — the last — of his Regula, he calls his Rule “the beginning of monastic life,” and with typical saintly modesty and fervor, he urges:

“Thou, therefore, who hastenest to the heavenly home, with the help of Christ fulfill this least rule written for a beginning; and then thou shalt with God’s help attain at last to the greater heights of knowledge and virtue which we have mentioned above.”