LECTIO DIVINA Chapter Six: The Ancient Traditional Spirituality (111-138). Medieval monastic culture is based on the Bible and its commentaries composed by the Greek and Latin Fathers. St. Benedict's Rule "prescribes the reading in the Divine Office of the expositiones written by those he calls the Fathers." (111). The monasticism founded by St. Benedict is a continuity of the earlier existing Eastern monastic tradition. One could say that authentic Benedictine monasticism reflects the primeval unity of the Catholic Church before the divisions and schisms that came centuries later. The historic value of this early era is presevered in writing of Benedict of Aniane (745/50-821) in his Codex regularum that shows the importance of the ancient Eastern rules. Benedict of Aniane wrote a few decades prior to the political divisions that began under Pope Nicholas I (reigned 858-876) with the publishing of the "PseudoIsidorian Decretals," leading to the schism that took place with the Eastern Catholic Church under its patriarch Photius in 862. In our daily lectio divina let us reflect on the grace of God we all recieve in the holy commentaries of the Fathers written during a united Church unified by the Holy Spirit and pray that we be made whole individually as persons in Christ and the Church also as the unified Person of Christ reuniting the East and West. Jean Leclercq, O.S.B., The Love of Learning and the Desire For God. A Study of Monastic Culture. (NY: Fordham University Press, 1961, 1974) ISBN 0-8232-0406-5 * * * __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/