[For followers of St. Benedict]. . .Part of their vocation, it seems to me, is to be lovers of the book. Someone absorbed in reading is a beautiful sight, as many great paintings attest. Observing, we become aware of a certain stillness of the body and quietness of mind in the reader, a concentration of energies and a healing withdrawal from the anguish of life. It is a moment of ecstasy: a retreat from direct involvement with one part of reality in order to be re-energized by contact with reality’s less visible component. The act of reading symbolizes something of what monastic life is all about; withdrawal from the apparent to seek the reality that underlies appearances, in solitude, in silence, in recollection. . . . Reading is at the service of a reflective life; it contributes greatly to the gravitas that Benedict prized.
Michael Casey, OSCO
Strangers to the City, p. 44.
