An education of the whole person
The Rule of St Benedict, written around 530 AD, has shaped religious communities, schools and universities across many parts of the world, within Roman Catholicism, the Anglican Communion, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism.
Monastic schools played a major role in preserving and passing on learning in Europe before the rise of the university.
What makes a school Benedictine
Listening.
The Rule opens with a single word: listen. A Benedictine school teaches students to attend closely to what is in front of them, and to one another.
Hospitality.
Every guest is to be welcomed as Christ. In a school, that means a community that makes room for the student who arrives unexpected, unprepared, or unlike everyone else.
Stability.
Benedictine communities commit to a place. Schools formed in that tradition tend to be deeply rooted in the districts around them, and to stay when others leave.
Work and prayer.
Ora et labora. Study, manual work and worship are not separate parts of life to be balanced against each other, but one life.
Formation of the whole person.
The purpose is to educate both a capable graduate and a person of character.