Description
Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster stands out among contemporary Benedictine Order giants as a theologian, cardinal, and saint—one who thoroughly studied monasticism and liturgy and, despite being promoted to the archbishopric of Milan, maintained the heart of a friar whose childlike faith, monastic self-denial, and all-encompassing charity were identified in his beatification. Schuster’s commentary on St Benedict of Nursia’s Holy Rule (first released in Italian at the end of WWII and now accessible in English for the very first time time) varies from learned discourses of monastic and liturgical history to insightful lessons in spiritual doctrine, and is laced with comforting anecdotes and sound guidance from a veteran of the monastic life who happened to know many of the exemplary figures of the great nineteenth-century Benedictine revival.
