Benedictines of Norcia in today's New York Times

A lovely news article appears on page A4 of today's New York Times, online here, featuring the Benedictines of Norcia and their resilience following a magnitude-6.5 earthquake in 2016.

Elizabeth Povoledo, based in the Times' Rome bureau, wrote the feature article, with photos by Alessandro Penso. Abbot Benedict Nivakoff, OSB, discussed the delicious beer brewed there and how a percentage of the restoration effort has been aided by sales of Birra Nursia.

Benedictines of Norcia: now an abbey

Some outstanding news from Italy. The Benedictines of Norcia, currently celebrating their 25th year as a monastery, received a canonical elevation. The monastery is now an abbey, and current prior Dom Benedict Nivakoff, O.S.B., has been elected abbot.

This writer was privileged to attend a recent 25th anniversary luncheon in Washington, D.C., with several of the Benedictines, including Dom Benedict. It is hard to say enough good things about these holy and prayerful men. They pray for you. They pray for the Church. They are growing. They are building -- and indeed still rebuilding after a massive earthquake. They are smart, savvy and dedicated servants of our Lord and His Church.

Norcia summer theology program, June 17-28

From June 17–28, 2018, the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies, in partnership with the Monks of Norcia, will hold its seventh summer theology program in Norcia, Italy.

This summer’s program will be “Human Suffering and Divine Providence: Thomas’s Commentary on the Book of Job.” We will read and discuss St. Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on Job, considered one of the saint’s finest Biblical commentaries, dedicated to a close analysis of an Old Testament book that has always been a favorite with preachers, moralists, and artists.

Norcia Summer Theology Program - Syllabus & Last Call for Enrollment

The 2017 Norcia Summer Theology Program of the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies, "Divine Power in a Hidden Way," dedicated to the theology of the sacraments, will be starting up in a month's time: July 2-14. We still have room for last-minute applications, so if you've been tottering on the edge about coming, now's the time to make the final decision. A full description of the program and practical details may be found at the above link.

The syllabus for the seminars will be as follows (each seminar to be based on a reading from St. Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on the Sentences IV):

Reminder: Summer Theology Program in Norcia, Accepting Applications

As announced here on February 21, the sixth annual Summer Theology Program of the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies, held in Norcia, Italy, is accepting applications from prospective students. With the program running from July 2-14, now is the time to apply!

In addition to our usual heady round of prayer, study, conversation, quiet walks, and ample Italian meals, this year's program is going to be special in two ways.

Monks of Norcia to Move Permanently Outside the City Walls

Since moving to Norcia from Rome in the year 2000, the traditional community of Benedictines in the birthplace of St. Benedict had been living in the middle of the town in the old diocesan chancellory, and praying the office in the basilica built over the house of SS. Benedict and Scholastica. Since the destruction of the basilica by the recent Umbrian earthquakes, however, they have been living at an old monastic grange on a hill above the city. Now they have announced on their website that the move is to be permanent:

Now Available: Lectures and Disputed Questions on the Letter to the Hebrews (Proceedings of the 2016 Norcia Summer Theology Program)

Hot off the press:

Praelectiones et Quaestiones Disputatae -- On St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews. Proceedings of the 2016 AMCSS Summer Theology Program. Ed. John P. Joy. Strathcona, MN: Libri Albertini, 2017. Paperback, 140pp. $18.99 Amazon.com / £15.99 Amazon.co.uk

The Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies (AMCSS) is an organization dedicated to the promotion of sacred theology undertaken according to the mind and method of the great scholastics. The theme of the fifth annual summer theology program hosted by the AMCSS in Norcia, Italy, in cooperation with the Benedictine Monks of Norcia, was "The Transcendent Christ: On St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews." This volume collects the lectures delivered over the course of the program as well as the culminating scholastic disputation, which involved several disputed questions, conducted at a very high level -- but with some entertaining elements, too.

Announcing the 2017 Summer Theology Program in Norcia -- Aquinas on the Sacraments

Agriturismo Casale - the base of our operations

The Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies is happy to announce that registration is now open for the July 2017 summer theology program in the town of Norcia. This will be our sixth summer program since 2011. We are especially excited to be studying the sacraments, with a close look at baptism and the Holy Eucharist, through the lens of Book IV of the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard by St. Thomas Aquinas, which has some of the Angelic Doctor's most extensive and intriguing discussions of sacramental theology from his entire career. The program directors will be Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P., Christopher Owens, and Peter Kwasniewski. Fr. Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., the founding prior of Norcia, will join us for a lecture and conversation.

2017 Norcia Calendar Available for Free Download

The monks of Norcia, who are such a beacon of hope in the Catholic world and who have been through so much suffering in the past half-year, are valiantly re-establishing their monastic life on top of a hill overlooking the town. This year, due to the upheavals, they are not publishing their wall calendar in a paper version, but they have still created a beautiful calendar that is available for free download here.

An update from Norcia

The monks have asked us to share this with you:

Help the Norcia Monks - an appeal

We have all read about and seen pictures of the devastation caused by the recent earthquake in central Italy.  Although the damage was not as severe as in Amatrice and other hamlets, the town of Norcia suffered in a real way from the earthquake.  What most saddened me was the damage suffered by the Basilica of S. Benedetto and the adjoining monastery.  Readers of this blog know of my great love for the Benedictine monks in Norcia.  What they have done there in the past decade is quite remarkable. They brought back a living monastery to the birthplace of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica.  And they have been among the leaders in the monastic world of the return to and the promulgation of the Traditional Latin Mass.  To see the Mass celebrated there each day with such simple beauty is to look into the future.

Norcia Quake! - Updated

Praying for our many friends and acquaintances in Norcia (Nursia), Umbria, Italy, following the devastating earthquake there a few hours ago. More news as soon as possible.

Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo:

ne in aeternum irascaris nobis.

+

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

***

Italian broadcasters speak of at least 38 dead at the moment, including in hamlets devastated by the quake.

First and second updates from the monks of Norcia below:

“The Christian Liturgy as ‘Sacrifice of Praise’ in the Epistle to the Hebrews” — Dr. Kwasniewski’s Lecture at Norcia

This lecture was delivered on July 18, 2016, for the summer theology program in Norcia, put on by the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies and dedicated to the Epistle to the Hebrews. The lecture discusses Holy Mass as the most perfect sacrificium laudis and the Divine Office as central to the Church's life of prayer. The text is reproduced below in full.

Where the monks of Norcia offer up the sacrificium laudis

The Christian Liturgy as ‘Sacrifice of Praise’ in the Epistle to the Hebrews

Peter Kwasniewski

Where is the Christian liturgy in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or, to put the question more sharply, where is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

Update on the Norcia Summer Theology Program -- Still Accepting Applications

As mentioned here before, the beautiful ancient town of Norcia -- home of the traditional Benedictine monks famed for their Gregorian chant and artisanal beer -- will be the backdrop of the fifth annual Summer Theology Program of the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies. The course runs from July 10–24, 2016 (the instructional part runs until July 22, with an optional weekend in Rome the last couple of days).

This year our theme is the Epistle to the Hebrews. With this short but inexhaustibly profound sacred text as the primary point of reference, participants will follow the great interpretive tradition of the Church, especially as found in St. Thomas Aquinas's unsurpassed commentary.

I am glad this year to be on the faculty, together with Fr. Thomas Crean, OP, Fr. Cassian Folsom, OSB, and other tutors.

The daily schedule will allow participants easy access to the rich liturgical life of the Benedictine monks -- daily Low Masses, High Mass, and the chanted Divine Office, celebrated at the birthplace of SS. Benedict & Scholastica. The schedule includes the town’s festive celebration of the Feast of St. Benedict on July 11th, pilgrimages to the nearby towns of Assisi and Cascia, and the aforementioned final weekend in Rome.

Fr Cipolla presents the new Norcia venture in the United States: Birra Nursia Monastic Beer

By Father Richard Cipolla

There are few places in this world that mean more to me spiritually than the monastery of St. Benedict in Norcia, Italy.

Event: Announcing the 2016 Summer Theology Program in Norcia, Italy (July 10-24)

We have been asked to announce the following event:

The St. Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies [AMCSS], in partnership with the Monastero di San Benedetto, will hold its fifth annual summer theology program in Norcia, Italy, from July 10–24, 2016.

Italian liturgical calendar from Norcia

A reader recommended we bring one last 2016 liturgical calendar to your attention:

October 7th: Event in NYC for the Monks of Norcia

We would like to remind our readers in the New York area that the Lumen Christi Association, about which we have posted previously, is hosting an event in support of the monks of Norcia on October 7th at the New York Athletic Club. In addition to a presentation by the Fr. Cassian Folsom, prior of the the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, there will be a speech by Ross Douthat, Catholic convert and New York Times columnist, on Religion and the Fate of the West: Being Catholic in a Secular Age.

EVENT: APRIL 18 - Support the Monks of Norcia - Fundraising Gala in Darien, Connecticut

The Monastery of Saint Benedict in Norcia (Nursia, Umbria, Italy) is hosting the annual Norcia Gala in Connecticut this year, on April 18. Last year Cardinal Burke was the speaker, this year the Bishop of Bridgeport, the Most Rev. Frank Caggiano, will speak. 

Fr. Cassian Folsom, Prior, and Fr. Benedict Nivakoff, Subprior, will also be present.

Today, March 21, on this Feast of the great patriarch Saint Benedict, born in the very town where these his sons are keeping his rule, please consider taking part in this Eastertide fundraising event to support the formation of monks and other needs of the Monastery.

For reservations, invitations, and additional information, visit the 2015 Norcia Gala website.