4th Sunday of Easter
17 April 2005
Dear Friends in Christ,
On Thursday of this week the sacred liturgy will celebrate the life of St. Anselm, a Benedictine monk and Archbishop of Canterbury, who was born in 1033 on the border between Italy and France and died in 1109 in England. From his youth, Anselm desired to become a monk and a scholar, but his father Gundulf opposed this plan and worked constantly to prevent his son from responding to his vocation. At the age of 23, estranged from his father because of their disagreement, Anselm left home to study in France, and finally at the age of 27, after his father’s death, Anselm entered the Benedictine Abbey of Bec in Normandy. And it was there that he began to write the philosophical and theological treatises that would cause later thinkers to regard Anselm as the Father of Scholasticism, the main Christian intellectual movement of the High Middle Ages.
After Anselm had been a monk only three years, the prior of Bec ( a scholar named Lanfranc, who would also serve as Archbishop of Canterbury) was elected abbot of another monastery, and Anselm was appointed to take his place. Then in 1078 Anselm was elected Abbot of Bec, and the scholar became an ecclesiastical ruler with administrative duties in England and France. Discharging these duties took Anselm to England on a regular basis, and it was there that he came to the attention of King William Rufus, successor of William the Conqueror. In 1093, at the age of 60, Anselm became the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primate of England. Like St. Thomas Becket after him, Anselm often found himself in conflict with the King and was twice exiled for several years because of his efforts to defend the liberty of the Church.
Anselm was a truly pious man and a gifted writer; he composed many prayers and devotional meditations that survive to this day. But he was chiefly known as one of the finest theological minds of his time, and among his contributions to Christian thought was the insight that scared theology is best understood as faith seeking understanding (_fides quaerens intellectum_). The Gospel calls for the obedience of faith, but this is not the blind obedience of slaves. Rather, we are called to saving knowledge of the truths of divine Revelation and to the dignity of being adopted children of God. And this requires us to understand what we are asked to believe by faith. As the Church honors St. Anselm in the liturgy this week, I encourage you to look online or in a good Catholic encyclopedia for more information about this saintly Abbot of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Doctor of the Church.
Father Newman