Publishing
Benedictine monks are known for their copying of manuscripts in the Dark Ages to preserve ancient culture. Benedictines have also been authors of original works of theology, literature, history, and science. Less known is that Benedictines have traditionally been early adopters of new technologies, including the printing press. Some of the earliest works printed on Johann Gutenberg's press were books for the monks of Mainz, and the first printing press in Italy was established at Subiaco, Saint Benedict's first monastery, in the 1560s. Within just a few decades of Gutenberg's breakthrough, many monastic texts had been printed and widely distributed. When the Bavarian Benedictines came to the New World, they established a press at Saint Vincent's, and then in Minnesota, laying the groundwork for what would become the Liturgical Press, founded in 1926. Since that time the monks of Saint John's Abbey have been actively engaged in writing, editing, designing, and distributing both journals and books. This mission is a means of evangelization for the church and the world, and provides meaningful work for members of the Abbey and their lay coworkers.
Liturgical Press
Liturgical Press seeks a world transformed in Jesus Christ through the spirit of Vatican II. Its mission is to cultivate and amplify texts and voices that deepen the faith and knowledge of a richly diverse Church.
Founded in 1926 to promote the liturgical movement, the publishing apostolate of Saint John’s Abbey is a vibrant expression of the Benedictine tradition. Its catalog has grown to embrace Scripture, theology, ecumenism, monasticism, and spirituality. Through popular, pastoral, and scholarly content Liturgical Press serves individual readers and the Church throughout the world.
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Give Us This Day
Give Us This Day is a monthly prayer resource published by Liturgical Press. It is designed to provide support for those who seek to develop a regular practice of prayer in their daily lives. It includes brief prayers for Morning and Evening, texts for Mass each day, reflections on the daily Scriptures, profiles of saintly witnesses, and much more. The editorial team for Give Us This Day strives to include a variety of voices—both ancient and new, male and female, lay and ordained—as well as art from a variety of cultures, time periods, and media. The first issue was published in August 2011 and the publication is currently used widely across the United States and around the globe in both print and electronic formats.
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Abbey Banner
Published by the Benedictine monks of Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, Abbey Banner presents our monastic community’s mission and values as expressed through the monks’ prayer life and spirituality, work and stewardship, art and history. Edited by Brother Robin Pierzina, O.S.B., and published three times annually (spring, fall, winter), Abbey Banner is written for oblates, employees, friends, family, and benefactors of Saint John’s. The magazine is available online in PDF format for which an Adobe Acrobat Reader is required. For a printed subscription, contact: abbeybanner@csbsju.edu or write to:
Abbey Banner
Box 2015
Collegeville, Minnesota 56321
Please include your full mailing address.
Subscriptions are gratis.
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Worship Magazine
On the First Sunday of Advent, 1926, Worship was born of the passion of Dom Virgil Michel, a monk of Saint John’s Abbey, to enable all the baptized to develop and promote a better understanding of what the liturgy is and does. This understanding, Michel believed, would enable men and women to participate more actively and fruitfully in the church’s worship. He believed that this participation would transform parishes, ensure the church’s participation in the lives of its people, provide a sense of belonging to a human community, and challenge social isolation. Originally titled Orate Fratres, the publication’s name was changed to Worship in 1951 to signal its support for the use of the vernacular in the liturgy that would enable the whole body of believers to participate in the liturgy fully.
Michel engaged an interdisciplinary, international group of pioneers of the modern liturgical movement to produce the publication that would plant the liturgical movement in the United States and English-speaking North America. After Michel’s sudden death in 1938, a series of eminent Benedictine liturgists of Saint John’s Abbey assured the continuity of both the publication’s editorial policy and its vision for the liturgical life of the church: Godfrey Diekmann, Aelred Tegels, Michael Marx, Allan Bouley, and Kevin Seasoltz. Now under the editorial direction of Bernadette Gasslein and an ecumenical team of editorial consultants, Worship continues to serve as a forum in which contemporary scholars and practitioners can engage in interdisciplinary and ecumenical dialogue in the service of living liturgical traditions.
For its 90th birthday in 2016, Worship underwent a complete redesign. Now available in both digital and print formats, it continues to nourish a worshiping church in which all people can find in the liturgy the wellspring of authentic living.