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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Recovering Benedict consciously tries to connect the dots between the twelve steps first published in The Big Book—Alcoholics Anonymous with the seventy-three chapters of the Rule of Benedict. The format of each daily reading is in two parts: first, the appointed daily reading from the Rule and then my reflection on it.

Both the text and my reflections rely on English translations of Benedict’s Rule. With the kind permission of the Community of Mount Saint Benedict in Erie, Pennsylvania, I quote from A Reader’s Version of the Rule of Saint Benedict in Inclusive Language, edited and adapted by Sister Marilyn Schauble, OSB, and Barbara Wojciak. During many of my reflections, I often quote from the Rule as translated by Leonard J. Doyle, OSB, St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 1948). I am grateful to both publishers for permission to quote from their texts, but I owe my greatest debt to Professor Julian G. Plante, late curator of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Microfilm Library at St. John’s, Collegeville, Minnesota, who first whetted my appetite for the Rule of Benedict.

Julian and I both happened to be giving papers at one of the first annual meetings of the International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University in 1968. I was talking on Meister Eckhart, and he was doing something or other on Classics. He stood in front of me in an incredibly long lunch line. To pass the time, we started up a conversation. At some point during that conversation, Julian said, “John, I have just the thing for you to work on.”

My scholarly publications from that day forward centered on the Rule of Benedict. I never looked back at Eckhart again. And my interest in the Rule and Benedictine life went well beyond the confines of academe. I became an oblate in the Benedictine Order—all stemming from that one chance lunch-line encounter. That never-ending line drove my life in a new direction—not just my scholarly life but, more importantly, my spiritual life as well.

May God rest the immortal soul of my friend and colleague, Professor Julian G. Plante, PhD. And may each of you who use this little book be inspired by the spirit of Benedict and the serenity of recovery.