The author presents a loving contact with the founders of the Monastic Orders, and shows how St. Benedict and others made a skillful selection from the treasures of the ancients. Our age poses for all Christian religious a similar problem, namely how to adapt oneself to a changing civilization. This study of the roots common to all Christian monasticism will contribute to a mutual understanding between the Churches and different cultures.
Mayeul (Francois) de Dreuille OSB was born at Cressanges, France on 3rd December 1920; he made his monastic profession on 8th December 1940 at the Benedictine Abbey of La Pierre-Qui-Vire and was ordained priest on 24th February 1945. Since 1954 he has been involved in monastic foundations in Madagascar, India and Congo, opening himself to the cultures and religions of these countries. In charge of training young monks, he noticed that the earliest Fathers were more accessible to them than more recent Western literature and that a knowledge of history was a necessary basis for a true inculturation. Hence his publications, first in India, now made available to a wider readership.
