A MONK NEVER MET

When I made my first retreat at Regina Laudis, contemplating monastic life, I was on my way to Germany, where I would study sculpture. One of the nuns knew a monk in Luxembourg and asked if I would stop to see him, knowing that I was flying direct to Luxembourg. Alas, I did visit the great Abbey, and had lunch there (my first experience of European monastic hospitality) but the monk was in travels. Only much later did I realize how well known he was, and even later able to read some of his writings.

DOM JEAN LeCLERCQ, O.S.B. was a French Benedictine monk, and author of a classic study on Lectio Divina and the history of inter-monastic dialogue.

He was  born in Avesnes, Pas-de-Calais, in 1911. As a young man, he entered  the Abbey of St. Maurice and St. Maur in Clervaux, Luxembourg. Although he would have preferred to remain a simple monk, he was eventually ordained to the priesthood. He studied extensively at the Benedictine College of Sant'Anselmo in Rome, and at several universities in France, interrupted by two terms of compulsory military service.  

With Thomas Merton

In 1946, he began a 30 year assignment to compile the writings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, during which time he traveled through much of Europe to accomplish his research. An acclaimed monastic scholar, he later traveled around the world, lecturing and studying, before finally returning to Clervaux shortly before his death in 1993, age 82.

Dom LeClercq is perhaps best known for his seminal work “The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture”.

He is also the author of many other books, including, "A Humanist Hermit; Blessed Paul Giustiniani" (1951), "Alone With God" (1955), "The Love of Learning and the Desire for God; A Study of Monastic Culture" (1957), "The Spirituality of the Middle Ages" (1969), and nine volumes on St. Bernard, the last of which was published in 1977.