Benedict XVI offered the meaning of the motto below on Sunday 24 May 2009 in his homily at Cassino, Piazza Miranda…
The 2013/14 AEI’s Academic Year Motto
Benedictine spirituality, well known to you, proposes an evangelical programme that is summed up in the motto: ora et labora et lege, prayer and work and culture.
Prayer: First of all is prayer, which is the most beautiful legacy that St Benedict bequeathed to the monks, but also to your particular Church. Prayer is the breath of the soul that restores peace to us in the storm of life. May attentive listening to the divine word nourish your prayers and make you prophets of truth and love in a unanimous commitment to evangelization and human advancement.
Work: Humanizing the working world is characteristic of the soul of monasticism and this is also an endeavour of your community that seeks to be beside the numerous workers in the large industry present at Cassino and in the businesses connected with it. Then I am thinking of the young people who have difficulty in finding dignified work that will enable them to build a family.
Culture: Lastly, attention to the world of culture and education is part of your tradition. I know that you work with this same spirit in universities and schools so that they may become workshops of knowledge, research and enthusiasm for the future of the generations to come. In today’s cultural effort which aspires to creating a new humanism, faithful to the Benedictine tradition, you rightly intend also to pay attention to the frail or the weak, to the disabled and to immigrants.