The Benedictine ideal of the human being is not that of one who achieves and accomplishes things, not a person with an unusual religious gift, not a great ascetic, but the wise and mature person who knows how to bring people together, who creates around herself or himself an atmosphere of peace and mutual understanding.
Behind this idea image stands a high demand. No one can simply resolve to become a peacemaker. Only those who have created peace within themselves can make peace, only those who have become reconciled with themselves, their own weaknesses and faults, their needs and desires, their contradictory tendencies and ambitions.
Making peace is not a program of action that one could write on one's banners; rather, it must arise from inner peace. And inner peace is achieved only through a hard and unremitting struggle for inner purity and through prayer, in which one seeks to accept everything God presents, whether one's own weaknesses or those of others.
Benedict of Nursia - His Message for Today
Anselm Grun OSB
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