Benedictine communities came to be founded on the principle of radical hospitality – the monks would welcome any visitor as they would welcome Christ Himself. It didn’t mean that they would adopt the ideas of whoever came along, but they would listen to them all, think about them in a rigorous fashion, and keep anything that was helpful.

If we want to be the kind of people who are prepared to create the next institutions that will lift, advance, and bless the culture we need to do what St. Benedict did, and cultivate an orderly life that makes time daily not just for work, but also for study and prayer, who have a rational relationship with information technology, who find in the Bible an answer for the dull ennui and psychic despair that is the daily bread of so many young people.