Blessed Ildefonso Schuster, OSB

Schuster1The Benedictine monk, abbot, bishop and Cardinal is honored on this date: Blessed Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster. As a Roman by birth, he was a professed Benedictine monk and later abbot of the Abbey of Saint Paul outside the Walls (Rome). He was a liturgical scholar and professor at Sant’Anselmo.

“The Church’s Liturgy may…be considered as a sacred poem, in the framing of which both heaven and earth have taken part, and by which our humanity, redeemed in the blood of the Lamb without spot, rises on the wings of the Spirit even unto the throne of God himself. This is more than a mere aspiration, for the Sacred Liturgy not only shows forth and expresses the ineffable and the divine, but also, by means of the sacraments and of its forms of prayer, develops and fulfils the supernatural in the souls of the faithful, to whom it communicates the grace of redemption. It may even be said that the very source of holiness of the Church is fully contained in her Liturgy; for, without the holy sacraments, the Passion of our Lord, in the existing dispensation instituted by almighty God, we would have no efficacy in us, since there would be no channels capable of conveying its treasure to our souls.”

ldefonso Schuster, The Sacramentary, vol. I (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, London, 1923) p. 3.