The Rule of Saint Benedict
Who can measure the extraordinary influence that these few pages have exercised during fourteen centuries on the general education of the Western world? St. Benedict, however, only thought of God; he has thought only of souls desirous of ascending to God; he only wanted, in the quiet simplicity of his faith, to establish a school of divine service: Dominici schola servitii. It is precisely because of this jealous search for the unique necessity that God has blessed the Rule of the monks with a singular grace of fruitfulness, and that Saint Benedict has taken rank in the lineage of the great patriarchs.
Dom Paul Delatte, Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, Introduction, p. II.