9781644135945

PUBLISHER’S
PREFACE
Light of the World was first published in German as Werde Licht! (Herder, 1937), the fruit
of several decades spent in teaching and retreat direction by the esteemed author, Dom
Benedict Baur. Although his theological and pastoral efforts were deservedly known and praised
in his own day, a brief word of introduction seems appropriate.
In addition to serving over two decades as Archabbot of Beuron, Dom Baur (born Karl
Borromäus Baur, December 9, 1877) was a German Benedictine theologian, professor, and
retreat master of renown among the parishes and religious houses of Germany and Italy in the
early 20th century.
Dom Baur professed his monastic vows at the Archabbey of Beuron in 1898, and was
ordained to the priesthood there some five years later. He was appointed to the house professorships
of dogmatic theology and canon law in 1905, and his gifts in these disciplines, coupled
with his keen pastoral insight and formation within the Benedictine school of liturgical prayer
led to his being frequently sought as a director of spiritual retreats in both Germany and Italy.
He was later recruited as professor of dogmatics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant’Anselmo in
Rome, where he taught from 1931 to 1938 before being named Archabbot of Beuron by Pope
Pius XI. He reigned as Archabbot until 1955, successfully steering the Beuron Congregation
through the stormy years of war as an opponent to the Nazi regime. Nearly eighty, he then
retired to teaching and retreat work from the quiet of the Beuron cloister, passing to his eternal
reward there on November 10, 1963.
During his life, Dom Baur distinguished himself among the various Rhineland Benedictine
houses for his work in the liturgical movement — a theological and pastoral programme which,
by that time, was beginning to adopt a character far different from the one championed by its
saintly grandfather, Dom Prosper Guéranger of Solesmes. Although generally committed to
promoting liturgical prayer as the central element of Christian prayer life, the movement that
began with an intention to explain and unfold the richness of the Church’s sacred rites had
in many places shifted to experimentation and adaptation of the liturgical forms themselves.
A fundamental change in principle was in fact underway: from a disposition that reverently
received the liturgical patrimony of the Church, to one of refashioning it to better suit contemporary
preference.
Of the two dispositions, Dom Baur was decidedly of the former, as may be evinced from his
excellent introduction to the present work. “We have simply allowed ourselves to be guided and
instructed by the liturgy,” insists the author, “and we rest satisfied that we are thus following the
right way and that we are receiving wholesome spiritual nourishment.” This attitude of devout
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