Benedicta Ward (born Florence Margaret Ward, 4 February 1933 – 23 May 2022) was a
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
nun, theologian and historian. She was a member of the
Anglican religious order, the
Community of the Sisters of the Love of God
The Community of the Sisters of the Love of God (SLG) is an Anglican religious order of contemplative nuns founded in 1906 within the Church of England.
The community has always drawn upon Carmelite spirituality.
The community is at the Conven ...
and
reader
A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to:
Computing and technology
* Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader
* Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application
* A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...
in early
Christian spirituality at
Harris Manchester College
Harris Manchester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It was founded in Warrington in 1757 as a college for Unitarian students and moved to Oxford in 1893. It became a full college of th ...
,
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
.
She was particularly known for her research on the
Desert Fathers
The Desert Fathers or Desert Monks were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD. The is a collection of the wisdom of some of the ea ...
, popularising the collection of their writings known as the ''
Apophthegmata Patrum
The ''Sayings of the Desert Fathers'' ( la, Apophthegmata Patrum Aegyptiorum; el, ἀποφθέγματα τῶν πατέρων, translit=Apophthégmata tōn Patérōn) is the name given to various textual collections consisting of stories and ...
''. She wrote extensively on
Anselm of Canterbury and
Bede.
Life
Florence Margaret Ward was born in Durham to Methodist parents; her father had left the Church of England to marry his Methodist wife and had become a minister in his new denomination.
She came to
high church
The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
Anglicanism through the beauty of
choral evensong
Evensong is a church service traditionally held near sunset focused on singing psalms and other biblical canticles. In origin, it is identical to the canonical hour of vespers. Old English speakers translated the Latin word as , which beca ...
. At the age of 22 she entered the
Community of the Sisters of the Love of God
The Community of the Sisters of the Love of God (SLG) is an Anglican religious order of contemplative nuns founded in 1906 within the Church of England.
The community has always drawn upon Carmelite spirituality.
The community is at the Conven ...
, an enclosed community of Anglican
contemplative
In a religious context, the practice of contemplation seeks a direct awareness of the divine which transcends the intellect, often in accordance with prayer or meditation.
Etymology
The word ''contemplation'' is derived from the Latin word '' ...
nuns at Fairacres in East Oxford, as Sister Benedicta of Jesus.
Works
Ward wrote a number of books and articles, including translations of premodern texts. She was also a regular public speaker, including on the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''. A ''
'' was published in her honour in 2014.
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