Through its intersection of faith, art, and academia, the Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible inspires deep reverence and scholarly enrichmentin students, scholars, faculty, staff, and the surrounding community of any college or university.
Printed on cotton, hand-bound in Italian calfskin leather, and limited to just 299 seven-volume sets, The Saint John’s Bible Heritage Edition is an awe-inspiring facsimile of the original manuscript that retains its spiritual message with remarkable fidelity. Built with expert craftsmanship and with longevity embedded in its seams, this work of sacred art and Scripture’s profound ability to ignite the spiritual imagination will endure for generations to come — reason enough to consider welcoming it for spiritual and scholarly use at an educational institution.
That is exactly what many leaders at Catholic universities across the world have found when they welcomed a Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible to campus. But there are an infinite number of ways that the Heritage Edition has positively impacted Catholic Universities.
From leadership at Catholic universities with a Heritage Edition, here are three ways that the Heritage Edition has bolstered and renewed spiritual education, imagination, and community on campus:
#1: The Heritage Edition is a catalyst for academic study and spiritual formation in a big way.
There are many ways that undergraduate and graduate classrooms across the world have utilized the Heritage Edition to aid student learning as well as spiritual formation. It’s not limited to theological study, either. All disciplines, including fine arts, literature, political science, history, anthropology, sociology and more have benefited from the embrace and analysis of this canonical 21st-century illuminated text.
The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, for example, crafted an online course around several illuminations of The Saint John’s Bible. The course was launched just prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and provided critical access to academic and spiritual learning during a time of isolation.
“In its first year, the course provided much-needed spiritual formation for parishes, schools, and dioceses during the lockdown, reaching nearly 3,000 people throughout the U.S.,” said Carolyn Pirtle, Program Director at the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy in the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. “In the second year of running the course, we offered an additional layer of content for communities that were starting to gather in person once again, providing facilitators with best practices around sharing the content with their participants and rebuilding community through an encounter with sacred art and Scripture.”
In addition to this online course, you’ll find the Heritage Edition physically frequenting many classrooms at Notre Dame, serving as a remarkable catalyst for academic research and learning across disciplines.
#2: The Heritage Edition allows people of all faith journeys to unite.
Catholic universities are home to students of diverse backgrounds in faith and in life. In recognition of this, many universities are undertaking the important work of honoring their Catholic heritage while honoring students, faculty, and community members of all faith journeys. Because The Saint John’s Bible Heritage Edition is ecumenical and interfaith by nature, featuring many motifs and celebratory acknowledgements of many different faiths, universities have found that the work acts as a bridge for people of different backgrounds to come together and ignite theological dialogue.
“The Heritage Edition has become a point of dialogue and convergence for many different faiths present at the University of Dayton,” said Kayla Harris, Director of the Marian Library and the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. “That is one of the most wonderful things that it does here on our Catholic campus. It puts our own faith in context.”
“Our philosophy is the education of the whole person, accepting and celebrating people as they are and what they can contribute to a grander experience,” said Katy Kelly, Assistant Dean for Strategic Communication and Outreach and Professor at the University of Dayton. “The Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible absolutely is a catalyst for that kind of learning.”
“My background is in piano, so I’ve spent a lot of time as an accompanist in the musical sense, but The Saint John’s Bible has allowed me to accompany people in the spiritual sense,” said Pirtle. “Through the illuminations, you are able to encounter people where they are with their questions about faith, about scripture, and you are able to work through those questions together.”
#3: The Heritage Edition bridges the Catholic intellectual tradition with Catholic heritage.
How does one honor a campus’ Catholic heritage in a significant and respectful way? Many faculty members ask this question year after year as new students flood classroom doors and others wave their graduation caps in the sun. For leadership at the University of Notre Dame, implementing programming around the Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible has become a significant part of its embrace of the Catholic intellectual tradition and identity.
“Our mission is to be a bridge between the work that’s being done at the academy and the parish,” said Pirtle. “We connect the Catholic intellectual tradition and the riches of the Catholic heritage to people working in the ministry, to people in the pews, and to people who just want to grow in their faith. Developing an online course around The Saint John’s Bible was a really wonderful way to bring together all of those things.”
“Brother Gary Marcinowski, S.M., Professor Emeritus in Art & Design, is an artist and a designer,” said Harris. “So, he was very passionate about crafting a case for the Bible that was unique to our university. As a Catholic Marianist institution, Brother Gary wanted the case to connect with our Marianist heritage – to allow it to tell the story of our campus.”
The Saint John’s Bible Heritage Program: Igniting the Spiritual Imagination Across the World
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