Through a funnel of centuries
Leafing through the volume, with the help of commentary in the accompanying catalogue, is a historical thrill for Sanders. “The handwritten texts are wonderful, written down with great care, by several hands; you can see that in the variations in handwriting.” It touches her that so many people from times long gone contributed to this volume that she can now browse through: the calligraphers of the texts, the parchment makers, the cutters of the parchment, and those who drew pencil lines to arrange the columns, the bookbinders and not to forget the librarians through the centuries. “When you browse through and read this text, you feel the endless materiality, a patient and skillful attention; holding it, you feel drawn through a funnel of centuries. Compare that to studying digital texts, which is now becoming the norm.”
This is not to dismiss the study of digital texts, Sanders stresses. Their advantages are limitless: wide availability, easy text search, and large-scale analysis. “But it's a matter of welcoming the new without discarding the old.” Sanders would like every student to be able to pick up a volume like this one during their studies, in addition to digital research. “Then the real value of the creation of such a text becomes tangible: that it’s endlessly precious that so many people have worked to pass that text to us through the centuries.”
The value of the quiet voice
What does this text tell us today? “Augustine preaches that there is always goodness to be found when we come face to face with the fragility of the ultimately innocent and good, which comes to us in the form of a newborn child,” says Sanders. That vulnerability invites us to stand still and listen, and allow ourselves to be touched by the child's voice. “It's a quiet voice. One that isn’t easy to hear, especially now, with all the information and loudly voiced opinions that surround us.” It doesn't just come to you, she explains: it requires knowledge (why is that child being called a lamb?), attention to reflection (what is sin and what does it have to do with me?), and space for rituals (like the Christmas story and midnight mass, or a nativity scene and a candle). And of course, everyone is free to decide for themselves what they want to hear in that voice.
What the Rector also find recognisable is Augustine speaking of people repenting and asking for mercy and healing. Forgiveness is a difficult concept. In our everyday life here and now, we are constantly solving things, trying to satisfy people, weighing up interests. “And then you realise: I am falling short, in everything, in the attention I can give people, the time I can free up for things, the decisions I make.” At such times, allowing for the “quiet voice” can give a certain peace of mind. “It is a voice that tells you that our humanity also lies in rejecting any idea of omnipotence, in recognising that you can’t do it perfectly, that no one can, and that we can only accomplish so much in a lifetime.”
Individual responsibility
For Sanders, that voice is not an invitation to just sit still and do nothing. That is where responsibility comes in, for your environment, and for the people around you. “The question is always: what will I do within the space given to me. Your individual responsibility is both smaller than you realise, and greater than you think.”
Now that Sanders is one of Radboud University's authorities as Rector Magnificus, she hears in Augustine's text the tension evoked by every person's individual responsibility. She points to the tendencies in society to demand personal freedom while at the same time placing power in the hands of an authority that is then expected to solve all problems. “The tension here lies in the fact that, on the one hand, we need some form of legitimate authority, but on the other hand the persona of the leader can never embody that same authority alone. This awareness challenges everyone to use their own personal responsibility when an authority loses justice, to prevent a society from going down the authoritarian road. This ongoing consideration is the tension in the balance. Listen to the quiet voice that makes you aware that there is much you do not and cannot do well, and that makes you hope to do good where, and for whom, you can – that is what Augustine's sermon is urging us to do.” Thus, the text also validates the final speech at the Opening of the Academic Year, in which Sanders argued for academic freedom in responsibility, inseparable pillars at the core of Radboud University's mission. “Christmas reminds us of the vulnerable voice that is inviting us. We live in each other's mercy, and so we can work together at the university: service to truth, to society and to each other.”
About the sermon in the University Library
The University Library (Universiteitsbibliotheek, UB) has one sermon by Augustine, included in a volume with a much longer, also handwritten ‘sermoen’ (sermon) by Bernardus. Church father Augustine preached, first as a priest (from 391) and later as a bishop (from 396), as many as 6000 sermons, only a tenth of which have been preserved in text form. One of these surviving texts is included in the UB's volume. The volume itself dates from the eighteenth century; the sermons contained in it were copied in the late fifteenth century, probably by monks at the Redemptorist Monastery in Wittem. It is unclear who compiled the texts, or why they chose precisely these two sermons. The UB volume has a missing flyleaf; furthermore, several pages are cut up, incidentally without any text being lost.
Passage from the sermon
“Ic bidde u broders dat ghi de woerde myt andacht ontfanghet die de here gheven sal in dessen alre suetsten daghe. In welken beweghen werden oec onghelouighen menschen. In welken myt barmherticheit gheroert wort de boese. De rouwighe hoept ghenade, de ghevanghe en mishopet niet te wederkeren, de ghewont is begheert arsedie. In welken gheboren is dat lam dat afnemet de sunde der werelt.” (I pray you brethren, that you may receive with attention the words that the Lord will give on this most sweet of days, on which even unbelievers are moved, on which evil men are stirred with compassion, on which mourners hope for mercy, on which the prisoner is not desperate to return home, on which the wounded looks forward to a physician; on which is born the lamb that takes away the sin of the world.)
