Brother Michael Marcotte knows that in a world awash in computer fonts, the art of calligraphy might seem outdated.

But having practiced calligraphy for close to 40 years — despite having easy access today to a Mac — the Benedictine monk is convinced it still has something to offer and continues to teach it at Conception Seminary College in Conception, Mo. He also works in The Printery House at Conception Abbey, creating greeting cards by hand that are then mass-produced on a printing press.

“I think I have ink in my blood,” Brother Marcotte says. “Even as a kid, I was interested in printing. I always wanted to reproduce things.”

Centuries ago, monks used calligraphy — which literally means “beautiful writing” — as a way to reproduce the Bible. The need for this kind of work was greatly reduced by the invention of the printing press in the 1400s, however, and the use of calligraphy began to die away — something a Benedictine abbot living in Germany lamented in a book, “In Praise of Scribes,” he wrote in the late 1400s.

Brother Marcotte keeps a copy of this book at The Printery, believing that the reasons given in it for continuing calligraphy even after the creation of the printing press make as much sense today as they did when the printing press was first invented. And one of the greatest benefits, he notes, is for those who take the time to learn and practice the art form.

Monks who copied the Bible “spent so much time immersed in Scripture,” he says. “You have to slow down and look at every single word, every single letter. It becomes more of you, and you become a part of the text.”

This is something Novice John Bosco has experienced. He enrolled in Brother Marcotte’s class while a student at Conception Seminary because “I had terrible handwriting and couldn’t read my class notes,” he says, adding that he’d heard practicing calligraphy might remedy this. He found that, although his handwriting didn’t improve, his calligraphy was good — and it’s something he uses now during his daily meditations, transcribing lines of Scripture when he comes across ones that strike him.

“Then, throughout the day, I can close my eyes and picture the text,” he adds.

Novice Eric Huard also took Brother Marcotte’s class and now combines calligraphy and iconography — a form of art involving religious images — in works such as a visual representation of Psalm 1 he’s created. Beside an image of a tree are the words “like a tree that is planted,” taken from the Psalm.

“I’d like to come up with a book, with one (representation) for each Psalm,” he says, adding that “I’d always found the image of calligraphy very interesting, and to be able to do something that’s a part of our tradition is very meaningful.”

The meaningfulness of calligraphy is another reason to still do it today, Brother Marcotte adds. He notes that while “most other greeting-card companies just use type-setting, our calligraphy shows not only our tradition but also the caring that goes into it.”

Calligraphy also provides a way to communicate Scripture through a printed medium, he says. Text produced by a computer does this as well, of course, but with calligraphy, “there was a human being who presented the format in which you see it,” Brother Marcotte adds.

This isn’t to say he is against technology; rather, he says the computer is a wonderful tool for a calligrapher. One of his favorite Web sites, www.e-codices.unifr.ch, belongs to the Virtual Manuscripts Library of Switzerland. It contains pages from hundreds of manuscripts, including pages of Scripture copied by monks who belonged to Conception Abbey’s motherhouse, which was founded in Engelberg, Switzerland, in 1120.

Computers offer many other possibilities to calligraphers, as well, such as allowing them to research calligraphy scripts on the Internet or upload a photo of hand-lettered text to Photoshop, then experiment with the text’s size and color before deciding exactly what to do with it by hand.

But despite advances in technology, a major undertaking has begun in recent years — commissioned by Saint John’s Abbey and University in Minnesota — to create the first hand-lettered and hand-illuminated Bible, formed with traditional materials such as vellum and hand-ground pigments, since the invention of the printing press.

“It’s raising a new level of interest in calligraphy,” Brother Marcotte says.

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.

To learn more ...

Interested in learning calligraphy? Brother Michael Marcotte says www.cynscribe.com is a great Web site for calligraphy supplies, materials, information about upcoming workshops and other Web sites about all aspects of calligraphy.

To learn more about The Printery House at Conception Abbey or to order artwork from it, go online to www.printeryhouse.org.