I hope to chronicle my actuarial studying on this website: posting relevant updates, news stories, and thoughts I have. I suspect this will range from on the one hand the purely mathematical to – on the other hand – the purely financial. I don’t know very much about what it means to be an actuary in reality – I am only studying for the first exam. But I hope to learn as much as I can in this vast and surprising library we call the internet and then piece it together here.
I’m Catholic and am very much interested in the idea of sanctifying secular, ordinary work. That is where the title of the blog comes from, “St. Benedict’s Actuary.” St. Benedict laid down the Benedictine Rule in the 6th century for his monasteries and it constitutes Benedictine life to this day. The rule can be summed up with three words: ora et labora (work and prayer). The goal is, in some sense, for our work to become a prayer. One might think of the well known saying from the fourth chapter of the first letter of St. Peter, “…so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”
In my two preceding posts you might notice quotes from St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of the ever-controversial organization Opus Dei. While I’m not a member of “the Work,” as it is called, its mission is exactly the sort of thing I describe above: for most of us, ordinary work in the world must be the path to holiness. It is notable that so many of the members of Opus Dei are successful professionals and others excelling in their respective fields. The idea is that we all ought to strive for excellence in our work ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
“Let us work. Let us work a lot and work well, without forgetting that prayer is our best weapon. That is why I will never tire of repeating that we have to be contemplative souls in the midst of the world, who try to convert their work into prayer.” – St. Josemaria Escriva
