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Very Rev. Alban (Charles) Hrebic, O.S.B.
Our confrere, Father Alban Hrebic, since 1978 the superior of St. Procopius Abbey’s foundation in Chiayi, Taiwan, died on September 10, 2009 and will be interred at the Catholic cemetery in Taiwan.
Arrangements
The Memorial Mass for Fr. Alban is scheduled for 4:30 PM on October 9th in the Abbey Church. All are welcome to attend. Photos of Fr. Alban's funeral in Taiwan: click here.
The Funeral and Burial: Abbot Dismas arrived in Chiayi for Fr. Alban's Funeral and Burial. The Abbot says from Chiayi..."The funeral is scheduled for 9:00 AM Saturday at the SVD's parish church next to their high school. There will be a crowd in that Fr. Alban's orchestra will play. The bishop will preside and preach, and I will concelebrate with him, saying a few words at the conclusion of the ceremony for the bishop to translate into Chinese. The burial will follow."
Biography
Born in Chicago’s St. Michael the Archangel Slovak Parish on October 14, 1926, Charles Hrebic was inspired by the parish’s assistant pastor, the future Abbot Ambrose Ondrak, to consider the priesthood.
Entering St. Procopius Academy in Lisle in 1940, he finished first or second in his class every semester. Due to wartime conditions, he was accepted into novitiate immediately after graduation, and, only eighteen years old, he professed monastic vows on June 12, 1945.
As well as at the college and seminary in Lisle, the young monk studied at the Chicago Conservatory of Music and taught that subject in the schools. Ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Martin McNamara at St. Raymond Nonnatus Cathedral in Joliet on May 22, 1952, Father Alban continued at the Chicago Conservatory and obtained a master’s degree in music in 1954.
Building up the music department at St. Procopius College was his primary task during the next quarter-century, though he found time also to teach algebra at the Academy, serve as the weekend assistant at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Parish in Joliet, and improve in many ways the grounds and buildings.
Monks and students alike learned that request for help with a “five-minute job” was an invitation to physical labor lasting far longer! But Father Alban’s dedication and sense of fun inspired many to join in both his projects and the many plays and musicals that he helped Father Mathias Kucera to produce.
He also developed the College’s chorus and orchestra, and he composed a symphony and a balletorio performed in Lisle and elsewhere.
The possibilities for liturgical renewal opened by the Second Vatican Council led Father Alban to compose a vast amount of liturgical music, including a revision of the Divine Office used for several decades at the Abbey.
In the new Abbey building, he continued his work as choirmaster and maintained the golf course inherited from the earlier labor of seminarians. Recipient of the College’s Distinguished Educator Award in 1971, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of music in 1978, when he requested to take up missionary work at the Abbey’s priory in Chiayi, Taiwan.
Appointed Prior that same year, he soon formed an orchestra that in 1984 he brought to Lisle for several performances. He also labored tirelessly to maintain and improve the physical plant of the priory.
From 1984-1985, he served as the chairman of the Music department at Fu-Jen University in Taipei.
During the 1990s, he cooperated with the Sisters of Our Lady of China in building a large hospital on the priory’s land, intending thereby to assure that the property would continue to serve a charitable and evangelical purpose even if the Abbey’s hopes of establishing an independent foundation on Taiwan were not fulfilled.
Health problems slowed him down during the last decade of his life, but with his usual drive and determination, he remained in the mission work to which he had devoted himself.
Please remember Prior Alban in your prayers.
Abbot Dismas and Community
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