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Being A Monk Today |
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For many people the words "monk" or "monastery" usually conjure up thoughts of the Middle Ages with its huge gothic-style monasteries where hooded individuals in dark-colored robes would move about in a world of silence and prayer, cut off completely from the world around them and from all of its activity. There do exist today several monastic orders of men and women who by vow live cloistered lives in a monastery or in the solitude of the hermitage. There are the Trappists and the Carthusians; the quiet Carmelite nuns and the barefoot Poor Clares. These are the orders of strict contemplatives of whom Thomas Merton wrote: "Night is our diocese and silence is our ministry...We are exiles in the far end of solitude, living as listeners with hearts attending to the skies we cannot understand: Waiting upon the first far drums of Christ the conqueror, planted like sentinels upon the world's frontier." For the Benedictine monks of St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, that concept of medieval monasticism is balanced with a semi-active life of pastoral care and education. |
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Says Abbot Hugh Anderson, former superior of the 45-member monastery, "The call to monastic life presents those of us here at St. Procopius with a challenge to live up to the richness of our 1,500-year-old tradition which embodies all that is best in contemporary thought and aspirations: A spirit of openness to new possibilities; a respect for the dignity and uniqueness of the person; a concern for honesty and authenticity, and a desire for simplicity and straight-forwardness of life." The world-wide order of St. Benedict is the oldest monastic order in the Roman Catholic Church, and life as a Benedictine monk remains today very much as it was 1,500 years ago with only minor exceptions. It is a life primarily of seeking God and responding to him in prayer. A further distinctiveness of Benedictines which separates them from most other groups of religious men and women is that they do not have a central government since each monastery is autonomous. Monks dedicate
themselves to a specific monastic community and remain with that community for life. The communal aspect of life is the most outstanding characteristic along with the stabilizing influence of a life-long commitment to the abbey.
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The Benedictine Idea |
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Almost 1,500 years ago, a young man decided to break with the values of society in the then-declining Roman Empire by leaving his studies and beginning life as a hermit in a cave in the hill country south of Rome. Through his daily encounter with the Word of God in Holy Scripture, Benedict of Nursia came to penetrate the depth of life with Christ. His strong desire for God led him to understand the elements needed by a Christian seeking union with God. |
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Eventually discovered by the people of the area, he was soon sought after as a guide for other Christians who desired to seek God. Some of the men who discovered him living in his cave wanted to share a spiritual life with him, and gradually a common tie was formed with Benedict as its guide. About 530 A.D., Benedict provided these followers with a written guide for a Christian life lived together in community under a spiritual guide, called an abbot or abbess. Today this piece of wisdom literature is known as The Rule of Benedict. There is no one type of personality that is attracted to the monastery. The monks vary in age (from their 20's to their 80's) and they vary in interests (one is a former florist and another is a former steeplejack). They vary in intellectual abilities (from high school diplomas to doctorates), and they vary in style. But all of them are in the monastery to seek God. |
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In addition, their monastic life involves mutual service of caring for the sick and elderly and maintaining buildings and grounds. The abbey also operates a missionary priory on the island of Taiwan in the Republic of China. Benedictine monasteries grow much like natural families when children leave home to set up life on their own. A group of monks in 1885 left St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, PA, for Chicago in order to work and pray among the Czech and Slovak immigrants. Upon their arrival, the monks staffed an already existing parish dedicated in honor of St. Procopius, from which the abbey derived its name. Procopius had founded a monastery in Bohemia during the 11th century and after his death in 1O53, he became the first formally canonized saint of Czechoslovakia. The newly arrived Benedictines decided to found a high school and college, and to establish a press. Later in 1901, they moved to Lisle and have been there ever since. A key element in the daily life of the monk is fidelity to the monastic way of life." Simply put this means that "we make a conscious effort every day to live the Gospel message," said Abbot Hugh. "Our life," the Abbot Hugh said, “is one that makes sense only from a perspective of faith. I don't think anyone could live this life as an atheist. The culture of our society is very much concerned with here and now. But we are very much counter-cultural. our life witnesses to a foretaste of what is to come, but that witness is carried out in the here and now.” |
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