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The Benedictine Ideal
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.
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.
The work of the monks of St. Procopius is primarily education. They operate Benet Academy, a college preparatory high school, and Benedictine University, both in Lisle.
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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