St. Benedict's Abbey
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[edit] Mission
"If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Christ, MT 19:21
We seek salvation as sons of St. Benedict, as brothers in community, as spiritual fathers in the world, and as disciples of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
"That in all things God may be glorified." St. Benedict, RB 57:9
[edit] History
The First Twenty Years, 1856 -1876
A product of the wave of German and Irish Catholic immigration to America and of the opening of Kansas Territory to pioneer settlers, St. Benedict’s Abbey was officially founded in 1857. Its origins were less conventional than those of many religious houses and stemmed from the personal initiatives of Father Henry Lemke, OSB, a restless and adventurous missionary in 1855 - 1856. Abbot Boniface Wimmer, founder in 1846 of the first American Benedictine monastery, St. Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and Father Henry’s superior, sent two more monks to join him at the town of Doniphan, Kansas Territory in April, 1857. They were Father Augustine Wirth, prior of the monastery from 1857 - 1868, and Frater (Brother) Casimir Seitz. The latter, a monk seminarian, was the first priest to be ordained in Kansas on April 26, 1857 by Bishop Jean Baptiste Miege, SJ. The primitive conditions of the early monastery are illustrated by Father Casimir’s statement that he himself built a temporary altar for his first mass "from four fence posts and two old boards."
Soon the fledgling community moved to a more promising site, the town of Atchison, where St. Benedict’s College, the forerunner of today’s Benedictine College, opened its doors in October, 1859. Circuit riding to celebrate Mass in the settlers’ homes laid the groundwork for a network of monastery staffed parishes in Northeastern Kansas. Reinforcement from Pennsylvania and local recruitment provided uneven growth, and Father Peter Beckman wrote, "the first twenty years [of St. Benedict’s Abbey] demonstrate how not to found a monastery." That notwithstanding, the monastery gave its second superior, Prior Louis Mary Fink, to the diocese as coadjutor-bishop in 1871, a service he continued with distinction until his death in 1904.
The Era of Abbot Innocent Wolf, 1876 - 1921
In 1876, St. Benedict’s Priory became an abbey, and its monks elected 33 year old Father Innocent Wolf, OSB of St. Vincent Archabbey as their first abbot. He guided the life of the community for 45 years, seeing it grow from 20 members in 1876 to 97 members at the time of his retirement in 1921. An account of the life and influence of the community’s fatherly leader is found in Kansas Monks, chapters 5 - 8. Abbot Innocent was of the first generation of young boys to come to Abbot Boniface Wimmer’s foundation in America, and he remained always a devoted spiritual son of the patriarch-founder. The relationship between the two abbots was frank and friendly -- those of a father and his adult son. Fulfilling an often expressed hope of Abbot Wimmer, the monks of St. Vincent Archabbey elected Abbot Innocent to be his successor at the time of his death in 1887. While declining the election in order to remain at St. Benedict’s Abbey, Abbot Innocent himself attained to a revered stature in the life of the American Cassinese Congregation of Benedictines.
Sharing the common fate of the early Kansas residents, the St. Benedict’s monks often battled grasshoppers, bankruptcy and diphtheria while collaborating to develop their "school of the Lord’s service." Due to his very long tenure, Abbot Innocent had a deep impact on shaping the community’s corporate personality. Upon his death, the notice customarily sent to other monasteries read in part as follows: "Handicapped by poverty and the fewness of his monks, our deceased Father, trusting always in the help of God, bravely overcame many difficulties and labored with such perseverance that he laid deep and firm the foundations of the present flourishing monastery."
The Era of Abbot Martin Veth, 1921 -1944
Although he was born in Dettelbach, Bavaria, Germany, Abbot Martin Veth had lived since the age of 10 in Atchison within the shadow of the Abbey. Elected at the age of 47, he guided our community for twenty three years during times which were often fraught with economic crisis. All the same, these were times of significant transition and growth. St. Benedict’s College developed by stages from the model of a European gymnasium adapted to frontier conditions into two institutions; Maur Hill high school, a boarding and day school for boys, and St. Benedict’s College, a four year, liberal arts, residential college for men. Monks engaged in educational apostolates acquired higher degrees at quality universities in the United States and abroad. By 1926 the community had outgrown its home in the monastery that was constructed in 1892, and so it began to build the present Abbey complex. A Tudor Gothic structure built out of native limestone, it was first occupied by the monks in 1929. Due to the economic crisis then gripping the country, work was suspended on the Abbey church and guest house and was taken up again only in the centennial year of the Abbey of 1957.
Abbot Martin’s central concern was to enrich the spiritual life of the community and to impress upon its members that their greatest destiny was to become men of prayer. His promotion of a richer interior life went hand in hand with enhancement of the celebration of the liturgy of the Mass and of the Divine Office. Moreover, Abbot Martin’s conferences to the community and his retreats were grounded in the Church’s liturgy itself as the privileged source of grace and spiritual nourishment.
Throughout his whole tenure as superior, Abbot Martin relied on one set of four lieutenants who contributed greatly to the welfare and growth of St. Benedict’s: Father Gerard Heinz, Prior; Father Bonaventure Schwinn, Subprior and Master of Clerics; Father Edmund Pusch, Business Manager, and Father Sylvester Schmitz, Dean of the College.
Fr. Peter Beckman writes in Kansas Monks of the beauty of Abbot Martin’s sanctity which bloomed forth during the time of his retirement from office and his death eighteen months later. He also cites the Abbot’s retirement remarks to the community as typical of his convictions: "The time has come, I think, when I can do more for you by praying for you than I can by trying to rule you. . . . you will be full of misgivings about the election to be made, full of hopeful and fearful anticipation . . . .Let me ask you to fall back on prayer. This is God’s house, and he is more interested and concerned about what takes place here than you are." After months of patient suffering, he died December 12, 1944.
The Era of Abbot Cuthbert McDonald, 1943 - 1962
During the height of Word War II, Father Cuthbert McDonald was elected the third abbot of our community on July 6, 1943. Abbot Cuthbert was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1894. Orphaned at an early age, he and two siblings were brought to the United States by relatives, and he was enrolled in the Abbey school. At the time of his election, community membership totaled 131 persons. Ten of the monks were serving as chaplains in the armed forces in many parts of the world. At this time, the Abbey accepted the invitation to assume the administration of Colegio Tepeyac in Colonia Lindavista of Mexico City. Although St. Benedict’s discontinued its involvement with this successful educational venture after three years, it was transferred to St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN. The latter brought it to maturity as the current Abbey and school of Tepeyac, Bosques del Lago, Estado de Mexico, Mexico.
At the conclusion of World War II, St. Benedict’s College faced the challenge of increased enrollment with a new kind of student, the returning war veteran. Hence this was a time for expansion of faculty and facilities to meet their needs. Facilities of Maur Hill High School were also renewed. The Abbey church and guest house were completed in order to celebrate the Abbey Centenary in 1957. Dating from the same period are the three frescoes in the Abbey Church painted by Jean Charlot.
Toward the end of Abbot Cuthbert’s 18 year abbatial tenure, the Abbey founded St. Joseph’s Priory in Mineiros, Goias, Brazil. Two of its monks have been called to the episcopate in Brazil, the late Bishop Matthias Schmidt, who died in 1992 as bishop of Rui Barbosa, Bahia, and Bishop Herbert Hermes, currently bishop of the prelacy of Cristalandia, Tocantins. While Abbot Cuthbert resigned in 1962 due to ill health after 18 years of abbatial service, he lived on until 1991 and brought spiritual comfort to countless infirm and elderly persons in convents and hospitals.
From 1962 until the Present
In 1962, Abbot Cuthbert McDonald was succeeded by Father Thomas Hartman, the first American born abbot of the community. As in the rest of the Catholic world, this was a period of large changes for the Abbey with the restructuring of the worship patterns and the adoption of the English language for the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. It was also the time of elimination from the membership distinctions between priest and lay brothers. The community shared the common experience of religious houses in that a number of community members requested and received permission to return to lay life.
In 1971, St. Benedict’s College for men and Mount St. Scholastica College for women merged to become Benedictine College, a Catholic coeducational liberal arts residential college. Father Brendan Downey became the fifth abbot of the community in 1973 and served the community for seven years until his death in 1980, its only superior to die in office. He was succeeded in turn by Abbot Ralph Koehler and Abbot Owen Purcell. Father Barnabas Senecal became the eighth and current abbot of the community on May 30, 1994.
The community continues to cherish the memory of their 194 confreres who have preceded them in death as members of this monastery since 1857. The current community numbers 68 members, six of whom are members of St. Joseph’s Priory in Mineiros, Goias, Brazil. Eight are new members who are in various stages of formation, in preparation for final monastic profession or priestly ordination. Along with living and administering the community life, our works include educational, parochial and special apostolates. We strive to imitate our forbears both in their perseverance in times of difficulty and in their gratefulness in times of blessings. Like them, we are Kansas Monks who seek to follow Christ by being Benedictine in culture, Catholic in faith, and Evangelical in our words, works and deeds.
