kansas monks fall 2008

Kansas Monks

1

Fall 2008

West of the Missouri:Memories of Camp St. Maur

A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF ST. BENEDICT’S ABBEY FALL 2008 VOLUME 3 NUMBER. 3

Kansas Monks

2

Fall 2008 Kansas Monks

3

Fall 2008

Abbot Barnabas Senecal -“We became Indian Chiefs at Camp St. Maur.”

From the Abbot (3) - Abbey Notes (5)

Being a staff member for Camp St. Maur was a great experience. We clerics were each inducted into the Indian Lodge and given a new name. Mine was Chief Hehi, meaning singer. We were challenged to develop skills that would contribute to the Camp St. Maur program.

We looked forward to this period of seven weeks when we would welcome 120 youths to the Maur Hill campus for three two-week sessions. We would meet hundreds of youths and their families, forming relationships that for many have lasted a lifetime.

Only as a young monk did I come to know what it meant to fletch

arrows. It was a routine for me to repair target arrows and to make new ones. Arrows have to have three feathers glued to the wooden shaft to make them fly correctly toward the target.

Young monks took pride in making equipment, raising animals for cage and display, deciding on responsibilities for older campers whom we invited to return as junior counselors, and printing song sheets that we would use for group songfests.

We divided the 120 youths, ages 9 to 13, into six Indian tribes of the Midwest, the Sioux, Sac Fox, Arapahoe, Comanche, Crow and Kiowa. The ranks through which they advanced were brave, medicine man and chief. Selected campers were formed into a chosen group known as the Golden Thunderbirds.

Activities were archery, swimming, riflery, nature lore, woodworking and leathercraft, and horsemanship. We held track and field events on special days. We camped out on property owned by the Abbey near the South Farm. We hiked and sang and had rituals for gathering everyone together. We danced as would the Indians. We dressed as would the Indians. We had a leather stretched over a hollowed-out tree trunk which boomed out rhythms for dancing.

Friday night became a time when we silk-screened insignia of awards on the campers’ T-shirts. Saturday was Award Day, and Parent Day. On the closing day of the sixth week, we would let selected campers take the animals home with them. Snakes were favorites of the campers, not the parents.

One young man from Wichita came to summer camp several years. He went to high school in Wichita, then graduated from Notre Dame. He supervises a social service center now in Seattle, and still writes to me. He has a Benedictine spirit that he gained in his summers at Camp St. Maur. It is a pleasure to read his periodic letters and learn how he has applied the Rule of Benedict in his life, work and prayer.

Hundreds of youngsters, now in midst of their careers, are grateful for the time they dressed as young Indians, learned to meet new friends and develop skills and self-confidence through supervised and spontaneous activities.

What the youngsters didn’t realize, probably, is that they helped form us young monks. We developed skills and self-confidence as we supervised them and worked together as a team of men learning what it meant to educate and to grow with others at formative times in our lives.

We had times of prayer. We had routines that we followed. We judged which tribe had the cleanest rooms and the neatest dining tables. We picked up their lost towels and bathing suits. We taught them how to make lanyards.

This organization lasted from 1938 until 1965. In that year the Camp was closed because there were fewer young monks to run the program. Only in 1974 was it reorganized, and without the Indian theme. It became a program that honored the explorers, Lewis and Clark.

We monks are formed by our interactions with others, and we truly treasureour memories of Camp St. Maur. May the story and pictures of Camp in this issue of Kansas Monks renew contacts between us.

oftable contents4 Father Daniel’s Doctorate Monk defends dissertation at prestigious P.I.L.9 War against waste Brother Joseph Ryan battling one bulb, pipe, duct at a time.10 Bishop’s big birthday St. Benedict’s Herbert Hermes reaches retirement age12 In a Word Peter and Paul: Missionary projectiles of world wide proportions14 Camp St. Maur A look back...20 College celebrates 150th President Minnis champions gift and responsibility of Benedictine heritage20 Ignite the Spirit Medical students learn to walk daily with death before them

Publisher: Abbot Barnabas Senecal, O.S.B., [email protected]

Editor: Dan Madden, [email protected]

Art Director: J.D. Benning, [email protected]

Photography:Abbot Barnabas Senecal, Br. Gregory Dulmes, Robin Ranieri,

Dan Madden, JD Benning, Rob Stevens, Alzbeta Voboril

Kansas Monks magazine is published quarterly by the Office of Development, 1020 N. 2nd Street, Atchison, KS 66002. For a free subscription: 913.360.7897, or development@kansas-

monks.org.

From the Abbot

Abbot Barnabas teaches archery to a group of campers.

Abbot Owen Purcell -“It’s all a day at a time”

Marked by a Sign of Faith (11)

Brother Anthony Vorwerk -“I have gained more faith in God from seeing him work in nature than from all the books I have read about Him.”

Fresh from the Vine (11)

Father Meinrad Miller -“I grow everyday in appreciating the wisdom of St. Benedict.”

Clothed With Faith (21) - Don’t Shy from St. Paul (13)

Father Duane Roy -“To be seed is no small thing.”

In a Word (12)

Contributing Writers:

Remembering Camp St. Maur

Brother John Peto -“A Christian is known by his happiness in the Lord!.”

Oblates (11)

Abbot Barnabas Senecal, OSB

Development office welcomes two new staff members

Sandy Fitzmaurice, who has worked for the past 32 years for Benedictine College, will be assisting Abbey leadership and volunteers with direct fund-raising and will also be assisting with maintaining the development office database and direct mail efforts.

Fitzmaurice is direct descendent of St. Benedict’s Abbey’s historic figure Bishop Louis Mary Fink.

“We are fortunate to have someone with Sandy’s experience, work ethic and sense of humor in our department,” Dan Madden, director of development, said. “I can’t say enough about what she brings to our work, which is really making sure we get out and about to visit our friends.”J.D. Benning, a 2008 graduate of Benedictine College, joins the staff as the new art director. Benning succeeds Sophia Harrison, who took a new position in Kansas City. Benning, the former director of Camp St. Maur, where he also created the camp’s first camp video, comes to St. Benedict’s fresh off a video editing internship with Life Teen. He also worked as a freelance graphic artist and is a fine finish carpenter, which Maur Hill-Mount Academy can attest to.

“Confidence and a decisive vision were what caught my attention,” Madden said of his first interview with Benning. “And I haven’t been disappointed. Central to our efforts to communicate on a wide scale with our friends and benefactors is the artistic talent that goes into Kansas Monks magazine and our new Web site now under construction. In J.D. these tools are in talented hands.”

Cover Photo: Rich Dickason Jr. leads his younger brother Chris on horseback on the shores of Lake Placid at Camp St. Maur.Photo by Rich Dickason Sr.

Kansas Monks

4


5

Fall 2008

by Dan Madden

Perhaps overlooked simply as the chair the pastor sits in each Sunday at the celebration of the Eucharist, the presider’s chair has been Father Daniel McCarthy’s guide through 17 centuries of Catholic worship,

and has revealed to him a deeper understanding of the role of the man who sits in it.

Father Daniel, who is celebrating his 25th anniversary of profession as a monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey, received a highly specialized doctorate of sacred liturgy (SLD) from the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy in Rome.

“The PIL is the most prestigious liturgy school in Rome,” said Abbot Owen Purcell, who made the trip from Atchison to Rome to witness Father Daniel’s defense. “He has gained some stature. He has a good reputation as a scholar. He’s basically written his own ticket.” Sister Marcia Ziska of Mount St. Scholastica was also present for the festivities.

Father Daniel has already accepted a teaching position at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, which prepares older men for the priesthood. Living at Sant’Anselmo,

he will continue to write his weekly column for The Tablet in London. He edited a forthcoming book: Appreciating the Collect: An Irenic Methodology. He has offers to author several other books.

On June 23 he defended his dissertation entitled, “The Chair for the Office of Presiding in the Assembly and Directing the Prayer: Four Models and a Single Perspective.” In his research into the history of presiding in the liturgical assembly, Father Daniel discerned and developed four theoretical models of presiding in the assembly.

Abbot Owen described the atmosphere in the hall where the examination took place as tense.

“This wasn’t sandbox play,” he said. “It was a grand experience.”

The moderator of Father Daniel’s work was the internationally renowned mosaiacist Father Marko Rupnik, who created the mosaics in the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Pope’s apartments.

Two readers scrutinized his defense, including Andrea Baciarlini, an architect best known for his work on the chapel of St. Columbanus in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. His redesign brought the chapel into conformity with post-Conciliar liturgy.

The second reader was Msgr. Maurizio Barba, an official of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, who has published numerous books on the liturgical renewal, many of which Father Daniel used in his research.

“This is a very difficult

subject to examine, so I took angle of the chair of the presider,” Father Daniel explained, “the chair’s history and theological models; how it has been used, how it figures into the liturgy; the theological implications of the chair and the assembly, the chair and the ambo, the chair and the altar.”

Although church architecture and the arrangement of the chair within the church would eventually come into play, Father Daniel’s primary focus was how the presidential chair serves the worship of the

assembly.“That may sound of small

consequence,” he admitted, “until I recognized its consequences for how the person who uses that chair

serves the worship of the assembly.”

One presides in the liturgical assembly, not over it, Father Daniel stresses. “The Latin expression does not indicate ‘over,’” he notes. “Rather, it indicates on behalf of the assembly, or for the benefit of the assembly.”

He warns that it is easy for priests to be satisfied with sitting in a place of status, but that’s not what we are about in the liturgy.

“My understanding derives directly from the Latin documents,” he says. “The presider is at the service of both Christ’s self-manifestation within the liturgical assembly and of the assembly’s response as self-gift in the power of the Spirit. We serve the assembly in this divine-human encounter of mutual self-gift.”

Father Daniel’s research began with intense Latin lessons from perhaps the best Latinist in the world, the Carmelite Father Reginald Foster, who has worked as Papal Latinist for forty years.

Latin was essential if Father Daniel were to delve back into 7th century Rome and all the way forward to the seemingly

Abbey notesBishop Herbert Hermes joined some 150 other bishops and thousands of priests and lay missionaries from South America, Central America, Caribbean and North America for the Third American Mis-sionary Conress (CAM3) held in Quito, Ecuador, Aug. 12-17. Departing from Brasilia for the week of Aug. 26 to Sept. 2, Bishop Herbert trav-eled with several other bish-ops to visit out-reach places in the Brazilian Amazon. The Brazilian Army sponsored this excursion using military aircraft and guides.

Father Kieran McInerney will arrive in Atchison on Oct. 1. He returns from Brazil each year for health check-ups, visit with the monks, and with family members in their homes. He will return to Brazil on Nov. 2. Father Kieran lives with Prior Josias da Costa and members of the community who are in train-ing and in school, and candi-dates, in Goiania.

Father Matthew Habiger flew to Fargo, N.D., for pre-sentations on Natural Fam-ily Planning, Sept. 6-7; he was banquet speaker for NFP teachers, presenter for an NFP weekend at Nativity parish, and speaker to university stu-dents at the Newman Center. He did a Catholic Radio show

at Grand Forks, N.D., also. Other talks are scheduled in September in Brampton, On-tario, Canada, and Denver, Colo.

Abbot Barnabas Senecal at-tended the 2nd annual fund- raiser for DonnellyCollege, Sept. 6, at the Jack Reardon Center in Kansas City, Kan. The event this year raised $100,000 to endow a scholar-ship in the name of the Atchi-son Benedictine Sisters who began the College in 1949 under the direction of Sister Jerome Keeler and the spon-sorship of Bishop George Donnelly.

Abbot Barnabas was pres-ent for the 100th anniversary observance of Holy Family parish in Kansas City, Kan., Sept. 7. Holy Family was the home parish of our deceased Brother Gregory Viscek.

Abbot Owen Purcell partici-pated in the Sept. 5 Mass at St. Josephs parish in Leaven-worth, closing its observance of its 150th anniversary. The first pastor of this parish was one of our founding monks, Father Casimir Seitz. St. Jo-seph’s is served by Carmel-ites and Father David McE-voy is the current pastor.

Abbot Owen Purcell and Sister Gabrielle Kocour are offering an introduction

to Lectio Divina in Thurs-day evening programming in the Abbey Guest House. The program is being offered to Benedictine College stu-dents, faculty and staff, and their Atchison neighbors, through the Sophia Center of the Mount. The program is entitled.

Abbot Barnabas Senecal and Prior James Albers have been asked to participate in visitations for the American Cassinese Congregation in 2009. Abbot Barnabas will join Abbot Hugh Anderson, Brother Alban Petesch and Father Charles Buckley for the St. John’s, Collegeville, visi-tation, Jan. 21-27. Prior James will join Abbot tiomothy Kel-ly, Abbot Cletus Meagher and Brother Benedict Leuthner for the Saint Vincent Archabbey visitation, Jan. 25 to Feb. 1.

Father Blaine Schultz will be our Curator of the Abbey Art Gallery.

Father Jude Burbach helps with grass cutting around the abbey. He rides the Husqvar-na “orange machine” on the lawns.

Father Benjamin Tremmel welcomed family and guests to the Abbey guesthouse lounge to celebrate his 50th anniversary of vows, Aug. 3. Family members made ar-

rangements for the event.

Brother John Peto is partici-pating in the American Bene-dictine Academy convention at Mount Marty college, host-ed by Sacred Heart Convent in Yankton, S.D., Aug. 7-10. The focus of the gathering is Mo-nastic Spirituality: Expanding Merton’s Vision.

Abbot Barnabas Senecal participated in the 2008 Con-gress of Abbots in Rome, Sept. 17-27. An important element in this Congress will be the election of the Abbot Primate.

Carl Baker, son of Richard and Mary Therese (Landwehr) Baker of Warrensburg, Mo., entered the novice year on the eve of the Assumption, Aug. 14, recieving the name Simon. Father Bruce Swift will be his novice master. Brother Simon is a graduate of O’Hara High School in Kansas City, Mo., and of Rockhurst University where he completed bachelor of science degrees in math-ematics and physics, and an master of arts in education.

Fourteen community mem-bers were guests of Bob and Diane Harton and Bob and Mary Ann Munsch at Lake Perry, Aug. 7. Some monks went fishing, others did some water skiing. An evening meal on board the Munsch’s house

Fr. Daniel earns doctorate-Monk defends dissertation at prestigious P.I.L.

Continued on page 31

Left to right: Father Daniel McCarthy’s doctoral moderator, Father Ivan Rupnik, the first reader Andrea Baciarlini, Father Daniel, Father Juan Javier, dean of the faculty of liturgy at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy, and the second reader, Msgr. Maurizio Barba.

Father Daniel speaking at the PIL

Father Daniel McCarthy


Kansas Monks

6


7

Fall 2008

boat was a highlight for all. The Hartons are the parents of Brother Leven Harton, and the Munschs are aunt and uncle to Brother Leven.

The Abbey’s Development office has put together a DVD of our Abbey Pilgrimage to Bavaria and Austria in April 2008. It is a presentation of photographs taken on the trip and music from the St. Bene-dict’s Abbey CD, “On a Musi-cal Journey.” The DVD also includes a documentary on the history of St. Benedict’s Abbey.

Prayer Requests:

Richard Cavanaugh, hus-band of Brother Gregory Dulmes’s second cousin, has been hospitalized with a brain

tumor and lung cancer. Sur-gery is not an option.

Virginia Albers, grandmoth-er of Prior James Albers, was hospitalized recently and is now doing better. She is not able to eat much.

Brother Leven Harton asks prayers for Lauren Elizabeth DeGroot who was born Aug. 23.

The owners of The Weston Red Barn Farm, Weston, Mo., donated a lug of peach-es, fresh okra and cabbage from their garden to the Ab-bey monks. Father Hugh Keefer received these gifts and reports that the owner and his wife ask that we pray for their customers and for the election.

Jeremy Ehart was severely burned a couple of years ago while in the Marines. He be-gan another series of skin grafts at the VA Med Center in Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 3. Jeremy is a nephew of Father Aaron Peters.

Ted Debauge underwent surgery at the Shawnee Mis-sion Medical Center Sept. 4 to remove an abdominal aor-tic aneurism and related iliac branches, replacing them with fibrous tubing. The surgery by Dr. Beasley went well. Ted re-turned to his home to recuper-ate on Sept. 8. He and his wife Joann are grateful prayers.

Dorothy McDevitt, mother of Patty Wolvington, is hospi-talized in Philadelphia having suffered a stroke and being

diagnosed with pneumonia. Patty requests prayers for her mother; Patty and her husband Bill are with Dorothy in Phila-delphia.

Guy Galley, long-time fac-ulty member and coach at Maur Hill Mount Academy, recently passed away. Please pray for Guy.

Mary Lykins, Atchison, fell on Sept. 7 and broke her hip. Surgery was done on Sept. 8. Mary is registered with Bene-dictine College as a graduate of 1939. The family appreci-ates prayers for Mary.

Brother Leven Harton and Prior James Albers run in the Amelia Earhart 8K

Photo by Brother Gregory D

ulmes

Recently Bob Simpson, who served for 12 years on the Maur Hill Board of Directors and served as Chairman during the merg-er of Maur Hill and the Academy of Mount St. Scholastica, visited Atchison from his home near St. Louis. He then picked up the seven Mexican sisters who used to cook at Maur Hill and are now residing in Leavenworth for a week-long vacation at his parents home in Manchester, Missouri.

Simpson, who attended Maur Hill for four years and graduated in 1961, and then at-tended St. Benedict’s College from 1961 to 1963, knew the late Father Edwin Wat-son, who served nearly four decades at Maur Hill. Father Edwin and Abbot Barna-bas Senecal worked with Simpson and his parents to take the Mexican sisters on sev-eral vacations to the Lake of the Ozarks over the years.

St. Benedict’s Abbey hosted the Annual Benedictine College Faculty and Staff Picnic Aug. 20. Three Hundred guests enjoyed a barbecue, including fresh, Abbey-grown tomatoes, watermelon and cantaloupe. Pictured clockwise from above left: Dr. Rick Coronado and Father Blaine Schultz visit before supper; Human relations director Charo Kelley and her husband George attended with her children Kennedy, Kameryn and Kaydenn; Father Louis Kirby and Matthew Tsakaniskas, academic director of the Benedictine College school of faith, visit in line for their food; A cool evening and an abundant buffet table made for a pleasant evening.

Kansas Monks

8


9

Fall 2008

Sometimes, in the hallways of St. Benedict’s Abbey,

one might hear something moving in the walls or above the ceiling. It’s not mice or roaches, or raccoons. This is something much larger.

An investigation into crawl spaces and attic chambers reveals evidence: freshly insulated pipes and air ducts.

Brother Joseph Ryan has been here.

Since entering the novitiate in 1994, The 39-year-old monk has scurried, climbed and burrowed into almost every nook and cranny of St. Benedict’s Abbey, waving his flashlight like a light saber with an eye out for the gleam of a bare pipe to be swaddled; armed with a caulking gun, to halt the whir or whistle of air passing through ancient cracks or bent window frames that no longer close snugly.

What started out as an experiment when the Abbey was plunged into a three-day power outage during his novitiate—“I became curious just how much natural gas we used during those three days”—grew into a hobby—“I made it my job to keep

track of all of our energy usage”—has finally ended up a passion. “I’m a closet environmentalist,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t like waste. I see what we waste each day, the energy going through our windows, the

lights we leave on. I want to do my part to put a stop to it.”

Brother Joe, who has a degree in physics, methodically hunts the hallways and monastery rooms

for unchanged light bulbs, replacing in small bunches the old filament bulbs with the new, funny-looking, efficient 5-year fluorescent types. He’s up to nearly 200 new bulbs so far, each one saving the abbey about 20 megawatts a year.

Brother Joe is proud of his community’s efforts at energy preservation and will proudly guide a guest into the Abbey’s basement to see the changes which have resulted in a 15 percent cut in energy use in the past decade. First on the subterranean tour is the hot water heater installed in 1998.

“That was our biggest single thing that decreased energy use,” Brother Joe says. “We went from 3,000 cubic feet a day to 500 cubic feet a day.”

Next are the 5 million BTU and 3 million BTU furnaces which replaced a single 7 million BTU furnace. The larger furnace is used for cold months and then turned off in the milder yet cool days

of spring and fall, when the more efficient smaller furnace is sufficient.

The new furnaces are more than twice as efficient as the old one. But there is a pall over such a positive.

The windows: the 885 skinny, old, single-pane,

The war against waste within the walls of St. Benedict’s


More opps. on page 35

Brother Joseph Ryan has walked dark hallways and crawled into dirty, cramped spaces to fight the battles against energy waste.

Moisture, heat and cold are leaving their devilish tracks on the sills around the abbey’s old and decrepit windows.

the Journey Forward

Abbey Church Elevator $100,000Part of the Abbey Church narthex expansion, this eleva-tor provides full and easy ac-cess to the church’s main level and crypt.

Abbey Church Entrance Ramp $75,000The stone ramp with iron rails fulfills Benedictine hospital-ity by providing access to all who wish to enter the Abbey’s house of prayer. Retirement Research Founda-tion in memory of William J. Gentle

Crypt Art Gallery$150,000The crypt level of the tower altar area in the Abbey Church is a secure art exhibit for Ab-bey artwork and the work of visiting artists.

Art Gallery Endowment$250,000The monks hope to establish a perpetual art gallery endow-ment to provide for the pur-chase of religious artwork and funding for visiting exhibits.

Abbey Narthex Gathering Space$250,000The main component of the Hospitality Project, this ma-jor addition to the Abbey Church provides a more spa-cious gathering area and more accessible restrooms in the narthex of the Abbey Church.Dan Brosnahan in memory of Bishop Matthias SchmidtAbbey Crypt

Gathering Space$150,000Also part of the Abbey Church addition, this area provides more gathering space and ad-ditional accessible restrooms on the Abbey Church’s crypt level, just below the Narthex addition.

Abbey Church Interior Side-Mounted Lift $50,000This self-operated lift gives complete access to people wishing to enter the sanctuary and the monastic choir sec-tions of the Abbey Church, which were previously ac-cessed only by a series of steps. Retirement Research Founda-tion in memory of William J. Gentle

Abbey Church Interior Two-Step Ramps$15,000These ramps allow wheelchair passage from the choir sec-tion to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and to the sacristy.

Abbey Dedication Crosses (12)$1000 eachTwelve wall-mounted cross-es/candle holders in nave of the Abbey Church will com-memorate the dedication of the church upon the 150th anniversary of St. Benedict’s Abbey. Robert Sharp in honor of Ab-bot Brendan Downey and Fa-ther James Downey; Patrick Dyer; Donald F. Aaron Sr. in honor of Father Leo Aaron; Gina Dyer Osborn; Jim King

in honor of Sister Helen Buen-ing, Father Anselm Llewellyn and Father Terence Sullivan; John and Mary House in honor of Father Gilbert Wolt-ers; Rita Coupe in honor of The Coupe-Sullivan Family; Joseph Geist in honor of Fr. Columban Clinch; James and Pat Asher, James and Mau-reen Asher, John and Jeannie Asher, Martin and Aggie Ash-er, Mary Asher, Robert Asher, Dave and Elizabeth Gruen-bacher in honor of the Asher family; Lucy Walker in honor of Leo and Anna Schmidt; Vincent and Eleanor Kohake, Seneca, Kan.; Stephen and Amy Minnis Benedictine Col-lege class of 1982 and 1984

Guest House Lounges (3) $20,000 eachThese three rooms are used daily by monks to welcome guests and provide spiritual direction to retreatants, visi-tors, and Benedictine College students.Don and Julie Strathman in memory of their son Keith Strathman; Norman and Shir-ley Youngberg

Guest Houseporter apartment $50,000This is home to a monk who lives near the entrance to the guest house in order to provide a ready welcome to guests. It has been expanded, carpeted and painted.Gift Shop$25, 000A gift shop has been built in the guest house reception area to provide religious items

with an emphasis on Benedic-tine books and gifts. Mike & Mary Easterday in memory of Bertand Easterday, OSB.

Guest House Ramp and Ac-cessible Entrance$50,000A stone ramp with iron rails and a larger, more acces-sible entryway welcomes guests who seek information or accommodation from the monks. Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica

Guest House Lobby and in-formation center $100,000An expanded lobby, with switchboard and reception area, better serves Abbey and Benedictine College guests.

South GuestHouse Entrance $25,000A new, wider doorway and large window offers a view of the Missouri River valley be-yond the Abbey overlook.

Monastery Bell system $5,000A new electronic system of bells call monks to the guest house to meet visitors. The melodic bells are less disrup-tive to the cloister than a voice intercom system. In memory of Father Hilary Heim by El-eanor Forge – Sister of Fa-ther Hilary, Mary Alice Heim – Sister-in-law of Father Hi-lary, Mary Ann Heim – Sister-in-law of Father Hilary, Niec-es and Nephews.

The following features of Phase I of the Journey Forward capital campaign are available as naming opportunities for benefactors. The suggested gift is provided with a description of the project. Listed in italic after some naming opportunities are the names of donors who have already contributed the amount and requested that particular opportunity.

Photo by JD Benning

Photo by JD Benning

by Dan Madden

Kansas Monks

10


11

Fall 2008

Bishop Herbert was born May 25, 1933, in central U.S.A., in the State of Kansas, son of John Hermes and Mary Ana Hermes. He is the ninth of eleven children, the twin of Norbert. For the first twelve years he studied in the public school in Scott City, Kan., receiving awards as an outstanding student.

At the age of 18 he went to St. Benedict’s College in Atchison, earning two majors—philosophy and biology. He became a Benedictine Monk and was ordained to the priesthood on May 26, 1960. Two years later he again said yes to the call of the Lord, taking a ship to foreign mission to join other monks founding St. Joseph Priory in Mineiros, Goias in Brazil. To better serve the people and the Church he spent four months in Petropolis, Rio de

Janeiro, for language training and Brazilian history and culture. During the 28 years he spent in Mineiros, Goias, he served

as assistant pastor, pastor, prior and formation director. For 22 years he taught in the public schools. He initiated a variety of social service projects. He was president of the parish Catholic Charity program for 25 years. For many years he organized and accompanied the youth movement in the parish and diocese. He was spiritual director of the Apostleship of Prayer, the Legion of Mary, The Cursillo Movement, and Marriage Encounter. In 1975 he organized what became an annual event to this day: the Fishing Retreat for men and women. Annually, 300 to 500 persons participate in such events in the Mineiros parish.

In June 1990 this monk accepted Pope John Paul II’s call to

be bishop of the Prelature of Cristalandia. Father Herbert Hermes was ordained bishop on Sept. 2, 1990, in Atchison, Kan. at St. Benedict’s Abbey Church. His confrere and fellow Benedictine missionary, Bishop Matthias Schmidt, of the Diocese of Ruy Barbosa in Bahia, Brazil, was the ordaining bishop. Faced with innumerable appeals, hardships and difficulties, Bishop Herbert rolled up his sleeves and went to work, giving

priority to the following dimensions in his episcopal ministry. He assumed the on-going pastoral work of the diocese with

its priorities and options, and soon conducted the 2nd General Assembly of the Prelature, which gave priority to small communities and the formation of lay leadership.

He gave priority to the formation of priests. In this context he received his baptism by blood, tear and pain. He was traveling with the rector of the House of Formation, Father Odarly Malta Braga, and his brother, Paulo Malta Braga on All Souls Day, 1991. The two young brothers were killed instantly in an auto accident. Bishop Herbert was the only survivor. Prayers, investments and sacrifices paid off. In these 18 years 13 priests were ordained to the diocesan priesthood. He opened five new parishes and 13 quasi-parishes.

He always gave unconditional support to religious women. Today the prelature has 36 female religous in eight different congregations.

He was the founder of a commission of Justice and Peace in the Diocese of Jatai. Soon upon his arrival in Tocantins he saw the need to found the Center for Human Rights of Cristalandia in August 1994, which today has its headquarters in Paraiso do Tocantins, and has established branch offices in various countries. This group created other centers in Palmas, Araguaina, Gurupi and others

localities. For this and other reasons Bishop Herbert received the 12th National Award of Human Rights from the National Movement of Human Rights in 2002.

Bishop Herbert supported, encouraged and raised funds for the Child Pastoral Program in the Prelature, for people in land settlements, for Indians, especially the Kraho-Kanela. For the latter, he actively worked for years helping them recover their lands. He was on a work group who organized the removal of non-Indian persons from the Bananal Island, a place of Indian reservations and State parks. For these efforts, his name appeared twice on lists of those marked for death.

In the Central West Region of the National Conference of Bishops, he was the Episcopal advisor to the Pastoral Land Movement Commission, the Regional Conference of Religious and University Students of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. For many years he was advisor to the Youth Movement, Council of Indian Missionary Activity, Pastoral da Crianca (Child Pastoral in Brazil) and Pastoral Assistance to Minors. Annually he participates in a study group for bishops called Ecumenical Center for Evangelization and Popular Education. In his 18 years as bishop he always attended the annual Assemblies of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, missing only once, due to illness. Likewise, he rarely missed a meeting of bishops of the Central West or of the State of Tocantins.

As he would affirm, as well as a Bishop of the Prelature of Cristalandia, “I am a bishop of the world.” During these 18 years as bishop he received honorary citizen titles from the State of Tocantins in 2001, from the city of Mineiros in 1991, from the city of Cristalandia in 1998, from Pium in 2001, from Lagoa da Confusao in 2002, from Duere,Porangatu in 2004, and from Paraiso do Tocantins and Sandolândia in 2008.” At the end of 2002 he received from the Governor of the State of Tocantins an honorary medal of merit.

Lastly, we cannot forget to mention one other great passion of our pastor: the Missions. Since he became Bishop of Cristalandia he supported and encouraged men and women missionaries, priests, religious and laypersons. He participated in the 5th Mission Congress of Latin America in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the 6th in Parana, Argentina, the 7th in Guatemala City, Guatemala and the 8th in Quito, Ecuador. He shows attention and dedication to the

Holy Childhood Association, receiving with great honor the 11th Regional Encounter of the Holy Childhood Association in his Diocese, the city of Porangatu, in 2004. He gave total support to priests, sisters and laity for the establishment of popular missions in the whole extent of the Prelature during years 2006-2008. It became a special “visit from God” which reinvigorated our communities, giving renewed ardor and enkindling our people with a sense of church and builders of the Kingdom of God.

Bishop Herbert, we are now in the hands of God and Pope Benedict XVI, knowing that your mission continues as bishop of this prelature until your successor arrives. For this reason, at this festive moment, we have to say, although words cannot express all we would like to say, how important you are for the Church. So, we can sum up simply. Thank you. Thank you for your giving of self, your simplicity, your humility, your courage, your persistence, your witness of faith and prayer, your capacity to love, to ask for forgiveness and to forgive.

Behind this fragile appearance, innumerable financial difficulties that have caused many sleepless nights, uncontrollable diabetic condition and back pains due to accidents, plus the high blood pressure and foot callous, you are a strong man, with braveness Dom Quixote de la Mancha describes: “Weaknesses are insignificant for traveling gentlemen. Getting up is what is important. One should rise up a thousand times to carry on the struggle at the deception of those malicious ones.”

Congratulations! Dear friend, brother and pastor! Good health to you, life and peace! The Church in Cristalandia, in Brazil, in the World, still needs you!

Herbert John Hermes Man of God, Bishop of the poor

Bishop Herbert Celbrates mass outdoors

Bishop Herbert baptizing a Brazilian Child

Bishop Herbert Hermes

Bishop Herbert Hermes, a monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey for the past 54 years, and bishop of Cristilândia, Brazil, since 1990, celebrated his 75th birthday May 25, reaching the official retirement age for bishops in the Catholic Church.

The following address was delivered by Father Eduardo Alencar Lustosa, pastor of the cathedral parish in Cristalandia at a celebration of Bishop Herbert’s birthday, May 18. It has translated by Father Duane Roy, a fellow monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey and vicar general to Bishop Herbert.

Father Denis Meade, a monk of St. Benedict’s, currently living in Atchison, but who also served at St.Benedict’s mission in Brazil, praised Bishop Herbert’s long service.

“Bishop Herbert is a credit to our Abbey,” Father Denis said. “As a young priest he volunteered for the Brazil mission and never looked back. A tireless defender of victims of economic and political injustice, especially among the indigenous people, he has earned our gratitude as a good shepherd.”

Bishop Herbert Hermes Celebrates 75th Birthday

Kansas Monks

12


13

Fall 2008

There is a myth that says when ever one is stung by the blue fly, he or

she is taken up with an insa-tiable desire for power. They will do anything to achieve more power and strive to per-petuate it, at any costs.

We observe this sickness in the history of humanity. Even today, power, wealth, fame and beauty are ideals and priority values of youth.

Each generation has its problems with authority and other values.

I’ve heard parents say they are getting tired of having to obey their children.

Today is the Feast of Saint

Peter and Saint Paul. Through-out the world all Christians honor these two biblical fig-ures as pillars of the church.

Simon Peter was called from his favorite lake, a coun-try man from the shores of Lake

Galilee, trained in the school of hard knocks to fend for him-self. After constant lessons he learned the way to discipleship – in his boat on stormy waters, mountaintop experiences, mi-raculous net full of fish, get-ting his feet washed, praying in Getsêmani and sheepishly denying his rabbi on that infa-mous night on the patio of the governor’s palace, followed by his experience of the empty tomb. Imprisoned for speaking about his friend and Lord, with renewed courage he is finally able to say with firm convic-tion – silver and gold I have none, but in the name of Jesus, get up and walk.

Now called Peter, he as-sumes authority that invites and transmits capacity to the other, liberating them with renewed hope – hope in the Risen Lord and in their own capabilities.

Saul, schooled with the best Pharisees in the land, armed with roman citizenship, com-manding Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin languages, comfortably fell into militancy against the newly formed fol-lowers of Jesus of Nazareth.

It took strong blinding light, extended time in prayer, conflicts from all sides - with Pharisee colleagues and fellow apostles – struggling over the Law of Purity versus the law of faith and trust in Jesus the New Moses who purifies and justifies us by His blood, his law of self-giving in fraternal love.

Paul, now an apostle of na-tions, after thousands of miles of travel, is able to sum up the new pattern of human relation-ship – “let us follow the ex-ample of Christ, who, although divine, humbled himself and became a slave for us, dying on the cross, and for this he was exalted, now before whom every knee bends”.

What is it that you most admire in these two men? The communities that composed biblical texts manifest im-mense admiration for the two disciples.

Jesus, the son of a carpen-ter, a young rabbi, itinerant preacher, pulls these two strong personalities off their pedes-tals and put them in a mission-ary projectile of worldwide proportions. Once converted, they became His followers and press agents, with strong teach-ing and personal witness.

They became pillars of a community of faith and love with a simple message that Jesus is the Lord in a society where many other “Lords” be-gan to appear.

Forming a double papacy, if I can use this expression, both exercised authority in their mission to build communities, solicitous for unity in diversity. Ever faithful to the Lord on de-manding mission. They ran the race and fought the fight. Their lives were the price, poured out in martyred witness.

History has them as work-ing men—fishermen—now apostles, invested with author-ity, examples to be imitated. Authority and centrality was given to Peter. Recognition and importance is given to the mis-sionary charisma and teaching of Paul.

They are both spirit-filled, specifically called by the Lord, both had a powerful conversion experience, become disciples even with their weaknesses, and missionaries of historical proportions.

They learned the lesson from the Lord that the kingdom is for all persons. The new Is-rael includes and is inculcated in all people and cultures. A unity among diversity, catholic and universal, churches united under one Father, under the same Lordship of our redeem-ing brother, empowered and enlighten by the Spirit of fra-ternal love.

Someone commented dur-ing the time the Church in Latin America was preparing last year for its 5th Episco-pal Conference that what our church needs today is not more documents and doctrine, but witness.

I, personally, give value to literary works, especially those that register the evolution of thinking and decisions on problems as they appear. Docu-ments are historical landmarks

The following homily was delivered by Father Duane Roy at the St. Benedict’s Abbey Church on June 29, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.

A fresco of St. Peter from the Abbot’s Chapel

by Fr. Meinrad Miller

A year ago Pope Benedict XVI issued a call for dedicating a special Jubilee Year to the Apostle Paul from June 28 to June 29, 2009, on the occasion of the bimillennium of his birth, which historians have placed between the years 7 and 10 A.D.

The Holy Father listed many initiatives to take place in Rome at the Basilica of St. Paul, and the adjacent Benedictine Abbey, as well as throughout the world. The list included liturgical, cultural and ecumenical events as well as various pastoral and social initiatives, all inspired by Pauline spirituality.

St. Paul was often quoted by the early monks such as John Cassian who has over 400 quotes from St. Paul’s Letters in his Conferences. St. Benedict himself borrowed from Cassian, and urge the monks to read the Conferences every night. In addition St.

Paul will be quoted 80 times by St. Benedict the Rule.

We can see the importance of St. Paul by looking at the context of these quotes. The most quoted verse of St. Paul in Cassian’s Conferences is 1 Corinthians 13:8: Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. Cassian will quote this verse eight times throughout his Conferences.

St. Benedict, toward the beginning of the Rule clearly states that “this message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord.”

(RB Prologue 3; Eph 6:10–17; 2 Tim 2:2–4)

Likewise, toward the end of the Rule St Benedict will say “No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but

instead, what he judges better for someone else.” (RB 72:7; 1 Cor 10:24,33; 1 Cor 13:5; Phil 2:4; Romans 12:10)

In short, we can see that from the beginning to the end of his Rule for Monasteries, St. Benedict does not shy from using St. Paul as a teacher. In this year of St. Paul it would be good for us to read through and discuss the Letters of St. Paul, and their practical use for our daily lives as monks, and

lay people. We can see this practical use

in two of the verses of St. Paul quoted often by St. Benedict: 1) Romans 12:10 love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in show-ing honor. (Used by St. Bene-dict in RB 63:17; 72:4; 72:7 )2) Ephesians 4:27 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger (RB 38:8; 43:8; and 54:4)

Don’t Shy from St. PaulBenedict valued Apostle as teacher

A fresco of St. Paul from the Abbot’s Chapel

that show where we have been – the primitive church, medi-eval times, modern age, and contemporary issues.

And yes, we do need wit-ness. Witness is convincing, an excellent means of evan-gelization. We need men and women able to exercise their authority in service, dialogue and prophetic witness to reach out to people who are excluded in our society.

Peter and Paul were not ri-vals. They had the courage to be prophets in their day. Men of their season. Their words became the Word of God.

We still learn from them. May this Year of St. Paul be

fruitful for spiritual growth for all of us, as well as for on-go-ing ecumenical endeavors and missionary mindfulness. Let’s read and study Paul’s writing. Let’s allow him to enlighten us on our mission journeys. Read the letters to diverse communi-

ties, imaging that they are writ-ten by a good friend to your parish community today.

Jesus, the true Rock, the Rock of Ages, the only and true foundation, the Good Shepherd, is always teacher and master.

His prophets—our popes, preachers and parents—men and women of God, all share in his authority.

Cardinals, bishops and Indi-an chiefs, catechists and teach-ers, monks, mendicants and mothers all exercise authority,

to form people, families and communities.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He wants to lead us. He wants to need us.

To conclude, I bring to you the testimony of Bishop Her-bert. When he took office as

prelate of the Prelature of Cris-talândia, September 1990, told his people - “I hope to use all the prestige, pomp, dignity, symbolism of the Episcopal office at the service of the im-provised, homeless, landless, discriminated, all those unjust-

ly treated.” We, too, are called to be

disciples and missionaries, using our authority to do what? I leave you with this

question, for each to answer. How will you, how can you, exercise the authority God gives you? We are all disciples and missionaries.

And let’s watch out for the blue flies!

Fr. Duane Roy ‘And let’s watch out for blue flies!’

Wordin a

Photo by JD Benning

Photo by JD Benning

Kansas Monks

14


15

Fall 2008

Fr. Columban Clinch(1903-1968)

Verni Clinch was born in Kansas City, Kan., in 1903, into a Baptist family but became a Catholic at age 32. He became acquainted with the Abbey community when he met Father Victor Gellhaus who helped at St. John Parish, Lawrence, Kan. Verni was a student in history at The University of Kansas.

World War II interrupted his academic career as he served in Italy in the United States Army Air Corps, becoming battalion Sergeant Major and Master Sergeant. While in Italy he was president of the Student Government at the University of Florence. Verni returned to KU and finished a doctorate in history in 1950. His dissertation was on a facet of the French

Revolution.Verni became Frater

Columban July 11, 1951, was ordained June 4, 1955, and began a career as instructor and professor of history at St. Benedict’s College until his death on September 14, 1968. His students revered him as a teacher. He died while serving temporarily at the Church of the Nativity, Menlo Park, Calif. He once preached a parish mission there that was so popular he

was often asked to return. A Mass was offered in Menlo Park previous to his funeral liturgy here at the Abbey.

Father Columban gathered many friends and confreres around him as he often shared the varied aspects of his life. Not able to work in the garden because of

his other assignments, he regularly grew red, hot, chili peppers in pots in his room. Sometimes he brought a pocket full to the refectory, relished eating them, and shared them with his tablemates.

Marked with the sign of Faithc

f

Father Columban Clinch laughs with Brother Martin Burkhard behind the Abbey

Editor’s Note: Abbot Owen Pur-cell is at work compiling a ne-crology of St. Benedict’s Abbey, a volume of brief profiles on each of the deceased members of the Abbey from its founding to the present. This document offers a thorough, poignant and often en-

tertaining look into the history of the Abbey, one monk at a time. In order to provide our readers with some insight into the lives of the men who have made the history of St. Benedict’s, Kansas Monks will publish one or more of these profiles in each issue. If you have

an anecdote about the monks you read about in these profiles or about any other deceased monks, Abbot Owen would enjoy hearing from you. You may contact him by telephone: (913) 360-7817, or more easily by e-mail: [email protected].

Father Columban Clinch

Archive Photos

ST. BENEDICT’S ABBEY presents

a series of retreats

Men’s Retreats:November 21-23, 2008

February 6-8, 2009

Couples Retreat:June 10-11, 2009 leads into the Benedictine College Alumni Weekend

Join the monks in prayer as you engage in your formation and build community with other retreatants.

contact Prior James [email protected]

Suggested donation of $100 per person, per retreat.

Kansas Monks

16


17

Fall 2008

We are called each day by Jesus to our own private,

interior desert, where we encounter Him, a desert which He has individually created for each one of us.

As the landscapes of the many deserts throughout the world vary, so I, too, may find Jesus leading me through a blinding sun- and sand-filled area; the wind howls and there is no sign of life beyond the horizon. Yet, He leads me, and so I have no cause for fear, for He whispers, “Do not be afraid.”

Or He may lead me into a desert, where life suddenly rises anew after a storm. He shows me in such places that Hope lives eternally in Him.

Or He may lead me to an Oasis, where together we find rest, solitude, and sanctuary. There my mortal flesh keeps silent as I contemplate and adore the Word which created me; the Word which calls me to share in His grace and glory, if only I pick up my cross and follow Him.

When it comes to music, from time to time, my old Baptist roots come through in this column. There is an old hymn called, “Where He Leads Me.” There are a few simple lines; “I can hear my Savior calling, take up your cross and follow me. If He leads me to the Garden, I will go with Him, with Him all the way. If He leads me to the Judgment, I will go with

Him, with Him all the way.” The hymn ends:He will give me grace and glory, He will give me grace and glory, He will give me grace and glory, And go with me, with me all the way. Where He leads me I will follow, Where He leads me I will follow, Where He leads me I will follow, I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.

At this morning’s Mass, I celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration and I have been “chewing”

over the meaning of the Transfiguration all day. Today I have been in an Oasis-filled Desert.

At the Transfiguration,

Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray, “And He was transfigured before them, and His face

shone like the sun, and his clothes become dazzling white.” These three Disciples were given a glimpse of the Glory to come for Jesus. The Preface Prayer for the Transfiguration Mass is so beautiful and it explains why the Transfiguration occurred:

He revealed his glory to the disciples to strengthen them for the scandal of the cross. His glory shone from a body like our own, to show that the Church, which is the body of Christ, would one day share his glory.

The Transfiguration took place on a mountain, and as they descended they turned their journey towards Jerusalem, the “scandal of the cross,” awaiting Jesus. The individual crosses awaiting His Disciples…and us as well. But this scandal is also the means by which the Son glorifies the Father and the Father glorifies the Son. It is, as the Preface says above, that Body of Christ, to which you and I belong, and will share in His glory. We too will be transfigured, if we follow “Him all the way.”

So the invitation is ours to accept; to live this interior life with Jesus in the Desert He has created just for you. To share in the glory of Jesus Christ means we must follow Him wherever He leads. But as the hymn ends; “He will give me grace and glory, and go with me, with me all the way.” We are never, never alone.

Praised Be our Savior Jesus Christ! Now and Always! Amen!

Editor’s Note: Father Gabriel Landis is currently the pastor of St. Ann’s Parish in Hiawatha.

From The DesertWhere He Leads Me, I Will Follow

Father Gabriel Landis

Clothed with FaithGod’s Will In Our Lives

Toward the end of the ninth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, we

get an insight into the Heart of Christ: “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mt 9:36) With all of our sophistication we can often think that our lives are independent of God. Yet the imagery here is clear: a sheep without a shepherd in the wilderness is as good as dead; the wolf is never far behind.

This imagery of the sheep and the wolves was used by Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, the first Archabbot of St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Penn., as he recruited the monks to come from America from Bavaria. Our founder here at St. Benedict’s Abbey, Father Peter Henry Lemke, also recounted in his own memoirs how the text of the sheep and the wolves was used both at his first Mass in Bavaria, preached by the future Cardinal Melchior Diepenbrock, and at his fiftieth anniversary as a priest, preached by Bishop Bernard McQuaid of Rochester, N.Y., in Elizabeth, N.J. at the parish Father Henry took up after leaving Kansas in 1857.

St. Benedict himself, in the first chapter of his Rule for Monasteries, will talk about the four kinds of monks. For him the sarabaites, are

the “most detestable kind of monks.” They are like sheep without a shepherd, with no one to guide them into the living tradition of the Church. The role of Jesus, our Good Shepherd, in our spiritual life cannot be overlooked. Jesus, in his very person as both God and man, is both the lamb sacrificed and the shepherd that guides us - his often restive flock - through the wilderness.

Right after we read that Jesus’ heart was moved with pity, we are told he tells the disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” (Mt 9:37–38) The Gospel is rich with imagery. Whether using the image of a sheep making it safely to its destination, or of the field ready at harvest, Jesus makes clear that the work done is that of the Blessed Trinity. It is the loving Mercy of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into which we are baptized to begin our journey. It is that life which we receive in each of the Sacraments that becomes the abundant harvest.

Pope Benedict XVI, during his visit of hope to the United

States in April, reminded us that we, as religious, need to continue to foster the educational apostolate. While speaking to educators on April 17 in Washington, D.C., the Holy Father said:

“Do not abandon the school apostolate; indeed, renew your commitment to schools especially those in poorer areas. In places where there are many hollow promises which lure young people away from the path of truth and genuine freedom, the consecrated person’s witness to the evangelical counsels is an irreplaceable gift. I encourage the Religious present to bring renewed enthusiasm to the promotion of vocations. Know that your witness to the ideal of consecration and mission among the young is a source of great inspiration in faith for them and their families.”

In order to carry out this great work, St. Benedict’s Abbey needs monks. We need men who want to follow Christ, who was poor, who was chaste, who was obedient to

the will of the Father. There is indeed a great harvest waiting in our schools: Benedictine College and Maur Hill-Mount Academy. There is the beautiful work carried on by our pastors since the very foundation of our monastery, and by our monks in Brazil since the 1960s. And there is the daily routine of silence, prayer, work, and community here at the Abbey.

I invite you all to pray that we will be strengthened by Christ and his Sacraments, to avoid being sheep without a shepherd. Also, will you join me in daily prayer, perhaps attending Mass, or saying the Rosary, or visiting our Eucharistic Lord, and begging that the Lord will send more men to St. Benedict’s Abbey as monks? The future of our life of prayer and work, rooted in the Rule of St. Benedict, depends upon having many young men say “yes” to our Lord Jesus.

Editor’s Note: Fr. Meinrad is the Subprior of the Abbey.

Father Meinrad Miller

Monk’s prepare for vespers in the Abbey ChurchBrother Gregory Dulmes prays at the grotto behind the Abbey

If you are a young man interested in a monastic vocation, or you know of someone who might be, the St. Benedict’s Abbey Director of Vocations, Prior James Albers, can be reached at [email protected] or by telephone at 913-360-7830

Photo by JD Benning

File Photo

Sheep and Wolves

Kansas Monks

18


19

Fall 2008

Mike Van Dyke’s first contact with Camp St. Maur occurred when he was 2

years old. That’s when Father Roger Rumery, driving down the hill from the camp, struck the wandering toddler with a pickup.

“It almost killed me,” Van Dyke, now pushing 60, says with a chuckle. “I go way back with Camp St. Maur.”

Surviving his near-death experience, Van Dyke grew into a feisty 5-year-old burr in the saddle of the young monks who ran the camp. He steered clear of pickups, but now risked being trampled underfoot.

“I lived across the street from Maur Hill, on Green Street, and I drove people like Abbot Barnabas and

Brother Norbert Wagner and Father (later to become Bishop) Matthias nuts because I loved horses,” Van Dyke recalls. “Every time they went out with the horses I’d try to hitch a ride.”

When he wasn’t tormenting the monks, Van Dyke was tormenting campers with his local sandlot baseball team. The “Green Streeters” as they were called would march up the hill to Maur Hill and regularly “whip” the campers in pickup baseball games, as Van Dyke remembers it.

When Van Dyke turned 8, his father asked him if he’d liked to make the horseback riding legit and actually go to the camp.

Even though it was just across the

West of the Missouri: Memories of Camp St. MaurWest of the Missouri: Memories of Camp St. Maur

Continued on next page

by Dan Madden

Kansas Monks

20


21

Fall 2008

street, he remembers his first night away from home being a little spooky.

“I was scared (expletive)!” he laughs. “It was kind of scary up in the bunks. But after that I had a ball.”

He remembers being taken out into the woods for a campout under the stars. During the night someone came to him and cut off a piece of his hair and he was named Little Beaver, a brave of the Sioux tribe.

“I didn’t care what they called me,” he says, “as long as I got to ride those horses.”

The Benedictine monks of St. Benedict’s Abbey established Camp St. Maur in the summer of 1937 to offer parents an opportunity to provide their sons with “wholesome summer holidays.”

Maur Hill School “with its airy dormitories, gymnasium, spacious campus and surrounding hills and woods gives excellent opportunities for a boy’s ideal summer resort,” the Abbey News reported. “Play as well as serious interests will occupy the boys during their stay.”

It was but a few rhetorical strides to the longtime camp slogan: “Sun and air for your son and heir!”

The camp’s first administrator was Maur Hill principal Father Anthony Reilman, and the first director was Father Albert

Haverkamp, a popular Maur Hill teacher, whose “catching enthusiasm creates a pleasant atmosphere for any group of boys and young men.” The camp was staffed by young brothers and fraters (young monks in training for the priesthood)

The camp was modeled after the Boy Scouts of America camps and adopted a Native American theme. Campers were divided into Great Plains American Indian tribes—Sioux, Sac and Fox, Arapahoe, Comanche, Crow and Kiowa. The ranks through which they advanced were brave, medicine man and chief. And select campers were initiated into the Golden Thunderbirds.

Abbot Owen Purcell, who served as camp director, says the camp’s early success was simple: “Follow the ‘Four B Theory,’ a boy, a ball, a bat, and a breviary.”

Fathers Alfred Koestner who later suffered time as a prisoner of war in Japan, Eugene Dehner, Timothy Fry, Cletus Kohake and Francis Broderick were the men who developed and stuck to that early equation.

The camp closed in1968 because there were fewer monks to run the program. But it reopened in 1974 under the leadership of Father Paul Steingraeber sans the Indian theme. Instead, campers were divided into Fort Lewis and Fort Clark. The camp closed again two years ago.

Abbot Owen, walks the grounds of Camp St. Maur with its last director, 22-year-old J.D. Benning. The grass is wet with dew and has grown thigh high in the last two years.

Benning, while digging through storage at Maur Hill-Mount Academy a few years ago, uncovered an old thunderbird totem pole from camps gone by. Unware of its history, he sensed it had some significance, so he hauled it out to Lake Placid, where he erected it on the campsite beside the lake. It remains standing today, like an antenna for memories.

“We had an absolute blast working out here,” Benning says. “It’s kind of heartbreaking that they decided to stop doing this.”

As he and Abbot Owen walk down to the lake they simultaneously point out a cove across the way and comment on how good the fishing is there. Lake placid, although laced with a bit of moss, is still clear enough “that you could see a fish attack your lure,” Abbot Owen says.

“We used to look forward to being on the staff at camp,” Abbot Owen recalls. “For

us it was a maturing thing. We were assuming responsibility.” The young monks often worked 18 hour days, attempting to balance the prayer of monastic life with the daily crises of

camp—homesickness, sunburn, poison ivy. “It was good for our formation as human beings,” he says.

Maur Hill even published a newsletter, Ugh!, to keep in touch with campers when they returned to their homes. “It was a recruiting tool,” Abbot Owen noted. “A lot of the kids who had been campers came to Maur Hill. It was a nice bond.”

Patrick Smith was one of those boys. An only child from Stark, Kan., Camp St. Maur was his first extended time away from home. He has fond memories of Father Matthias Schmidt, and Father Eric Deitchman, both of whom would go off to missionary work in Brazil and both of whom would die far too soon.

“I remember it took me three years to pass the swimming test,” Smith recalls. “They required everyone to pass that test. It’s probably a darn good deal, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have ever got us clean.”

Smith also remembers a Father Marion, a man “completely nuts about the Chicago Cubs,” who marched his tribe up to Jackson Park and lined them up on the bluff overlooking the Missouri

River. “I think they would do anything to sap the energy out of us so we’d sleep,” Smith figures.

“Father Marion told us he was going to blow his whistle and then it was everyone down the bluff as fast as you can,” Smith remembers. The first one to the bottom would be a good Indian.

“I have no idea how I got down,” Smith says. “When he blew that whistle you didn’t know if you were going straight down, sliding down or going head over heels. You just wanted to be the first one down. If you lost something on the way down, tough, you weren’t going back for it.”

One of the great mysteries of camp was the Golden Thunderbird Lodge, a rite of passage for those who returned to camp for two or three years. Why you got in or not was a closely kept secret. One rumor was that you didn’t get in if you cussed.

Smith remembers being taken from his bed, blindfolded, hauled away in a pickup and left alone with a sleeping bag to camp the rest of the night alone. When he woke in the morning he was somewhere on the grounds of St. Benedict’s Abbey.

“I guess they figured the homing pigeon would find his way back,” he recalls. “And I did. I hiked all the way across town. I guess there was plenty of adrenaline and hormones. They pretty much shoved responsibility down your throat.”

Tom Homan remembers the ritual started as dark fell. “Suddenly there would be a tap on the shoulder and the camper

to be inducted would be hustled off for the ritual, complete with what we were told was an Indian chant, ‘Ah Waa Waa Veetana Ganayeana!’” He Says “Curious that I still remember those words.”

Homan says the ceremony took him along a path of astonishment, stark fear of what was to come, and ultimately pride when he donned T-shirt bearing the design of the Golden Thunderbird. There was also a Golden Thunderbird lanyard made by the inductee. It had a secret pouch braided inside.

“I recall having to swear an oath of some sort, to promise not to tell anyone about the ritual and then we had to eat some concoction that had a jolt of hot sauce,” he says. “On reflection, perhaps that meant we were firmly on track to enter Maur Hill. I did so and graduated with the Class of 1960.”

Smith, after attending camp, revealed to his mother that he wanted to someday attend the University of Notre Dame. When she found out he was serious, she responded that he would have a hard time accomplishing that at the small public school he then attended. That led to Maur Hill, which led to valedictorian of the Class of 1963 and then on to Notre Dame. When the Vietnam

War came, Smith enlisted in the 101st Airborne. “I was able to handle most of that because of the foundation

laid for me by the Benedictines, beginning at Camp St. Maur,” he says. “That’s not far-fetched to say. It may never have been possible if I hadn’t been weaned away from home by the Benedictine

The Green Streeters: Front Row left to right: Marty Clements, Kevin Van Dyke, Jack Clements, Mike Brentano Back Row Left to right: Tom Bren-tano, Tim Conrad, Denny McBride, Mike Van Dyke, Steve Brentano

‘Boys rise to challenges given the opportunity. That was Camp St. Maur.’ -Norm Birzer

Campers cook over a fire

Arrows pierce a wagon as part of one Camp’s wild west theme

Campers would often dress as Indians at Camp

Campers run a three legged race

Archive Photos

Photo Courtesy of M

ike Van Dyke


Kansas Monks

22


23

Fall 2008

by: J.D. Benning and Dan Madden

Boys, don’t wander off. Camp St. Maur counselors delivered this message over and over

in the darkness, as cicadas screeched and distant branches snapped in the night, stirring overactive imaginations. Those campers silly enough to ignore the warnings? Well, they might lose their head. Or be pulled into a nearby pond and drowned, or hanged from a tree, or whatever other horrific fate She could dream up. Minerva!It depended on the night. It depended on who was telling the

story. It depended on where the story was being told. If you were near the old pond by Maur Hill, it might be Minerva’s

headless body that would rise from the depths to pull you under. For effect, another counselor hidden in the brush down by the pond

would splash the water at a pivotal moment in the story.

If you were unlucky enough to hear the tale high on the ridge south of Atchison, in

Minerva’s very own cabin, you might look up and see her head hanging from a tree branch.

Later a slew of phone calls from parents would put a halt to the theatrical illusion created by a counselor dressed head to toe in a black cassock, perched in a tree with a rope around his neck.

Setting out to uncover the mystery of Minerva wasn’t easy. No one seems to remember much detail about the old story told by counselors to generations of campers. It’s almost as if she still has a frightening hold over the little boys who have since grown into successful businessmen, educators, and monks.

What is known for sure? She was very frightening to boys between the ages of 8 and 12. She had a cabin. She seemed to have the power to erase the memory of little boys who heard her story. And she eventually gained an arch-nemesis, who was quite frightening in his own right, called the Maur Hill Madman.

What we’ve been able to scrape together goes as follows:

Minerva was a quaint grocery store employee, and she was quite flattered when her boyfriend had recently proposed to her. She decided to take the long way home from work that day and strolled through Jackson Park. As she walked along, picking wild flowers, she saw her love in a car with another woman. She was so overcome with grief that she fainted, falling down the bluff, hitting her head on the rocks below. When Minerva came to hours later, she knew that she was not herself, but she could not control her rage. She immediately

headed for her boyfriend’s house, arriving just after nightfall. As she threw a rock through his window and broke through the door she heard him shout, “What are you doing?”

“I saw you!” she screamed. “How could you do

this to me!”Before he could answer, Minerva attacked, striking him with a frying

pan from the nearby counter. He crumbled to ground, stunned by the ferocity of her blow. Minerva pounced. The struggle continued as he tried to calm her down. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Minerva reached to the counter, grasped the handle of a butcher knife and plunged the blade into his heaving chest.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she whispered into his ear.The screams from Minerva and her now ex-fiancé woke the nearby

neighbors. As she was climbing from atop of the corpse, the police arrived. Minerva fled out the back door and into the nearby woods. She ran until she felt her heart would explode, and collapsed in hills above Lake Placid. She found a nearby cabin. Inside, a husband and wife slept in the dark before sunrise. Butcher knife in hand, Minerva stepped over the couple, raised her hand and stabbed them to death. She dragged their bodies to the nearby lake and tossed them in.

After hiding for a few weeks Minerva noticed a man frequenting the grounds around Lake Placid. Summer was approaching and he was cutting the grass and preparing the lake for the start of Camp St. Maur. She would sit in the hills and spy on him. She was mad from weeks without proper food, and concerned that this outsider would reveal her whereabouts to the locals.

One evening, the Maur Hill maintenance man took a brief break from his duties and walked with a fishing pole to the edge of the water. Minerva watched in anticipation as his many casts yielded no fish. Suddenly she saw his pole dive and the man began to reel

furiously. Minerva peered anxiously through the trees as the man pulled a nightgown from the water.

He picked up the blood-stained garment.

Minerva rushed at him in a fury. She swung a stick at his head, but he dodged it at the last moment. He grabbed hold of her arm, shouting at her to calm down. She continued to swing her stick, and a thorn pierced his right arm. Fearing for his life, and not wanting to attack Minerva, he retreated up the dam, scrambling to grab his tackle box. Minerva took advantage, picking up a machete from among his nearby gardening tools. She again swung furiously at the man’s head. He dodged and threw his tackle box at her, knocking the Machete from her hand. He dove toward the water desperate to reach the blade. Minerva too dove and found herself right behind the maintenance man. Hearing her splash he reared around striking Minerva’s jaw with the back of his hand. She continued to stalk him, driven by rage. Suddenly the man matched Minerva’s rage, grabbing her and forcing her head under the water. Minerva wrestled free knocking the man into deeper water. As his hands sank into the mud he felt something solid and slender. He closed his grip pulled the machete from below. He stood and swung wildly. He saw Minerva’s head leave her body and sail to the nearby embankment. Her body stood for an unnaturally long moment, as if suspended by puppeteer’s strings, and then fell sideways into the lake. It floated briefly and then slowly sank to join her victims.

The man limped from the water, retrieving the severed head from among the weeds. Staring back at him were Minerva’s wild eyes, still bloodshot with anger. The stare drove the man insane. He marched up the hill and found the cabin, covered in dried blood from Minerva’s slaughter. He hung the head on the doorway as a warning to those who might approach. They say that Minerva’s body is still driven for vengeance, and on moonlit nights her headless body rises from the depths of Lake Placid searching for a man, to even the score.

Minerva & the Maur Hill MAD MAN

Kansas Monks

24


25

Fall 2008

Father Gabriel Landis was installed as pastor at St. Ann’s Parish in Hiawatha Kansas on August 24th, 2008. Pictured from left to right: Father Ga-briel, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann and Abbot Barnabas Senecal. Photo by Robin Ranieri

Have your own stories to tell about Camp St. Maur? Think of Kansas Monks as a big campfire. Sit down and share your hilarious, poignant, mischievous, spooky, character-building or any other uniquely memorable tales with us in an e-mail or letter. We’d love to publish them and keep that old Camp St. Maur spirit alive. And please send pictures if you have them. We’ll care for them and get them back to you. Kansas Monks 1020 N. 2nd Street Atchison, KS 66002 [email protected]

fraters.”Camp as rite of passage is a theme that runs through most

memories of former campers and counselors, and that meant struggling with the new and facing fears.

Norm Birzer, a Maur Hill graduate, was studying at St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colo., when he got the call asking him to serve as a Camp St. Maur counselor.

“It turned out that year my brother was home from the Air Force and I could get away from the farm,” Birzer recalls. “Right off the bat I got stuck taking a group of boys out to the Abbey Farm. We hiked over hill and dale and camped out over night. Now, I was supposed to teach them a variety of skills along the way, the most difficult being how to start a fire with a maximum of two matches. The problem was, I had no idea how to do this myself. I was a farm boy; I knew how to bunch up newspapers, but that wasn’t allowed.”

Birzer says one of the fraters clued him in. “He told me to get one of the older boys and have him do it,” he recalls. “I did that and I found a real winner. Those 9-year-olds were like sponges. Soon they were gathering up squaw wood off trees. Pretty soon even I could do it. That’s how I learned, from watching an 11-year-old boy. Boys rise to challenges given the opportunity. That was Camp St. Maur.”

A symbol of that was the braiding of lanyards, a braided strand worn around the neck.

“I didn’t realize how difficult this was until years later,” Birzer says. “It was the crowning achievement of making the rank of brave. It was probably the most difficult thing they had to do, but I would say nine out of 10 boys accomplished it.”

Birzer also remembers the monks teaching the boys archery, to use knives and axes, and to shoot guns, skills, which many camps today have set aside as too dangerous.

“I was a firm believer that boys need to learn these things if taught right,” he says. “Those boys learned skills that amazed their parents. Some of those parents couldn’t even chop wood.”

Homan faced his fears in the Snake Room, where about a dozen snakes were caged.

“I finally screwed up the courage to get the blacksnake out for a quick photo shoot,” he says. “I draped the thing around my neck; I was scared stiff that the thing might have anaconda

ancestors.”Homan says he carried the photo in his wallet for a couple

of years to prove to any challengers that he was “thoroughly at home with snakes, practically bored with them.” When he

returned to camp as a counselor, it became his job to guide campers through their fears. “I did so,” he says, “with

bravado, which didn’t reveal the whole truth.”Father Bob Murphy, vicar general of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, still visits

his 92-year-old mother on regular basis, and when he does, she still turns down

his bed for him. So when at age 8, she thought it would be a good idea to

send him to camp, the mere act of doing what his mother

said took courage. Father Murphy

attended the camp for four years and always dreaded

family night because it was too painful to watch his parents leave

again at the end. “I remember each evening after dinner

you’d walk around by tribe saying the rosary and then we would sing this Marian

song, ‘Mother Dearest,’ and there would be a lot of sniffling going on,” he says. “Everybody would

be in tears; they weren’t thinking about Mary, they were thinking about their moms.”

Father Murphy made the rank of Medicine Man. He remembers scraping the actual cow horns that were used to make his hat. He went on later in the Boy Scouts to reach their highest rank, Eagle.

“Not too long ago, I saw this picture of tubby little me on top of a horse at Camp St. Maur and thought, gee, I sure looked like Larry Mondello from Leave it to Beaver,” he said.

For the boys who attended the camp there was a salve for the scrapes from plowing down a river bluff, or the 180 chigger bites one unfortunate boy received from sleeping on a bad patch of ground, or the agony at the end of Family Night.

Kindness.“I remember Barnabas and his brother Nicholas were always

kind,” Father Murphy says of Abbot Barnabas Senecal, then a young frater.

“When I was 8, these guys were 18, 19 years old,” Mike Van Dyke notes. “They were paying attention to you, being nice to you. As a little kid, if someone is nice to you and fun to be with, you don’t forget that.

“I’ll never forget it.”

Kansas Monks

26


27

Fall 2008

cold-conducting-steel, Swiss-cheese windows. Brother Joe’s toothy grin is replaced by a grimace at their mere mention.

When he goes to bed on chilly nights Brother Joe tries to ignore the whistling air at his window sills as he quietly prays for the success the capital campaign his community has undertaken.

The dream of replacing the more than 12,000 square feet of old metal-paned windows in the monastery makes him smile. Compared to the skirmishes and battles he has fought in the name of green, replacing all 885 would be like storming the beaches of Normandy.

He has done the estimates and they are breathtaking. Replacing the Abbey’s windows with energy-efficient models would cut the Abbey’s natural gas use in half. Electricity use would be cut by 15 to 20 percent.

Brother Joseph estimates that at current utility costs the Abbey would save more than $26,000 a year, not to mention the decrease in wear and tear on furnaces and air-conditioning units.This, at a time when gas prices have

gone up 60 percent in the past year and electricity rates are increasing anywhere from 30 to 40 percent, is huge and extremely timely, Brother Joe notes.

One of Brother Joe’s many jobs—besides caring for the grounds and welcoming guests as the porter—is delivering the Abbey and Benedictine College mail, which includes envelopes containing financial gifts from friends and benefactors.

“We should use those gifts as wisely as we can,” Brother Joe says. “The return on replacing these windows will pay off,” he adds with the assurance of a man confident in his calculations. “It will be good stewardship.

“This,” he says, “is a wise investment.”

The Abbey’s tomato harvestBy Bro. Anthony Vorweck

Abundant summer rains resulted in a bumper crop from the St. Benedict’s Abbey gardens. Pictured are Brother Robert Heiman (seated), chief of the Abbey garden crew, and his assistant, Brother Anthony Vorwerk, with one day’s harvest from the tomato patch. In a period of three days, a crew, Brother Robert’s crew, consisting of Prior James Albers, Brother Leven Harton, Brother Jeremy Heppler, Broth-er Gregory Dulmes, Brother Joseph Ryan, and Brother Simon Baker, hauled in 60 30-pound boxes of tomatoes. The crew also harvested an acre of sweet corn and a cornucopia of potatoes, onions, pumpkins, radishes and other delicacies for the refec-tory tables.

Photos by Dan M

adden

New windows in the monastery will bring a smile to Brother Jo-seph Ryan’s face.

Photo by JD Benning

Brother JoeContinued from page 9

Kansas Monks

28


29

Fall 2008

Benedictine College began a year-long observance of its 150th anniversary Sept. 8 with a Mass in the Abbey Church, a Sesquicentennial Convocation in the Nolan Gymnasium and a festive birthday party following, complete with fireworks. Past and present abbots and prioresses, board members, board chair persons, and BC presidents were honored, and Tom Hoenig, a past chair, was the convocation speaker. Featured below are images the opening speech from the Convocation by President Steve Minnis. Photos by Alzbeta Voboril

Benedictine College and its founding institutions, St. Benedict’s College and Mount St. Scholastica College, have been educating men and women within

a community of faith and scholarship for 150 years. That is an impressive accomplishment. Over 80 percent of all the colleges founded before the Civil War did not survive into the 21st century.

But we did. Only 16 Catholic Colleges founded before 1860 are still in

existence today. We are one of them. In the past thirty years, four private colleges in Kansas,

including two Catholic colleges, closed their doors. We not only survived, we continued to grow so that now we

are one of the largest independent colleges in the state. We have been around so long that the Chicago Cubs have

actually won a World Series since we were founded.

Yet even this remarkable history fails to convey the tremendous legacy that our college is heir to. As a Benedictine college, we are part of an educational heritage that stretches back 1,500 years. Mount St. Scholastica Monastery and St.

Benedict’s Abbey, our sponsoring communities, still follow the guidance of the Rule of St. Benedict; a rule written in the sixth century, but still guiding and inspiring thousands upon thousands of Benedictines in the world today. The Rule of St. Benedict is the oldest living organizational constitution in the western world.

Fifteen hundred years is a very long time ago. When St. Benedict composed his Rule, and began founding monasteries, his world was in chaos.

The Roman Empire had disintegrated. Europe had slipped into the dark ages. The glories of classical Rome had passed away; the great

achievements in architecture, literature, art, and philosophy were lost.

The people of Europe did not even have the zero as part of their mathematical concepts.

Life was hard, and generally short. As life became increasingly difficult, another threat emerged—the gradual loss of literacy. Fewer and fewer people were able to read and write, and the great intellectual heritage of the West began to slip away; soon it would be gone beyond the possibility of recall.

This was the world in which St. Benedict and his sister St. Scholastica founded the Benedictine order.

Men and women who embraced the Benedictine way of life were called to do all things ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus (“so that in all things God may be glorified”). They did not seek the recognition of the world; they did not launch crusades or fight wars or seize empires or amass great wealth. Instead, they prayed, day in and day out. And, in addition to praying, they worked. Some of them became great saints, making an important mark on the world. Mostly, however, they were not noticed in this way. Thousands upon thousands of monks and sisters whose names we do not know simply devoted themselves to the life of prayer and work dictated by St. Benedict’s Rule.

Through their quiet, dedicated, largely hidden work, they transformed the world. If you consider the world we live in today, it is amazing how many institutions and achievements that we take for granted sprang from the Benedictine monasteries that preserved western culture:

The Benedictines cared for the sick, and their work led to the modern hospital.

They developed the art of bookkeeping and so laid the

foundations of modern commerce.The pharmaceutical industry had its origins in the herb

gardens of Benedictine monasteries. The Benedictines provided the modern cycle of liturgical

readings, the great heritage of sacred music, the modern calendar,

They preserved manuscripts, copying them by hand. And, above all, they kept the intellectual heritage of Western civilization alive.

Everywhere they founded monasteries they undertook the responsibility of educating the young. From these monastic schools, the great universities—Bologna, Paris, Cambridge and Oxford—emerged. Benedictines committed themselves to passing on the great love of learning that they had developed through their life of prayer and work, and through this commitment, they touched, and continue to touch, hundreds of thousands of lives.

The Benedictines did this, not for their own glory, but for God’s. And, because they were doing all to the glory of God, they committed themselves to excellence in everything they did.

And so the Benedictine commitment has continued through the centuries, and right here in Atchison we have become a part of this great story.

One hundred fifty years ago, here in northeastern Kansas, things were much worse than they are today. Not only was this the lonely edge of the frontier—in fact only 54 years earlier Lewis and Clark first set eyes on this land--it was also the focus of the increasingly violent run-up to the Civil War. Pro-and anti-slavery groups escalated their attacks upon each other; right here in Atchison a minister was seized from his church, tied up and set adrift on a leaky raft on the Missouri river because he had dared to preach against slavery.

Into this bleak and bloody environment, a lone priest, a monk from Pennsylvania—Fr. Henry Lemke--came to serve the needs of the isolated Catholics. And by his persistence his abbot, Boniface Wimmer, was persuaded to send monks to start a new abbey out here on the edge of the trackless wilderness.

Life was hard, but the monks followed the heritage of St.

Benedict, and soon after they arrived in Kansas they incorporated St. Benedict’s College, a school for young men, one of our founding colleges. That is how we began—no wealthy donors, no civic boosters looking to make a name for their city, just two monks far from the comforts of civilization, following the call to bring the light of knowledge to their neighbors.

In 1863, the middle of the Civil War, when the band of seven sisters arrived in Atchison, things were hardly easier. The sisters came to bring the same light of Benedictine education to the women of Atchison and northeastern Kansas. They immediately opened a school, and eventually that developed

into Mt. St. Scholastica College, our other founding college.

Over the years, the monks and sisters braved hardships we can hardly imagine. Wars, disease, economic devastation all have made their mark upon our community. Yet through it all, they followed the Benedictine path.

Through this quiet, persistent pursuit of excellence, they educated bishops, abbots, prioresses; they educated doctors, judges, bank presidents and entrepreneurs.

They educated a young man from a small town in Iowa—Ft. Madison; a town even smaller than Atchison—who graduated with a dual major in economics and mathematics. Dr. Thomas Hoenig, who went on to get a PhD in economics and rose to become one of the most powerful and important people in shaping this country’s economic policy as president of the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City.

They educated a young woman from Kenya, who had come to this country with nothing more than the possessions she could carry in a single suitcase and a burning desire to learn—to better herself and her country. This was Wangari Maathai, who in 2004 became the only person educated at a Catholic college in America to win the Nobel Peace prize.

Not only world-famous alumni such as Dr. Hoenig and Dr. Maathai, but many others too numerous to mention, have, over the years, taken the lessons they learned at Benedictine College—in the classroom, on the field, in the residence halls—and applied them in their

College Celebrates 150th

Benedictine kicks off sesquicentennial

Continued on next page

Kansas Monks

30


31

Fall 2008

lives to make their communities, their parishes, their workplaces and their families stronger. Benedictine College has made an impact on the world.

Of course we are proud of this legacy of achievement; but what are the lessons we should take from all this history?

First, remember each of us can make an indelible mark upon history: one monk with a notion for reform soon had thousands of monks and sisters following his Rule. It took another monk to see the need for an abbey on the frontier that now sits beautifully atop the hill behind you and it took some brave sisters to found the monastery that eventually welcomed, sheltered, and educated Wangari Mathaai.

We have with us today people who have shown the influence and importance that one person can have. In this room we have Abbots, Prioresses, members of the Board of Directors, Chairs of the Board, Presidents of the college and key benefactors, and especially those employees who over the course of 25 years or more dedicated their life

to Benedictine College. These people through their service to Benedictine College made their mark upon our history.

The second lesson is that doing great things most often means doing ordinary things with an unwavering commitment to excellence—so that in all things God may be glorified. Benedictine monks and sisters preserved Western civilization. But what they did on a day-to-day basis probably did not feel like greatness to them. Tilling the soil is back-breaking work;

caring for the sick is fatiguing and wearisome; and copying manuscripts are boring and tedious. But because of their willingness to do all these ordinary things with an unwavering commitment, glorious things were done.

We all can live this lesson. No matter how small, unimportant, or insignificant your task seems, we can all dedicate ourselves to excellence even in the smallest things—doing homework, grading papers, providing meals; rehearsing a play; or helping a friend in need.

Everyone who has been to our cafeteria at lunchtime has seen an example of how even the smallest task—swiping an ID card at the door—can be transformed, through a commitment to Benedictine excellence, into a little spot of sunshine that makes everyone’s day brighter. That is the Benedictine way. If we live it, who can tell what glorious things may arise? And the final lesson I hope you will

take with you is that, here, today, we are all a part of something great, something bigger than ourselves. The Benedictine order preserved western culture, created Europe as we know it and right here in Kansas built one of the great Catholic colleges in America.

Today we celebrate a century and a half of Benedictine education in northeastern Kansas. We are all privileged to be

here at this special time. We have an incredible heritage, both the 1,500 year legacy of Benedictine dedication to the glorification of God and the 150 year legacy of sacrifice, perseverance, and commitment to excellence that marks the history of Benedictine College.

In order to make this heritage our own, we must follow the lead of those who have gone before us.

We are all called to transform the world through a commitment to excellence in the Benedictine tradition. Each and every one of us has been given a priceless gift, preserved over centuries— and it is up to us to live up to that great legacy.

Abbot Owen Purcell applauds President Minnis’ speech

Sr. Mary Agnes Patterson recognized for her service as Prioress

Abbot Ralph Kohler and Abbot Owen recognized for their leadership

St. Benedict’s Abbey Art Gallery

Icons by Elizabeth Alisha Zeller

Open House October 5th 1:30 p.m. | Oct. 4th- 30th, 2008

presents

Kansas Monks

32


33

Fall 2008

“The dying process for those following the Rule of St. Benedict is not one of sorrow,” she said. In her past experience studying Alzheimer’s patients at a nursing home, she admitted she saw little dignity as the patients were left isolated and “no longer treated as people.”

“This is not what I saw at the Dooley Center, the nursing facility at the Mount,” she said. “What I saw there was happiness and peace. One thought I had on this positive image is that it was a result not only of their strong faith, but also of the general understanding that these women are not a burden to anyone.”

Gemmell said she was struck by the statement, “death is not a treatment failure.”

“It is sometimes hard for me to accept that,” she said. “I want to help people and, to me at least that has always included saving a life. Accepting that each person has a time that is meant to be the end of their life is difficult. All of the men and women we talked to made it clear that death is not the end; it is their time to go home.”

Nicholas Boggs observed that the monks and sisters have tapped into positive emotions associated with death.

They “live with more vigor and passion than many will ever experience, and ... that glow they exhibit comes from embracing death,” he said. He was especially impressed by Sister Lillian Harrington, the 90-year-old sister who spoke on growing old gracefully.

“She is living life to fullest,” he noted. “Her perspectives on life are carefully aligned on what is truly important. Her focus was on letting go and letting God run her life. Sister Lillian embraced her age with true grace and dignity.”

Boggs observed physicians

never actually stop people from dying. “We only slow the dying process. Regardless of how many treatments or medications we employ, the body will, to some extent, deteriorate resulting in imminent death.”

Recalling the death of his grandfather and how it forced him to work through his own discomfort with death, Michael Schonberger said he came to Atchison to further those lessons.

“Learning about Benedictine

philosophy introduced me to two main concepts that really stayed with me even after I left Atchison,” he said. The first is the very first tenant of the Benedictine Rule: Listen.”

This, he said, meant a great deal to him for two reasons.

“I’ve always believed that being a good healer, and a good friend, means being a good listener,” he explained. “Having already begun my first clinical rotation, I know the value of taking time to listen to what the patient says; indeed, my whole plan that I present to my attending physician is based on what I learn from the patient.”

He compared the Benedictine words to those of his own Jewish faith. In fact, one of the most important Jewish prayers, he said, translates to “listen” or “hear.”

“Jews are encouraged to listen to each other, to God and to ourselves to find our place in life and learn what we can do to better ourselves and help the community around us,” he explained. The second concept, Schonberg said, “Keep death daily before your eyes,” shared by the panel of young monastics, made him question his preconceived notions of death.

“Is death a positive or negative thing? What comes after death?” he asked.

“I liked how the panel’s contributions mixed themes of spiritual and practical natures of death. They stated that death can be seen as the goal of life: moving from one realm of being to the next. In this way, the hour of death can be considered an hour of exaltation. I had been taught similar concepts throughout my religious upbringing.”

However, more challenging to Schonenberger was wrestling with these sentiments as a fledgling health-care provider, whether viewing death as an enemy, something to be fought; as a release to be accepted by those in pain and suffering; or indeed as something inevitable, no more than the natural resolution of disease.

“As I sat pondering these questions, which I have yet

to answer to any satisfactory degree,” Schonberger said, “I recalled a phrase from the Talmud that I learned as a boy: “To save one life is to have saved the entire world.”

Schonberger said he has held that phrase close to his heart throughout his life.

“If I, or anyone, could have saved my grandfather then that would’ve been like saving the world to me,” he said. “When my father was cured of cancer that probably meant the world to my mother; I know that it has to me.

However,” he pondered, “what if a life can’t be saved?”

After visiting with the monks and sisters, he said he has realized that “helping someone stay at their peak and confront the inevitable in that state is one of the greatest gifts one person can offer another.”

The “Ignite the Spirit” program enlightened Schonberg, he said, not only because it taught him anew, but because it confirmed what he had believed for years.

“Being a good physician, a good healer, means more than commanding a vast wealth of knowledge and information,” he said. “It means being able to respect a person’s dignity and feelings, by listening to their stories, by honoring their beliefs and traditions, and by remembering that patients still represent humanity. There will be times when lives won’t be able to be saved. However, if a patient who is facing death can find peace, and if I as their healer can help them find that peace that will mean the world to me.”

Editor’s Note: Quotes in this article are excerpts from reports written by participants

It was a quiet ride back to Kansas City for the 10 medical students who had

attended the Ignite the Spirit program at St. Benedict’s Abbey and Mount St. Scholastica Monastery July 15-19.

“On the ride to Atchison, my carpool buddies and I chatted the whole way,” Poppi Rodriguez-Webb, a third-year medical student at the Kansas City University of Medicine and Bioscience (KCUMB) recalled. “But on the way home we didn’t speak as much. I know that we were all reflecting on a wonderful and fulfilling week that, for me, was a time of rejuvenation. My intention was to go on a retreat to learn, but also to forget about grades and studying and to get my feet back on the ground. That is exactly what happened.”

The annual four-day program immerses medical students from KCUMB in Benedictine spirituality and in its natural extension—the Benedictine understanding of and appreciation for the experiences of aging, dying and death.

Brother John Peto, who along with Sister Marcia Ziska of Mount St. Scholastica, established and has directed the retreat for the past five years, says St. Benedict’s instruction to keep death daily before one’s eyes and his chapter on caring for the sick and elderly have much to offer future doctors who wish to treat not only the body but the whole person.

Along with visits to the St. Benedict’s and Mount

St. Scholastica health care facilities, the participants visited a mortuary (the mortician is a Benedictine sister), they lived in the Benedictine guest houses, they prayed and ate meals in community with the monks and sisters, and they listened to a 90-year-old nun talk about growing old gracefully.

“My favorite part of the week was a session where we gave our life stories; we explain that life in a monastery has its ups and downs,” Brother John says. “It’s a journey, a pilgrimage through life that we all share.”

Death isn’t so much feared as accepted, Brother John said, and it is certainly not the end of the journey.

“We die in the midst of life,” he said. “We learn to accept

that dying and death are only realities of life. The Rule of St. Benedict emphasizes that the only true security in life is

that someday we are going to die.”

Participants all had their favorite sessions. Rodriguez-Webb enjoyed “Keep Death Daily Before Your Eyes,” a round-table forum of young monastic men and women who shared their understanding of the often-quoted Benedictine

phrase.Sister Mary regarded death

as “transformative,” Brother Leven’s interpretation was

“keeping the hope of heaven” daily before one’s eyes, and Sister Margaret told of keeping a ‘space’ for death and aging, while declaring that control over them is a “total illusion.”

Ashley Gemmell said that the Benedictine acceptance of death’s inevitability enables them to find joy in it.

Medical students learn to walk daily with death before them

ignite the spiritby Dan Madden

Poppi Rodriguez-Webb aids Sr. Lillian Harrington

Retreatants gather for a photo in front of the Abbey Guest House.

Left to right: Br. John Peto, Katarzyna Szymanek, and Sr. Lillian Harrington

Photos provided by Sr. Marcia Ziska

Kansas Monks

34


35

Fall 2008

Six Brass Candlesticks for Use at Altar (Designed by the late Dennis McCarthy) (Skip McCarthy in memory of Dennis McCarthy)

$7,500

Cope, Stole, Humeral Veil (1 available) (For Benediction & Other Eucharistic Events)

$2,500

Cope, Stole, Humeral Veil (1 available) (For Benediction & Other Eucharistic Events)

$2,000

Chasuble & Stole for Presider at Mass (16 available) (Virginia A Day in memory of William R Day)

$1,000

Dalmatic & Stole for Deacon at Liturgical Events (8 Available) $1,000

Four Stoles for Concelebrants at Mass (20 Available) $1,000

Five Albs for Concelebrants at Mass (8 Available) $1,000

the Journey Forward The following are vestments and worship articles avail-able as naming opportunities for benefactors. The sug-gested gift is provided with a description of the item..

endless volumes of Vatican II documents he would pore over before he could stand before his readers and defend his work in Italian.

Father Daniel has emerged not only with a reputation as a scholar of liturgical Latin, but also with a commensurate knowledge of liturgical architecture.

Along the way he traced the changing customs that dictated the placement of the chair from ancient Rome until the presidential chair became obsolete, during an era in which the laity was all but excluded from direct involvement in the Mass. Then reform appeared on the horizon that would lead eventually to Vatican II. He ultimately discovered an oversight that complicates the building and renovation of churches to this day.

The proceedings of the Second Vatican Council including every word said from the floor and every document submitted—as well as the notes of all preparatory and advanced preparatory committees—are bound in numerous volumes, in Latin.

“I scoured these volumes looking for every document that treated any part of the liturgy which is currently celebrated while the presider is at the chair,” Father Daniel recalls.

Only recently have the working papers of the study groups responsible for implementing the liturgical reform been released.

In examining these Father Daniel discovered two models for use of the presider chair.

“One model says, ‘We’ve got these ancient churches with lovely chairs behind the altars. Let’s use them,” Father Daniel says. This model allowed the assembly to gather around the altar, as Eucharistic Prayer I says.

“The other model expressed a desire for the full conscious and active participation of the faithful in the liturgy,” Father Daniel explains. “The first step in achieving that goal was to clarify the structure of the liturgy itself, so that in its very celebration it would more fully and more easily reveal itself to the understanding of the faithful.”

In order to clarify the structure of the liturgy, those responsible for implementing

the liturgical reform proposed celebrating the Liturgy of the Word at the chair and ambo, and the Eucharistic Liturgy at the altar.

“This established a direct rapport between the chair and the ambo, rather than between the chair and the altar,” Father Daniel explains, “even as the altar remains central.”

After Vatican II those responsible for developing the renewed “Order of the Mass” we use today established early on that the the Liturgy of the Word would be celebrated at the chair and ambo, and the Eucharistic Liturgy at the altar. The problem is that this principle was never explicitly stated in the final edition of the Roman Missal.

Another study group was responsible for writing the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), where the principle could have been stated clearly. However, the chapter of the GIRM on the design and arrangement of a church for the celebration of the Eucharist instructs that the chair be placed behind the altar and makes no mention of the two places of celebrating the liturgy.

“As a result,” Father Daniel

notes, “the GIRM recommends placing the chair behind the altar for a liturgy that is based upon the principle of placing the chair in rapport with the ambo.”

Today when a bishop or parish prepares to build or renovate a church “they go to chapter 5 of the GIRM and follow it in good faith, unaware that the other model implicit in the very Order of the Mass we celebrate is expressed elsewhere.”

“This is not to say that the two models are at odds,” he says. “I only wish to suggest that the one model be recovered and considered when building or renovating churches.”

More than a question of architecture and interior design, Father Daniel sees the issue as giving Christians the proper tools to worship.

“Church architecture,” he says, “is about narrating the divine-human encounter celebrated in the liturgy.”

“When designing churches for the celebration of the Church’s liturgy,” he says, “I would like our churches both to elaborate a prolonged narration of the faith and to pull everything together as one.”

Father DanielContinued from page 4

Many oblates have received different formation and have

likely been told a variety of ways to follow St. Benedict. In talking to oblates who at-tend meetings here at St. Benedict’s Abbey I have come to some suggestions which might be of help to all oblates.1. Pray frequently, using the scripturet as the basis of your prayer. This is called holy read-ing or Lectio Div-ina. I will expand further on this in this issue.2. Follow the Holy Rule of St. Benedict as close-ly as possible, especially those chapters relating to Christian living: e.g. major parts of the Prologue, Humil-ity, and Good Works. It is also interesting to note how much material in other chapters can be applied to one’s oblate life. Oblation is truly a call to fol-low Benedict’s way.3. Pray part of the Liturgy of the Hours in the morning and evening. 4. Attend Oblate gatherings if distance, health or age does not prevent you.5. Discuss your spiritual life with someone else if you are not able to attend meetings

with regularity. You might shy away from this as it is of-ten difficult to talk to another about something in the spiri-tual realm. Begin by simply talking about your prayer life with a person whom you trust and you know will keep con-fidence.6. Develop a program of spiritual reading in the area of Benedictine spirituality.

7. Commu-nicate fre-quently with your Oblate Director. (I have been very bad about this in the past but with fewer groups here at home I have been able to set

aside more time for this in my day.)

Holy Reading / Lectio DivinaHow does a person develop a deeper relationship with Je-sus through Sacred Scripture? The Bible is one book not to be read from cover to cover. We need to pick and choose what we read and stay in that area. One way I have found very useful is to read the Sun-day scripture readings, espe-

cially the gospels, as a daily exercise in reading scripture. Every Monday look up the gospel for the following Sun-day and read it each day of the week. This reading needs to be done slowly, pausing if a word or phrase calls out to you. If you find a word or phrase sit with it. Ask what that word saying to you? One of the key Benedictine practices is listening. When you stumble on some form of the particular word which has captured your mind’s ear, stay with it. Do I listen or do I just hear? Most of us simply hear words and more words, but listen less frequently. What is our Lord asking of you and me? Maybe I need to make a response to someone with whom I am not on good terms? Could it be listening to someone who goes on and on and says the same thing over and over again? Maybe it is listening to someone in the immediate family. Could it be listening to someone challenging us in some action or speech? Often to do a better job in

holy reading we find a guide to be of great help. For nearly 20 years I have used the mag-azine, “The Word Among Us” to aid me in more fully understanding the daily scrip-ture reading. Holy reading is not easy and I think we all need some help with it. The cost is $24.05 and $21.95 for seniors. Just a few cents a day over the year will bring this guide to you. Of course there are other guides just a useful. The address for the magazine is:

“The Word Among Us” 9639 Doctor Perry Road #126N Ijamsville, MD 21754-9900

Again this coming year we will be continuing our study of the Rule. We will be using A Life Giving Way—A Com-mentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, by Esther de Waal. The cost is $19.95 for this publication of the Liturgical Press, Collegville, Minn.

“How do we develop a deeperrelationship with Jesus?”

OblatesWhat does it take to be a faithful oblate?

Brother John PetoDirector of Oblates

- Have you ever considered becoming an Oblate of St. Benedict?- Does it mean I make vows? Do I have more prayers to say? Does it cost money?- Do I have to make radical life changes? Come and see or contact: Br. John Peto, [email protected] 913-360-7896

Kansas Monks

36

Fall 2008

Kansas Monks USPS 290-760

Abbey Offices913.367.7853www.kansasmonks.org

Non-profit Org.U.S. Postage

P A I DKC, MO

Permit No. 6318

Watchfulness - Abbot Barnabas Senecal

This young lady watchedas family and friendcut trees and brushfrom the land they would till

She watches as seed is planted,fruit and leaves to be medicine,to heal and nurture and protectfuture young people of Brazil.

She responds to the rhythm of thingswith hands and eyes and smile,the rhythm that nature provides,inviting harmony with what is.

She has hope in her heart - she sees hope in others - this a planting in the soul,a welcome fruit of parent labor.

Phot

o by

Abb

ot B

arna

bas S

enec

al

kansas monks fall 2008

Documents