History of St. Benedict Monastery
St. Benedict Monastery

By Fr. Livius Paoli, O.S.B.


     St. Benedict of Oxford is the present mother house of the Benedictines of Detroit, the corporate name of the American priory of the Sylvestrine Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict.

     It is situated on the northeast corner of Oakland County, about thirty miles due north from Detroit, Michigan. At 1300 hundred feet above sea level, it is the highest point in the southern half of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.  Looking south from the top of the hill one can see as far as the Detroit Metropolis on a clear day. The place has all the mystique and the lore of monks seeking height and solitude for their monastic home.


     The Order of St. Benedict of Montefano, now called the Sylvestrine Congregation, O.S.B. was founded in 1231 in Italy by St. Sylvester Guzzolini, a priest from Osimo in central Italy. To a renewed and rigorous observance of the Rule of St. Benedict for Monks, Sylvester added two, at the time novel, pieces of legislation: he instituted a central governance for the several monastic communities he started and introduced for his monks external apostolate in the service of the people of God by the preaching of the Word and pastoral ministry.  In the middle of the last century the monks undertook the evangelization of much of the island of Ceylon now called Sri Lanka.

     It was that missionary spirit that brought them to America. In 1910 two monks at the invitation of the bishop of Wichita settled among the coal miners of southeastern Kansas and for eighteen years they ministered to their spiritual needs with great zeal and remarkable success. Their equally important aim, however, in coming to America was to establish the Order in the Land of Opportunity. They soon realized that that opportunity was passing by in their present situation, as the coal mining industry in Kansas was fading and the region of their missionary activities was becoming spotted with ghost towns.

      They sought after and searched for a promising site for the home of their Order. In 1928, Bishop Gallagher of Detroit welcomed them into the diocese. Either on account of their missionary spirit or for other practical reasons, they began their life in Detroit by assuming the direction of three parishes in the city. One, however, was a new parish with land and the opportunity for the establishment of the Order’s headquarters. The parish was started under the name of St. Scholastica in northwest Detroit. The Great Depression, however, thwarted for a time the fulfillment of the monks’ plans and dreams for their Order.


 

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