Our History
Our three founders began their religious life in the foreign missions. After several years ministering in Haiti and Brazil, they came together to address some of the challenges of evangelization in the modern world. Their belief was that the mission requires a strong liturgical practice and the witness of community life.
In 1986, the founders completed a second novitiate as members of the Community of Jerusalem in Paris. This new congregation sought to bring monastic life into the modern city. When they returned to the United States, they spent three years in a rural Midwest diocese, where they served in parish ministry while laying the groundwork for a new monastery. Permission for a monastic foundation was granted on September 14, 1988, and the new community became the Monastery of the Holy Cross, named after the day’s feast.
The fledgling community found the city they were seeking when His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Bernadin invited the community to the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1991. Given a choice of recently closed parishes, the brothers selected the former Immaculate Conception church and convent, both for its nearness to downtown as well as for its remarkable beauty. This beauty was in part hidden, as during the two years since its closing, the church had been used as a warehouse and had suffered a good deal of damage.
The community was extremely poor in its early days, and fond memories are told of truckloads of potatoes from friends in rural Minnesota arriving to help the brothers through the winter. There were no choir stalls, and the monks prayed either standing or kneeling upon the floor. The brothers were early on forced to learn how to beg when the boiler in the church went out at the beginning of winter.
The initial years in Chicago were thus spent renovating the church and living spaces, constructing a loft for guests in the church attic, and establishing a rhythm of liturgical life. Father Thomas-Benedict Baxter served as the Prior during this time.
The community earned its keep through chaplaincies at Chicago hospital and religious communities. Lay brothers were called upon for jobs such as bagging groceries. Later, the community found its way into computer work, first converting library card catalogues to computer databases, then editing digital versions of academic books.
As this work was subject to the ups and down of venture capital, the community eventually developed two of its own monastic industries: welcoming travelers in a bed and breakfast and retreatants in a guesthouse and selling caskets made by fellow monks. Today, hospitality to guests remains our primary work.
Gradually, as the community grew and stabilized, the distance between the French culture of the Jerusalem model and the realities of the situation in the United States became more and more apparent. In the middle of the 1990’s, the community sought to affiliate itself with the Subiaco Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict. The Abbey of Christ in the Desert graciously agreed to be our adopted mother-house and sent monks to assist in our Benedictine formation.
Around this time, some friends of the monastery approached Father Brendan and asked for talks on monastic spirituality. The group that gathered for these discussions became the core of the monastery’s oblate community. Since 1999, many lay persons and several clergy have become oblates, promising to live a life in keeping with the values of the Rule of Saint Benedict according to their state in life.
On March 25, 2000, the founding members made their Solemn Professions as Benedictine monks. On the same day, the first new member made his first vows. Over the next few years, the monastery was able to purchase several adjacent properties, allowing us to welcome more guests and accommodate more monks. The community also began chanting a more traditional version of the liturgy.
In August of 2004, Prior Peter was blessed to become the third superior in the history of the community. On December 31, 2011, Abbot Bruno Marin, OSB, former Abbot President of the Subiaco Congregation, erected the Monastery as an autonomous house. Prior Peter was elected by the Monastery Chapter to be the community’s first Conventual Prior on February 4, 2019. He was formally installed on February 6 of the same year.
Today, the monastery numbers eight monks in Solemn Vows. In keeping with our contemplative charism (we are usually numbered, with the Carmelites of Des Plaines and the Poor Clares in Lemont, as one of three such communities in the Archdiocese), we chant the full Divine Office and steep ourselves in the ethereal beauty of Gregorian chant.
In fidelity to our mission to the city, we schedule our day to allow the greatest number of guests, and we pray daily for the bishops, priests and consecrated persons in the Archdiocese, as well as for vocations.
