Father Raphael Simon, OCSO, MD
Entered religious life December 10, 1940
Professed November 1. 1943
Ordained a Priest, May 31st, 1947
The following notes have been provided by
St. Joseph's Abbey.
KENNETH ALWYN SIMON was born to Reformed Jewish parents in New York City on August, 6th, 1909, the Feast of the Transfiguration.
A graduate of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, he spent his study year abroad devouring Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Berlin. Post graduate work followed at the University of Chicago. In 1934, he earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan, with recognition in the field of clinical psychiatry.
His years in Chicago, under the tutelage of Dr. Mortimer Adler, the force behind the Great Books program, immersed him in brilliant interactions with intellectual titans. His probing mind, once introduced to the philosophical thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, reasoned that philosophy could lead him to the knowledge of God and consequently to an ordered understanding of the universe and of man. Indeed, at Chicago he [developed] a deeper thirst for the mystery of God. So it was that in 1936 he received baptism in the Roman Catholic Church.
Rev. Raphael Simon, OCSO. MD
(August 6, 1909 -- November 12, 2006)
Internships at Oak Park Hospital in Chicago and Bellevue Hospital in New York, and a psychiatric residency at a boys' school, only served as distractions from this thirst for the transcendent and by the end of 1940 he had entered the Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of the Valley in Lonsdale, Rhode Island.
Over the years his monastic commitment deepened. He pronounced temporary vows on November 1, 1943, and solemn vows on November 6, 1946. In 1947 he was ordained a priest. That same year he published his memoirs, The Glory of Thy People, which was followed in 1987 by Hammer and Fire, a lengthy treatise on contemplative prayer, ministry and mental health. He served by turns as father master to the brothers, both professed and novices, and once the community had transferred to Spencer, as director of vocations, director of Trappist Preserves, dean of the junior professed and editor of the St. Joseph Abbey Newsletter. He is also numbered among the founders of Spencer's foundation at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia. But it was his enduring prowess as a councilor to Abbots and superiors, confessors, retreat master and spiritual director for which he is most remembered and loved, having enriched the lives of his Spencer brothers ...as well as many devoted friends and followers, among them Eileen George whom he helped with the "Meet the Father" ministry.,,,
With the passage of years Father Raphael's health...grew increasingly grave, though he remained resolutely undaunted, even becoming more cheerful and productive. In his late nineties, he was better versed in the latest computer technology than many people half his age. Moreover, a child-like simplicity grew in him that, while not supplanting the mechanics of his intellect, overlay it with an innocent sweetness, palpable, obedient, quietly assured, framing the living illustration of his own words written years earlier:
"To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek Him, the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement."
--Fr. Raphael Simon, OCSO