BENET ACADEMY
There is a Catholic High School in Lisle Illinois, by the name of Benet Academy. In its early years, it was Saint Procopius Academy and in its much earlier years, it was called St. Joseph Bohemian orphanage, conducted by the Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart and the monks of Saint Procopius Abbey.
I will try to give you more of a history of the orphanage later on but I would like to talk a little bit about my experiences when I was stationed at the Academy for 20 years.
It was the late summer of 1973, I (Brother Ed, OSB) was assigned to Benet Academy to be the high school stationery, which meant I was going to be in charge with another monk by the name of Brother Columban, OSB who was the treasurer and the head stationer for the Academy.
The main job of the stationer was to order all the school books and supplies for the students as well as the faculty and administration. It was also the job of the stationer to set up the school cafeteria for registration week with all the particular books that would be used that year. It was 4 days of registration, the first day being the seniors followed by the Juniors sophomores, and then finally the freshman.
It was a hot muggy evening when I started opening boxes and setting things up for the senior registration in the cafeteria. It was around 9:00 in the evening when I was almost finished when I heard what sounded like, a baby crying down the hall. Now one of the things that we did have at the Academy that most students didn't know about was we had a pool. It wasn't a it wasn't a very big pool it probably was about 15 ft long by 4 ft wide by 2 ft high and what that pool was used for, was when children were brought in from the inner city, they were deloused in this pool that had special chemicals. And the reason for this was that the children wouldn't spread lice to other students coming from the inner city of Chicago. You have to remember Chicago was in its infancy this would be like the late 1800s and plumbing and sewage and the basic necessities of life we had we know today they just didn't have. So children could contract lice very easily and other childhood diseases. So there were a lot of vaccinations and inoculations that were taking place as young people were brought to Lisle to live with the Benedictine sisters at St. Joseph.
So as I was putting the books on the tables very meticulously, as I said, I heard what sounded like a baby crying down the hall. At first, it didn't bother me, but all of a sudden, I felt very much alone in the school building, and I wasn't sure what I was going to encounter. As I went down the hallway the sound of a baby crying was getting louder and louder. When I got to the beginning of St Joseph Hall on the right side the second room was the bookstore where I would be eventually working out of during the school year. The room next door was a storeroom but that's where the pool also was and it was not being used anymore as a pool. As I drew close to that door, the baby crying became louder and all of a sudden, it just shot from under the door and it went upstairs, now I don't know what compelled me to go upstairs because, like in most movies, things like that you want to tell the person, don't go upstairs leave now. But I didn't leave, I went up to the first floor and I continue to hear the sounds coming from now the second floor so I went up the second floor. Then I got to the third floor and, there was a door and I had no key for it at this point in my life there at the academy. It was the door between the third and fourth floor, stories of the fourth floor being haunted I was told already, all of a sudden the door kept going back and forth vibrating back and forth like was trying to open up. So I quickly turned myself around, ran down the stairs went back into the cafeteria started turning all lights off, and locking doors, I ran out of Saint Martin Hall as quickly as possible. I found myself back at the Abbey in no time. I got to my cell I shut the door and locked it and I thought to myself what on Earth did I just encounter.
The very next day after morning office I went down for breakfast and quickly left and I ran to Father Julian's, room and explain to him what had happened. He described the whole incident as it is called psychic residue, and what is psychic residue, it is something that has been left behind that has not gone beyond where it needs to go. In other words sometimes when people die suddenly, they don't understand what's going on, they're in this vortex of mystery. They become psychic residue something left behind that needs to be released to go to where it's supposed to go. In our Christian Catholic tradition, we would say they need to go to heaven and so we pray for those souls. It seems to me that this psychic residue continues even to this day at the Academy and I've been gone since 1992. There are young people today who still believe that there is a haunting that takes place in that high school.
I cannot tell you how many times I would go there by myself, and work on all kinds of projects at the school and suddenly I had to get out of there. Every hair on my body would just kind of like rise in fear. Something kept telling me to get out now. I know many people have experienced this feeling of something that's there that needs to go it needs to move on.
This ends the first part of Benet Academy and its hauntings, I hope you enjoyed it, and let me assure you there are lots of stories just like this. And I hope to share those with you in the very near future. So until then, happy haunts.
About the author: Brother Ed Arambasich, OFM, was a Benedictine from 1972 to 1992, he was called out of the monastic tradition to spend more time as a mendicant Franciscan friar of St. Francis of Assisi serving needs of the poor. Brother Ed would say, that it was the students of Benet Academy that taught him so much about caring for the poor. Brother Ed was in charge of the Christmas drive for many years that developed into a food drive once a month for the Archdiocese of Chicago the Diocese of Rockford Illinois and the Diocese of Joliet Illinois. From 1992 to the present day Brother Ed has served in the Diocese of Joliet the Diocese of New Orleans the Diocese of San Francisco and the Diocese of Springfield Illinois. Brother Ed's ministry for the past 28 years has been fire department chaplain. He also worked with persons with HIV/AIDS, and the poor of the Streets of San Francisco at St Anthony foundation a dining room that serves over 2,000 meals a day.
Once again if it wasn't for the love and the dedication of the student body of Benet Academy, and the encouragement of the sisters, monks and lay faculty, Brother Ed can attest that his life became a Springtime and a fountain of ministry because of those fabulous people that he worked with for 20 years. They taught him and others to step outside the box and to stretch oneself and to see how many wonderful talents and gifts the Holy Spirit has showered each and every one of us.
The Author.
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