About two thirds of the community live and work at Collegeville. Ray Suarez and author Kathleen Norris discuss her experiences at Saint John's Abbey. Norris spent more than a year near Benedictine monks at the Ecumenical Institute and learned about monastic practices of living simply, achieving inner harmony, and making daily communion with sacred reality. She and Ray will talk about the lessons for daily living that she derived from her experiences there. Unlike most other Catholic religious orders, each Benedictine monastery is autonomous but grouped into a congregation according to origin .
Benedictine monasteries increase in numbers by starting foundations that later become independent.
The Benedictines came to Minnesota in 1856 from St. Vincent monastery , Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and, earlier, to Latrobe in 1846 from the European Bavarian abbey of Metten . Benedicta Riepp led Benedictine women to Pennsylvania and then in 1857 to Minnesota. Alexius Hoffmann OSB sketched the early history of Saint John's . Saint John's is a member of the American Cassinese Congregation that includes 21 Benedictine communities for men in North America with a combined total of more than 1,045 monks. Saint John's Abbey is the largest Benedictine community of men in the Western Church with 199 professed monks followed by Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, PA, with 186.