Koningshoeven Abbey

The monks of Mont-des-Cats Abbey (Sainte-Marie-au-Mont), near Godewaersvelde in Nord, northern France, fearing that they were about to be driven into exile, looked for a place of refuge in another country.

Abbot Dominique Lacaes sent Father Sébastien Wyart, formerly an officer of the Zouaves, to the Netherlands, where he had many military contacts.

Houben was prepared to lease the properties, equipped and refurbished to the point that they were serviceable as a small and primitive monastery, to the French community.

Dom Lacaes did not want at first to found a new monastery, just to find suitable temporary accommodation, but on the insistence of Father Wyart, whom in the meantime he had appointed prior, he eventually agreed on 5 March 1881.

[1] In the early years things were very hard at De Schaapskooi, and without the constant help of the Tilburg Brothers the newly settled community would almost certainly have failed.

When he refused to agree to make over the goods, the abbot of Mont des Cats received instructions from Rome to inform him that he was relieved of his abbatial rank.

Father Simon achieved much, not only by paying off the great debts that Dom Willibrordus had left behind but also through his spiritual leadership.

Within the Order Dom Simon was highly esteemed, and he was often asked by the Chapter General to solve problems in monasteries all over the world.

Whereas his predecessor had made people apprehensive, the abbot was much loved by his fellow monks, without slackening the discipline of the Rule.