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Father Simon Ašič
The best known monk of Stična in his time. He lived in the monastery, with short interruptions, for seventy-three years, and became the finest judge of medicinal plants in the country.
In his own lifetime Father Simon Ašič was the best known monk of Stična, who with great kindness and patience gave away to his visitors the herbal knowledge he had gathered by studying what literature was then to be had. He filled out other specialists' experience with his own.
He was born on 30 November 1906 in the hamlet of Raztez near Gorica, close to Brestanica – the old Rajhenburg – where in his youth the great basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes was built.
He lived in the monastery at Stična, with short interruptions, for 73 years. He became the finest judge of medicinal plants, with a particular gift: he knew how to listen to anyone, above all to the sick, how to advise them and how to help. Many who came to him for advice remember him with gratitude to this day.
To everyone who loves medicinal plants he is a model. His books on the subject found their way into almost every Slovenian family. For their expertise and for being understandable to readers of every kind, they will long remain the best handbook for anyone who would like to better their health by natural means.
Medicinal herbs as help with various troubles
A great deal has been written about the use of natural remedies, above all medicinal plants: from old Chinese recipes of 2700 BC to the Greek physician Hippocrates (400–377 BC) and the Roman Galen (131–201 AD). On the threshold of the modern age, Paracelsus brought remedies from the inanimate world into treatment as well.
After the monasteries were founded in Europe in the 11th century, the use of medicinal plants spread quickly. At first they saw only to the needs of the monastic family; later the monks helped the people around them too. The order came to the territory of today's Slovenia in the first half of the 12th century, in 1136 to be exact. From the monastery chronicle we can read that they used medicinal plants, since in case of illness the rule allowed nothing else. A document of 1230 mentions an Infirmarius at the monastery of Stična. That name for a healer, an apothecary, appears several times.
After the monastery was dissolved in 1784, many books from the rich monastery library were sadly lost, among them those on healing. For 114 years there were no Cistercian monks at Stična. They returned in 1818, and from that year the record can be followed again.
Father Simon Ašič gained his first knowledge of the power of medicinal plants at home, where to overcome illness they used only what nature gave them. He built on that with diligent study of the specialist literature available to him, and so reached a level of knowledge worthy of respect. He became a true specialist in medicinal plants, and a model to all those who look for help in the wealth of more than 400 medicinal plants that enrich Slovenian soil.
He began to work at healing in earnest during the Second World War. Many refugees took shelter in the monastery at Stična then, most of them banished priests. All of them were worn out and ill. Medicines were short, but Father Simon could help them with the medicinal plants he gathered himself around the monastery. He wrote down the recipes and the results with care.
Man has never been so threatened as he is today. The present pace of life breeds unrest in him, fear, constant tension.
Father Simon Ašič, after a note by Jože Kukman, M. Pharm., 2012
Father Simon Ašič’s books
In time there was material enough for three books:
Help from the Home Pharmacy I (1984);
Help from the Home Pharmacy II (1986); and
A Handbook for Gathering Medicinal Herbs (1988).
The collection of books
An honour and an obligation
After a note by Jože Kukman, M. Pharm., 2012:
Visitors still come to Stična who knew Father Simon Ašič in person and found comfort with him. They speak of him with great gratitude and respect, always well. That is a great honour and at the same time an obligation for all of us who try, as far as we are able, to carry his work on. We are glad the effort has borne fruit. More and more people are coming to know the treasury of medicinal plants and to follow the advice that is becoming a guide to a way of life healthy in mind and body. Among the notes Father Ašič left us we read these words as well:
“Man has never been so threatened as he is today. The present pace of life breeds unrest in him, fear, constant tension, irritation and a general discontent. Dissatisfied with himself, he closes in on himself and becomes ever less able to hold normal relations with other people. Such a state is followed by many illnesses: nervous conditions, disorders of the circulation, damage to the heart, the liver and the gall bladder.”
Medicinal plants are another great wealth given to us. In that field above all, and in spite of responsible offices in the spiritual life, Father Simon Ašič became a great specialist, known throughout Slovenia and abroad. His books have already been translated into several languages, and new editions are being prepared.
With particular pride we can say that Father Simon Ašič is widely known among Slovenians, greatly valued and respected as the finest judge of medicinal plants, of human nature, and – as a priest – of the human soul. We are grateful to him for all the wealth of knowledge and guidance he left us. May that wealth be repaid him, and all good with it: the kind word, the readiness to listen to a wounded person, to give them back their trust, to comfort them and to help them to their health. We believe his work will long give many the strength and the faith to live, and above all give the sick back their health and the inner peace people today need so badly.
Among the visitors to our website there are surely many more who had the good fortune to meet Father Simon. We believe you have many fine memories of him. We would be grateful if you wrote to us about them, or rang the monastery at Stična or the monastery company Sitik. A fair number of accounts are known of unusual recoveries after his advice. After the Father's death we heard from Franc Novak that he had had a growth on his forehead which was growing very fast. At the hospital they advised an operation, but following the written instructions in Ašič's book he put crushed ribwort plantain on the place, and the growth disappeared. At the next examination the doctor found that no operation was needed. We often hear people say that after a long time they had a child at last. They put it down to drinking a tea of medicinal plants they had from the herbal pharmacy at Stična. There are many more accounts like these. Sadly, not all of them are written down.
Those of you who knew him will remember that even in his late old age he opened doors with his foot. When he led visitors around the monastery at Stična he would spring lightly onto the window ledge and explain the history to his listeners from there. He liked to weave in a piece of wisdom about life, or a word of advice for better health. His optimism, mixed with genuine good cheer, never failed to lift people. They went away content and at peace. The Father's words stayed with them long afterwards and eased the troubles they had come with. He often advised a healthy diet as well. He valued and recommended apple cider vinegar, honey, cabbage, fruit… His breakfast is well known: sauerkraut, seasoned with honey. Of his many teas, the one people still like best is KRRT (kopriva, regrat, rman, trpotec – nettle, dandelion, yarrow, ribwort plantain). He had a saying about it: “Whoever drinks KRRT will not be going to the land of the moles any time soon.”
For all his great popularity and wide knowledge he stayed modest. What he left behind bears that out, and you can see it in the Museum of Christianity at Stična: prayer books, rosaries, personal papers, an old typewriter, his habit, two head coverings, a few manuscripts. But he left us an enormous spiritual wealth: books rich in advice for healing with natural remedies, which we still draw on and which generations to come will draw on too.
Picture gallery – Father Simon Ašič
Ašič in person
All of us who were given a meeting with Father Simon Ašič in person remember several things about him: the kind word, the warm look, the understanding way he listened to someone in distress, the comfort he gave the sick, the new hope he poured into them, the choice of the right remedy. Those who came to him for help went away at peace, the richer for fatherly advice, a packet of healing teas and counsel for the rest of their way. He once wrote:
“Nothing makes me happier than when people who came to me ill, downcast and full of pessimism visit me again, well and content.”
The life of Father Simon Ašič
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1919
He came to Stična.
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1924
He entered the Cistercian order.
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1925
He left for the monastery of Mogiła in Poland.
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1927
He matriculated.
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1930
, having finished his theological studies, he said his first mass in his home parish of Rajhenburg.
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1931
He went to Mogiła in Poland again for a time.
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1936
He served as prefect at the Slomšek Institute in Ljubljana.
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1942
He was appointed subprior of the monastery at Stična.
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1945
He was appointed prior of the same monastery, an office he held for a full 47 years, until his death.
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1949
He was parish priest of Stična.
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1964
He was parish priest of Stična again, and in that time he kept the parish chronicle with care. A great deal was done that older people remember with gratitude.
The herbal pharmacy at Stična today. His portrait hangs above the shelves.