A Heavenly Home

The Abbey rose from the bluff stone by stone, but with each stone the construction costs mounted. An additional $100,000 was borrowed and by the time the Abbey was ready for occupancy the cost had ballooned to $780,000 (adjusted for inflation, a cost just shy of $12,000,000 in 2020). Plans for the Abbey Church were temporarily put on hold and on August 5, 1929 Abbot Martin blessed the new Abbey; a noble home for the deeper religious life that he desired for the monastic community. When Abbot Innocent Wolf retired from his office in 1921, the monastic community had outgrown their home (now Elizabeth Hall at Benedictine College). Having too many monks is certainly not a bad problem to have, but over the next few years it was clear that a new Abbey was needed. In 1922 the monks, now under the leadership of Abbot Martin Veth, decided to put the Abbey on hold in favor of a new gymnasium (at left, now the Haverty Center) for the college. By 1926 plans for an Abbey were created, a loan of $300,000 was secured, and on November 11, 1926, ground was broken for a magnificent new Abbey on the bluff overlooking the Missouri River Valley. The stone was quarried locally and cut on site.

After living in their new home for just two short months, the Great Depression racked the nation – jobs were scarce, prices plummeted and, to add to the mounting burden, local farms experienced a drought. The salaries from monks in parish work provided the only income – just enough to cover the interest on their loans; but, owing to the great depression, pastors could not be certain of their own salaries. Despite their own hardship, the monks sent financial aid to another abbey in even worse distress. Thus, for 25 years the monks gathered for Mass and prayer in their chapter room, modified to serve as a chapel (at left).

As time wore on the western facade of the monastery stood incomplete – a stark reminder of the hardship wrought by the great depression. Doors within the monastery itself led to dangerous precipices; the foundation for the would-have-been Church took on the form of ruins – its walls and window frames shrouded in vines and surrounded by piles of unused stones. Through it all, however, the monastic community and college continued to grow. But with the onset of another global conflict, the future was, again, suddenly clouded with uncertainty.

As World War II raged, enrollment at St. Benedict’s College shrank to 75 students, most of whom were junior monks from other monasteries or those not able to serve in the military. To further complicate matters, Abbot Martin (at left) fell ill and petitioned the Holy See to allow him to retire from his office. He was hailed for enriching the monastic prayer life, increasing the size of the monastic community, developing the College, and seeing to the construction of the new Abbey. As he announced his retirement he reminded his brothers to continue to pray, “Let me ask you to fall back on prayer. This is God’s house... He knows what is for its greater welfare...May God protect and prosper the community and sanctify all its members; may he bless and assist my successor... Orate Pro Me.”

As the tide turned and an Allied victory seemed increasingly likely, the community readied itself for the post-war challenges ahead. Ten monks, most of whom had been professors, had been away serving as military chaplains. With their return, a massive influx of students was expected and new dormitories were urgently needed. Abbot Cuthbert McDonald turned to alumni Ernie Dunn and Leo Nussbaum to helm the $1,000,000 fundraising campaign, the Centennial Expansion Program began, and the long-awaited dream of a new Abbey Church suddenly felt achievable. In 1947 a plan was created for the Centennial Expansion with the Abbey Church and dormitory high on the bluff to the south of the monastery. Curiously, when ground was ultimately broken in 1950, the new dormitory was placed to the west of the Abbey down the hill – it was named Memorial Hall for all those who had sacrificed their lives in World War II.

It was Abbot Cuthbert’s great hope to build a chapel so the students and monks could come together to praise God under one roof. Architect Barry Byrne, the designer of the Centennial Expansion of the campus, was commissioned to design a grand Abbey Church that would have room for 600 students and 160 monks, estimating the project cost at $1,000,000. It was decided that the structure would be more modern; though a departure from the Gothic design of the monastery, it would provide a compliment to the Abbey and serve as the bridge between the monastic community and the student body. On May 21, 1956, Abbot Cuthbert, flanked by the student body and the majority of the monastic community, laid the massive cornerstone in an elaborate ceremony.

The monks determined that all minor altars and shrines would be placed outside the main body of the Church to place the full focus on the high altar as the center of the church’s purpose and liturgy – the sole exception would be a large fresco on the church’s eastern wall. The communion rail was also omitted to provide those in the nave an unobstructed view of the sanctuary. Under the supervision of Fr. Anselm Llewellyn an organ was designed; a grand instrument with thirty-one stops and forty ranks of pipes was installed for $67,000. The organ was later expanded in 2002. Like the monastery before it, the cost grew to $1.62 million and a $233,000 loan was secured to cover the remaining debt.

With the completion of the Abbey Church celebrations abounded. The Abbey played host to the largest gathering of Abbots since monasticism was brought to the Americas to consecrate the 29 minor altars simultaneously. Centennial day followed (right) and 1,250 people crammed in to take part in the celebration of Mass with Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate of the Holy See to the United States. The student Mass and conventual Mass were united, realizing a now 100-year-old dream. Father Timothy Fry, Student Chaplain, in his homily at the opening of school Mass on September 14 said, “The family before had been invisibly united in the worship of God since Mass was celebrated in St. Benedict’s Church and in chapels in the various residence halls. . .Now we are all visibly united in offering our teaching, learning and other activities of college life together at a community Mass ‘that in all things God may be glorified.’”

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