A Tool for the Work of God

the abbey pipe organ

by Br. Karel Soukup

The Second Vatican Council maintained that “in the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man’s mind to God and to higher things” (Sacrosanctum Concilium ¶120). Our monastic community is blessed to have an instrument that does just that. The Abbey’s pipe organ is truly a special and unique instrument, one that always receives high praise from visiting organists. I’ve occasionally heard well-intentioned, but misinformed tour guides say that it is the largest organ west of the Mississippi River. I do not know where that notion came from, but it’s not true. And it misses why the Abbey’s pipe organ is so special.

Fr. Blaine Schultz (below, at left), who accompanied our liturgies on the organ for more than half a century, always said that the specialness of our organ isn’t because of its size, but because of its relation to the space it occupies. Fr. Anselm Llewellyn met organist Ernest White in the 1940s while studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. White acted as an adviser to the M.P. Moeller Company in Hagerstown, Maryland. He advised Fr. Anselm that, when it came time for the monastic community to build its church, the community would save itself a lot of time, money, and headache if the organ and church were designed together, instead of building a church and then trying to fit an organ in as an afterthought.

When St. Benedict’s Abbey built its current church in 1957, White designed and the Moeller Company built the organ which still serves us today. Because of a lack of funding, the entirety of the organ as designed could not be installed during the church’s construction. Altogether, the original organ consisted of 1,945 pipes on three manuals (keyboards) and a pedal board. An expansion completed in 2002 by the Mid-States Organ Company brought the total to 2,507 pipes. Unlike most organs which are housed as a self-contained unit, the Abbey’s organ is situated in five locations throughout the church so that it truly fills the entire space with sound (Nave pipes shown at right).

Monks support each other in prayer, not just by praying for one another, but especially by praying with each other. The common prayer provides basic accountability for the monk to ensure his fidelity to a life of prayer. Many of our elderly confrères could not pray the psalmody without the assistance of their juniors who set up their books. And, as we alternate between sides of the choir in the recitation of the psalms, we proclaim the word of God to each other. Not a day goes by—except for Good Friday—when the organ doesn’t support our prayer. More important than the beauty of the sound the organ makes is the prayer it enlivens. By sustaining the pitch and tempo, the organist frees the other monks to concentrate on the text, on the spirit of the prayer, without having to be excessively concerned with the technicalities of musical execution.

St. Benedict frequently refers to our common prayer as the opus Dei, the work of God. It is a sacred duty for us to pray for ourselves and for the world. Fr. Blaine often said that we prayed for those who could not or would not pray for themselves. We are truly blessed to have such a fine tool for our work.

STREAM MONK MUSIC

Hear Fr. Blaine play the organ & the monks sing on Spotify and other platforms: kansasmonks.org/music