Abbey Banner - Spring 2020

Abbey Banner Spring 2020

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Come and behold the works of the LORD, who has done awesome deeds on earth.

Psalm 46:9

John-Bede Pauley, O.S.B.

This Issue Abbey Banner Magazine of Saint John’s Abbey Spring 2020

Volume 20, number 1

Published three times annually (spring, fall, winter) by the monks of Saint John’s Abbey.

Editor: Robin Pierzina, O.S.B. Design: Alan Reed, O.S.B. Editorial assistants: Aaron Raverty, O.S.B.; Dolores Schuh, C.H.M. Abbey archivist: David Klingeman, O.S.B. University archivists: Peggy Roske, Elizabeth Knuth Circulation: Ruth Athmann, Tanya Boettcher, Chantel Braegelmann, Cathy Wieme Printed by Palmer Printing Copyright © 2020 by Order of Saint Benedict ISSN: 2330-6181 (print) ISSN: 2332-2489 (online)

Saint John’s Abbey

2900 Abbey Plaza Box 2015 Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-2015

saintjohnsabbey.org/abbey-banner Change of address: Ruth Athmann P. O. Box 7222 Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7222 rathmann@csbsju.edu Phone: 800.635.7303 Questions: abbeybanner@csbsju.edu

Woodworking Wisdom Abbot John Klassen, O.S.B.

I thank you, O LORD, with all my heart.

In the presence of the angels, I will sing your praise.

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n writing his Rule, Saint Benedict anticipated that the monastic community would develop within itself skilled artisans and handcrafters: woodworkers, painters, stonemasons, scribes, and illuminators. In chapter 57, he urges that these skills be practiced with all humility, that prices be fair, and that the proceeds go to the community.

Benedict closes the chapter with words of spiritual synthesis: in omnibus glorificetur Deus (that in all things God may be glorified [1 Peter 4:11]).

Psalm 138:1

This issue of Abbey Banner celebrates the expansion of the pipe organ in the Saint John’s Abbey and University Church. Since 1961, when the Marcel Breuer-designed church was consecrated, our community’s daily prayer and liturgies have been enhanced by a magnificent instrument built by Walter Holtkamp Sr. Whether accompanying chant or supporting the congregation in singing praise, the Holtkamp organ has been the anchor of our song and ritual. Ms. Glenda Burgeson introduces master organ builder Martin Pasi and associates, outlining how their months of creative labor have reached a crescendo with the completion of the latest Collegeville magnum opus: the Holtkamp-Pasi organ.

Since its founding in 1856, our community has exercised the Benedictine values of hospitality and stewardship. In 1933 the abbey lands were designated as a state wildlife refuge. In 1997 the monastic community further designated these lands as a natural arboretum, with a focus on conservation, education, research, and spiritual renewal. Beginning in 2002 the forest has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®, verifying that we maintain a healthy ecosystem and harvest timber responsibly. Abbey land manager Mr. John Geissler honors the vision, the life, and the leadership of the late Father Paul Schwietz in maintaining our community’s focus on caring for God’s creation while educating and welcoming guests to this special place.

It seems that some professions or crafts are almost perfectly aligned with the practice of monastic life, with its accumulated learning, and its spirituality of dailiness. Woodworking is one of these. Over the past century and a half, our community has been blessed with a succession of amazing monastic and lay woodworkers who have dedicated themselves to making all manner of things for the whole of Saint John’s: tables, chairs, desks, beds, lockers, cabinets, bookcases, doors, and even the display case for The Saint John’s Bible.

Abbey archives

The woods that Father Paul and Mr. Geissler have so lovingly managed are the source of most of the lumber that is crafted into fine furniture in the abbey woodworking shop. Abbot John Klassen opens this issue with a reflection on the spirituality of woodworking. Brother Aaron Raverty outlines the use of wood in the building and buildings of our community and highlights recent commissions that abbey woodworkers have crafted “by the labor of their hands” (Rule 48.8).

There are some basic rules for woodworkers—a wisdom tradition!

Measure twice. Cut once.

Wood moves.

If you buy quality tools, regardless of price, you only cry once.

Never allow yourself to become impatient to finish a project.

Anything worth killing a tree for is worth doing right.

For centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, medieval monks copied manuscripts and thereby helped to preserve Western literature and learning.

Since 1965, with new and evolving technologies but the same commitment to preserving the cultural riches of the past, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) has photographed millions of manuscript pages from collections around the world. Mr. Joe Rogers offers an update on the work of HMML and its cultural stewardship.

There is a dailiness to the craft—no “all-nighters,” just everyday hard work. With much repetition, there is a sequence to making furniture.

It requires thinking things through, having a plan. To make something that will last, one must understand how something will be used, where the stress points are, and how to get the wood to cooperate. Gradually, woodworkers develop an aesthetic sense.

In this issue we also learn about life in the land of the Maya; about the founder of Christian monasticism—no, not Saint Benedict!; about a monk from Morris; and more.

Cover: Brother Hubert Schneider, O.S.B. (1902–1995), master woodworker Photo: Baldwin Dworschak, O.S.B.

As the coronavirus pandemic creates unprecedented challenges to our safety and way of life, Abbot John and the monastic community, confident in the loving kindness of our ever-present God (Psalm 46:11-12; Matthew 14:27), pray that all may be blessed with patience, charity, wisdom, and peace.

Brother Robin Pierzina, O.S.B.

Abbey archives

Brother Hubert Schneider, O.S.B.

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Senior confreres remember Brother Hubert Schneider (1902–1995) as the leader of abbey woodworking for many years. An introvert’s introvert, he labored in the shop for most of his monastic life, working side by side with other skilled workers, and teaching generations of students who were assigned there for work-study. One Johnnie alumnus noted: “It is amazing how much one can learn from a man who doesn’t say very much.”

Years ago, as Brother Linus Ascheman was nearing the end of his time as headmaster of the prep school, Abbot Jerome Theisen asked him to come in and discuss his future. After some opening conversation, Abbot Jerome suggested: “Perhaps you would like to go to school for a degree in administration or management.” Brother Linus was thinking in another direction: “Abbot Jerome, I would just like to work in the woodworking shop.” Abbot Jerome was ready for this resistance: “Linus, we all want to work in the woodworking shop!”

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Holy Trinity: The Personal God Hilary Thimmesh, O.S.B.

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he feast of the Trinity comes at the end of the long liturgical cycle that begins with Advent and traces the biblical story of the coming of Jesus, his ministry, his suffering and death, his resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. In one respect, it is not unlike the final summation at the end of a college course when the professor points to conclusions.

Although there is this correspondence between the liturgical and academic occasions that may aid our understanding, it is also true that this last lecture of a liturgical cycle unfortunately tends to be academic in another sense. Talking about the Trinity always threatens to sound like an academic exercise, rather abstract and theoretical, and on the whole rather removed from life; altogether too much of a textbook exercise.

Luckily, that sort of intellectual exercise is not what the texts of this “final lecture” are about, but rather the reality in faith of the personal God who calls us to a way of life. The first meaning of all that we have heard since Advent is that there is no God distant from human existence, no thundering deity of holocausts and tempests enthroned This article is excerpted from the homily at the Saint John’s University baccalaureate Mass on Trinity Sunday, 25 May 1986.

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somewhere in celestial isolation.

There is much poetic language, in the Bible and elsewhere, that attempts to convey something of God’s otherness by such imagery, but Jesus—who can say, “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:15)—never uses it. Instead, he speaks to us of a Father who is our father, of a Spirit whom he sends to be in us and to guide us, and of himself who gives and shares his life for each one who believes in him.

This is the great mystery of the Trinity, the secret hidden from eternity and made known in Christ. This Spirit leads us to all truth (that is, to God) by the way of love (that is, the way of Jesus).

It is the story of our lives taking their origin in God’s love, caught up in God’s friendship, moving toward God, that we ponder in this feast.

If we think about the reality of God, it is to understand the meaning of our own lives. The Saint John’s mission statement says that as a Catholic school, we encourage students to see their lives as God-given. This may sound almost too obvious to say, but notice how profoundly it addresses the strain of alienation and isolation in our culture. To put it in the simplest terms: to believe in Father, Son, and Spirit is to know that we are loved, and the deeper that faith the more certain that assurance.

My life is not a matter of indifference, nor is anyone’s. It is not simply a statistic. I am not

alone in an alien environment with only my own resources to depend on.

Not only are we loved, but we are given the capacity to love.

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). Poured, not trickled; generously given, not sparingly.

From time to time, people note that Saint John’s graduates have a marked sense of social responsibility. I hope this is true. It should be true of all who believe that a divine power is given us to care for one another, that our calling in Christ is a mission to share his work. The love given us is not a possession to hoard.

It is the bond of community. It is a power to give of our means, our time, our prayer.

The Church is sometimes criticized for its involvement in public issues, and it is true that there are proper and improper ways to address political and economic concerns, but we have no choice but to be socially active, for in Christ we are members of one another. Our faith is not an exclusive lifeline to God but a lifeline, too, to one another. In

The love given us is not a possession to hoard.

It is the bond of community.

Trinity by Frank Kacmarcik, Obl.S.B., c. 1953. Casein on masonite. Collection of Arca Artium, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Collegeville, Minnesota.

our stumbling language we can say that the relationships between Father, Son, and Spirit establish our essential relatedness to one another—our unity as Church, as People of God, as the Body of Christ.

There is no distant, impersonal God. For the Christian, no such deity exists. But there is God: the Father whose love gives us

life, the Son who has identified himself with us and us with him, the Spirit who empowers and guides us. In this divine reality is our story. It is a story begun, not finished. Jesus says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now” (John 16:12). What is yet to be told is the story of the rest of our life—how it will unfold, how faithful we will be, what challenges to our capacity

for love we will meet. We are not given a map, but a guide and many companions and a goal.

This is the faith we celebrate in the feast of the Trinity.

Father Hilary Thimmesh, O.S.B. (1928–2019), a monk of Saint John’s Abbey, was a professor of English, faculty resident, academic dean, and president of Saint John’s University.

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Benedictine Volunteer Corps Esquipulas, Guatemala James Gathje

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oisy fireworks. Twentyfour languages. A fivehundred-year tradition of pilgrimage to the capital of Central America. Feeling overwhelmed. Confused. Exhausted.

Uncomfortable. Sick from new food and new sights and new people and a new life. But also, so welcomed!

Arriving in Guatemala was a blur of new experiences for fellow Benedictine Volunteer Corps (BVC) member Michael Garber and me. Our Spanish?

Muy poco—especially when most of the things people say in

James Gathje harvesting honey

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BVC

archives

Guatemala aren’t in a textbook or on language learning apps.

Our stomachs? They’ve learned to be chapin (the Central American term for a Guatemalan).

The thing that I’ll never forget about Guatemala? Nothing has marked life here like the sense of hospitality that we have experienced.

Michael and I lived with a family for the first five months of our time here, so we experienced Guatemalan hospitality in a very intimate way. Our host parents (we are their gringhijos) welcomed us to their house and sought to attend to our every need. Coming from the very different culture of the United States, we felt a little uncomfortable and struggled to accept the level of hospitality offered us.

Those inhibitions and misunderstandings slowly disappeared, but I didn’t really understand the culture of hospitality in Guatemala until a friend visited at the end of November. I was picked up from the bus station in Guatemala City by a sister of our host mother, taken to their brother’s home, fed, and then we all went to the airport to meet the plane. They provided a bed, a ride to Antigua the next morning, breakfast and lunch, and returned us to the bus station the next afternoon. I learned that it would have been rude to turn down offers of food, lodging, or transportation from a Guatemalan. They will offer guests their bed to sleep in; they want to cook them a meal, even if

James and I also help the English teacher with pronunciation, grading, and being an extra hand in the classroom.

During our first seven months here we have developed great relationships with the faculty.

Though our Spanish was very limited initially, the teachers were helpful with our Spanish immersion and learning. Now that our language skills have improved, we have established friendships with staff and look forward to conversations with the teachers and learning more about the local culture.

they don’t have much. Having a person in their house as a guest is not considered a burden nor an intrusion into their life. On the other hand, refusing a place to stay or a meal or a cup of coffee would be considered rude and ungrateful.

In short, our Guatemalan hosts receive us as Christ and take joy in our visit. What could be more Benedictine and Christ-like? I pray I learn from their example and do the same in my life.

Abadía de Jesucristo Crucificado

During our BVC orientation we were told that our ability to speak English would be a great asset here. We have seen a greater eagerness from the students and teachers to learn English. The teachers willingly participate in our classes, completing assigned worksheets and continuing to practice their English with us when they can.

Michael Garber When we first arrived in Esquipulas, Guatemala, we only knew that there was a school affiliated with the monastery, called Colegio San Benito. In the beginning of our Benedictine Volunteer Corps experience, we were teacher assistants, helping the English teachers in primaria and básico with students who were struggling (primaria is first through sixth grades; básico is seventh through twelfth grades).

When the new school year started, we had the opportunity to be in charge of our own classes, to develop valuable relationships with the students and our fellow teachers, and to discover that our presence here is more than just being teachers.

I believe that our undergraduate experiences have better prepared us to be creative and well-

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Michael Garber (top) with friendly macaws; Michael and James (above) offering English lessons

rounded in order to adjust to things outside of our comfort zone, such as teaching English in another country. The colegio does have an English program for primaria, but they explained to us that they had been struggling to find good teachers. We were graciously offered positions in the school for fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Monday

through Thursday we teach three forty-minute classes, while Friday is our day either to help the English teacher in the kindergarten or to plan for next week’s classes. Primaria starts at 7:00 A.M., after lectio divina (spiritual reading), and ends at noon.

Básico starts at 1:00, after lectio divina, and ends shortly before we go to Vespers at 6:30 P.M.

The work we do now keeps us busy and excited! At day’s end, it is fulfilling to know that every time a student says, “Hello, how are you?” or greets us with “Good morning,” we are making a difference in the lives of students and faculty at Colegio San Benito.

Mr. James Gathje, from Richmond, Minnesota; and Mr. Michael Garber, from Milaca, Minnesota, are 2019 graduates of Saint John’s University.

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When We Were Strangers Martin F. Connell

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mmaus Hall, the former diocesan seminary building on the campus of Saint John’s University, is named after the place where the disciples bumped into the risen yet unrecognized Jesus (Luke 24:13-16).

On its main floor, in a semicircular room facing south, is a beautiful set of seven stainedglass windows, a tribute to Christian ecumenism in the Saint Cloud Diocese before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

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7 Photos: Alan Reed, O.S.B.

The year of Emmaus Hall’s construction, 1950, is notable in the history of Minnesota Catholicism, dated between two Catholic Democratic nominees for the American presidency: Al Smith, who lost (1928); and John Kennedy, who won (1960). In the twenty-first century, it may be hard for us to appreciate the depth of Protestant fear and prejudice against Catholics that once marked this nation. In the 1830s, as the percentage of Catholics in the country was increasing, that prejudice was especially pronounced. Consider what Samuel Morse, inventor of telegraphy (Morse code) and son of a Puritan pastor, wrote in his Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States (1835) about fellow members of his religion: “Poor Catholics . . . are too ignorant to act at all for themselves, and expect to be guided wholly by others.” He suggested that Catholics were robotic minions who blindly did

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whatever the pope asked of them, using denigrating terms such as “Popery” and “Romanists.” “The food of Popery is ignorance. Ignorance is the mother of Papal devotion.

Ignorance is the legitimate prey of Popery.”

Samuel Morse was not alone in his prejudice. A number of nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury politicians strategized to block Catholics from American citizenship. A century after Morse, The Nation-editor and outspoken critic of Catholicism, Paul Blanshard, wrote American Freedom and Catholic Power (1949), stoking Protestant fear: “The whole Roman system is strongly centralized in the Roman Curia, headed by the Pope. He is the absolute monarch of the Catholic world.

He is the One Voice of God speaking through the Vatican . . . , the Commander-in-Chief of the Catholic army.”

As Mr. Blanshard published his book, the Diocese of Saint Cloud was planning its seminary for those who wanted to be priests.

The windows in Emmaus Hall reflect the seminary’s effort to assure non-Catholics that American Catholics could adhere to their faith and be worthy citizens as well.

The easternmost window [1] features the state seal of Minnesota with its motto, L’étoile du nord (The Star of the North), along with images of the state flower and bird. Opposite it is a window [7] depicting the Stars and Stripes, with thirteen stars for the original colonies, and our two national mottos: “In God We Trust” and E pluribus unum (Out of many, one). The center window [4] represents the papacy, with a tiara at the top, flanked by the keys of the kingdom of heaven—given

by Jesus to the apostle Peter (Matthew 16:19), the verse

grounding the Catholic theology of papal authority and the sacrament of reconciliation. A dove of peace (Genesis 8:11) is also depicted.

The other four windows reference Saint John’s Abbey [2], two bishops of Saint Cloud [3, 5], and the Saint Cloud Diocese [6].

Visually, these symbols of the local Church are embraced by the symbols and mottos of the country and state, anchored by the Vatican leader of the faith in the center.

The second window features the coat of arms of Saint John’s Abbey and the Latin phrase Pax Vobis (Peace be with you). The third window shows the coat of arms of Peter W. Bartholome, bishop of Saint Cloud, 1953– 1968, with his motto, Adveniat Regnum Tuum (Thy kingdom come—from the Our Father).

The fifth window, between the papal and national one, repre-

sents Joseph F. Busch, the bishop of Saint Cloud (1915–1953) at the time the seminary was constructed. At the base of his coat of arms is his motto, In Caritate Non Ficta (In sincere love [see 2 Corinthians 6:6]).

The sixth window has the coat of arms and motto of the Saint Cloud Diocese, Domino Servientes (Serving the Lord).

As a testament to the advance of understanding between Protestants and Catholics in the past half-century, and as witness to how Catholic bishops worked to unite Christians, the series of windows is striking. The glass splay clearly sought to say, “Hey, we’re Americans too!”

Mindful that Catholics were themselves once unwelcome foreigners, the Church today encourages respect and care for immigrants, as the bishops of the U.S. and Mexico teach in Strangers No Longer: Together

on the Journey of Hope, their pastoral letter on migration (2003): “In the Church no one is a stranger, and the Church is not foreign to anyone, anywhere. . . . Solidarity means taking responsibility for those in trouble” (§103). These teachings echo Jewish poet Emma Lazarus’s words on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” They also are consistent with Saint Benedict’s exhortation in the Rule: “In the reception of the poor and of pilgrims, the greatest care and solicitude should be shown, because it is especially in them that Christ is received” (RB 53.15). And let us not forget the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (25:35).

Dr. Martin F. Connell is professor of theology at Saint John’s University.

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Father Paul’s Legacy John Geissler The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

William James

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t has been twenty years since the Saint John’s community was shocked and filled with grief upon learning of the sudden death of Father Paul Schwietz, O.S.B., on 4 May 2000. Throughout the five years that I knew and worked with Father Paul, I was inspired by his respect and enthusiasm for life as well as the brilliant impression he left wherever he worked. In 1997, one of Father Paul’s most treasured dreams came true when the lands he worked so hard to preserve and restore were dedicated as a natural arboretum. His founding beliefs, knowledge, and passion were exemplified in the arboretum’s vision statement: to celebrate and preserve the unique beauty and richness of God’s creation in central Minnesota, fostering the Benedictine tradition of land stewardship, education, and environmental respect.

One of the first items I found when I entered Father Paul’s office after his death was a handwritten note: “Keep it alive & growing.” That note now hangs in my office, an inspirational reminder to continue this meaningful work that will outlive us and benefit countless others.

Thanks to Saint John’s Abbey, Saint John’s University, the College of Saint Benedict, past and current staff, and hundreds

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Outdoor U archives

Father Paul Schwietz, O.S.B.

of individuals who generously donate time and treasure to support our mission, the legacy of Father Paul is alive and growing! Evidence abounds in the stewardship efforts occurring within Saint John’s Abbey Arboretum and the breadth and depth of education opportunities now offered through Saint John’s Outdoor University.

Father Paul initiated many longterm stewardship projects on the land, such as the habitat restoration project (restored wetlands, prairie, oak savanna), extensive conifer plantings and thinnings (earning him the title, “Padre of the Pines”), and the very first oak shelterwood regeneration harvests. I can imagine Father Paul smiling—or laughing his hearty laugh!—every time we hold a prescribed burn, discover a new native species due to restoration work, thin a conifer stand, or nurture a healthy young oak stand. I know he would be pleased and impressed by the Abbey Conservation Corps volunteers who continue to make a profound impact promoting the health and biodiversity of the abbey arboretum.

Father Paul would also be proud of and excited about the pro-

John Geissler

A floating canoe-landing and dock at the Stella Maris Chapel was constructed in 2019.

The old bridge (left) near the Stella Maris Chapel was replaced in 2019, thanks to a generous donor.

gramming our Outdoor U provides. He was troubled by how many people take our natural resources for granted. He saw a tremendous need to reconnect students of all ages with nature and improve environmental literacy. The humble educational program initiated by Father Paul, serving a few hundred in the 1990s, has grown into a regionally recognized professional outdoor education program that annually serves and engages more than five thousand preK– 12 students, thousands of Saint John’s and Saint Benedict college students, and 3,500 community members. Operating in part like a nature center, with community programs for families and field trips for preK–12 students, and in part like a professional/career development center for college

students, Saint John’s Outdoor University yields many deep educational experiences that come in the form of collegestudent employment, internships, classes, and service-learning opportunities.

These stewardship projects and educational programs are a tribute to the vision and energy of Father Paul Schwietz and all who have subsequently contributed to advancing our mission

John Geissler

of caring for this special place, inspiring the next generation of environmental leaders, and increasing environmental literacy in students of all ages. The beautiful thing about being a part of this work is that it continues to give long after we are gone.

Mr. John Geissler is the Saint John’s Abbey land manager and director of Saint John’s Outdoor University.

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Abbey Woodworking Aaron Raverty, O.S.B.

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s part of their cultural heritage, human beings extract raw, natural materials from the local environment, handcrafting them into usable products deriving from their own imaginations. This is how our Paleolithic ancestors fashioned stone and wooden implements, making their lives easier and safer, and giving early humans an environmentally adaptive edge over other creatures. Since our community’s earliest days, the monks who settled in central Minnesota were acquainted with woodworking skills. Along with fieldstone and brick, almost all the buildings that historically make Saint John’s the place it is incorporate some wooden components.

The Old Frame House at Indianbush on the shores of Lake Sagatagan was the site of Saint John’s first carpenter shop. Built in 1863 at the old Collegeville railroad station site to serve as a monastery and school, the structure was moved to the north end of Lake Sagatagan in 1867 and used for woodworking, supplied with lumber from the local woods. In 1868 a sawmill was erected along Lake Watab (Stumpf Lake), enabling the monks to use their own oak and maple to construct the quadrangle. A new carpenter shop was constructed in 1878 in a two-story brick structure that also housed a blacksmith shop.

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Abbey carpenter shop, c. 1906

An adjacent lumber shed allowed wood aged outdoors to be stored indoors. The abbey woodworking shop moved to its present campus location in 1903— originally housed in a threestory building. A fire in 1939 destroyed the roof and upper story of the structure. In 1956 the interior of the new monastery, designed by Mr. Marcel Breuer, was fashioned by Collegeville carpenters and woodworkers, as were the massive forms used for the construction of the abbey and university church, 1959–1961.

Buildings are perhaps the most obvious monuments to woodworking prowess at Saint John’s, but furniture was also needed.

Brother Dietrich Reinhart, O.S.B., in his article “A History of the St. John’s Carpentry Shop,” writes that “sparse are written testimonies to individual pieces” of the earliest furniture crafted by the monks. Indeed, the archival legacy of woodworking at Saint John’s is perhaps better

Abbey archives

preserved in those pieces that have come down to us than in any accompanying historical documentation.

Brother David Manahan, O.S.B., began his religious life at the woodworking shop while a monastic candidate in 1960, becoming shop manager in 1974.

He held his fellow workers to high standards as recorded in his statement of the shop’s philosophy (1986): “The woodworking shop employs craftsmen who produce and manufacture quality furniture and other items for the corporation, the commercial market, and individual customers. These products should reflect a monastic character, an integrity of craftsmanship, and a utility that makes them desirable, marketable items. . . . Creative design and quality workmanship should be emphasized in production.”

The life cycle of rendering abbey forest trees into carpentry products infuses the transformation

Remains of carpenter shop after January 1939 fire

with a sense of spirituality, enhancing the “sense of place.”

The connection of woodworking with the Benedictine value of stewardship is especially pronounced—sustainability is fostered using the wood in our forest. Early in his monastic life, Father Lew Grobe, O.S.B., current shop manager, sensed the divine connection in using wood from the trees in the abbey forest: “When I am at the woodshop, I gain a tangible sense of contribution to the monastic life, and it reenergizes my prayer life.” Woodworking can be a source of the cultivation of virtue as well. As Father John Meoska,

Abbey archives

Abbey archives

(shop manager, 2009– 2013), attests, “Woodworking teaches humility, self-control, responsibility, and patience; it evokes creativity and reverence.”

O.S.B.

Abbey woodworking gets its resources through the labor of forest technicians who harvest marked trees during the winter months. The lumber is sent to a local Amish community for milling. After a few years of drying in the lumberyard, it undergoes further drying in a kiln before it is ready for processing. Local artisans are hired to supply the metal and upholstery for some of the products, fostering a wider network of relationships and supporting the local economy.

Even though today’s labors and products remain focused in Collegeville, in recent years abbey woodworking has accepted commissions from collectors and private clients. One of the more creative and diversified ventures includes hexagonal

screens like the one ordered for the Collegeville Institute or for The Saint John’s Bible Gallery in Alcuin Library. Father John recalls building the cabinets for The Saint John’s Bible Heritage Edition. “These we shipped all over the world: Hong Kong, Hawaii, California, Florida, Canada. The Saint John’s Bible will be remembered in the history of this community as one of our major accomplishments; and so, to pair our woodworking skills and create beautiful cabinetry to house and protect and display such beautiful works of art was a profound joy.”

Abbey woodworking still fashions furniture for Saint John’s University and Saint John’s Preparatory School—all of it crafted with wood from the abbey arboretum. In the past few years, the woodworking shop has built over six hundred beds and bookcases for university dorms in addition to the revival of a style of modern midcentury chairs. Our confreres hope that this furniture communicates to our students the values

Wayne Torborg

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The Holtkamp-Pasi Organ Glenda Burgeson

A Clockwise, beginning at left: Constructing the church; Brother Julius Terfehr at the sawmill; Dining table and chairs Photos: Abbey archives

of durability, honest use of materials, craftsmanship, and sustainability.

Other commissions have addressed end-of-life concerns.

Throughout its history, abbey woodworking has provided coffins for our confreres. Additional private orders from friends or alumni have been filled, honoring this special relationship to Saint John’s and supporting the mission of our community.

Unique urns are a more recent addition.

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Father John recounts the “huge honor to have been able to assist Mr. KC Marrin in building and installing parts of the new organ at the Church of Saint Boniface, Cold Spring, Minnesota. Not a lot of woodworkers can claim such an experience! And now, more recently, being able to give some assistance with the Martin Pasi addition to the Holtkamp organ in the abbey and university church is like icing on the cake.”

The Saint John’s Cross, originally designed by Brother Frank Kacmarcik, Obl.S.B., was first crafted in white oak, maple, and brass

by KC Marrin in 2004. It is bestowed on new members as they profess their first vows as Benedictine monks, signaling their commitment to follow Christ. It has also proven to be a popular gift for students on graduation day. Saint John’s Cross orders are now assembled from abbey arboretum oaks.

Brother Dietrich’s person-centered description of the Saint John’s carpentry shop as “a group of men intent on using the resources of their land and involved in creating their living environment with their own hands” summarizes well this premier Benedictine enterprise.

Brother Aaron Raverty, O.S.B., a member of the Abbey Banner editorial staff, is the author of Refuge in Crestone: A Sanctuary for Interreligious Dialogue (Lexington Books, 2014).

s soon as word got out about an expansion of the Holtkamp pipe organ in the Saint John’s Abbey and University Church, excitement began to stir! Professional organists and knowledgeable organ lovers immediately grasped the potential of such an unusual project. Others weren’t sure what the expansion entailed, but they had heard it would be glorious, and that was enough to attract interest.

The term “expansion” is misleading, because it fails to convey the magnitude of this unique and historic undertaking. From design to installation, under the leadership of renowned organ builder Martin Pasi, the result is the creation of a new instrument, the Holtkamp-Pasi organ.

The new organ has roused considerable intrigue and interest, says Dr. Kim Kasling, professor of organ at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University. One aspect that immediately grabbed attention among organ aficionados is the preservation of the original Holtkamp. “It’s extremely unusual to preserve an original instrument while adding to it the equivalent of two-thirds the size of the original,” Dr. Kasling says.

Built by Walter Holtkamp Sr. in 1961, when the Marcel Breuerdesigned church was constructed, the Holtkamp organ is itself a masterpiece. With its 3,000

pipes, the organ was installed just prior to the changes in the life of the Church introduced by the Second Vatican Council, and was designed primarily to accompany chant. However, those familiar with the dynamic interplay between organs and the specific space they occupy have long understood the need for an expanded pipe organ in the church, including Mr. Holtkamp himself.

“There is an aphorism that the best stop on an organ is the room it is in,” Dr. Kasling says.

Thus, an expanded pipe organ that is the second largest in the state and located in a perfect acoustical setting also has generated enthusiastic anticipation.

“People in the Twin Cities metropolitan area are very excited,” he observed. “The preserved original organ and the new Pasi addition will fill the room with adequate sound and volume. The room, with its hard surfaces and very large cubic

space, provides an ideal reverberance for an organ.”

Adding to the buzz within the organist community was the engagement of Martin Pasi, among the best organ builders in North America. Once the installation was underway, Father Robert Koopmann, O.S.B., who served as expansion project director, recalls one prominent organ aficionado saying to him, “Martin Pasi is the best. How did you get him?” “We asked him,” Father Bob answered!

Initially, it wasn’t a sure thing.

Mr. Pasi had never expanded an existing organ. “He came to visit and was so impressed by the church and its acoustics,” Father Bob recalls. “He asked me to play the organ for a half hour or so. While I played, he walked around the church, listening.

When I finished playing, he said ‘yes.’”

Most of the 2,600 new pipes were built in the Pasi studio in

Digital model of the organ loft by KC Marrin

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Roy, Washington. To assist with the planning and design, central Minnesota organ builder KC Marrin made a digital model of the church and organ. In addition, he constructed the new four-manual console.

Two years later, the delivery of the pipes to Collegeville was cause for celebration. On a sunny September morning, a semi-trailer truck loaded with organ pipes and related materials pulled up to the east side of the church. A group of volunteers— organ committee members, organists, monks and their abbot, workers from abbey woodworking—along with Mr. Pasi, Mr. Marrin, and organ crew members proceeded to unload the cargo and haul it, pipe by pipe, piece by piece, into the nave of the church. Despite the hard, physical labor on a humid day, the mood was lighthearted, joyful. The workers went about their task with smiles, each happy to lend a hand at the start of something grand. At one point, Mr. Marrin attached a portable blower to one of the pipes, emitting a low rumble inside the church, to the delight of everyone.

In addition to the pipes built in Washington, twelve of the largest pipes were built at Saint John’s Abbey Woodworking. They range in length from 17 to 32 feet and weigh up to 850 pounds! Word about that project quickly spread around campus and piqued curiosity.

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Benedictine abbeys to hear some of the organs.” These instruments have lasted for centuries, he says, and they attract thousands of visitors each year. Dr. Kasling predicts that the Holtkamp-Pasi organ will have a similar appeal.

It is important to understand, he says, that the Holtkamp-Pasi is not an antique. “It is an instrument for the future. The expansion is compatible with the original, and it is powerful enough to support the congregation.”

Alan Reed, O.S.B.

Above: New pipes filled the nave of the church prior to installation.

Opposite page: New pipes and the four-manual console constructed by KC Marrin.

Woodworkers were daily quizzed, “How are the pipes coming?” Abbey woodworking celebrated the completion of the pipes last May by hosting a pipe “sounding” in the shop. Approximately eighty donors, monks, and other guests gathered for the festive occasion to bless and hear the first sounding of the lowest and largest pipe, the 32-foot low C. (Photos capturing the event’s joyful mood are posted on the abbey woodworking blog at sjawood.org/blog.)

Mr. Marrin—who has tuned and serviced the Holtkamp organ for

more than forty years, and also helped build the wooden pipes— spoke at the sounding, reminding the audience of the historic role Benedictines have played in organ construction. “One of the most interesting parts of this project is that we were able to draw the Benedictines back into the organ construction business, which they have done for centuries,” he noted. Dr. Kasling, who is familiar with the great Benedictine organs in Europe, says the Holtkamp-Pasi is part of that grand tradition and will attract widespread interest. “For centuries, people have gone to

ritual. Father Bob describes that support as a form of energy.

For decades, he has played the Holtkamp during Mass, and says when he senses an energy in the singing, he responds with more energy on the organ. Now he looks forward to playing the Holtkamp-Pasi, which will multiply the possibilities for that energy.

Next fall Saint John’s launches an inaugural year of concerts on the Holtkamp-Pasi pipe organ, the first year of many to come for this timeless instrument.

Ms. Glenda Burgeson is a former marketing and communications officer for the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University.

Although the Holtkamp is ideal for community worship—and its original sound is preserved—it was not possible to play certain classical repertoire because of its relatively small size, Dr. Kasling notes. Now the Holtkamp-Pasi will be suitable for any musical task. “We are going to bring in organists who play everything from Bach to rock.”

The new organ includes the most modern digital and electrical components that will give the organist maximum flexibility— whether playing choral accompaniments or classical organ repertoire—to manage the organ’s virtually endless tonal varieties and combinations. The average worshiper sitting in the pew does not need to know the intricate details of a pipe organ to appreciate the power it brings to the liturgy. He or she will feel it, and likely respond to it. Father Anthony Ruff, O.S.B., abbey music director, says the fundamental role of the organ in liturgy is to support communal singing and

Alan Reed, O.S.B.

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In my eyes and ears, the organ will forever be the king of instruments.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

It takes a community to transform a pipe dream into reality! Master organ builder Martin Pasi and the team of Pasi Organ Builders were assisted by KC Marrin, Father Robert Koopmann, members of the abbey woodworking shop, members of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University music department, monks, volunteers, and generous donors.

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First row, sitting on the 32-foot low C pipe: Martin Pasi (far left), KC Marrin (fourth from left), Father Bob (sixth from left). Photo by Tommy O’Laughlin.

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Hill Museum & Manuscript Library Joseph Rogers

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ince its founding in 1965, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) has been a treasured part of the Saint John’s community. To advance its mission—to preserve and share the world’s manuscript heritage—HMML has formed partnerships with over 580 libraries and archives worldwide. Inspired by a 1500-year Benedictine tradition of cultural preservation, the Hill Library focuses on the digital preservation of rare and endangered manuscripts, cataloging and sharing the manuscripts online, and fostering research and education about the cultures that produced them. It also sponsors exhibitions and hosts scholars, classes, and workshops throughout the year and is the home of the handwritten and illuminated Saint John’s Bible.

In January 2020, HMML received a $1.4 million grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that will fund a three-year project to catalog 53,000 digitized manuscripts and create an online database of authors and titles originating from underrepresented or little-known literary traditions. Throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, there are Christian and Islamic handwritten books and scrolls largely unknown, inaccessible, and endangered by weather, war, and civil unrest. In many cases, these documents are

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the only surviving records of local cultures; HMML has been working for years to photograph and digitize them. The NEH grant will be used to support the work of several catalogers and metadata experts to make the manuscripts available online—on HMML’s “Reading Room”—to scholars and educators all over the world. The grant will also empower HMML to develop vHMML Data, a new database of authors and titles related to manuscript traditions not currently represented in standard reference tools such as the Library of Congress database.

When completed, the cataloging project supported by the NEH grant will make tens of thousands of manuscripts readily available, shining a light on these remarkable collections.

Scholars and historians will now be able to engage in innovative comparative methods of study, crossing boundaries of language, culture, and geography—so that manuscript traditions around the world can be viewed in relation to each other and a fuller picture of our shared history can be developed. Following the movement of texts and of the manuscripts containing them will create a new intellectual map of the premodern world. This approach to scholarship is especially significant for Christian and Islamic literary cultures or subcultures that have traditionally been regarded as marginal or unimportant. The

Mediterranean, and the slave trade that brought so many West Africans to the Americas.

reimagining of the past as more diverse and complex than traditionally presented also deepens understanding of the present situation of communities now threatened by violence and persecution.

The principal obstacle to such comparative research has been the lack of access to manuscripts from understudied traditions, apart from those in major libraries in Europe and North America. Even as a growing number of online databases and digital collections are consolidating information about those manuscripts, the data set remains incomplete if it consists only of manuscripts that were removed from their original location in the colonial era. Fortunately, the efforts of HMML and its international partners are providing access to almost 150,000 recently digitized manuscripts from Christian and Muslim communities spanning the Middle East, Africa, the Mediterranean region, and South Asia produced from the ninth century through the modern period.

The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library regards access to endangered and otherwise inaccessible manuscripts as a moral obligation to the communities represented in the collection as well as a service to global scholarship.

And the timing of HMML’s preservation efforts is critical.

Since the Hill Library began work in the Middle East in 2003, historic sites in Syria and Iraq

HMML

Jazūlī, Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān (d. 1465), Prayers for the Prophet. Manuscript on paper (1700—1763), Jerusalem. DINL 00356 143

have been destroyed and ancient minority communities have been displaced. Christian communities in the regions surrounding Aleppo and Mosul have been severely affected by recent conflicts; in the case of Mosul, the Christian presence has been totally effaced. Prior to and during these conflicts, HMML led digitization efforts in Iraq and Syria to preserve their manuscript culture. The thousands of Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian manuscripts guarded over the centuries by these communities complement those taken to Western libraries during the colonial period. Together,

they will provide a more complete view of the intellectual and social life of these traditions.

In the West African nation of Mali, the Hill Library, in partnership with Malian libraries and others, is digitizing Islamic manuscripts threatened by violent destruction as well as environmental degradation as they are evacuated from desert regions to humid Bamako. The manuscripts are a rich source of information and insights into local religious traditions, legal history, the trans-Saharan trade networks that connected West Africa to Eurasia and the larger

archives

The Hill Library’s work in Malta, a strategic crossroads of the Mediterranean, has uncovered archival records documenting relations between the Knights of Malta and the Ottoman Empire, including records of trade, redemption of slaves, and international diplomacy.

These documents, written mainly in Italian and French, but also including Arabic and Turkish records, reveal complex networks of influence extending across the Mediterranean and into Europe. Malta is also the home of a remarkably rich music and art archives describing the work of composers and artists who worked for the Grand Masters who governed Malta during the period of the Knights, 1530–1798.

The stories brought forward through the digitization and description of these marginalized collections will shape a deeper understanding about the cultural interactions of the past—for scholars and schoolchildren alike. All these histories warrant wide dissemination within their communities of origin and the larger global public.

Mr. Joe Rogers is director of external relations for the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library.

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Lives of the Benedictine Saints Anthony of the Desert

and primitive. Professor Rubenson describes the desert monasteries as centers of theological reflection in Egypt, showing how they combined the speculative philosophy of the Greeks (gnosis) and the biblical tradition (logos). The letters are shown to be authentic and an important source for the study of the Desert Fathers and the early monastic tradition.

Richard Oliver, O.S.B.

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Benedictines are united with monastics of the Eastern Churches in honoring Saint Anthony of the Desert (c. 251– 356). Saint Athanasius, the great bishop and defender of orthodox teaching, wrote in Greek the Life of Antony that caused succeeding generations to recognize Anthony as the founder of Christian monasticism. Athanasius is the primary Antonian source, but many stories about him are also found in the collections of sayings of the Desert Fathers. Although he was probably not the first hermit monk, Anthony’s fame spread in the Christian world through the Latin translation of the Life of Antony by Evagarius, c. 374.

Anthony himself did not organize or create a monastery, but a community grew up around him.

Those who wished to follow him needed the company of others to survive the harsh desert conditions.

There he begged an aged hermit to teach him the spiritual life, undertaking as well to imitate the virtues of other solitaries.

Anthony was born in Qimn El-Arouse (Cooma) near Herakleopolis Magna in Lower Egypt.

When his wealthy, landowning parents died, he cared for his sister. Hearing at Mass the words, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor” (Matthew 19:21), he gave away his possessions, after making sure his sister’s education had been completed, and retired into the desert.

The earliest Christian ascetics had settled on the outskirts of towns and villages, but by the second century there were famous ascetics, such as Saint Thecla, who sought greater solitude. Anthony decided to follow this tradition and headed out into the rugged desert region called the Nitra in Latin (Wadi El-Natrun today), sixty miles west of Alexandria. He remained in one of the least

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Wikimedia Commons

Initial C from a choral book, St. Anthony with Antonite Friars, c. 1400, Venice.

Cleveland Museum of Art.

hospitable regions on Earth for thirteen years. To serve God more perfectly, Anthony walled himself in a ruined fort. Here the devils assaulted him furiously, appearing as various monsters, and even wounding him severely; but his courage never failed, and he overcame them all by confidence in God and the sign of the cross.

In 1995 Samuel Rubenson published translations of six letters attributed to Anthony. Fresh analysis of the letters exposes the distortion in the picture of early Christian monks as unlettered

The author further demonstrates that the image of Anthony is influenced by Church politics in the fourth century. So, for example, Saint Athanasius, scourge of the Arians, includes in his Life of Antony: “He [Anthony] loathed the heresy of the Arians, and exhorted all neither to approach them nor to hold their erroneous belief. And once when certain Arian madmen came to him, when he had

questioned them and learned their impiety, he drove them from the mountain, saying that their words were worse than the poison of serpents” (§68).

Anthony’s popularity reached its height in the Middle Ages.

The Order of Hospitallers of Saint Anthony was founded near Grenoble, France (c. 1100), becoming a pilgrimage center for persons suffering from the disease known as Saint Anthony’s fire (or ergotism).

The black-robed Hospitallers, ringing small bells as they collected alms, were a common sight in many parts of Western Europe. The bells of the Hospitallers, as well as their pigs— allowed by special privilege to run free in medieval streets— became part of the later iconography associated with Anthony.

Saint Athanasius tells the story of the turning point in the life of Anthony, when he left his desert fort.

For nearly twenty years he continued training himself in solitude, never going forth, and but seldom seen by any. When many were eager and wishful to imitate his discipline, and his acquaintances came and began to tear down and wrench off the door by force, Antony came forth initiated in the mysteries and filled with the Spirit of God. Then, for the first time, he was seen outside the fort by those who came to seek him.

And they, when they saw him, wondered at the sight, for he had the same habit of body as before, and was neither fat, like a man without exercise, nor lean from fasting and striving with the demons, but he was just the same as they had known him before his retirement.

And again, his soul was free from blemish, for it was neither contracted as if by grief, nor relaxed by pleasure, nor possessed by laughter or dejection, for he was not troubled when he beheld the crowd, nor overjoyed at being saluted by so many.

Stories included in Saint Anthony’s biography allow artists to depict their more lurid or bizarre fantasies. Incidents from the life of Anthony appear in paintings of Hiëronymus Bosch, Matthias Grünewald, Max Ernst, Paul Cézanne, and Salvador Dalí as well as in the novel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874), by Gustave Flaubert. In 1961 Doris Caesar cast a bronze statue of St. Anthony Abbot [below] for the chapel dedicated to him on the lower level of the abbey and university church. The saint holds a Tau cross (shaped like the letter T).

Saint Anthony is the patron of animals, farmers, butchers, basket-makers, gravediggers, and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, Rome. He is known by many titles: Anthony the Great, Anthony of Egypt, Antony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, and Anthony of Thebes. His intercession is sought by those dealing with infectious diseases, particularly skin diseases. In the past, many such afflictions, including ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles, were referred to as Saint Anthony’s fire. His feast day is celebrated on 17 January among the Orthodox and Catholic Churches and on 22 Tobi in the Coptic calendar.

Brother Richard Oliver, O.S.B., president emeritus of the American Benedictine Academy, is the coordinator of abbey church tours.

Life of Antony, §14

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Meet a Monk: Michael Peterson Everyone did the typical chores of family living: cooking, washing dishes, raising and harvesting food, and keeping the place spotless.

Timothy Backous, O.S.B.

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earing voices along the shore of Lake Sagatagan?

Don’t be alarmed! It is just Father Michael Peterson, O.S.B., out for his “talk” with the lake. He freely admits that as soon as the lake is ice-free, well before most of us would even dream of going for a swim, he’ll be where he is most at peace: in the water. Father Michael describes his time in and with the water not as exercise but more like a conversation with a good friend and spiritual guide.

For him, the lake is part of his deep connection to nature and to the land that makes up what we call Saint John’s.

Born in Marshall, Minnesota, on 12 December 1969 to Jack and Phyllis Peterson, Michael moved with them, at the age of 1, to the small but cosmopolitan town of Morris, which he considers home. He has one sister, Jackie, who lives in Maple Lake, Minnesota, making it easy for them to connect frequently. Because his parents are deceased, Michael and Jackie are family to each other. Michael lived in Morris until he graduated from the University of Minnesota Morris in 1993 with a degree in vocal music and choral directing.

In 1996 a friend and his poet father introduced Michael to Blue Cloud Abbey, just across the Minnesota–South Dakota border, near the town of Marvin.

Michael felt an instant attraction

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Peterson archives

Little leaguer, 1979

to the community’s rural setting, and it became his respite from Minneapolis and city living. It was a place that drew him so insistently that he converted to Catholicism from his lifetime as a Lutheran and an Evangelical.

The RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) was his portal not only to the Roman Church but also to monasticism.

Michael professed his first vows as a Benedictine monk in 1998, followed by solemn profession in 2004. He was ordained in 2006.

He quotes Kathleen Norris when he refers to Blue Cloud as his “spiritual geography.” Blue Cloud taught him what he calls the “easiness of stability.” He also learned the importance of work that, he says, was a witness of “domestic monasticism.”

Michael loved his prairie home and its way of life. He claims to know every rock and boulder of Blue Cloud, which sits on the edge of a hill with a commanding view of what seemed to be the entire western edge of Minnesota. Sadly, however, the number of monks diminished; the once great vision of serving the local Native American population became more and more difficult to sustain. After the community made the devastating decision to close in 2012, Michael found himself back in his native Minnesota at Saint John’s Abbey, a place where he

Peterson archives

Arches National Park, Utah, 1994

had once studied theology. He formally transferred his vow of stability to our community in 2014.

For as much as he loved and was transformed by Blue Cloud, Father Michael is finding an entirely new sense of place at Saint John’s. Soon after he arrived here, he took on the task of assisting with our growing oblate program. He is now the director of the program and welcomes more oblates each year. He serves as well as organist for the Liturgy of the Hours and sometimes sends the monastic community into a trance with his haunting Native American flute music—which he has practiced since 1998 after a good friend presented him with a hand-carved flute. Michael also serves as the vocation coordinator for the abbey and as chaplain for the College of Saint Benedict, presiding at the Sunday evening Eucharist for the student body.

What are the greatest joys and challenges of his monastic life?

Michael is especially grateful for the “characters” that populate our community and feels lucky to be able to live with them.

He’s amazed at the history of Saint John’s and how “wild and crazy ideas” have led to major contributions to our life and to society in general—in particular, The Saint John’s Bible, the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, the Benedictine Volunteer Corps,

Michael the musician

abbey arboretum stewardship, and the expansion of the church organ. The chair of the Board of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, Michael is passionate about this work and hopes to spend the rest of his life as a “builder of bridges.” He is pleased to support and promote the relationship of the Catholic Church with the Muslim community in Saint Cloud.

Father Michael recognizes that Saint John’s Abbey has much to offer our local community and the wider world. Working with

Robin Pierzina, O.S.B.

oblates, he is aware that many people strive to live the kind of life we enjoy as monastics. They, too, seek spiritual discipline, a “rule of life,” and the comforts of community. As monks, we can offer them “formation” by helping them put each of the tools of good works (Rule 4) into their spiritual belts. But perhaps our most important task is to be good stewards of this beautiful, natural environment where others can come to find peace, quiet, and perhaps a good conversation with Lake Sagatagan.

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Contemplative Rascals Thomas Bushlack, Obl.S.B.

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everal of my most influential teachers have recently passed from this life: Father Mark Thamert, O.S.B.; Abbot Joseph Boyle, O.C.S.O.; Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O.; and Ram Dass. All of them instilled in me a desire to seek God in a contemplative manner of life while engaged in the daily demands of family, career, and community.

In my daily meditation (centering prayer), I hear their laughter, a child-like giggle, that rings in my mind. Each possessed what Ram Dass calls “rascalliness,” which he recommends as one of the most important qualities in a spiritual teacher. While these teachers took the search for God seriously, they did not take themselves seriously. Nor did they take my little dramas and petty anxieties seriously. What they did take seriously is the suffering that my ego’s dramas create for me and others; but they refused to reinforce my self-centered interests and frustrations. By being rascals, they provided a gift: they gave me permission to stop being so hard on myself, to lighten up, and to allow God to work in rascally ways. These teachers embody a kind of “light gravitas”— gravitas to draw my focus to what is important (seeking God and loving others), and levity to lower the volume on everything else.

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Gravitas-levity provided me a way to reframe a problem. Two colleagues and I were assigned to work on several long-term, complex problems within our organization. We eagerly went to work, but we never defined what success would look like.

Meanwhile, we were becoming increasingly frustrated with the organizational challenges we faced, and we started to turn our frustrations against each other.

As my stress level grew, I recalled Saint Benedict’s condemnations against grumbling and complaining as detrimental to community and collaboration: “But as for coarse jests and idle words . . . these we condemn everywhere with a perpetual ban” (RB 6.8).

ule of Benedict

Inspired by the Rule’s insight, I challenged myself and our team to return to our shared sense of purpose and good will toward each other. We have not dropped our bad habits overnight, but we have recommitted to support each other, to define our goals, not to take ourselves so seriously, and to work from a more centered space of patience and compassion.

Contemplative Michael Crouser practices and values have powerful implications in the professional and personal lives of those who live outside the monastery. I am encouraged by the giggling rascals who keep calling me back to live creatively as a Benedictine oblate.

Dr. Thomas J. Bushlack, Obl.S.B., an alumnus of Saint John’s University, serves as regional director of mission integration with SSM Health in Saint Louis. He also hosts the “Contemplate This!” podcast: http://www.thomasjbushlack.com.

Child Oblation Eric Hollas, O.S.B. If anyone of the nobility offers his son to God in the monastery, and the boy is very young, let his parents draw up the petition . . .; and at the oblation, let them wrap the petition and the boy’s hand in the altar cloth and so offer him. Rule 59.1-2

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f ever there was an idea whose time has come and gone, it has to be child oblation!

Originally meant to solve pressing social needs, it also provided an education to children who likely, in time, would themselves become monks. So, despite some misgivings, Saint Benedict made a place for the practice in his Rule.

What caused Benedict to allow this option? Among the reasons was a subsistence economy in which there were often too many mouths to feed. In Roman times, some practiced child abandonment. They put extra children up for adoption or even sold them into slavery. Thus, the monastery provided a humane, if less than ideal, alternative.

There were some real advantages to this, however. In the monastery, unwanted children could find a home. There they received an education that was unavailable to most people. They could live in a balanced regimen of work and prayer, meet interesting guests, and thrive in a world of books and ideas. Given the option of taking final vows

or leaving in their late teenage years, most stayed and persisted in the life to which they had become accustomed.

As for the monastery, child oblation provided future candidates who could be educated for a life that demanded literacy. In a world in which educational opportunities were limited at best, child oblation opened the monastic life to a much wider pool of candidates, including both the noble and the poor.

By the eleventh century the practice began to die out. As literacy grew, so did vocational alternatives. Meanwhile, reform groups like the Cistercians banned the practice altogether.

They preferred adult converts who embraced monastic life through their own fervor rather than that of their parents.

Today child oblation is a distant memory, and Benedictines find the reference to it in the Rule to be a strange curiosity. Moreover, the term “oblate” has been recycled. It now refers to adults who wish to affiliate with an individual monastery but not live in it under vows. They do so by choice, just as do the monks who take vows. Long gone are the days when parents placed their children on the altar, dedicated them to God and the monastic life, and then went home.

Father Eric Hollas, O.S.B., is deputy to the president for advancement at Saint John’s University.

Michael Crouser

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Chrysostom Kim source of life-changing experiences for Father Chrysostom. In addition to earning a bachelor’s degree in social science at Saint Thomas, he received instructions in the faith and was baptized with the Christian name, Andrew. In 1953 he entered the novitiate of Saint John’s Abbey, receiving the name of Chrysostom. He professed his first vows as a Benedictine monk on 11 July 1954 and, after completing theological studies, was ordained a priest on 4 June 1960.

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Simon-Hòa Phan, O.S.B.

ather Chrysostom Andrew Kim, O.S.B., 92, died on 17 December 2019 in the retirement center at Saint John’s Abbey.

Hak Bong Kim, the fifth son of Sang Yun Kim and Ki San Bak, was born on 16 March 1927 in Taegu, Korea, where he attended elementary and secondary schools, becoming fluent in Japanese, the language of the occupying country. In 1948 he immigrated to the United States.

His preference for studies, he would later write, was Columbia, Chicago, or one of the New England schools. However, when the College [now University] of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul offered a full scholarship, “I felt doomed to go to Minnesota.”

Whether doomed or providential, Minnesota proved to be the

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Chrysostom’s intellectual curiosity led him to the University of Chicago and to its Committee on Social Thought. In addition to earning a master’s degree (political science, 1954) and doctorate (social thought, 1970), he began a long relationship with members of the Committee, including David Grene (professor of classics), Hannah Arendt (philosopher and social theorist), and Saul Bellow (novelist and Nobel Laureate). Throughout the years he directed the honors program of Saint John’s University (1968–1985), he hosted members of the Committee for annual, weeklong seminars.

Donald LeMay In 1986 Father Chrysostom took up residence at Saint Anselm’s Priory and Parish in Tokyo. He served as novice and junior master for the monastic community and, with his command of Japanese, as pastor of the local congregation. Upon his return to the abbey, he assisted at the Church of Saint Boniface in Cold Spring, 1996–2002.

A monk for sixty-five years, Chrysostom was recognized by his superiors as “intense, intellectual, and studiously inclined.”

His mechanical skills were underdeveloped. He was a man of the mind: reading constantly, reflecting deeply. His homilies were more scholarly than spiritual. He focused on social thought, not socializing. He was fascinated by the word “dope” and used it to describe those who did not share his intellectual zeal or insight. He was fiercely loyal to anyone who assisted him—whether tutoring him in English or changing the ribbon on his typewriter.

Following the Mass of Christian Burial on 21 December, Father Chrysostom was interred in the abbey cemetery.

Father Kim was both beloved and feared by his students. He wanted us to fall in love with reading, to be voracious readers. “What will keep you alive once you leave college?” he would ask after warning us of the multiple temptations to intellectual and moral laziness in American culture. His answer: “Reading.” His teaching called for careful engagement with the text.

He would call upon a student using only the student’s last name, and then ask, “What do you think?” An answer that fell short meant an upward arch of his eyebrows, and then he would turn to another student, “Do you have something better to say?”

Peter Gathje, Honors Student

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

and personal interest in the lives of the students. It was a lesson he learned well, and he modeled this same behavior throughout his monastic life.

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ather Donald Joseph LeMay, O.S.B., the first of Edward and Alice (Demers) LeMay’s five children, was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, on 24 September 1922. He attended the local Catholic grade school before enrolling at Cloquet High School, from which he graduated in 1940.

With the start of World War II, Don was notified to report to Fort Snelling for military service, and was surprised by his classification as 4-F because of a slight heart murmur. He continued at his office job with Northwest Paper Company in Cloquet until 1944, when he decided to attend Saint John’s University. Enrollment during the war was small, allowing students to become better acquainted with the monks—who impressed Don with their devotion to prayer

As the war continued, military entry standards were relaxed. In August 1945 Don found himself on a troop train bound for Little Rock, Arkansas, before being assigned to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. After his discharge from the army, he returned to Saint John’s, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business and economics in 1949.

Feeling unfulfilled by his work with an insurance company, Don entered the novitiate of Saint John’s Abbey and professed his first vows as a Benedictine monk on 11 July 1953.

In the summer following ordination to the priesthood in 1957, Father Don studied Gregorian chant with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Purchase, New York. He taught Gregorian chant and theology, 1957–61, at Saint John’s Preparatory School and University.

In 1961 Don became the first director of admissions for the university. He recalled, “I

enjoyed admissions so much, always making a point of trying to remember the name of every student I met and keeping tabs on students after they enrolled.”

His memory served him well, and he became the gracious face of Saint John’s to generations of Johnnies. Beginning in 1974 and continuing until his retirement in 2002, Don served in Saint John’s development office, widely recognized as the “grandfather of planned giving” in Minnesota. With his many development calls and travels, he probably distributed more Johnnie Bread to friends and donors than any other monk in Saint John’s history!

Don’s irrepressible optimism, warmth, and good cheer led to his nickname of “Great day LeMay.” In 1999 his hospitality and good zeal were formally recognized by the university when he received the Father Walter Reger Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Father Don died peacefully on 11 March 2020 in the abbey’s retirement center. Following the Mass of Christian Burial on 17 March, he was laid to rest in the abbey cemetery.

WCCO Radio Good Neighbor Award

In recognition of outstanding service with distinction as a Good Neighbor to the Northwest Known for his optimism . . . his delightful disposition . . . known as one of the most friendly, kindly, and generous people you’d ever want to meet. . . . Today’s WCCO Radio Good Neighbor . . . Father Donald LeMay of Saint John’s Abbey and University.

30 June 1984

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Cloister Light The daily routine within the cloister is enlivened by the antics of the “characters” of the community. Here are stories from the Monastic Mischief file.

From Berkeley, California, Father Don writes about his graduate work: The comprehensive examinations involve some specialization, i.e., two major figures. Mine are Paul Tillich and Friedrich von Hügel. Bless them both for writing in English! I must also concentrate on a theological problem in its history and present status. I’m taking the problem of evil—which I’ve always felt close to.

Please, Will whoever removed the plant from the third floor balcony shortly before Christmas please return it? I coddled it for three years and would like to continue doing the same.

Father Jude

Gloss: Coddled? Would a cactus do as a replacement?

FYI The stuff in the hallway in the basement is from the Lenten purge of your rooms. I’ll be sorting it for transfer to Goodwill, Catholic Charities, and the Salvation Army. Please don’t take any of it. I have installed a hidden surveillance camera.

Brother Paul

NOTE: Missing from Basement —One surveillance camera.

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Abbey Chronicle

Church Ladies with Typewriters Before the use of computers and spell-check programs became a common practice, the production of the weekly parish bulletin was typically overseen by parish staff members with typewriters. The following are among many delightful bloopers that have appeared in church bulletins. · Don’t let worry kill you—let the church help. · Thursday night—Potluck supper. Prayer and medication to follow. · Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community. · For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs. · The rosebud on the alter this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Julius Belzer. · This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends. · Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa. · This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come foreward and lay an egg on the alter. · At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be “What is Hell?” Come early and listen to our choir practice. · Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 P.M. in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King. · Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It is a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.

Grounded Following a storm, a powerline worker from the local public utility company was on the roof of a house to repair the damaged (but live) wires. As a youngster walked near the house, the worker called to him: “Pick up that wire.” The youngster did so.

“Do you feel anything?” “No,” replied the lad. “Are you sure?”

“Yep.” “Well, don’t touch that other one!”

Father Paschal

From the Oral Tradition Perpetuity is an awful long time.

Father Martin

After a hard day’s work: I feel like the Manhattan phone book in Penn Station.

Father Gregory

Good morning, gentlemen, how are you today?

We’re not gentlemen. We’re monks.

Brother John

N

ine inches of snow on 27 November, with six additional inches on Thanksgiving weekend, heralded the arrival of winter in Collegeville.

Lake Sagatagan froze for the season on 2 December. Those dreaming of a white Christmas had to settle for gray, and that gray persisted throughout the following month as Minnesota experienced its cloudiest January since 1963. The extra day of February and temperatures in the 30s allowed a warm, leapyear lamb to welcome in March and spring. Days later, however, the gentle spring and “normal, daily” life ended abruptly when COVID-19 reached pandemic status, leading to the declaration of national emergencies, quarantines, travel bans, and mass closings or cancellations of public events and gatherings.

Normal, daily life suddenly seems a quaint memory of the “good old days.” Community, now under siege, was never more precious or vital.

Sad, disoriented, and apprehensive, we long for the consolation of the rising Son. Come, Lord Jesus!

December 2019 • Between 16 October and 31 December, sixteen deer were taken during the eighteenth controlled deer hunt hosted by Saint John’s since 1933. The intent of the archery hunt is to reduce the deer population in the abbey arboretum to a level that allows natural regeneration of

John Geissler

In 2012 a pair of trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator) and their three cygnets were seen in the abbey arboretum, supposedly the first such family siting here in a century. In February and March, a whole flock of trumpeter swans took up residence in the abbey arboretum wetlands.

the forest ecosystem, essential to the long-term habitat of deer and other wildlife. The deer population is high and has been high for years, resulting in significant ecological damage: the natural vegetation of the ecosystem is out of balance. Oak and pine seedlings that are favorites of the deer are not regenerating. Other vegetation, such as raspberries and ironwood, which the deer don’t eat, are proliferating.

• Brother Lucián López will serve as the director of campus ministry at Saint John’s Preparatory School and also teach philosophy classes in the International Baccalaureate program.

January 2020 • According to Father Roman Paur, director of abbey volunteers, the monastic community

was blessed by the service of dozens of generous friends who contributed some 7,800 hours of their time and energy in 2019 —assisting in the monastery gardens and woods, guesthouse and gift shop, tailor shop, archives, woodworking shop; visiting aging confreres; trimming green grass or gray heads; fixing, baking, cooking, cleaning, singing; and much more.

Thank you, volunteers!

• “They showed us unusual kindness” (Acts 28:2) was the theme of guest homilist Rev. Anna Mercedes, pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and associate professor of theology at Saint John’s Unversity and the College of Saint Benedict, during the community Eucharist on 19 January, part of the annual observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

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online database of authors/titles from underrepresented Christian and Islamic traditions. The grant will enable HMML to hire five new catalogers for three-year fellowships during which they will develop software for the database.

HMML

archives

Evangelion: Gospel manuscript on paper (1867) from the Syrian Orthodox monastery, Dayro d-Mor Gabriel, Midyat, Turkey. MGMT 00052

• The Medieval Academy of America has awarded the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) its annual Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize for HMML’s online platform for manuscript studies, vHMML (http://www.vhmml.org).

Offering resources for the study of manuscripts, vHMML features manuscript cultures from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The site houses high-resolution images of manuscripts, many of them digitized, as well as descriptions of manuscripts from HMML’s legacy microfilm collection, with scans of some of these films.

• The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the Hill Museum $1.4 million for a three-year project to catalog manuscripts and to create an

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• On 22 January, the fifty-third anniversary of the first broadcast from Saint John’s radio station KSJR—which would grow into the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) network—all network stations in the region proclaimed: “Today’s broadcasting is made possible by Bill Kling in memory of Saint John’s University President Colman J. Barry, the cofounder of what we know today as MPR.” • On 26 January Father Robert Koopmann, pianist extraordinaire, presented “Mixing Genres: Music as a Living Art,” with works by W. A. Mozart, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Ludovico Einaudi. Father Michael Peterson (Native American flute) and Mr. Kyle Lamb (baritone) were also featured in a delightful afternoon recital.

February 2020 • On the eve of the feast of Saint Scholastica, 9 February, a bus-load of monks enjoyed the warm and gracious hospitality of the sisters of Saint Benedict’s Monastery in Saint Joseph, as the sisters celebrated the life of their Benedictine patroness.

Following Evening Prayer and a

delicious meal, all enjoyed cordial conversation.

March 2020 • For years confreres living in the Marcel Breuer-designed wing of the monastery, constructed in the mid-1950s, have been dealing with an aging and failing infrastructure. The community decided to move forward with the renovation and upgrading of the space—including new plumbing, lighting, heating/cooling systems, and thermal-pane windows— which requires vacating the entire building for fourteen months. The monumental task of moving dozens of monks to temporary housing—elsewhere in the monastery as well as to Joe Hall and Emmaus Hall on the university campus—commenced in early January. The rumble of carts carrying personal belongings of confreres interrupts the cloister silence. Donations to Goodwill or to a campus rummage sale are growing quickly as confreres discover “stuff” that they didn’t even know they owned or haven’t used for years.

The Breuer wing of the monastery also houses the community’s archives, art collection, sacristy and vestments, library collections and reading rooms, mailboxes, various offices, and more—all of which are being relocated to temporary quarters during the renovation that began 17 March. The monks hope to return to updated quarters in the summer of 2021.

Mariano Franco Méndez, O.S.B.

As they had for the feast of the Epiphany (Día de Los Reyes) in January, Novice Félix Mencias Babian, Brothers Mariano Franco Méndez and Jacob Berns, and Father Efraín Rosado celebrated the feast of the Presentation (Día de la Candelaria, 2 February) with members of the Latinx community at the Church of Saint Boniface in Cold Spring, Minnesota. Rosca de reyes (king’s cake), a special sweet bread with figur-

• The 2020 “sweet season” of maple syrup production began on 28 February when the first of more than 1400 taps were placed in Saint John’s Sugar Bush. Warm weather in early March resulted in a strong initial sap run. The coronavirus forced the early conclusion of the season on 20 March, by which time nearly 200 gallons of syrup had been bottled.

• To reduce the risk and spread of COVID-19, Saint John’s

ines of a baby (representing the Child Jesus) hidden inside; and homemade piñatas, filled with sweet treats, marked the celebration of Epiphany [above]. For Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas), parishioners dressed figures of the Christ Child in special outfits and took them, along with candles, to church for a blessing.

Much fun and feasting followed.

Preparatory School, Saint John’s University, and the College of Saint Benedict suspended oncampus classes and events, asking students to return home.

Online instruction commenced for the prep school on 17 March; and on 23 March for the colleges. The monastic community revised its manner of celebrating Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours, serving meals, and daily interactions.

Keep calm and wash your hands!

Robin Pierzina, O.S.B.

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Fifty Years Ago Excerpted from Confrere, newsletter of Saint John’s Abbey: 27 January 1970

• [Father Neal Lawrence writes from Tokyo:] The Training Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has invited me to help train newlyappointed diplomats and attachés. Once a week I give seminars in which we discuss international politics and other subjects which diplomats should be able to speak about in English.

24 February 1970

• A $15,000 grant from the Louis W. and Maud Hill Family Foundation, Saint Paul, has been awarded to the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research to provide salary for the recently appointed associate director, C. Jack Eichhorst. The institute fosters research and dialogue among prominent scholars and their families at a residential center, now three years old.

29 March 1970 • [Father Hilary Thimmesh, chair of a recently appointed grounds committee, writes:] We did not see a crisis, ecological or otherwise, looming before the community in grounds maintenance and development. Instead we thought that long-range planning to conserve and to enhance the outdoors environment of Saint John’s would be generally desirable. There was agreement to begin with a

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Monks in the Kitchen couple of problem areas in the center of campus—the mall and the tacky area between Benet Hall and the gym. We were also urged by [President Colman Barry] to do something right away about drafting a permanent system of directional signs around campus. The committee is also interested in reviewing our policies with regard to general conservation and use of the woods and waters pertaining to Saint John’s. The present emphasis on environment may help all of us to appreciate better the priceless and irreplaceable heritage we have in the land around us. Our motto [from the coat of arms of Montecassino Abbey]: Succisa virescit, or “The green grass grows again.”

Succisa virescit, meaning “having been cut down, it flourishes” (or, “turns to green again”), is the Latin motto of Montecassino Abbey, founded by Saint Benedict. The monastery, destroyed

by Allied bombing in 1944, was rebuilt after World War II.

• The Order of Sant Benedict has agreed to act as coordinator of the educational program at Benilde High School, Saint Louis Park, Minnesota. The financial

and legal administration will continue to be the responsibility of the board of trustees of Benilde. The Benedictine Order has been given full responsibility to direct all affairs of the school, to establish the religion education program, to maintain discipline, and to select lay teachers to provide a school with a religious identification. The agreement between the Order and the “Committee to Save Benilde” comes in the wake of a recent decision of the Christian Brothers to consolidate their educational services. The move resulted in a decision to close Benilde and Hill High School, Saint Paul.

• Father Daniel Durken drove to Decorah in a Dodge Dart and is now at Luther College, part of an exchange program between Saint John’s and Luther. “I’m seeing the ecumenical movement first hand for the first time,” he said, “and it’s marvelous; it’s great.” “At the first faculty meeting this year, I was introduced as the papal nuncio [representative],” Daniel said. “I decided to get even. When it was my turn to lead the daily campus chapel service, it happened to be the pope’s birthday, and I asked everyone to sing happy birthday to the pope, and they did.”

Daniel wore his habit to class one day to show that “monks were up to date, even stylish.

We were wearing maxi-dresses long before the current rage,” he told students.

Shoe Pastry? Ælred Senna, O.S.B.

I

know many people are afraid to attempt pastry, especially French pastry. But I would love to dispel the myth that pastry is too difficult to try at home. It is true that some pastry-making techniques are timeconsuming, tedious, or even difficult.

But have you tried choux pastry (say “shoe pastry”)? It is the pastry used for making cream puffs. It can also be made as a savory, cheesy little bite called a gougère. But let’s leave that for another time and begin with basic pâte à choux.

Choux pastry? Quoi? The French word “choux” means “cabbage” in English. Choux pastry gets its name because a finished puff looks a bit like a tiny cabbage. The dough uses only water, butter, flour, and eggs.

As a result, the high moisture content in the dough creates steam in the oven, causing the dough to inflate. The dough can be piped from a pastry bag, but if that makes you nervous, simply drop the dough by the heaping tablespoonful on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Be fearless and give this a try! Fill each puff with whipped cream for now. Another time we’ll learn how to make pastry cream for your shoes!

Brother Ælred Senna, O.S.B., is associate editor of Give Us This Day and a faculty resident at Saint John’s University.

Ælred Senna, O.S.B.

Pâte à Choux (Choux pastry) (Yields about 30 puffs) • • • • • •

1 cup water 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in small pieces ¾ teaspoon salt 1 cup flour 4 large eggs 1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 425°F. Bring water, butter, and salt to rolling boil. Off the heat, add flour all at once and stir to make a dough. No dry flour should remain. (It will look a bit like mashed potatoes.)

Place the combination back on medium heat and stir constantly, about 3–5 minutes, to dry out dough. (It will come away from the pan easily and form a ball.)

Transfer to stand mixer and beat with paddle attachment on medium-low, cooling dough until just warm to the touch.

Whisk eggs together. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time (about ¼ at a time), beating in thoroughly each time. Check consistency of the dough after three additions. If needed, add the rest of the egg. (The dough should hold its shape when scooped and leave a “V” of dough on the spatula.)

Pipe or scoop out puffs, éclairs, etc. onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake at 425°F about 12 minutes. Lower heat to 375°F and bake another 12–15 minutes until beautifully golden.

Transfer to cooling rack and pierce each puff to vent steam.

Cool completely before filling.

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In Memoriam

Normal Days

Please join the monastic community in prayerful remembrance of our deceased family members and friends:

Timothy Backous, O.S.B.

Joseph Michael “Joe” Abdo Julie Ann Abdo Helenette Baltes, O.S.B. Jim Botz Larry Chambers Sr. Tong Chang Josephine Cormier Daniel J. “Dan” Cottew Most Rev. Viktor Dammertz, O.S.B. Lorraine T. Degiovanni Marie Therese Del Greco Marcelle “Terry” Devitt James “Jim” Eisenschenk Ronald B. “Ron” Eisenschenk Ellen F. Flynn Alan James Gradin Dorothy Jane “Dottie” Heitz Norbert Bernard Hemesath Sharon Agnes Hernandez Mary Theodora Higgins, O.S.F. Mary Ann Hinnerichs Irene Hoffman, Obl.S.B. Mary Hoke Bonnie Jasmer Ione Jesh, O.S.B.

Tegan P. Johnson Tyrone X. Jones Betty Jean Jorgensen Harriet Susan Kasprick Chrysostom Kim, O.S.B. Gerard Kirsch, O.S.B. Delores J. “Dee” Knaak Abbot Ralph Koehler, O.S.B. Richard H. Koenig Llewellyn Kouba, O.S.B. Raphael Kozel, O.S.B. Thomas “Tom” Kramer Dorothea Kripps, O.S.B. Karen Kunkel Laurian Lasha, O.S.B. Joseph D. “Dan” Leach III Donald “Don” LeMay, O.S.B. Zina Manera Lillard Rev. Andrew F. Marthaler Kevin Daniel McGrath, O.S.B. Ruth Ann Miller Carmen Mulcahy, O.S.B. Michael Murray, O.S.B. Rev. Jerome G. Nordick Isaiah Chinye Okia

Ralph R. Opatz, Obl.S.B. Arthur J. Pendleton, O.S.B. Karl J. Petters David A. Pflueger Kort Miller Plantenberg Dolores “Dolly” Pohlman Mary Paula Pohlmann, O.S.F. Luke E. Policicchio, O.S.B. Tom Prostrollo David William Raden S. Emmanuel Renner, O.S.B. Christian Rivera Hildegard M. Schmiesing Donald “Don” Schramel Janet L. “Janie” Scribner Most Rev. Paul D. Sirba Karen S. Smith Clifford Dillon Stiles Robert H. “Bob” Stoeckel James G. “Greg” Sullivan Howard M. Thielman Philip Lundsten Tideman Milo J. Tiefenthaler Alcalita “Miss G” Williams Fernando Zetina

Precious in the eyes of the LORD is the death of God’s faithful ones.

Psalm 116:15

A Monk’s Chronicle Father Eric Hollas, O.S.B., offers spiritual insights and glimpses into the life of the Benedictine community at Saint John’s Abbey in a weekly blog, A Monk’s Chronicle. Visit his blog at: monkschronicle.wordpress.com.

Father Don’s Daily Reflection Father Don Talafous, O.S.B., prepares daily reflections on Scripture and living the life of a Christian that are available on the abbey’s website at: saintjohnsabbey.org/reflection/.

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A concept I find amusing is that of a “normal day.” A casual conversation will begin with the question: “How is your day going?” The answer is typically: “Oh, you know, it’s a normal day.” In the 2020s that usually means email, phone calls, work, feeding the family, getting kids to and from school, reading a book, or watching a movie on Netflix. But how is that normal? How does the miracle of daily living become so routine that we barely notice how miraculous it really is?

If we explore the storyline of our lives, we find all kinds of strange coincidences, twists, disappointments, failures, and huge successes.

How different things would have been if that one moment had never happened.

Last summer I shared such a moment with Father Hilary Thimmesh (1928–2019), who had no idea his life would soon be ending. He did know that his eyesight was fading, leading him to ask confreres to type letters that he would dictate. His spoken words were as exacting as their written forms had been most of his life. He would say, “Let’s go back and start that sentence again.” And we did. It was not what happened at the computer screen, but rather in the monastery’s backyard, that I will always treasure. Overlooking the Mary grotto, I found Hilary standing in total silence staring at Lake Sagatagan.

Without him explaining, I knew what he was doing: memorizing what he soon would not be able to see with his eyes. What had formerly been part of a “normal day” was now a treasured moment. The intensity of his gaze confirmed that there was nothing normal about this experience.

Drink in the sweetness of normal days.

It is a cliché to prod ourselves into appreciating each moment of life as though it were our last. But think of how much goes unnoticed because we expect it will be there again and again, ad infinitum. The routine of daily life can lull us into laziness and inattentiveness. Sometimes it takes loss—especially of health or eyesight—to open our eyes before we can drink in the sweetness of even the normal days. Perhaps that is why Saint Benedict urges his monks to see the person of Christ in their abbot and the visitor (Rule 2.2; 53.1).

Imagine that a typical day would be having lunch with Christ! The same is true for all of us: it can be a quiet moment with our beloved or watching our grandchildren play hockey or maybe doing the dishes after a huge family meal. These occasions are anything but normal, but it is up to us to see them as treasures.

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Abbey Banner Magazine Saint John’s Abbey P.O. Box 2015 do not reduce in size (size or place between and greater) Collegeville, MN100%56321-2015 U.S.A. use alternative logo for smaller size www.saintjohnsabbey.org

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Abbey Banner Pandemic Lynn Ungar What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath— the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.

Cease from buying and selling.

Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those to whom you commit your life.

Center down.

And when your body has become still, reach out with your heart.

Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives are in one another’s hands.

(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.

Reach out your heart.

Reach out your words.

Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move, invisibly, where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love— for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live.

11 March 2020

Spring 2020 Volume 20, Number 1

4 This Issue Robin Pierzina, O.S.B. 5 Woodworking Wisdom Abbot John Klassen, O.S.B. 6 Holy Trinity: The Personal God Hilary Thimmesh, O.S.B. 8 Benedictine Volunteer Corps James Gathje Michael Garber 10 When We Were Strangers Martin F. Connell 12 Father Paul’s Legacy John Geissler 14 Abbey Woodworking Aaron Raverty, O.S.B. 17 The Holtkamp-Pasi Organ Glenda Burgeson 22 Hill Museum & Manuscript Library Joseph Rogers 24 Lives of the Benedictine Saints: Anthony of the Desert Richard Oliver, O.S.B.

26 Meet a Monk: Michael Peterson Timothy Backous, O.S.B. 28 Contemplative Rascals Thomas Bushlack, Obl.S.B. 29 Rule of Benedict: Child Oblation Eric Hollas, O.S.B. 30 Obituary: Chrysostom Kim 31 Obituary: Donald LeMay 32 Cloister Light 33 Abbey Chronicle Robin Pierzina, O.S.B. 36 Fifty Years Ago 37 Monks in the Kitchen: Shoe Pastry? Ælred Senna, O.S.B. 38 In Memoriam 39 Normal Days Timothy Backous, O.S.B. 40 Pandemic Lynn Ungar