December 2011
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A Blessed Christmas to All!
We had almost a full church last evening…which for us means almost 2,000 people. It was a wonderful concert and mass of the Nativity of our Lord!
We will celebrate mass today at 10 am with the Collegeville parish which is a new tradition – or maybe one that was renewed! – just last year. Nice [...]
…some Christmas Eve preparations…
Whew! Christmas Eve at the Abbey is anything but quiet! Here are some pictures I just took of some of the Juniors hanging banners and baldachin lights for tonight’s celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord.
peace and love, bpv
Happy Fourth Week of Advent!
And the angel said to Mary in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the pwer ofthe Most High will oversahdow you.
Therefore the child to be vorn
will be called holy, the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
peace and joy, bpv
Promised skating pictures…
So a few days ago I posted a picture of the ice on Lake Sagatagan which is our largest lake. I promised to follow up with pictures of some of the Junior monks skating…here they are:
Advent blessings, bpv
FYS Class tours…
Each academic year a number of FYS classes tour the church. (FYS stands for First Year Symposium.) It is a pleasure to host these first year students from our colleges. Their professor has used Columba Stewart’s text, Prayer and Community which talks about the Benedictine monastic way of living and praying together so it is [...]
About once every ten years…
About once in every ten years Lake Sagatagan freezes in such a way that the conditions create a quality of ice on which it makes it perfect to skate. I am sure that you will be seeing some pictures in the near future of some of our young monks showing their ice skating ability – or [...]
New Prior in Fujimi
My classmate, Fr. Edward Vebelun, OSB was just appointed as Prior of Holy Trinity Monastery in Fujimi, Japan. Fr. Edward and I began as novices together here at Saint John’s some 17 plus years ago. Since that time he learned Japanese (amazing!) and was attracted to our priory in Japan. He has flourished there and [...]
New Sculpture of Saint Benedict
Br. David Paul Lange, OSB has been commissioned to create a life size sculpture of Saint Benedict which will eventually be placed on campus. This last Saturday he gave a glimpse of his work which at this writing in the process of being cast in bronze. In the second picture below he is shown talking about the [...]
Celebrating the Season!
Every year the choirs of Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict as well as musicians from Saint John’s Abbey and of course the Saint John’s Boy’s Choir put on one of the finest Christmas concerts that I have ever enjoyed!
Performing groups included the Amadeus Chamber Symphony, directed by Axel Theimer; CSB/SJU Brass [...]
Abbey Guesthouse Celebrates 5 Year Anniversary!
What was only a dream for many, many years became a reality five years ago when we finally built a free standing guesthouse. This past week we realized that over 19,000 visitors had enjoyed the hospitality that this wonderful building provides. It is primarly staffed and managed by monks, the meals are homecooked and the [...]
