Br. Paul-Vincent's Vocation Diary
“Just returned from the lake…”
In Minnesota, (and Wisconsin for that matter!) this time of year you will often hear the words to the above title. Well, even though monks certainly do not have a personal lake cabin, we do as a community have a retreat in northern Minneosta for personal and group time away from Collegeville. Each year, as [...]
SJU Student Makes Gift to Abbey Retirement Fund
Jared Sherlock will be a senior at Saint John’s University this fall. He is a gifted young man and also a very talented stage magician. This past school year I had the pleasure of working with Jared and his fellow classmates as well as theatre staff from the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s [...]
Summer brings gardening…
I have heard that there is something that can be very therapeutic about gardening. I think I have learned this first hand within the past month. This summer one of the monastic associates asked if he could reclaim one of the many gardens on the property that had been neglected. (Actually, the monk that had [...]
Monastic Bee Keepers…
Two of the novices began keeping bees on campus again. Over the years the bee hives have “come and gone” and for a few years we were bottling honey for our own use. Two hives were begun again this spring with the novices being coached by monks who had kept them in the past. So [...]
Prep Summer Leadership Camp II
Br. John Hanson and I had the pleasure of taking the second summer Leadership campers on a tour of the Abbey Church today. Below is the picture of my group. We have so many guests for midday prayer that we had to put the campers in the lower stalls – thus the poor picture with [...]
Saint John’s Prep School Summer Leadership Camp begins!
It was a pleasure to host the first week of Summer Leadership Camp as sponsored by Saint John’s Preparatory School. This week’s camp was for the ladies and they were a delightful group to have visit the Abbey Church for a tour wrapping up with midday prayer with the monks and other guests. They are [...]
YTM on campus again this summer!
YTM (Youth in Theology and Ministry) is back on campus this summer. YTM is an excellent program for high school age young people and their counselors (who are in college or post grad) to allowing them to explore their Christian Catholic faith in a very deliberate and intense way. The program this summer is fashioned [...]
NCYC Students return to Saint John’s campus!
NCYC (National Catholic Youth Choir) has recently returned to campus for their two week summer program. I and a sister from the Monastic Community of Saint Benedict in Saint Joseph, joined the high school aged students for lunch and then spoke about vocations and answered questions. This was an exceptionally gifted group of young people that were a [...]
Saint Mary’s School, Melrose, MN!
I had the pleasure of hosting about 30 students from Saint Mary’s Catholic School in Melrose, Minnesota this morning. We toured the Great Hall and the Abbey Church. They went on to enjoy a presentation of the Saint John’s Bible and after lunch on campus will be doing a tour of the Arboretum.
Below are two [...]
Fr. Nickolas in Japan…
It is not unusual for the monastery to send Junior monks off to one of our dependant priories simply to broaden their appreciation one of our most foreign apostolates. In this case Fr. Nickolas Becker, OSB who has just been accepted for final vows is visiting our community in Fujimi, Japan. Here he is being greeted by [...]
