blue cloud abbey

Vol. 20 No. 3                                                         Marvin SD 57251                                                                Autumn 2009

  Spring and summer were pleasant rewards for having endured the harsh winter we had in these parts. Again in the spring school children liked coming to the abbey on field trips which included a tour of the American Indian Culture Center and rolling down the hill in front of the church.

   I recall playing King of the Castle (or King of the Hill) when I was a kid. We climbed a snowbank and tried capturing it from the king who was at the top. Sovereignty was claimed by the boy who was able to

dethrone the king by pushing him down the side of the mound.

   It has occurred to me that I never see boys playing this game nowadays. In fact, I seldom see children doing anything outdoors in the wintertime. Someone explained to me that they are all indoors playing their computer games. Nor do I see them playing marbles, an outdoor game that used to begin at recess time as soon as the snow was off the ground.

   I’m pleased that we monks can offer young people such a simple pleasure as rolling down a hill. A small hill at that!

           Bro. René's last quilt.

   This past year there were three quilting bees held at the abbey. One group of quilter came twice, last fall and in the winter, and another in the spring. Darlene Jaeger is shown exhibiting a quilt that was not completed before Brother Rene Wilson died four years ago. An oblate of our community, Darlene organized the first gathering of quilters at Blue Cloud Abbey and she is the one who finished Brother Rene’s quilt, sewing together the 5000 pieces. Brother Rene had taken up quilting late in life. I’ve always explained that this is what a monk does whenever there isn’t anything worthwhile watching on TV. Brother Rene excelled in his craft and one year he was awarded two first prizes at a quilt show in this area.

Out in the Garden and in the Yard                                                                            

   Spring planting was on time and good rains provided a favorable growing season. Although the garden was smaller this year, Brother Chris Wesely successfully satisfied our craving for fresh vegetables. Deer and groundhogs were also satisfied.

   The local weekly newspaper featured an article this summer about Blue Cloud Abbey’s groundskeeper and referred to him as our “Yard Boy.” On his next birthday, the yard boy will be ninety years old. Abbot Alan Berndt, who was our superior from 1970 until 1986, mows the lawn, tends to the orchard, and chops the wood for our fireplace. Not only does he provide the logs, he also lights the fires whenever the community is gathered around the fireplace in winter. Last summer Abbot Alan had the additional task of cleaning out the windbreaks after the disastrous windstorm at the end of July

Camp Mahpiyato

   In the ravines on the other side of the pasture is Camp Mahpiyato. Mahpiyato is the Dakota word for Blue Cloud. Various groups use the campsite. In recent years, families have liked gathering at the camp for either a day or longer. Shown above is part of the Heffernan family. The great grandparents of the younger Heffernans are buried in our cemetery. John and Joan Heffernan once owned our property, but were living in the town of Marvin when the abbey was founded. They became our first oblates, taking the names Benedict and Scholastica.

   Among other campers this year were fathers and sons, and members of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-anon and their families.

   The two hermitages were occupied a good part of the summer by clergy and lay people on retreat, and the retreat center was occupied all though the season. 

   Brother Paul and the associates who were here over the summer attended the annual 4th of July Powwow on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation. A busload of senior citizens from the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota visited us and enjoyed recalling the time when our monks were assigned to their parishes at St. Michael and Fort Totten. 

     At the end of summer, the Oblates of St. Benedict returned to join us in singing vespers and sharing the evening meal followed by a conference. The monthly oblate meetings were cancelled four times the past winter because of inclement weather.

   Amelia Cordell and Christina Thaden, high school students who live in Marvin, come to our assistance during the summer months. They wash the dishes at noon. Now they are back in school and we miss them. Christina will graduate in the spring. It’s doubtful that she’ll be washing dishes here next summer.

Amelia & Christina

   Abbot Denis Quinkert has begun meeting with the community every Thursday morning to discuss community matters or to study the Holy Rule and more recently we’ve begun revising our customary.

   We never got around to building a chapter house or reserving a room for community meetings. We’ve met in various places throughout the building. The most recent location was the conference room in the retreat wing. We now have a permanent place for chapter meetings. Part of the community reading room has been designed for this purpose. Twelve chairs are required at present. The number may increase or decrease according to circumstances.

As often as anything important is to be done in the monastery, the abbot shall call the whole community together and himself explain what the business is and after hearing the advice of the brothers, let him ponder it and follow what he judges the wiser course.

                    Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 3

 OUR LADY OF EINSIEDELN

   Although we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Snow on August 5th because Blue Cloud Abbey is founded under her patronage, we also observe the Feast of Our Lady of Einsiedeln on July 16th. St. Meinrad’s Archabbey, our motherhouse in Indiana, was founded from Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland. A South Dakota couple toured Switzerland a while back and Einsiedeln Abbey was on the itinerary. Much to their surprise they learned that this Swiss Baroque abbey had a relationship with the one in South Dakota where they made an annual retreat. St. Meinrad’s Archabbey was founded from Einsiedeln in 1854. Blue Cloud Abbey was founded by St. Meinrad’s in 1950. The Swiss monastery is our grandmother. It is built over the grave of St. Meinrad who was martyred in 861. Sooner or later people who come to Blue Cloud hear us refer to St. Meinrad (the saint and/or the place). This is a name that is usually unfamiliar to them. Someone from these parts was planning a trip through southern Indiana and told me he wanted to stop at “St. Menards.” That is a familiar name for people around here. All of the larger towns in Dakota have a Menards store selling building materials, hardware, plumbing and electrical supplies.

   The monasteries in this country that were begotten by St. Meinrad’s Archabbey all have a statue of Our Lady of Einsiedeln. The Madonna was carved in the 15th century and has turned black over the years because of the smoke from all the candles that pilgrims have lighted in her presence.

    Over twenty years ago, Brother Sebastian Goldade and I accompanied a group of our oblates on a pilgrimage to Switzerland and to the sites associated with St. Benedict in Italy. After a night flight, we arrived in Zurich early in the morning. From there we were bused to a hotel in Einsiedeln. Although travel weary and tired, we went immediately to the abbey and viewed a film being shown to English-speaking people. Most of our group fell asleep. Virgil, in his nineties and the oldest of the Blue Cloud pilgrims, woke up momentarily when an image of Our Lady of Einsiedeln appeared on the screen. “Oh, there’s the Infant of Prague,” he said in a loud voice and went back to sleep.

   Martin Marty, the first abbot of St. Meinrad’s Archabbey came from Einsiedeln. He pioneered the Benedictines’ work among Indian people in Dakota—the apostolate we inherited with our founding. Marty became the Vicar Apostolic of Dakota Territory and the first Bishop of Sioux Falls.

The three communities of Benedictine sisters in South Dakota have their European origins in Switzerland. Near our hotel in Einsiedeln was the building where many Swiss women were prepared for departure to Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton. They came over for many years even after the monastery had been firmly established. Only one of those Swiss sisters is still living. Those who were among the members of our neighboring community, Mother of God Monastery in Watertown, are all gone now. How well I remember Sister Mark, the last of the yodelers. This charming little Swiss lady yodeled well into old age.

   As we left Switzerland on our breathtaking drive through the Alps, the homeland of so many Benedictine men and women who came to this country as founders and even afterwards, it became apparent to me what a great sacrifice they had all made in abandoning such natural beauty.

                                          Brother Benet Tvedten, OSB