blue cloud abbey

VOL. 21 NO.1                                                    MARVIN SD 57251                                                             WINTER 2010                                                                              

Here we go again. The December blizzard lasted four and a half days, and left us buried in twenty inches of snow. No one from the outside attended the

Christmas day liturgy and only a few brave souls were with us on Christmas Eve. Several people had reservations for a stay over Christmas, but they soon cancelled when they saw what was coming. Only two people arrived before the storm.

Dakota Benedictines are adept at shoveling snow.

Here is a monk of yore at our former mission on the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota.

 Father Thomas Hillenbrand, our former abbot, arrived home from a sabbatical just in time to enjoy winter. He had been living and working at a monastery in Australia where it is now summer. Father Thomas likes cross-country skiing and was very pleased to see that we have the wherewith all in abundance for this winter sport.

   Two summers ago, Jose Folgueira visited us. Born in Cuba, he was six years old when his family moved to Spain. They were living in Puerto Rico when Jose graduated from high school. From there he moved to Miami. Felt called to monastic life, he liked our community but wondered if he could survive the Dakota winter. In order to put himself to the test, he came to the abbey for Christmas and was delayed in Minneapolis two days because of a blizzard. When he arrived at Blue Cloud, he thought the snow was beautiful. He was so enthralled by our winter that before returning to Miami, he wanted the experience of driving a snowmobile. A year later, Jose is a novice and has an opportunity to shovel the beautiful snow.

THE ANNUAL WORKSHOP FOR BENEDICTINE  JUNIORS

Blue Cloud Abbey is the only community of Benedictine men in the state of South Dakota. There are, however, three communities of Benedictine women. Every year a get-together is held for the Benedictines who are in formation. This past fall our community hosted the event. You will observe that not everyone shown above is a junior age wise.

   Some of these people are the formators. Formator is word being currently used to identify a person responsible for forming new religious. The titles of Novice Mistress and Novice Master seem archaic and even embarrassing nowadays. Sometimes the term “Director” is used—Director of Novices or Director of Juniors (those in temporary vows).

   The word junior certainly no longer has the same connotation that it had some years ago when most of us entered in our twenties or even at an earlier age. Nevertheless, we are all grateful that vocations have come to our communities and the maturity of the candidates is appreciated.

   The monastery hosting the annual workshop is responsible for the program. Father Michael Peterson, who forms our novices, dealt with his experiences in the East-West monastic exchange. He is a member of MID (Monastic Interfaith Dialog) and two years ago participated in a dialog with Buddhist monks.  

   Brother Benet Tvedten, who is in charge of the junior professed (of whom there is only one), presented a paper on the pioneer history of Benedictine men and women in this country.

   So, shown above (l.r.) are the formators and their charges beginning with the bottom row: Sister Doris

Oberembt, Sacred Heart Monastery, Yankton, Sister Jill Young, a junior professed member of the Yankton community, Sister Emily Meisel, Sister Rose Palm, formators at Mother of God Monastery, Watertown. Second row: Sister Julie Peak, a junior professed of Yankton, Novice Nancy Zemcuznikov, Novice Terri Hoffman, both of Watertown, and Sister Eileen Brick, their novice formator. Top row: Novice Jose Folgueira, Brother Bob Green, junior professed, Father Michael Peterson, Sister Kim Englehart, junior professed of Mother of God Monastery and Brother Benet Tvedten. Two other junior sisters were unable to attend, one from Sacred Heart Monastery and the other from Mother of God Monastery.

   St. Martin’s Monastery in Rapid City was not represented because there is no one in formation there at the present time.

   Some readers may be confused by the title of monastery applied to a community of women. Ordinarily this is the case with strictly cloistered communities of nuns. Several years ago Benedictine women began referring to their houses as monasteries. They are certainly entitled to do this. Like those of us who call ourselves monks, our Benedictine sisters make vows to live under the same monastic Rule of St. Benedict that we do.    

   We invite men to come look us over, to live with us for a time. The advertisement above states “two weeks up to two months.” Of course we are hoping this may eventually lead to permanent residency.

   Note the age span in the invitation—nineteen to fifty. In 1877 an American Benedictine abbot inserted an advertisement for vocations in newspapers indicating he was looking for candidates who had not have given their “best years to the world and are almost as old as Methuselah.” He said they should not be over thirty years old. “Or at least not over thirty-five years of age.” Nowadays a few vocations in their thirties would greatly reduce our average age. At present there are only three finally professed members of this community who are not on Medicare. From the beginning of our monastery, we have always accepted older men. Our first abbot was of the opinion that if it looked as if we could get fifteen years of work out of the man, he should be admitted.

   With the coming of Vatican II, religious were asked to renew their orders in the spirit of the founder. Along with this renewal, we were encouraged to discard or change customs that were no longer compatible with the age in which we were living. How was this renewal possible for men and women who made vows to live according to the Rule

of St. Benedict, a sixth century document. Of course we were not observing everything in the Rule as it was written. We were living in the spirit of the Rule. Benedict, in his day, said an abbot should know what to hold onto from the past, but he should also be willing to introduce what is new.

   At coffee break one afternoon, some of us were recalling customs that no longer existed here. We used to eat breakfast during Lent kneeling on the floor. The abbot, however, sat on a chair. Confessing certain faults to a superior, we could be given a penance that required us to kneel in the middle of the refectory floor at the beginning of a meal with our arms outstretched. Table waiters and the table reader ended their week of service by prostrating on the refectory floor. Nowadays a good number of us would need assistance getting up from the floor.

   Upon entering the novitiate and again when making final vows, one was given a haircut called the corona. A belt was placed around the head and all the hair was shaved off above and below the belt, leaving a crown around the head. One of the monks told our present abbot, “You’ve been given the ugliest corona I’ve ever seen.”

   Although most of us had alarm clocks in our cells, it was the responsibility of a novice to go through the monastery every morning to wake the monks for prayer. He knocked on each door with a mallet until the response “Deo gratias” was given. Once a junior novice, who was assigned as the weekly waker for the first time, was told by a senior novice that when he came to the abbot’s room, he had to knock on the door then kneel down and pray the Confiteor out loud in Latin. After several days of this, the abbot went to the novice master and asked, “Why is that novice praying the Confiteor outside my room every morning?”

   In those times past, the superior read all of our incoming mail as well as those letters we were sending. Deodorant and shampoo were forbidden and the only choices of soap we had were Ivory or Lava.

   All of these customs and regulations are no longer in effect. Benedictine sisters also have their recollections of obsolete customs and practices. We who have been around a long time like recalling them, but newer members of our communities may not appreciate our talking about these things. They may be assured that we are by no means suggesting that such practices be restored.

   What then are the essentials of St. Benedict’s Rule? It reminds us—the monastics and the oblates affiliated with our communities—that the fulfillment of our Christian vocation comes from living with other people. We belong to a family, a town, a neighborhood. We show good zeal in our relationships, commitments, and duties. We are aware of the poor among us and the sick. We have concern for the young and the elderly, and we strive for acceptance of those people who are different from us. Benedict says it is all right to live comfortably, securely as long as we have worked for what we have and are not selfish or wasteful with what we own. He urges us to be stable, to put order in our lives. Pray to God every day. Read your Bible frequently. Keep life simple—“nothing harsh or burdensome,” he says. Be at peace. We bear one another’s “weaknesses whether of body or behavior.” Benedict understands that no community, no family is perfect. We often have to ask forgiveness. We forgive as we have been forgiven. All of this is of the essence of Benedictinism.

   Benedict says the abbot should know when to be strict and when to be lenient. For Benedict obedience is necessary but it is not blind. We have renewed our lives according to the spirit of St. Benedict and we have adapted to the times, as Benedict himself had done in his own time.

Abbot Denis and the Bishop

This past fall Abbot Denis Quinkert conducted a visitation of Resurrection Priory, our foundation in Guatemala. The majority of monks are now Guatemalan. A translator assisted the abbot in interviewing the monks. Brother Roberto Hebert is from Louisiana and is a founding member of the first Benedictine abbey in Guatemala. Abadia de Jesucristo Crucificado was founded in 1959 by St. Joseph’s Abbey, St. Benedict, Louisiana.

   Abbot Denis is shown here speaking with the Bishop of Alta Verapaz in whose diocese our monastery is located. No translator was required. The bishop, as a teenager, attended high school in Iowa.

   Every November we have someone address the community on what we call Education Day. (We are

educated at least one day out of the year). This past year Pastor Mark Strobel of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Fargo, North Dakota dealt with the subject “St. Benedict and Martin Luther: Partners in Spiritual Formation.” Both religious leaders emphasized stability, hospitality, scripture reading and conversion.

   Pastor Mark has been an oblate of our community since 1992. He is also familiar with the community at St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota. He attended graduate school there and earned a master’s degree in liturgy. He is one of several Protestant clergy who are Oblates of Blue Cloud Abbey. In fact, he and another ELCA pastor made their oblations on the same day with their wives playing the pipe organ at the ceremony, one the processional and the other the recessional.

Pastor Mark Strobel

BISHOP JOHN TARRANT’S MITRE

The Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota recently installed a new bishop at Calvary Cathedral in Sioux Falls. His mitre and a cope were made for the ordination by Brother Sebastian Goldade in our Vesture Department.

Brother Benet Tvedten, O.S.B.