The ancient tradition of the Liturgy of the Hours, practiced for the past 152 years by the monks of St. Benedict’s Abbey, could be named one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas Customs later this fall.

The Kansas Sampler Foundation announced Sept. 10 that that Abbey’s practice of reciting and chanting the Psalms four times each day for the past 15 decades is one of 24 finalists for the honor.

The finalists were chosen from a pool of some 60 public nominations. St. Benedict’s Abbey’s was the oldest custom in the contest.

The winners will be chosen by popular vote. Votes can be entered either online or  by paper ballot. To read more about the entries and to vote, go to kansassampler.org/8wonders.  Winners will be announced by Oct. 24. Each e-mail address may vote three times.

If you are unable to vote online, mail or fax to the Kansas Sampler Foundation for a paper ballot, 978 Arapaho Road, Inman, KS  67546. Fax: 620.585.2217

Or contact St. Benedict’s Abbey: 913.360.7897. Mail: 1020 N. 2nd Street, Atchison, KS 66002
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The following homily was delivered by Father Denis Meade on Sept. 26 at the dedication Mass of the Legacy Apartments named for Abbot Innocent Wolf at Benedictine College.

Today our mass is shifted in order to allow us to participate in the dedication of the complex of Legacy Hall.  One portion of that is dedicated to Abbot Innocent and so I think it is fitting that we renew our remembrance of him as first abbot of our community and give thanks for the legacy he bequeathed to us.  With the postulants we are reading portions of Kansas Monks by Fr. Peter  Beckman.  The word portrait painted by Fr. Peter is an excellent one.  He was quite young when he became abbot—33 years, but indeed practically everybody in the American Benedictines were young then, too.  He cried when he left St. Vincent to take up his role here, but he pitched in without delay.  Fr. Peter writes, “Abbot Innocent’s first concern in Kansas was not the debt, the College, the missions, but the community.”   At first he was everything to everybody, monks and students alike.  One day he did a little time and motion study on himself.  He noted that one morning he gave out socks to the monks as procurator, dosed sickly students as infirmarian, agreed that putting straw under the carpet in the sanctuary would make it warmer, persuaded a student who had tethered his horse to the picket fence to move it to a hitching post so that the horse would not kick the fence to pieces and a bunch of other things.

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Help St. Benedict’s Abbey celebrate the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Sunday, October 4.

Bring your pets to the north abbey parking lot to be blessed. Refreshments will be served for people and pets alike!

Stories about St. Francis of Assisi

The Prayer of St. Francis performed by Denis Sorenson

Stella Robbins, an oblate of St. Benedict’s Abbey and a self-proclaimed pilgrim, will begin displaying her paintings in the Abbey Art Gallery this Sunday, Sept. 27, following the Abbey’s 10 a.m. Mass. The public is invited to the free viewing.

Robbins, a Kansas native who hails from Topeka and is a member of The Collective Gallery there, has journeyed to and shown her work in Europe, where her husband taught in an Army high school, Nebraska, North Carolina, California, Vermont, and the Carolinas before settling back in her native state.

A highlight of her travels was embarking on the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile pilgrimage in Spain that has been traversed for more than 1,000 years.

“My works, in general, are eclectic, because, like any pilgrim, I’ve been on the road much of my life,” she says. “I am one who walks. Along the way I got a bachelor of fine arts degree, but that was only because I managed to stay on one place long enough.”

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The following homily was delivered on the 25th Sunday, 2009 by Abbot Barnabas at St. Benedict’s Church in Atchison.

“Whoever receives one child such as this, receive me; and whoever receives me, receives not me, but the One who sent me.”

“He sat down and called the Eleven, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

The “he” in the above revised quote from the Gospel of Mark is the freshman football coach at Maryville, Missouri high school. The eleven were the players of his team that were being asked to do something unusual in a football game by the coach of the Benton high school freshman team.

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This homily was delivered by Father Meinrad Miller on August 23, 2009, the Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time at the Abbey-Student Mass.

On behalf of Abbot Barnabas and all of the monks of the Abbey, I welcome you to this celebration of the Mass. We certainly hope that you always welcome here in the Abbey Church, to join the monks for Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, for the Saturday evening Eucharistic Holy Hour, for student liturgies held here. Also feel free to simply stop by for private prayer.

In today’s first reading, we see the end of an era for Israel. In this last chapter of the Book of Joshua we see that Joshua who had been chosen by God to replace Moses, the greatest prophet Israel ever knew, is himself preparing to die. But first he wants to make sure that the people heed the centrality of his message.

Perhaps realizing that modern people have a short attention span, a large chunk of the passage from Joshua 24 is skipped in the lectionary. We go from verse 2 to verse 15. In the missing 12 verses is a beautiful recounting of salvation history. How God has led Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and especially Moses and Aaron. And now, as he prepares to die, Joshua asks the people to affirm whether they will follow the Lord. The people responded with one voice: Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods. For it was the LORD, our God, who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of a state of slavery.
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The St. Joseph News press featured a story today about the visit of Papal Nuncio Pietro Sambi to St. Benedict’s Abbey.

The Archbishop celebrated the opening college mass in the Abbey Church and spoke at the convocation of the college in the Ralph Nolan Gymnasium immediately after mass.

See the story here

Photos of the event soon to come!

Six new candle stands will be used on the main altar of the Abbey Church, September 1, for the opening of school Mass with the principal celebrant being Archbishop Pietro Sambi.

Dennis McCarthy, long time art professor at Benedictine College, designed candlesticks for the Abbey Church in 1957. The principal design then was a
short candle stand that would rest on the altar. We stopped using these and began using the older design, the present six metal stands that sit on the
steps of the high altar.

When we offered in our Capital Campaign the fabrication of high altar candlesticks, Skip McCarthy offered to make that donation. We are most
appreciative to her for her generous contribution. We used metal portions of the 1957 candle stands, and added the white oak (golden oak stain) as the
center piece.

PEP Industries of Chicago did the frabrication of the 1957 candle stands and the 2009 candle stands.

from Benedictine.edu

Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, will visit Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. on Tuesday, September 1, 2009.  He will concelebrate Mass with Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas at St. Benedict’s Abbey Church at 9:30 a.m.  Following Mass, Archbishop Sambi will deliver the keynote address, “Celebrating 25 Years of Formal Diplomatic Relations between the United States and the Vatican,” during the school’s opening convocation at 11 a.m. in the Ralph Nolan Gymnasium. The event is free and open to the public.

The Archbishop is the Holy See’s ambassador to the United States and is highly influential in the Vatican’s appointment of bishops within the United States.  He serves as the representative of the Pope to both the Catholic Church in the United States and to the nation’s civil government.  Bishops from Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma have been invited to attend as have priests from throughout Kansas and Missouri.
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The following homily was delivered by Abbot Barnabas Senecal at Mount St. Scholastica on August 23rd, 2009.

On Friday evening, I entered the Haverty Center where a reception was being held for Colonel James Tennant and Lt. Col. Eric Walker. Both are stationed at Ft. Leavenworth and both had just been promoted in military rank in a late afternoon ceremony on campus. Jim Tennant is an alumnus of Benedictine College.

A gentleman who greeted me at the reception was Colonel Steve Banach who proceeded to tell me something of his background. He said, “Being on this campus, in a Catholic school setting, reminds me of my own family history. I was in the 3rd grade at St. Mary’s and my twin brothers were in the 2nd grade. We entered this room where the Mother Superior was seated at a table ahead of us, and our mother was seated to the side, in tears. The Superior said to we three young men, “You will not return to school here next fall!”  “We were tough kids, rowdy, wore peculiar clothes, and just didn’t conform.”
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