Abbot's Letter                  Abbey & Seminary Letter               Fr. Bernard's Letter

Fr. Bernard’s letter (June, 2001)

Dear Oblates:

The Abbey community is anticipating welcoming you to the oblate picnic on Sunday, July 8, 2001.  Mass will be celebrated in the Abbey Church at 10:30 that morning.  Following the Mass you and your family are invited to share a picnic lunch with other oblates and members of the monastic community as the Abbey's guests.  Food and beverages will be provided.  I am always grateful to the Abbot and the monastic community for this hospitality to our oblates and their families.  If you and your family are planning to come to the picnic, please be sure to contact Linda Sprauer at 503-845-3025 or write her a note at least 2 weeks prior to the picnic.  I hope your schedule will allow you to attend our picnic.

Recently Mount Angel Abbey hired Steve Beard as Capital Campaign Director.  I have invited Steve to be present at our July 8th picnic and give a brief presentation about the Abbey's plans for expansion and renovation.  His presentation will be strictly informational.

During the last several months there has been a great deal of activity on the hilltop.  In order to accommodate our proposed new building, the Fire Marshall ordered us to have a much larger supply of water in case of fire.  To satisfy this requirement, we have been busy installing pipelines to various places.  We need to be able to deliver 250 gallons of water per minute for 2 1/2 hours.  For this purpose, huge water tanks have been installed on the north side of the service road.

The small chapel in the cemetery, built before the turn of the century, has been greatly in need of repair.  It has now been remodeled and painted.  also, during the past few months all 14 Stations of Cross along the station path have been remodeled.  at night the interior of each station is illuminated.

The Aquinas Hall dining room was dedicated April 28.  This was Mount Angel Abbey's first building project since 1970, when construction of the renowned Alvar Aalto library was completed.  The dining room is a 4,000 square foot addition and provides twice as much space and increases the seating capacity to 300.  Other features include a large stone fireplace and a slated wood ceiling.  It faces north and on a clear day it has a splendid view of Mount Hood and the cascade Mountains.

The next step in the construction process is remodeling Aquinas Hall.  Renovation is set to begin this month and will be completed for student occupancy in September 2002.  The Mount Angel Chapter has given approval in principal for a Bell Tower project, including approval to draw up initial plans.  This will involve obtaining site tests, contracting with an architect for design work, determining bell configuration and other related expenses.  The Chapter has also given approval in principal for an assisted living-infirmary project, including approval to draw up initial plans for design.

The abbey is making plans for the health care of the aging monks.  An assessment of health care at Mount Angel Abbey is being provided by Providence Health Care.  The health care team is working on a plan to take care of the health needs of the monks, particularly the aging.  They are completing a health risk appraisal that will provide them with information regarding the specific health needs of the monks.  From the results they will put together a plan for ongoing support of aging monks.  The Providence staff will help the community review possibilities of relocating the infirmary and put together a plan to accomplish this relocation.

The Carmelites from California have leased a small piece of land from the abbey on which they are making plans to build a house of study for the Carmelite seminarians.  Their seminarians were attending the University of California at Berkeley, but decided that the course of study at Mount Angel Seminary was more in line with their particular needs of preparing for the priesthood.  At the present time, they have six men studying at Mount Angel seminary and next year there will be an additional six.  we are eager and happy to welcome this fine group of religious.

At the present time, Mount angel Seminary is the largest seminary in the west.  The number of students it serves has been steadily increasing during the past ten years.  Currently the seminary is filled to capacity with 179 men studying for the priesthood and 44 lay and religious students.  The seminary serves 26 dioceses and eight religious communities.

Mount Angel Seminary is a graduate school of theology and a college of liberal arts in the Benedictine tradition, whose primary purpose is the education and formation of men for the Roman Catholic priesthood.  For over 100 years, Mount Angel Seminary has served the needs of the dioceses and religious communities throughout the United states, Canada and the nations of the pacific.  The seminary is committed to academic excellence, to holistic formation and to providing a solid foundation for growth in the spiritual life.  Mount Angel Seminary also admits a limited number of qualified lay people  who are interested in pursuing theological education.

Every year Mount Angel Abbey, with the help of monks and an outstanding lay committee, host a summer Conference.  This year the Summer Conference will be held July 15-20, 2001 with the theme; Putting on Christ: The Moral Life as Response to God's Gracious Love.  The presenter for the conference will be Rev. Kevin O'Neill, a Redemptorist priest and associate professor of moral theology at the Washington Theological Union.  In 1983 Mount Angel Abbey Retreat House sponsored the first summer conference to provide an opportunity for clergy, religious and lay people to come together and explore their roles in the church community.  Every summer since then participants have gathered to broaden and deepen their faith.

Each year the conference explores a different aspect of building the Church.  For one week participants create a community through studying, sharing meals, praying and playing together.  Classes are planned to complement the conference them and cover a broad range of subjects such as prayer, lay issues, theology, scripture, music and spirituality.  In addition, the conference addresses many of the questions faced in daily life and offers the opportunity to engage in reflective dialog with others in the church, resulting in renewal and insight for all.  for further information on the summer conference write:  Barbara and Gordon Bollinger, 416 NW 12th, Corvallis, OR 97330 or call 541-753-2371.

On May 15, 2001, there was a World Peace Conference held in Portland OR.  Five recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize came to Portland State University to speak about world peace.  Abbot Joseph wood, OSB also spoke on the issue and the following is an excerpt from his talk:

Peace is often described as freedom from war, or as an absence of hostilities between nations, or freedom from dissension.  This makes peace sound like an experience or state present or not in accordance with extrinsic things. Real peace has more to do with what is going on within an individual person.  In this understanding, peace can be described as the tranquility of order.

I am writing as a Benedictine monk and we have a traditional value of what we call PAX or Peace, with PAX BENEDCITINA.  This is the order and calmness that exists within individual person when they are in tune with both the spiritual and material reality.  It is an experience of inner balance in which personal integrity and the integrity of others is valued and recognized and in which one is in tune with God, humankind, creatures and the world.  It is interesting, early Christian monasticism, the desert monks thought of a perfect symbol of peace - establishing harmony with wild animals that were marauding their gardens.  an Irish monk in Switzerland, St. Gall, established a good relationship with a bear.  This is reminiscent of a famous passage of Isaiah 11: "Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the young lion shall browse together."

It seems that St. Benedict's most basic requirement for peace was the tranquility of the order, through the following of the laws of nature: for example, getting enough rest, eating properly, not drinking too much, avoiding extremes, and taking care of those who are sick.  Also in Benedictinism there needs to be a harmony between being, thought, word and action.  Also Benedict insists on silence and orderliness.  This kind of an atmosphere promotes inner peace.  If one wants peace, one must avoid excessive worry, and excessive needs and one must have a certain openness and flexibility, and freedom from envy.  It is good to be basically content with life as one finds it.  This is only possible by an ability to control our desires and possessing and evenness of character and by attempting to achieve unity with God.  But even if one has these desirable factors of development in one's identity, peace on this earth is only partial and fragile.  Only in the next life do we find perfect peace.

But it is not without reason that many people, especially in our modern, busy, noisy world come for visits to monasteries and find an environment where peace can be more easily experienced, felt, worked for, and taken in, in a milieu of silence and beauty.

In closing, let me clarify that it is our policy that oblates may attend one retreat a year as an overnight and may sign up to be a day participant in as many retreats as they wish.  If an oblate wants to sign up for more than one overnight retreat, they may do so and Linda will put them on a waiting list.  They will be called by the number they are on the list.  An oblate may always call a few days prior to a retreat to see if there is space.  The monastic living retreat does not count in this process.  It is first sign up, first served.

Blessings in St. Benedict,

Fr. Bernard, OSB

Would you like to be a SECRET ANGEL to one of the students at Mount Angel Seminary? To pray for them, send a note of encouragement, remember them on Holy Days?  Be a special anonymous secret angel to prayerfully support them in their studies?

If you would like to be a secret angel for one of the students of Mount Angel Seminary, just fill in your name and address on the form below or call Nikki at Fr. Bernard's office (503-845-3225, mornings).  You will receive the name and address of a student along with other helpful information.  You will be serving as a secret angel from August 27, 2001-May 11, 2002 and will be able to continue or end your service after that time.