Today was a fun day spent with our local hosts, Lon and Paula. If you recall, Lon is the nephew of SSGT Irwin C Ellingson, and he is primarily the reason we are here. Lon loves to fish nearly as much as Marty, and he had promised to take him to Big Fish Lake, which certainly sounds promising, don't you think?
So Marty headed over to his house, bright and early, only to learn that there was an issue with the boat motor. But never fear.....Marty had a back up plan that involved Lon coming her to the B&B to fish with him from the dock on the Mississippi. (Great planning on my part finding this place, don't you think?)
Paula and I headed over to her house to chat while the men fished. Also, I was relieved to learn that the fish fry planned for dinner, did not involve fish caught today! Good thing too because absolutely zero fish were caught.
But there's always a try again tomorrow as the boat motor is fixed and ready for another try!
Any boating would have been short lived anyway, as storms came rolling through just around noontime, and the men would have been totally soaked had they continued. But instead, they joined us and we headed off on a "saintly" adventure that involved lunch in St. Joseph, across from St. Benedict Abbey before stopping at St. John's Monastery and Abbey and returning to St. Cloud. That's a lot of saints!
As the rain poured, we did a tour of the abbey which was certainly quite different than what I had expected. It is the first Catholic church that I've been in that was missing a Crucifix. A simple wooden cross hangs above the altar.
The interior is vast, simple, and with black wooden pews and white walls. Paula explained that the thought is that the people should bring in the color. Interesting concept.
The Blessed Sacrament was in a separate room, not in the Sanctuary, which, again, was a foreign concept to me as well.
Next door is the old abbey, which is now used as an entertainment hall. Note the stark contrast.
Lots of color and gold gilding. It reminded me of the many cathedrals that we've visited over the years.
Beautiful stained glass windows featured Benedictine nuns on one side
with monks on the other.
Personally, I enjoyed the fish motif.
From here we skirted in the rain to the Library to view the Saint John's Bible that has a special exhibition display on the ground floor.
I wasn't familiar with this, and if you are intrigued, there are many You Tube videos that you can explore to learn the detailed history.
But the short story involves a man named Donald Jackson who was the Senior Scribe to Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain.
He attended a calligraphy conference at St. John's University in 1980 and that inspired him to come up with the idea of creating a handwritten bible similar to those created 500 years ago, using ancient materials. This artistic creation would be made to celebrate the Third Millennium of Christ.
St. John's University was very interested and a formal agreement was made in 1998. The artwork was primarily drawn in Great Britain; the theological work was done at St John's Abbey here in Collegeville, MN.
A team of artists took ten years to complete the project which has viewable sections behind glass for us to admire.
The artists used quill pens from goose, turkey and swan feathers. Color came from soot-based inks. Enhancement was with gold silver and platinum leaf.
Just look at the perfect calligraphy highlighted in gold leaf on this side of the page.
Simply amazing.
There was this description card to help explain the technique used to achieve such beauty on these vellum pages.
The style is similar to this 15th century Book of Hours but obviously on a much grander scale.
I read that the many pages on display here are to be combined with the finished others that I do believe are displayed in other exhibits. That is to be done sometime in 2026, and considering that is where we are now, I'm not quite sure when that is expected to be completed. But it certainly was fascinating to read about this unusual project sponsored by university here.
From here, Lon drove us across campus (as it was pouring down rain), to a huge building that had been constructed in 2023 strictly for the purpose of making pipe organs. I'd never really given much thought to the building of a church organ, and had presumed that they were manufactured by companies.
But here at this Benedictine Abbey there is a woodworking shop designed specifically for the creation of these musical wood wind instruments and they offer tours on Tuesday and Thursday at 3:00. How nice of Paula and Lon to arrange for us to be able to explore this fascinating place!
Our young guide was quite enthusiastic and obviously loved being a tour guide. She began the tour by referencing a drawing on the wall that showed a technique from years past that this shop basically uses in present day.
In this very room, there was an oven for heating lead or tin ingots into fluid metal that is poured into a wooden box similar to the one in the drawing. The box is then pushed along a metal table to form a thin layer that is actually thicker at the bottom end where they start and gets thinner as they roll along.
The metal then hardens into these thin sheets that are pliable enough to easily form into a pipe.
There were some shorter one to view on the table.
Here you see scraps of the metal, which kind of looked like aluminum foil to me, but is actually lead.
The adjoining room featured an organ that they are presently constructing and you could see the intricate joint work.
Walking through the workroom there were woodworking tools everywhere.
In case you are wondering, there is a state of the art filtration system which keeps any saw dust and most particulates at bay. The collected dust is actually formed into round pellets that look similar to a hockey puck, and they can be used for fuel in fireplaces, or coated with wax and used as a fire starter.
Our tour continued upstairs, but before heading up, the guide showed us their "doorbell", which is a string on a bellows that feeds air into the three pipes on the left. The sound was similar to one heard from a steam ship. Quite entertaining.
This was at the top of the stairs but I have no idea what the significance is.
Here is an example of finished lead pipes made right here in this factory. They have been molded into pipes from those sheets I showed earlier. The middle pipe has been hammered with an intricate design, and there is gold gilding at the bottom of the pipes to add beauty.
A photo on the wall gives an idea of just what kind of creation is being constructed here.
This was a small organ that is model size.
When the organ is finally complete, which can vary from nearly two years for the 32 foot piece recently completed, to 7 months for the one presently being constructed, it is disassembled, shipped to the install location, then reassembled. The pipes then need to be "voiced" and it can take as long as 4 months to get the organ's sound complete.
The tour was quite a surprise, and a great way to spend a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Afterwards, we headed back to Lon and Paula's house where we enjoyed a fish fry by Lon with a green salad, fruit salad, and corn made by Paula. All freshly made.
When I mentioned to Lon that I had been concerned that the fish fry was going to depend on the catch of the day, he said. "Always have a back up plan!" Great thinking!
Until next time...
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