Saturday, July 17, 2010

St. Meinrad sandstone. A Benedictine oblate blog

St. Leo Abbey

[Click picture to enlarge, then click on enlarged picture]


Recently I found Bryan Sherwood's blog on which he writes about liturgy, monasticism, and Benedictine spirituality. He's a Benedictine oblate.

He is also a good photographer. Today I saw he had posted a picture of St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana, USA. Look at the entrance structures in the picture of St. Meinrad. What pretty yellow sandstone. It sure looks familiar. Alert blog readers will spot that St. Leo Abbey has the same St. Meinrad-quarried sandstone. St. Leo's yellow sandstone came from St. Meinrad.

In the 1940s when the St. Leo Abbey was building its Church of the Holy Cross, St. Meinrad trucked its sandstone down to Florida and in return, St. Leo Abbey sent back orange juice from its groves.

Bryan Sherwood's picture is the best example of the same stone used at St. Meinrad. Thanks!

2 comments:

  1. I didn't know all of this! Thanks.

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  2. I can imagine the scene.  A truck is leaving St. Meinrad's filled with that sandstone. As it passes the entrance markers, one of the monks says, "Wouldn't some of that stone look good on these bare entrance columns? Let's drop off a couple of the smaller pieces and then cover these columns with them when we get back from Florida."

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