Mt Angel Abbey

I have always wanted to see the Abbey over the yrs and didn't know that you could take a tour. So going to the Oktoberfest was a plus to be able to go here, they have a museum also at the Abbey that i will share later on. I am not sure what the museum has to do with the Abbey.
Anyway we went to see the Museum to start with, but then when we got there and seen that, there was a bunch of people that was on a bus tour and Fr. Edmund Smith, O.S.B., Director of the Retreat House

Was doing a tour of the grounds, i am not sure if we were suppose to be there or not, but no one said we couldn't so we got a tour of the grounds with him telling us about the place, he has been there i think he said since 1953.

The Monastary

Mount Angel Abbey is a community of Benedictine Monks founded in 1882 from the Abbey of Engelberg in Switzerland. We maintain a monastic tradition that has been a vital part of the Roman Catholic Church for more than 1500 years. Responding to God's call to holiness and preferring nothing whatever to Christ, we dedicate ourselves, under a Rule and an abbot to a life of prayer and work. We strive to support one another in community, to serve God, the Church, and the larger society. We do this as we celebrate the Holy Eucharist together, pray the Liturgy of the Hours five times daily in choir, and devote ourselves to reading and silence.

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Mt Angel Seminary

Five years after establishing their community, the Monks of Mount Angel Abbey opened Mount Angel College. Two years later, Archbishop William Gross of Oregon City asked them to attach a seminary to the College. Over the years, with the increasing costs and complexity of school operations, the College and its associated high school have closed. The Seminary, however, has maintained continuous operation. Today it is home to 114 seminarians from approximately 30 dioceses, plus 40 candidates for priestly formation from religious orders. Counting 25 lay students working toward advanced degrees in theology, the Seminary maintains a total enrollment of just under 200.

The library is one of Mount Angel Abbey's principal works of Christian service. It has been made possible by the gifts of many people; its mission is to serve all who wish to use its resources.

The library strives to serve the scholarly and recreational needs of its patrons for reading, listening and visual material in many areas of human culture, especially theology, language and literature, philosophy and the arts, as well as social science and natural history.





To be continued: