Nature, faith and gathering in community.
Those are three bedrocks of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University experience, and nowhere were they each better illustrated than Sunday night when almost 400 students, faculty and staff assembled to celebrate Mass outdoors at SJU – on ice 50 feet off the beach on Lake Sagatagan.
SJU Campus Ministry organized the Ice Mass, an event also held in both 2021 and ’22. Cold weather prevented it from occurring in 2023, then unseasonably warmer temperatures made it impossible to hold a year ago.
But Sunday’s weather – with temperatures in the high 30s, combined with ice still over 20 inches thick from the recent sub-zero cold snap – proved just the right combination.
“To be on the lake worshipping with all these people in a place that holds such special meaning is truly iconic,” said Margaret Nuzzolese Conway, the executive director of SJU Campus Ministry. “We’re literally standing on the water we swim and canoe in, looking off at the (Stella Maris) chapel and the trails we hike around. It’s very profound.
“The setting is very unique to these campuses, but so are the Benedictine values and climate that make an event like this possible. It’s not just an ‘only in Minnesota’ experience. It’s an ‘only in Collegeville’ experience.”
Conway said it took a crew of around 50 volunteers, staff and colleagues to make the event happen. Students constructed an altar made of snow and ice that also featured luminaries and tiki torches.
“As a community, we have a lot of traditions here,” said CSB senior Madeline Lenius, a campus ministry student coordinator who helped organize Sunday’s event. “We’re a sentimental bunch in a way.
“Our natural spaces are a big part of that, and this is a way to really highlight them. I love swimming in Lake Sag, but we don’t get to do that most of the school year. So it’s nice to be able to use that space in different ways.”
“We haven’t been able to do this the past couple of years, so for those of us who are seniors, it was nice to be able to take part in it again,” she continued. “It’s a really special way to start and close our time here.”
Among those in attendance Sunday were CSB and SJU President Brian J. Bruess and his wife, CSB and SJU Scholar-in-Residence Carol Bruess; CSB and SJU provost Richard Ice; and faculty, students and staff from CSB and SJU, the Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary and Saint John’s Preparatory School; and members of the Saint John’s Abbey.
SJU chaplain Fr. Nick Kleespie, OSB, presided over the Mass, stressing the importance of nonviolence in today’s society, and the ways members of the CSB and SJU campus community are called upon to put their values into action.
Both the message and the idyllic setting hit home for SJU first-year student Raphael Ignacio, who is also part of SJU Campus Ministry.
“For me the impact of (the Mass) was community,” he said.
“I think what Fr. Nick said (about) experiencing all of God’s creation by having Mass outside allowed me to see the beauty of what was happening around me. The wind, the beauty of the altar, seeing Stella Maris and seeing everyone (there) made Ice Mass a beautiful experience.”
Those in attendance also prayed for the health of Pope Francis, whom the Vatican said is in critical condition with a complex lung infection and other complications.
“His papacy has been characterized by young people encountering Christ, so I was so glad we could gather and pray for him,” Conway said. “He’s spoken so often about how Christ is alive in young people, and an event like this truly demonstrates that.”
Earlier this month, around 300 students, faculty, staff and members of the Central Minnesota community braved sub-zero temperatures to take part in a series of illuminated walks across Lake Sagatagan to the Stella Maris Chapel.
The free walks were held Feb. 13, 14 and 15. The first and third walks were open to everyone, while the second was reserved for current students only.
John Geissler, the Saint John’s Abbey land manager and Outdoor U director, said around 200 people attended the Saturday walk alone. This marked the fourth time a luminary walk has been held in the Abbey Arboretum dating back to the first such walk in 2020.
“It’s a way to promote outdoor recreation and provide an opportunity for spiritual renewal,” he said. “We have such amazing surroundings here, and to be able to spend a beautiful night walking quietly across a frozen lake, or enjoying it with a few friends, is such a unique thing to Minnesota.”
