By Frank Rajkowski
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 Feb. 23 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 2022. 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, 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 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. “Our natural spaces are a big part of that, and this is a way to 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.
“For those of us who are seniors, it was nice to be able to take part in it again,” Lenius continued. “It’s a special way to start and close our time here.”
SJU chaplain Benedictine Father Nick Kleespie 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,” Ignacio said. “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, 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.