Vestments

The Ecclesiastical Art Needlework Department of St. Benedict's Convent, St. Joseph, Minnesota, had its roots in St. Walburg Convent in Eichstatt, Bavaria. Among the first Benedictine Sisters who came to St. Cloud, Minne¬sota in 1857 was Sister Willibalda Scherbauer. It was she who brought Benedictine art to the New World, who taught the first class in art needlework and who taught the young members in the new community to do fine embroidery. The needlework department began in a twelve-foot square attic room of the little frame building which served as the first convent in St. Joseph. In the beginning the Sisters made vestments for their little chapel and some small articles for missionaries. For a number of years the main work was the embroidering of banners and regalia for different societies. The making of artificial flowers and the lining of tabernacles also belonged to this department. By 1910 St. Benedict's Convent had become the center for liturgical apparel in central Minnesota. The department was often referred to as the Vestment Department. By 1927 twenty Sisters were regularly employed at vestment work. Each Sister was assigned a specific task in the well-defined process that produced a set of vestments. The process included the designing of patterns, drawing the design on stamping paper, perforating the pattern, putting the fabric on the frame and stamping it with blue or white paste to transfer the design, planning the color scheme, hand or machine embroidering the design, cutting and finally sewing the vestment. The work of making vestments and altar linens also included hemstitching, Italian drawn-work, cutwork and lacemaking-¬filet, crocheting and tatting. After Vatican Council II the trend in liturgical vestments shifted to a non-ornamental style and commercial suppliers could meet the demand for simple vestments quickly and inexpensively. In 1968, after 100 years of supplying vestments according to the mind and spirit of the Catholic Church, the sisters realized that the once-flourishing monastic industry had served its purpose and the department was closed. To see individual patterns: http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/... For more information about the history of Saint Benedict's Monastery call 320-363-7035, email [email protected] or write to Saint Benedict's Monastery Archive, 104 Chapel Lane, Saint Joseph, MN 56374.