The Earth is Full of God’s Riches (Psalm 104)
St. Paul’s Monastery and Benedictine Center
Art Gallery Exhibit June 1-July 31, 2025
By Mary Elizabeth Ilg
The month of June is completely splendid with the gardens all in bloom: frilly pink peonies emanating a heavenly perfume, wild roses exploding, and bright petunias in doorstep urns ready for summer. There are showy pink lady slippers standing in the ditches, and the shock of red poppies. The poppies have mysterious purple-black centers, so very dark, blinking their black eyelashes as we bend down to peer into them with awe.
The hummingbirds are even more amazing, vibrating and iridescent green, dipping their slim beaks into blossoms of nectar. Minnesota lakes contain the pure grace of white swans, floating along the surface, as if in a dream. Could all of this be real or even possible? There is so much astonishing beauty and color to behold.
The earth is full of God’s riches!
We are witnesses of nature’s splendor at St. Paul’s Monastery, as we feature this summer the photographs of four Sisters from Saint Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, MN: Nancy Bauer, OSB; Linda Dusek, OSB; Carleen Schomer, OSB; and Karen Streveler, OSB.
These photographs were on display at the Haehn Museum Art and Heritage Place at Saint Benedict’s Monastery last year, and we are grateful for the Sisters’ generosity in sharing their work with us. “Each creature reflects something of God,” the late Pope Francis wrote in Laudato Si’, a theme for the show. You can see for yourself the hummingbird, the white swan, the pink lady slippers.
Come and join us and stay for prayer with the Sisters (the Sisters pray daily at 8:00am, 11:30am, and 5:00pm). The exhibit is open daily from 9:00am-5:00pm and runs through July 31, 2025.
