Echoes from the Bell Tower

The first episode of Saint Meinrad's new podcast, "Echoes from the Bell Tower," is now available!

We're so excited to share these stories from life on the Hill with you.  In this initial episode, it seemed only fitting that the first topic about life at a monastery be about the bells.

The bells of the Archabbey Church are one of the first things you notice at Saint Meinrad. The bell towers themselves are a local landmark. The Archabbey is situated on a hill, so the towers are visible from some distance away. Even on a foggy morning, you can usually see the tops of the bell towers peeking above the mist.

The bells ring every 15 minutes at Saint Meinrad, so we're pretty used to them. But if they don't ring at the right time or they ring at an unusual time, we take notice.

In this podcast, hosts Novice Jonathan (now called Br. Joel) and Novice Tony explain the significance of the bells to those who live in a monastery. The bells and their rituals are woven into monastic life. They call the monks to prayer, mark the significant events in their life and, finally, announce their death. The bells have also been known to cause some consternation, as you'll hear in this episode.

On this page, we've posted two brief videos of the bells being rung, courtesy of Br. William. One shows a monk ringing the bells, and the other is from up in the tower where you can see the bells ringing. (Yes, this is the same Br. William who talks about going up into the bell towers in the podcast.) 

We hope you enjoy the podcast. You can listen to it by clicking on the audio file on this page, or you can subscribe to it on iTunes or Stitcher.  And please leave us a comment. We'd love to hear from you.

 In this short clip, Novice Tony rings the bells in the south tower before evening prayer in the Archabbey Church.

In this short clip, all four bells in the south tower are shown while being rung by two novices below.