St Hugh's Outdoor Chapel overlooking
beautiful Strawberry Creek
The Monastery and the Mountain Shrine
This story originally appeared in St Paul’s Printer (date unknown), a publication of the Society of St. Paul.
The story of the Mountain Shrine is a collaboration of Andrew Rank and St. Hugh’s parishioner Roy Harris.
The story of the Mountain Shrine is a collaboration of Andrew Rank and St. Hugh’s parishioner Roy Harris.
Forty years ago this year, when The Society of St. Paul opened it second nursing home and new monastery in Sandy, Oregon, part of the dedication involved setting aside the space of Saint Raphael and All Angels Chapel for the monk’s daily place of worship. In those pre-renewal, pre-Vatican II days, the brothers choir was separated from the public area by a screen and gates of black wrought iron decorated with crosses and fleur de leis. Our hand made choir stalls formed a u-shape in the two and a half story natural wood room. Dominating all was a twenty by forty foot clear glass window behind the high altar which framed Mount Hood and the foothills of the fir covered Cascades.
By the end of that decade we fully participated in the Church’s renewal and our monastic choir was open to the public. One of the first times was when a devout Anglican dying of cancer in the nursing home wanted to attend daily Mass but couldn’t sit in a wheel chair. “Two stout monks,” to quote St. Benedict each morning wheeled her hospital bed down the hallway and into the church for the Eucharist until the day came when she could attend Christ’s banquet in heaven. A mission congregation started earlier by the Order, moved from its church to the chapel and worshipped there at the late Mass on Sunday from the mid sixties until the late seventies when it returned to a church home in the local town.
When the Society of St. Paul relocated its monastery and novitiate to Palm Desert, California in 1977 much of our furnishings came with us, including the wrought iron screens and gates. That allowed the entire chapel area to be used for resident and congregational worship.
We weren’t certain what we would do with the lovely art work but kept it carefully preserved. However, when the life and ministry of the brothers changed in 1996 we needed to vacate the monastery and retreat center. That was when long time Fellowship of St. Paul Companion, Fr. Kent Pinneo entered the picture. At the time he was vicar of St. Hugh’s Episcopal Church in Idyllwild, California. St. Hugh’s is high in the pine forested San Jacinto Mountains at the 6,000 foot elevation level above the desert floor of the Coachella Valley.
He and a parishioner, Judy Quintrall, had the idea of an outdoor worship and meditation center on the Church grounds. He shared his vision with Fr. Barnabas Hunt the rector of SSP and the community contributed the wrought iron screens and gates to St. Hugh. It was conceived that these could serve as the backdrop for the new chapel. But how would the outdoor chapel and shrine get developed and built?
It is said that when the student is ready the teacher appears. Later, one of the parishioners of St. Hugh was Stephen Egland. Stephen had a talent for taking ideas and translating them into architectural sketches. These sketches were then turned over to Jim Marsh, an architect in Hemet, who rendered the construction drawings for the new structure. Construction was delayed for quite some time. Discussion of the actual construction always ended with the question, "Who could we find that is qualified to build the structure?" Then one fall a couple of years ago a man named Stuart Roper and his wife began to attend St. Hugh. It turned out that this man was a carpenter. At the convincing of Fr. Tom Johnson, then vicar, Stuart agreed to build the platform structure with the help of some of the parish men. Soon after this was completed, Stuart moved out of the area and has not been seen since.
Some people may recall the story of the Loreto Chapel in Santa Fe. It seems that the original design included a worship area and an upstairs choir loft, but no means to connect the two. The chapel was small and would not accommodate a normal stairway. One day, a man appeared at the chapel and said he would build a spiral staircase for the nuns. He worked on the project for several weeks and when it was done he disappeared without any sort of pay for his services. Upon examination of the staircase it was noted that no nails were used and it was only the fitting together of the wood itself that held the structure up. Even today it is considered a miracle of construction. The nuns say that it was St Joseph, the carpenter, who came at the time he was needed and built the staircase.
The building of the outdoor chapel at St. Hugh of Lincoln has some parallels to the story of the Loreto Chapel. On May 11, 2003, The Rt. Rev. Gethin B. Hughes, bishop of the diocese of San Diego and Episcopal Visitor to The Society of St. Paul since 1993, dedicated the Chapel of the Transfiguration on the church grounds overlooking the tall pines, Sequoia tree and Strawberry Creek. The sturdy, rustic outdoor worship center will last as long as the buildings, hopefully, for generations to enjoy and use. What began its existence as a monastic grill in Sandy, Oregon in 1963 and dedicated by the first SSP Visitor, The Rt. Rev. James Carmen, pictured on page two. The screens and gates were rededicated forty years later by our fifth Episcopal Visitor, The Rt. Rev. Gethin Hughes who announced his pending retirement at the end of 2004. The screens now help frame a place of worship and the beauty of God’s creation in the mountains of Southern California.
By the end of that decade we fully participated in the Church’s renewal and our monastic choir was open to the public. One of the first times was when a devout Anglican dying of cancer in the nursing home wanted to attend daily Mass but couldn’t sit in a wheel chair. “Two stout monks,” to quote St. Benedict each morning wheeled her hospital bed down the hallway and into the church for the Eucharist until the day came when she could attend Christ’s banquet in heaven. A mission congregation started earlier by the Order, moved from its church to the chapel and worshipped there at the late Mass on Sunday from the mid sixties until the late seventies when it returned to a church home in the local town.
When the Society of St. Paul relocated its monastery and novitiate to Palm Desert, California in 1977 much of our furnishings came with us, including the wrought iron screens and gates. That allowed the entire chapel area to be used for resident and congregational worship.
We weren’t certain what we would do with the lovely art work but kept it carefully preserved. However, when the life and ministry of the brothers changed in 1996 we needed to vacate the monastery and retreat center. That was when long time Fellowship of St. Paul Companion, Fr. Kent Pinneo entered the picture. At the time he was vicar of St. Hugh’s Episcopal Church in Idyllwild, California. St. Hugh’s is high in the pine forested San Jacinto Mountains at the 6,000 foot elevation level above the desert floor of the Coachella Valley.
He and a parishioner, Judy Quintrall, had the idea of an outdoor worship and meditation center on the Church grounds. He shared his vision with Fr. Barnabas Hunt the rector of SSP and the community contributed the wrought iron screens and gates to St. Hugh. It was conceived that these could serve as the backdrop for the new chapel. But how would the outdoor chapel and shrine get developed and built?
It is said that when the student is ready the teacher appears. Later, one of the parishioners of St. Hugh was Stephen Egland. Stephen had a talent for taking ideas and translating them into architectural sketches. These sketches were then turned over to Jim Marsh, an architect in Hemet, who rendered the construction drawings for the new structure. Construction was delayed for quite some time. Discussion of the actual construction always ended with the question, "Who could we find that is qualified to build the structure?" Then one fall a couple of years ago a man named Stuart Roper and his wife began to attend St. Hugh. It turned out that this man was a carpenter. At the convincing of Fr. Tom Johnson, then vicar, Stuart agreed to build the platform structure with the help of some of the parish men. Soon after this was completed, Stuart moved out of the area and has not been seen since.
Some people may recall the story of the Loreto Chapel in Santa Fe. It seems that the original design included a worship area and an upstairs choir loft, but no means to connect the two. The chapel was small and would not accommodate a normal stairway. One day, a man appeared at the chapel and said he would build a spiral staircase for the nuns. He worked on the project for several weeks and when it was done he disappeared without any sort of pay for his services. Upon examination of the staircase it was noted that no nails were used and it was only the fitting together of the wood itself that held the structure up. Even today it is considered a miracle of construction. The nuns say that it was St Joseph, the carpenter, who came at the time he was needed and built the staircase.
The building of the outdoor chapel at St. Hugh of Lincoln has some parallels to the story of the Loreto Chapel. On May 11, 2003, The Rt. Rev. Gethin B. Hughes, bishop of the diocese of San Diego and Episcopal Visitor to The Society of St. Paul since 1993, dedicated the Chapel of the Transfiguration on the church grounds overlooking the tall pines, Sequoia tree and Strawberry Creek. The sturdy, rustic outdoor worship center will last as long as the buildings, hopefully, for generations to enjoy and use. What began its existence as a monastic grill in Sandy, Oregon in 1963 and dedicated by the first SSP Visitor, The Rt. Rev. James Carmen, pictured on page two. The screens and gates were rededicated forty years later by our fifth Episcopal Visitor, The Rt. Rev. Gethin Hughes who announced his pending retirement at the end of 2004. The screens now help frame a place of worship and the beauty of God’s creation in the mountains of Southern California.
