Ringing in the Year of Hope

This past Sunday, the Feast of Our Lord’s Baptism, the Dominican House of Studies baptized . . . a bell. Following the ancient tradition of dedication, we’ve prepared to incorporate the half-ton of bronze into our rhythm of daily life. In the age of watches and atomic clocks, blessing a bell is rather quaint. Delightfully antiquated as the occasion might seem, the blessing of sacramentals—be they water or oil, palms or ashes—draws our attention from the mundane to the sacred. The material world draws our gaze upward through new spiritual significance. Sunday’s bell dedication was more than historical, it was sacramental—marking a moment in time while consecrating it in perpetuity.

Fr. Gregory Schnakenberg, prior of the Dominican House of Studies, prefaced the dedication with the following remarks: 

In 1905, when this building was constructed, it included a tower and an organ, but not a bell. Whether that was because it was not seen as feasible or possible or opportune at that moment, we don’t know. But today, 120 years later, we are happy to bring this bell to this tower, at a moment when it is not only possible but very much opportune. 

Even more than 120 years ago the world needs to hear the sound of Church bells. We need our lives to be interrupted by things that are beautiful. We need our attention drawn above the horizon. And we need to be distracted from our distractions so that we might contemplate higher things and turn our mind to God. 

And so if this bell, dedicated to Saint Gabriel, helps us to achieve that end it will have given honor to the namesake St. Gabriel, who first announced the Incarnation of the Word of God to a world that needed to hear it.

Saint Garbriel’s message of hope came at a most opportune time, yet it upended the lives of those who received it. Like archangels and church bells, hope interrupts. Hope dismantles our personal kingdoms (Matt 2:3–7). Hope interrupts a good day’s work (Mark 1:14–20). It might call us to clean tables or lay down our very lives (John 2:15 and Luke 9:23). If hope does not resonate with the world its because it reorients us beyond it.

In ringing out the hours and calling to prayer, the Saint Gabriel bell will audibly manifest the friars’ consecration—the contemplation and common-life that form the basis of the house’s holy preaching. And like that preaching, Saint Gabriel will resound beyond the priory walls as a reminder of Christ’s abiding presence, as a delightful song of hope—with all its distractions. 

The Saint Gabriel bell’s inscription reads:

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Photos courtesy of the Dominican House of Studies