Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series on products created by the Benedictines at the Assumption Abbey in western North Dakota.

RICHARDTON, N.D. — Bertrand Vogelwide was driving home to Fargo after a trip to Medora, North Dakota, when he noticed the twin spires of the Assumption Abbey reaching toward the sky over the western North Dakota town of Richardton.

Vogelweide found the Benedictine abbey’s tree-lined grounds on the city’s northwest edge. Just as he entered the church, the brothers seated in the choir stalls in the sanctuary began vespers — an evening prayer service of scripture, prayers and song held to give thanks for the day as dusk falls.

The timing was, well, heaven-sent.

“I thought, ‘Why am I not here?’” Vogelweide said.

That was in 1983. Since then,

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