Friars at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., have installed a bell in the tower of its chapel, which didn’t have one before.

The prior, Dominican Father Gregory Schnakenberg, blessed the bell with holy water and incensed it while the bell was on the ground on Jan. 12, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, as part of a bell-blessing liturgy from the Church’s Book of Blessings that includes Scripture readings. The bell was installed in the chapel tower on Jan. 16.

The friars have named the bell after St. Gabriel, who announced to Mary that she would conceive Jesus; the chapel, built in 1905, is called Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

The friars also added an inscription on the bell in Latin — in the first person, in keeping with a long-standing tradition concerning bells.

The translated inscription in English says: “I sing to the honor of Saint Gabriel the Archangel, who announced to Mary, the Virgin Immaculate, the incarnation of the Word of God. I sound now in this Catholic church for, through the help of the Lyons and Smith families and other benefactors, the sons of Saint Dominic have brought me here and restored me A.D. 2024.”

The bell was made by the Meneely Bell Foundry in Waterlivet, New York, in 1929, for an Episcopalian church in Pennsylvania. After a period of disuse, the bell made its way to the McShane Bell Co., of Missouri, which makes new bells and restores old bells.

The Dominican House of Studies is a seminary for Dominican brothers and priests. About 70 friars live in the priory currently. Father Schnakenberg said it’s not clear whether the friars who built the chapel tower 120 years ago envisioned putting a bell there, but now it has one.

“Sadly, more churches are probably closing and dispersing their bells than installing them. But we were very happy to be able to take a bell that had been in use and restore it and give it a new home,” Father Schnakenberg told the Register on Friday.

A transcript of the interview is below, edited for clarity and length.

Did you have a carillon system in place before the bell arrived?

No, no, we’ve never had any bells like that or electronic systems in the tower.

And why is it important to you to have a real bell?

Well, first of all, I don’t want to gainsay anyone who has an electronic system or anything like that. I think those can serve a useful purpose.

But I think that, for us, the authenticity and sacramental quality of having a real bell was important. There’s a physicality to a real bell that reflects how we can put the material world into the service of the worship of God.

And it is certainly a very traditional and long-standing practice in the Church to have bells that call people to prayer. And so this is in continuity with that. And it was a chance to restore a bell that already existed and put it back into service. And I think that’s a good and positive thing to do, as well.

How will the bell be used?

We are still finalizing some of the details, but we plan to ring it before our celebrations of the Liturgy of the Hours, so as to call the community together for morning prayer and evening prayer, as well as when we ring it for the Angelus, before that prayer as well. And then we might use it at some other times, too, such as funerals or special occasions.

Have you looked into the history of bells because of this project?

A little bit. My own background is in medieval history. That’s what I teach here at the House of Studies. And I’ve looked a little bit into it.

Dominican churches often had bells like other Catholic churches, and, you know, it’s a common thing if you’re in Europe to hear lots of church bells going off at different times of the day. Here in the United States we don’t hear them as much, but I think it would certainly be a good thing to have more of that.

It was part of the kind of medieval soundscape to have church bells ringing. And it contributed, I think, to the sanctification of the day and reminding people of God in the midst of their day. So I think having this helps contribute to that and should be a good thing for the lives of the faithful and for evangelization more broadly.

People have been really excited about the bell, not just here at the priory, but others who found out about it; and, to be honest, I’ve been kind of surprised at the level of enthusiasm about the whole thing. It’s great to see, but it’s also been really kind of encouraging in all sorts of ways we didn’t expect — just the level of enthusiasm.

I think people are just excited to see something hopeful, something musical, something that shows the vitality in the Church, and this has proven to be that.