Living our Faith, Celebrating our Heritage

This weekend, we have the distinct privilege of celebrating as a community, the patronal feast day of Saint Meinrad, the patron of St. Meinrad Parish, and of the town and Archabbey. While his feast day is on January 21, in recent years both for St. Boniface and St. Meinrad, our parish family celebrates the feast day on the closest Sunday to the actual date. This gives us an opportunity to celebrate well as a community, and to call upon the intercession of our holy patron, and to honor the life and legacy of our patron. It is good for us to gather on a joyous occasion, to see each other, to share stories, to laugh,and to make new memories.

Communities are often defined by how they live out their mission in the present moment, not how it was or not how it should be; lived out in the now. How we celebrate in Word and Sacrament (the Mass) what we believe as Catholics and in carrying out the charge received at the end of Mass, “go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” How we do this, how we gather and carry out this charge reflects how we as individuals, and collectively a parish, live out our faith beyond the pew.

My prayer is with you as you celebrate Mass with Archabbot Kurt, and as you gather for breakfast at the community center. Enjoy your time together; celebrate what you have, all signs of God and his abundant blessing upon our parish today. Let us be mindful of the sacrifices and powerful prayers offered by those who have gone before us in faith, your former pastors, and for many of you, your ancestors who settled here and built the parish community from scratch and who also assisted in the building of the church we worship in today.

Let us not take for granted the sacrifice, sweat equity, and faith of those who called upon the name of Saint Meinrad, monk and hermit, the patron saint of hospitality, to intercede and to inspire them along the path of life. May we too have the same courage to live with faith as our guide and to follow the footsteps of our holy patron, the one who sought Christ by the way he lived and by the way he died. Saint Meinrad, pray for us.

Click RED BUTTONS to learn more about Saint Meinrad, the saint, and the parish church.