Wimmer Mass

For those who are interested in viewing the closing Mass of the Wimmer year, here it is.  His Eminence Justin Cardinal Rigali principal celebrant and homilist. 

Production: David Safin, Andrew Campbell, Fineline Multimedia
Post-Production: David Safin

Wimmer Celebration 2009

Some pictures from the Mass for the Archabbot Boniface Wimmer 200th Birthday year taken by Kim Metzgar, Fred Findley, Jordan Hainsey.  His Eminence Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia was celebrant. 

As the Wimmer year comes to a close

“Boniface Wimmer: An American Abbot,” a special commemorative exhibition of artifacts owned and used by Saint Vincent founder Boniface Wimmer, will be featured by The Saint Vincent Gallery from Friday, October 30 to Sunday, December 13 in honor of the 200th anniversary of his birth. Admission is free and open to the public.

An opening reception will be held in the Gallery on Thursday, October 29 from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

The exhibit includes Wimmer’s prayer books, pectoral crosses, pontifical rings, crozier, and snuff boxes (including one from Tiffany and Company); his gold pen, various hand-written letters and diaries, and handwritten letters from King Ludwig I of Bavaria will also be included. There will be gifts from King Ludwig on display, as well as gifts given to Saint Vincent over the years by various members of the Royal Wittlesbach of Bavaria and made of fine porcelain from the Schloss Nymphenburg Porcelain Factory. An added feature of the exhibition is a display of photographic portraits of Wimmer and his 10 successor archabbots of Saint Vincent Archabbey, including the current archabbot, the Rt. Rev. Douglas R. Nowicki, O.S.B.

The Saint Vincent Gallery is located on the third floor of the Robert S. Carey Student Center at Saint Vincent College and is accessible to those with physical challenges.

Gallery hours are noon to 3 p.m. and 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and noon to 3 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The Gallery is closed on Mondays.

Further details are available at www.stvincent.edu/gallery or by contacting the Gallery at 724 805-2197.

Archabbey featured in Our Sunday Visitor

Article from the Summer 2009 "Heart to Heart" - which can be found online via the "Heart to Heart" link on this blog (top right side)

From: The Pittsburgh Tribune Review

Angela Englbrecht was among the delegation that visited St. Vincent Archabbey and Seminary, as well as his first American mission in Cambria County and toured Pittsburgh.

More than 150 years after St. Vincent Archabbot Boniface Wimmer settled in Pennsylvania, a contingent of visitors from his German hometown were inspired by their native son's legacy.

As part of a yearlong celebration marking the bicentennial of Wimmer's birth on Jan. 14, 1809, the Thalmassing delegation has spent the last week visiting the St. Vincent Archabbey and Seminary near Latrobe, as well as his first American mission in Cambria County and touring Pittsburgh.

Among the visitors are Anton Schober, pastor of St. Nikolaus at Thalmassing, Burgermeister (Mayor) Alfons Kiendl, and Richard Heindl, archivist of the Kolping family and Wimmer's great-great-great-nephew.

With Heindl translating, Schober said Tuesday his visit already had made "several very deep impressions."

In his homily Sunday, St. Vincent Archabbot Douglas Nowicki reflected on Wimmer's life and work, Schober said.

"We got a guided tour of a lot of the buildings of St. Vincent," Schober said, "so we can imagine how powerful that monastery is."

"For the first time, I realized completely the dimensions of Boniface Wimmer, his person and his work," Kiendl said.

Heindl said he discovered 12 years ago that his family was related to Wimmer.

"By chance I saw the parents' (names) of Father Boniface," he said. "I discovered I had the same persons in (my family). Since I know the relation, I was interested in each detail I could get."

Heindl said he read a biography of Wimmer and a collection of his letters.

"I never believed I could one day be (at) that place," he said, referring to the archabbey, college and seminary.

Wimmer established the Order of St. Benedict in North America, coming to the United States in 1846 to evangelize immigrants from Germany and other European countries and train them for the priesthood.

Wimmer led 18 novices to the United States, with plans to build their community in Carrolltown in Cambria County.

The land was not suitable for farming, Nowicki said, and Wimmer accepted an offer from the Diocese of Pittsburgh to use the St. Vincent Parish for the mission.

St. Vincent Archabbey, which Wimmer founded in 1846, is the largest Benedictine monastery in the world.

"His motivation was to establish a seminary to train priests to serve the German population," Nowicki said.

Area farmers asked Wimmer to help educate their children.

"That was the beginning of the prep school and college," Nowicki said.

Wimmer saw education as an answer to the bigotry many of the immigrants experienced, Nowicki said, and a way for them to enter mainstream American society.

"In a relatively short period of time, in his own lifetime, he was able to make a difference" Nowicki said.

Before his death in 1887, Wimmer established seven abbeys, 150 parishes and 75 schools throughout the United States. He also established 11 abbeys and priories that operated dozens of schools.

Heindl said the hills of western Pennsylvania are "very similar to home."

"Father Boniface could feel at home, just from his view of the landscape," he said.

Several of the visitors noted that in Germany, the bicentennial year is making more Bavarians aware of Wimmer's contributions.

"It is good that Boniface Wimmer gets more known now," Schober said.

School children learn little about Wimmer other than that he was born in Thalmassing, became a monk and went to the United States, the visitors said.

"I think it's important for the young people of Thalmassing to know one of their sons had such an impact, not only in the church but throughout the country," Nowicki said.

One person who was well-acquainted with Wimmer's accomplishments is Pope Benedict XVI. Nowicki presented him with a copy of "Boniface Wimmer: Letters of an American Abbot," during a trip to Rome.

"He said, 'Oh, our most famous Bavarian,'" Nowicki said. "He was very well familiar with Boniface Wimmer."

The Thalmassing visitors planned to return to St. Vincent a final time today, then travel to Washington, D.C., for their flight home.

Wimmer Obituary

I found this great piece of St. Vincent History on the Catholic Answers website, of course we have the original here at the Abbey but it is great to see others sharing the life and mission of our founder Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, OSB:

Archabbot, b. at Thalmassing, Bavaria, January 14, 1809; d. at St. Vincent Archabbey, Beatty, Pennsylvania, Dec. 8, 1887

Wimmer, BONIFACE, archabbot, b. at Thalmassing, Bavaria, January 14, 1809; d. at St. Vincent Archabbey, Beatty, Pennsylvania, December 8, 1887. He made his Classical studies at Ratisbon and entered the University of Munich, to study law. When some scholarship fell vacant in the Gregorianum he took the competitive examination with a view to studying for the priesthood, and, having won a scholarship, he finished his theological course there and was ordained on August 1, 1831. After serving one year as curate at Altotting, a well-known place of pilgrimage, he entered the Abbey of Metten, where Benedictine life had just been restored through royal favor, and made his solemn vows on December 27, 1833. For several years he lived the common life of obedience, and during that time he became interested in the matter of foreign missions. Reading much about the neglected condition of the German immigrants in North America he finally made plans and took steps to transplant Benedictine activity into the United States. Several young men offered themselves to him as candidates; in a characteristic letter he explained to them the difficulties and the sacrifices incidental to the undertaking and asked them to withdraw their application unless they were willing to carry with him the cross of absolute self-sacrifice and to make the will and the glory of God their sole motive in the undertaking.

With five students and fifteen brother candidates Boniface Wimmer arrived in New York (September 16, 1846), where several well-meaning priests did their best to persuade him to abandon his plans, but their prophecies of certain failure did not discourage him. He went to the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and accepted some land which Father H. Lemke, for years associated with the Rev. Prince Gallitzin, had offered him. Conditions here in Carrolltown, proving unfavorable for the undertaking, he moved to a place forty miles east of Pittsburgh and accepted from Bishop O'Connor the location where St. Vincent Archabbey, College, and Seminary stand today. Under innumerable difficulties the new foundation slowly grew and prospered. The Louis mission society and several friends and benefactors helped the cause with pecuniary means. The school and the seminary were visibly blessed in their efforts, and the monastic community did much good by looking after the religious interests of the scattered settlers, and organizing them into parishes. Calls for German-speaking priests came from all sides and many bishops offered to the growing Benedictine community German parishes for which they could not provide suitable priests of their own. In 1855 Father Wimmer became the first abbot of the monastery.

Although he was always willing to help any religious cause to the extent of his means, Father Wimmer repeatedly, in his correspondence with applicants for admission into the order, emphasized the point that the primary object of Benedictine life is not any particular external activity, but the perfect Christian life according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. Often generous to a fault, he never counted the cost where good was to be done, but held fast to this supreme Benedictine law. All his undertakings prospered; he often accepted work that nobody else would undertake because it seemed hopeless, and at the same time, having so spent his available men and means, he turned over the most promising and honorable work to others. At his death five abbeys had grown out of his work and others were in course of formation. Hundreds of priests had been already educated in the schools which he founded, and many a good cause had received a mighty impulse through the Benedictine life which he had spent himself to establish in America.
 

WALTER STEHLE

The Boniface Wimmer statue

From: http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/

Wimmer Celebration to be streamed live!!!

Tonight's Solemn Vespers in remembrance of Archabbot Boniface Wimmer's 200th Anniversary of birth will be streamed live at www.bonifacewimmer.org  Please pray for the monks of St. Vincent and all the people we serve as we remember the life and heroic example of our founder this year.

 

Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, O.S.B., Archabbot of St. Vincent Archabbey, Presiding

 

Abbot Primate Notker Wolf, O.S.B., homilist

Boniface Wimmer,O.S.B., a brief biography

From: http://www.bonifacewimmer.org/

Please join the monks of St. Vincent Archabbey on Wednesday, January 14th for the official opening ceremonies of the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B. founder of Benedictine Monasticism in North America.  The event will begin with Vespers in the Archabbey Basilica at 7:00 pm and refreshments will follow.  Presiding at the opening ceremonies will be the Rt. Rev. Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, O.S.B.  Abbot Primate Notker Wold, O.S.B. will deliver the homily.  Abbot Notker is the Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical College of Sant’ Anselmo, Rome, and representative of the Benedictine Order in Rome.  The event is free and open to the public, please contact the Archabbey for more information: (724)532-6600.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI and Abbot Primate Wolf, O.S.B.

Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., was the Bavarian Benedictine who established the Order of St. Benedict in North America. Wimmer came to America to evangelize immigrants from Germany and elsewhere, educate priests for the immigrants' pastoral care, and establish Benedictine monasticism in the New World.

 Sportsman's Hall, the humble roots of St. Vincent Arcahbbey

Born on January 14, 1809 in Thalmassing, not far from Regensburg, Wimmer was ordained a diocesan priest for the Diocese of Regensburg, but given on loan to the Diocese of Passau. He was baptized with the name Sebastian. In 1832 he joined a small group of monks and monk-candidates to reestablish Benedictine monastic life at the Abbey of Metten, recently restored by King Ludwig I. As a monk of Metten, Wimmer assisted in the subsequent restoration of the Benedictine monasteries of Scheyern, St. Stephen's (Augsburg), and St. Boniface (Munich).

 St. Boniface

In 1846, Wimmer led a band of 18 novices to Pennsylvania, where he founded the first Benedictine monastery in the United States at Saint Vincent. During the remaining years of his life, he followed the missionary example of his namesake St. Boniface by preaching the Word of God to countless souls, teaching the Love of Christ to tens of thousands, and establishing 7 Benedictine abbeys, 150 Benedictine parishes, and 75 Benedictine schools in America. At the end of Abbot Wimmer's life, Benedictine priests under his supervision were providing pastoral care for more than 50,000 souls.

The 200th anniversary of Boniface Wimmer's birth in 1809 falls within the Jubilee Year 2008-2009, announced by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 2000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul. The fact that these two celebrations are occurring concurrently is a happy coincidence and reminds us of some salient parallels between the life of Wimmer and the life of St. Paul.

 St. Paul

Like St. Paul, Wimmer was a missionary who preached the Gospel over a wide geographic area. He was a community builder who traveled extensively and established Christian communities everywhere he went. He was a man of strong faith whose zeal and single-minded devotion to duty strengthened the Church of Christ. He was a prolific letter writer who through his persuasive correspondence inspired those to whom he wrote to remain faithful in the face of adversity.

Today, Saint Vincent Archabbey in Pennsylvania, founded by Wimmer in 1846, is the largest Benedictine monastery in the world. American Benedictines who trace their roots directly to Wimmer pray and work in more than 20 American states, as well as in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Colombia, Brazil, China, and Japan.

200th Anniversary of the Birth of our Founder!!!

Join the monks of St. Vincent Arcabbey as we celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the birth of our founder, Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B.  Opening ceremonies will take place during Solemn Vespers on January 14, 2009 with the Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Order (the Rt. Rev. Notker Wolf, O.S.B. delivering the homily).  For more information please check out:

www.bonifacewimmer.org

Founder's Day 2008

BONIFACE WIMMER AND THE
AMERICAN CASSINESE CONGREGATION

Each year the St. Vincent Archabbey Community celebrates the founder's of our Archabbey, Seminary, and College Community (particularly our Father Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, OSB).   Today, November 20, 2008 is the 2008 Celebration which will begin with Vespers in the Archabbey Basilica at 4:00 pm followed by a Festive Dinner with the whole St. Vincent Community and concluding with the Christmas lighting of Campus.  Here is a great little artcle about Archabbot Boniface.

From: http://ldysinger.stjohnsem.edu/

From the perspective of the twenty-first century it may seem strange to discuss monasticism in America from the perspective of missionary activity.  In the nineteenth century, however, the United States was considered to be an important mission territory. “During the First Vatican Council [and] among the authorities of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide)...missionary work was primarily understood to mean activities among the Christians of the Eastern churches and the Catholic immigrants in North America.”³

The idea of a Benedictine “Mission” to America was the personal project of a Bavarian monk, Boniface Wimmer.  Born in 1809, Sebastian Wimmer was ordained a secular priest in 1831, and served as curate at the Marian shrine of Altoetting in the Bavarian diocese of Regensburg. In 1830, through the influence of King Ludwig I, monastic life in the abbey of Metten which had been suppressed since the secularization decrees of 1803, was officially reinstated.  The two aged monks who had agreed to return to conventual life at Metten hardly constituted a flourishing community, however;⁴ and the Bishop of Regensburg was asked for help in recruiting vocations.  Wimmer was one of these.  On December 29, 1833 he received the monastic name “Boniface”⁵ and became the second monk to make profession at Metten after the restoration. The first, Gregory, subsequently became Wimmer’s abbot. 

 Abbot Gregory, OSB

 Metten Choir

Sent as a professor to the newly-established Benedictine College of St. Stephen’s in Augsburg, Wimmer soon won a problematic reputation among his colleagues as a Projektenmacher (“project-maker” or “visionary” here intended in the pejorative sense of “dreamer”).⁶  Later sent as professor to Munich, he personally witnessed the beginnings of massive waves of emigration from Europe to the United States in 1842. In that same year he became acquainted with the plight of German Catholic immigrants in America, and he petitioned his fellow-novice Gregory, now abbot of Metten, for permission to go to America as a missionary.  His former confrere refused, however, suggesting instead that Dom Boniface support the American Mission with his prayers.

Throughout the next three years Wimmer’s conviction that he should go to America grew stronger.  He urged his abbot to allow Metten to serve the Church by taking on responsibility for foreign missions as had the medieval English and Irish monasteries: “We [the Benedictine Order] belong to the whole world.  The heretics are spreading to all parts of the earth and we are keeping warm behind the stove.”⁷   His notion of going to America as a solitary missionary underwent substantial revision during this time.  Partly as the result of a meeting with a German-American priest, Fr. Peter Lemke, Wimmer conceived the idea of transplanting  Benedictine monasticism to America.⁸

His abbot, however, remained unconvinced of the feasibility of Wimmer’s plans.  Thus in 1845 Fr. Boniface independently contacted the papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Morichini, and submitted a request to be forwarded directly to Propaganda Fide in Rome.  He asked for permission to travel to the American missions and “also laid before His Excellency the plan of founding a monastery on the property which Father Lemke promised to sell me.”⁹

Wimmer subsequently received various unsatisfactory responses to his requests.  His abbot eventually granted him permission to go to America; but the Chapter at Metten was unwilling to authorize an American foundation.  They feared that Wimmer secretly longed for abbatial pontificalia, and that the proposal for an American foundation was merely a means for achieving his personal ambitions.¹⁰

In 1842, however, Fr. Boniface was able to win the personal support of King Ludwig I for his proposal.  The wholehearted support of the nuncio rapidly followed.¹¹  Eventually he received authorization from his abbey to proceed with his plans; and on July 25, 1846 Boniface Wimmer set out from Munich with a band of theological students who eventually became the nucleus of the American-Cassinese Congregation, today the largest Congregation in the Benedictine Confederation. 

Wimmer’s method of achieving his goal of a Benedictine mission (foundation) merits close attention.  Unable to convince his monastic confreres or superior of the merits of his plan, Wimmer appealed directly to Rome through the person of the papal nuncio.  When Propaganda Fide revealed its reluctance to interfere directly in the relationship between a Benedictine abbot and his subject, Wimmer was forced to seek the support of the King of Bavaria, which eventually proved essential for the achievement of his goals.

Wimmer’s correspondence with his abbot during this period reveals a curious mixture of ostensible respect for the abbatial office (“I will take you at your word, which is holy to me”)¹² coupled with a bullying attitude: “...I will not let you go so easily...you will have the choice [when I write to Rome] either of declaring me unfit for this mission...or admitting simply that you do not want to live up to your word.”¹³  This unusual approach to the implementation of monastic goals may be seen in the lives of the other founders of missionary Benedictinism.

---

³ Jacob Baumgartner, “Missions in the Shadow of Colonialism”, HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, ed. Jedin, (London, 1981) p. 527.

⁴ Jerome Oetgen, AN AMERICAN ABBOT, BONIFACE WIMMER, O.S.B., (Latrobe, 1976) p. 23.

⁵ His choice of the name “Boniface” did not signify an early interest in the Missions: rather, he took the name of Boniface Urban, dean of the diocese of Regensburg; Oetgen, p. 23.

⁶ Oetgen, p. 35.

⁷Oetgen, p. 39.

⁸ Oetgen, p. 41

⁹ Oetgen, p. 43.

¹⁰ Oetgen, p. 52.

¹¹ Oetgen, p. 51.

¹² IBID.

¹³ IBID. 

The Monastic Beard: Part II

The following is taken from the great book on our founder: An American Abbot (Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., 1809-1887) by Jerome Oetgen. The book can be purchased by clicking here, it is a great gift or read for anyone interested in Monasticism, American History, or just in inspirational stories of people who overcame human limitations and worldly hardships by putting their total trust in Jesus our Lord. For part one of these series click here. Hopefully, after reading this short selection, one can see why the monastic beard has been embraced American Benedictines from the very beginning:
 

Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B. (as a young abbot and probably close to what he what have looked like when he met with Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1865)

The prior watched the emaciated face with its long white beard and perhaps recalled the sensation the flowing whiskers had caused among the clean-shaven cardinals of Rome when the abbot visited the Vatican in 1865. He had been reluctant to arrive in Rome with a full beard and even wrote to the abbot of Metten asking what he thought of the idea. Not much, it seems. The Bavarian prelate recommended prudence. Things were done differently in Rome, the officials there didn't always understand, or appreciate, innovation. That abbot of Metten told him to keep in mind that when in Rome he should do as the Romans, but Abbot Boniface decided to take a chance. He arrived unshaven. People gawked at him in the streets. The nuns of a convent he visited were frightened by his "shaggy appearance." The Italian cardinals raised their bushy eyebrows. But in the end the abbot's audacity was vindicated. He was received in audience by the Holy Father, and after hearing of his success in spreading the Benedictine Order throughout North America and bringing the Gospel to the immigrants who were daily arriving on the shores of the new land, Pope Pius IX gave his blessing to the work and dismissed him with the words "Long live Abbot Wimmer and his magnificent beard." From that day on he never shaved, and he urged his monks to follow his example.

Blessed Pope Pius IX

--------------------------------------------------

As a follow up to the last article which mentioned some of our bearded brethren occasionally being confused for grey robed Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (a group founded in the South Bronx in 1987 by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and 6 other Capuchin friars as a renewal of the Capuchin way of life. I though this history about where the Capuchin beard and their order was interesting due to their roots to the Benedictine Camaldolese monks which we discussed a few days ago on the Feast of St. Romuald...click here for that article.

The order arose in 1520 when Matteo da Bascio, an "Observant" Franciscan friar native to the Italian region of Marche, became inspired by God with the idea that the manner of life led by the Franciscans of his day was not the one which St. Francis had envisaged. He sought to return to the primitive way of life in solitude and penance as practiced by the founder of his order.

His superiors tried to suppress these innovations, and Friar Matteo and his first companions were forced into hiding from Church authorities, who sought to arrest them for having abandoned their religious duties. They were given refuge by the Camaldolese monks, in gratitude for which they later adopted the hood or capuccio worn by that order--which was the mark of a hermit in that region of Italy--and the practice of wearing a beard. The popular name of their order originates from this feature of their religious habit, and after this the Capuchin monkey and the cappuccino coffee are also named by visual analogy. In 1528, Friar Matteo obtained the approval of Pope Clement VII and was given permission to live as a hermit and to go about everywhere preaching to the poor. These permissions were not only for himself, but for all such as might join him in the attempt to restore the most literal observance possible of the Rule of St. Francis. Matteo and the original band were soon joined by others. Matteo and his companions were formed into a congregation, called the Hermit Friars Minor, as a branch of the Conventual Franciscans, but with a vicar of their own, subject to the jurisdiction of the general of the Conventuals. The Observants continued to oppose the movement.

Quotes from our Founder

“The life of man is a struggle on earth. But without a cross, without a struggle, we get nowhere. The victory will be ours if we continue our efforts courageously, even when at times they appear futile.” - Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B.
 
(Founder of St. Vincent Archabbey)