This week we celebrate the 175th anniversary of St. Stephen parish in Indian Creek and later this month we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of St. Boniface in Koeltztown. It is important for us to try to understand the immense significance of these anniversary celebrations that occur from time to time. In this instance, these two anniversaries hearken back almost to the beginning of evangelization in this part of the world, since missionaries had begun visiting these areas of our Diocese of Jefferson City 190 years ago.
To help us understand something of the efforts that were made to plant the faith in our portion of the Lord's vineyard, I would like to quote from the letter of Father Felix DeAndreis to his Vincentian superior back in Rome about the conditions of our early missionaries. Fr. DeAndreis was one of the original priests to settle in Missouri at the invitation of Bishop William DuBourg. He arrived here in 1818.
Fr. DeAndreis writes:
"The life of a missionary in this country is pretty hard. He must constantly be on horseback, finding his way here and there through immense woods, to visit the sick and attend congregations. Sometimes he is obliged to go 30 or 40 miles to see a sick person. The congregations are what we call parishes. The people assemble in cabins built of trunks of trees, laid one on another, the interstices being filled with clay, like the greater number of houses in which wind and rain enter without difficulty.
"These are our churches, without pictures or ornaments of any kind, provided merely with a poor wooden altar. They are scattered about the woods and on festival days Catholics and not infrequently Protestants too from 10 to 15 miles around gather together within these walls. All come on horseback and behold the surrounding woods filled with a neighing as if a regiment of cavalry were in the vicinity. Confessions take the greater part of the morning. Mass is said or sung, a sermon is preached and then follows numerous baptisms. The sick must be visited and the poor priest worn out with fasting, fatigue, the journey and heat has at length to beg for his dinner here and there."
In that same vein, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, made the following observation as he spoke to some 25,000 young people gathered at the seminary of the Archdiocese of New York on the occasion of his apostolic visit to our country in April.
"St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, St. John Neumann, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Venerable Pierre Toussaint, and Padre Felix Varela: any one of us could be among them, for there is no stereotype to this group, no single mold. Yet a closer look reveals that there are common elements. Inflamed with the love of Jesus, their lives became remarkable journeys of hope.
"For some, that meant leaving home and embarking on a pilgrim journey of thousands of miles. For each there was an act of abandonment to God, in the confidence that He is the final destination of every pilgrim. And all offered an outstretched hand of hope to those they encountered along the way, often awakening in them a life of faith. Through orphanages, schools and hospitals, by befriending the poor, the sick and the marginalized, and through the compelling witness that comes from walking humbly in the footsteps of Jesus, these six people laid open the way of faith, hope and charity to countless individuals, including perhaps your own ancestors."
This was the lot of the first missionaries to venture into this area of mid-Missouri in the days of St. Philippine Duchesne and Bishop DuBourg, followed by Fr. Ferdinand Helias and Fr. (later Bishop) John J. Hogan and so many others. And the Church took root and developed to such an extent that after just over 100 years, the territory of the State of Missouri would be reconfigured, giving birth to our own Diocese of Jefferson City.
It is important to remember that our ancestors did not sacrifice for the faith so that we could have it easy and convenient, but rather to give us an example of the lengths to which we should all go to grow in our faith and in the work of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. As we observe these jubilees of St. Stephen and St. Boniface, let us once again use these days as moments of rededication on the part of each one of us for the New Pentecost to which we have been summoned by our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, during his recent visit to America.
