Abbey News

Belmont Abbey Saint Joseph Article
Feast Day of Saint Joseph, March 19 th
On this Feast Day, we celebrate Saint Joseph as the spouse of Mary Mother of our Lord and the
foster father of Jesus. Consequently, Saint Joseph is the patron saint of the Universal Church,
fathers, and families. In light of his trade as carpenter, he is the patron of workers as well.
Here on campus, located in front of the science building, we honor Saint Joseph in the statue of
The Holy Family, venerating him under all of these monikers with their corresponding
intercessory graces. But more centrally located is the adoration chapel dedicated to Saint Joseph,
which resides in the heart of campus.
An early initiative of Dr. William Thierfelder, college president from 2004 to 2025, the chapel
was dedicated in 2008. Since then it “has nourished students’ faith and become a visible sign of
God’s steadfast care for the Abbey,” as stated in the feature article in the Summer 2025 issue of
Belmont Abbey Magazine.
Dedicating the adoration chapel to Saint Joseph speaks not only to him as patron of The
Universal Church, fathers, families, and workers. It strikes sublimely upon the reason for the
special place Saint Joseph holds in the monastic tradition: his silence. Scripture depicts him as a
reticent, righteous and humble man, listening to the angel, to divine instruction, and
contemplating the Divine Presence of his foster son. Monks and all Christians are called to do
the same. For in his book, Truly Seeking God, Abbot Bernard Bonowitz, O.C.S.O., writes,
“[T]he monastic way of being is very close to that of the common Christian, and its practices are
easily incorporated into the daily life of all those who seek God” (3).
We are reminded here of the first word in The Rule of Saint Benedict: Listen! That is, listen in
silence, in silent prayer and meditation, to hear God speak to us, as the angel and the Divine
Presence of Jesus spoke to Saint Joseph. In the Saint Joseph Adoration Chapel, with its marble
altar and tabernacle, and wide windows looking out to Edenic fauna sheltering the building,
students and visitors can come and quiet for a while the distractions and din of the world, to
listen to God’s intimate words in the Eucharist, as Saint Joseph did in his sacred and serene
silence.
So as we continue our Lenten journey, let us join our silence to the silence of Saint Joseph, to
help us draw closer to Christ in anticipation of our Easter exultation.
Saint Joseph, pray for us!

Belmont Abbey St Patrick Article
The Feast of Saint Patrick, March 17th
One of the most familiar saints immortalized on our painted glass windows in our basilica is that
of Saint Patrick. The window is not only a reminder of the many graces that have poured forth
from the intercessions of the saint over the centuries. It is also a reminder of the Irish heritage
integral to Belmont Abbey’s history, beginning with the Reverend Jeremiah O’Connell, the Irish-
born missionary priest who donated the land for our monastery. O’Connell’s stipulation for the
land was that the Benedictines’ apostolate be in education, and that he live on the premises.
Subsequent years would grace the abbey with the influence of the Irish.
In the early to mid-twentieth century, the Abbey experienced a modest wave of Irish monks and
monks with Irish ancestry coming into the monastery and college. We see the influence of this
wave in this photograph of a Saint Patrick’s Day procession in 1908 and in the other photograph
featured here of Irish political leader and later president of Ireland Eamon De Valera during his
1920 visit to the Abbey.
Saint Patrick’s relevance to our monastery, though, is embodied more profoundly in the Abbey’s
missionary spirit. Born in Roman Britain in 387, Patrick was captured by pirates in his youth and
brought to Ireland as a slave. He eventually escaped and returned to his home. However, later in
life after being ordained a priest he was called to be a missionary to the very land where he was
in captivity years before. He is venerated for his holiness and revered for his tireless efforts on
the Emerald Isle with many miracles attributed to him. Consequently, through God’s grace, he is
credited with converting the island from paganism to Christianity.
Like Saint Patrick, the German, American, and Irish monks who prayed and worked here in the
first few decades of our history harnessed the zealous spirit of missionary work. We see this
most conspicuously in the steadfast service of Belmont’s monk-priests, who established and
served the many parishes throughout the state. Additionally, we see it in the Abbey’s missionary
work in Virginia, Georgia, and Florida, where priories (and later abbeys) and schools were
established.
Belmont Abbey itself is the fruit of German Benedictine missionary efforts, sowed by Archabbot
Boniface Wimmer, who in 1846 immigrated to Pennsylvania from Germany to establish Saint
Vincent’s Archabbey. It was then in 1876 that the first monks from Saint Vincent’s came to
Belmont, establishing a monastery and what was then called Saint Mary’s College.
Threaded into the life and work of Saint Patrick, Belmont’s missionary spirit persists into the 21 st
century, albeit not as overtly as in times past. Rather than parishes and priories, Belmont’s
missionary spirit is manifested in its apostolate, Belmont Abbey College, where students are
prepared to be missionaries in the world by living lives where “in all things God may be
glorified.” Where Saint Benedict teaches us to pray, work, and learn, Saint Patrick teaches us to
use our prayer, work, and knowledge to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).
So let us with Saint Patrick bind to ourselves today
God's Power to guide me,

God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me

–Br. Bede McKeon, O.S.B.

(From Fr. Paschal Baumstein’s My Lord of Belmont)

In June of 1890, Father Francis Meyer, O.S.B., a young priest of the abbey, contracted typhoid fever. As the disease lingered into its second month, (Abbot Leo) Haid wrote, “I am afraid he will die, [although] we have prayed and still pray for his recovery.” Father Felix (Hintemeyer), who had organized these prayers, appended to the pious petitions the promise that should Father Francis be cured, the monks would build a grotto in honor of the Virgin, whose apparition before (St.) Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes in 1858, had sparked great interest and devotion throughout the Catholic world. Meyer recovered, and Father Felix set the brothers to hauling granite boulders, while he searched for donors to finance the work.

The Grotto of Maria Lourdes was a tasteful, period creation in a cove just northeast and below where the monastery then extended. There was a niche for the statue of the Blessed Mother, an altar of wood, granite, and marble, with brass accessories…The grotto was typical of the Hintemeyer flair. Of itself it was simple, attractive; it exuded peace, piety, and prayer. But Father Felix, as usual, stepped back from the monument he had erected and allowed it to frame the gifts of Leo Haid. At the prior’s suggestion, Abbot Leo agreed to bless the Lourdes Grotto as a Pilgrimage Shrine—the only one in the state. Hintemeyer then planned the festivities, arranged press coverage from as far away as Baltimore, and of course ordained that the highlight of the ceremony would be an address by the Right Reverend Bishop (Haid). 

Interest had been encouraged by Father Felix’s announcement that the grotto was to be, above all else, “The Southern shrine of the Queen of the Clergy for Priestly Vocations”…The bishop pontificated at the High Mass in the Abbey Church at nine o’clock on May seventh (1891). Professor F. Mutter of Richmond composed a special Mass for the occasion, and Father Bernard led the students’ choir and orchestra in performance… 

To this day, students can be seen praying at the Grotto shrine with pious frequency, either individually or together, as in our campus Saints Group. Many visitors also come to the Grotto to pray and to venerate Our Lady. But it is the monastic community that can be found there every May evening, in Mary’s month, entering spiritually into the peaceful sanctity of the place and its miraculous beginnings.