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.