Intent To Follow

Wimmer Wednesday. As Boniface Wimmer got closer to his Mission to America, he penned these words to those who would go with him.

“In reply to your communication regarding our proposed mission to America I wish to submit the following. If I rightly understand the tenor of your letter, you wish to inform me that, as matters now stand, you are not satisfied with the mere prospect of becoming Benedictines and missionaries in America, but that you are anxious to know whether I intend to take you with me at once, or leave you in the Institute until you complete your regular course of studies, or send you to one of our monasteries to become acquainted with the Holy Rule. You also intimate that unless you first live here under the same Rule, you might later regret the step which you are planning to take. I can even see the beginning of wavering in your resolution to follow me. I do not find fault with you for submitting these questions, and in response I wish to send you the following reflections for your serious consideration:

1. “You must above all be determined to become priests and good priests.
2. You must be determined to become religious not only to be united to Christ more closely and follow Him more faithfully, but, if necessary, do more for Him, to suffer for Him, and not by any means to go with the intention of becoming priests more easily or, still less, to escape temporal cares.
3. The vocation calling to the priesthood in itself is a great grace, and that to the [monastic] religious life a greater one, because it is a state of perfection, and that to the missionary life still greater, because it is an apostolic vocation.
4. We should consider it a great privilege that God deigns to use us as instruments in founding an institution which, if the foundation is well laid, will confer untold benefits on the people of the United States. If you consider this well, you will not put yourself forward without vocations. But if you feel the call within you, you will not allow yourselves to be deterred by obstacles from following this impulse, because the greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward. We will be able to say to Our Lord with Peter, Ecce nos reliquimos omnia ( “Behold, we have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?”) Undoubtedly he will give us the same answer that he gave to Peter, recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 19, verse 28.3″

“If these are your sentiments, you will never have cause to regret having followed me when you are in America. The main reason is not that you are in quest of beautiful surroundings, a comfortable house, or a life of ease, but that you are seeking the opportunity to carry the cross of self-denial after the crucified Jesus, to save or regain souls that otherwise would be lost and for which His blood would have been shed in vain.”

—From Boniface Wimmer, Abbot of Saint Vincent in Pennsylvania, translated by Dr. Maria Von Mickwitz and Father Warren Murrman, O.S.B., editor.