Who Were These Followers?

Wimmer Wednesday. Oswald Moosmüller’s book gives insights on those who would accompany Boniface Wimmer to America.

“These five students thus would become the first candidates for the priesthood which Divine Providence brought to Father Boniface for the establishment of a monastery in America.5

“In addition to these, another fifteen upstanding young men joined him, some tradesmen, some farmers, who planned to enter the monastery as lay brothers. One may boldly assert that not one of these could have even remotely anticipated the importance of the undertaking, nor the extent of the spiritual as well as temporal benefits which would arise for themselves as well as for so many others. Just as the merit of the individual should truly not be measured by his success but by his intention, so must the individual in a community never alone take credit for success reached or fruits won. Here the saying, ‘singula quae non prosunt unita juvant,’ applies not only to things, but also to persons; for what the individual may not be able to accomplish, joint efforts can.”

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