Church of Our Lady History - 125th Anniversary

Chapter Nine

The Assumption

The 125^th Anniversary

Many preparations were made for the parish is 125^th anniversary and finally, the great day arrived. Very fittingly, it was August 15, the Assumption of Our Lady. The day itself had a note of solemn religious fervor and thanksgiving to Almighty God; there were also notes of joy and gaiety.

From the four corners of Louisville and Jefferson County, former parishioners and friends came with many of the local clergy and parishioners to pack the church for the 11am Mass. From many points in Kentucky and even more distant cities they came.

The highlight of the day was the special Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving. Our auxiliary Bishop, the Most Rev. Charles G. Maloney, D.D. (photo left), presided and represented the Archbishop. He announced that through the kindness of the Most Rev. Archbishop, “The apostolic blessing of his holiness, Pope Paul VI, was granted to the pastor, clergy, religious and faithful of Our Lady, Notre Dame du Port parish, Louisville, Kentucky, on the joyous occasion of the 125th anniversary of its founding.” This announcement made joy re–echo in the hearts of all who attended and through them, to the entire parish.

Officers of the Mass

Celebrant............................................. Rev. Michael Lally

Deacon................................................. Rev. Bertrand J. Rapp

Sub–deacon.......................................... Rev. John Feistritzer

Master of Ceremonies for the Bishop....... Rev. Matthew Brennan

Chaplains to the Bishop.......................... Rev. Fathers Hebert Hagan and Charles Kelty

MC for the clergy................................... Rev. Robert Volpert

MC for the Mass.................................... Mr. Kenneth Krekel

MC for the altar boys............................. Mr. Jack Walsh

Acolytes............................................... John Brady and Steve Weber

Thurifer................................................ John Ziegler and Michael Shawler

Cross Bearer......................................... Dennis Thompson

Candle Bearers..................................... William Bowman and Paul Schuchard

Choir.................................................... St. Thomas Seminary

Visiting Clergy

Charles Boldrick Joseph Luckett Francis Timoney Edward Van Bogaert

Dominic Altieri William Barnes, SSJ John Barker Charles Batcheldor

Richard L. Friedrich Richard Fowler John L. Grenough George Effinger

John Hanrahan Arthur Hartman James Hendricks Charles McDonald

Joseph Herp, OFM Conv. Eugene Henley, OFM Conv. Joseph Miller Albert Moore

Harry Opperman, C.R. Julian Pank Charles Reteneller Harold Ritter

Henry Schmidt, C.R. Mathias Schnieders, OFM Conv. Clarence Schwartz Rock Stack, OFM Conv.

Lawrence Smith Leo J. Sheeran Patrick Warren James K. Williams

Albert Wilson

Visiting Religious

Brother Dionysius Recktenwald, C.F.X., Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Loretto, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth

125^th Anniversary Sermon

The following sermon was delivered by the Rev. Stanley Schmidt:

I. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this celebration today is to give thanks to God for the abundant blessings and favors showered on Our Lady’s parish during the past 125 years. And we praise Him for providing us to see this day and to share together its joy.

And then, I think, we are here to offer congratulations to His Excellency, our Archbishop, on this occasion which is so important to one among so many parochial families over which he presides as shepherd. And we felicitate are pastor and his people is we share with them the happiness that this day and this celebration bring to us all.

II. A CITY… AND A RIVER

In the book of The Apocalypse (Revelation), the Apostle St. John described his vision of the City of God, the New Jerusalem. And he did so in words that seems appropriate for us this morning: (Rev 21:2–3, 22:1–2) “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband… And I heard a great voice from the thrown saying ‘Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them. And they shall be His people and God himself with them shall be their God!’… And he showed me a river of water clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the streets was the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, yielding its v every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

We have here in Portland a beautiful city, established and settled more than 150 years ago by men and women of deep faith who lived according to the will of God. It is therefore, a city proceeding from the throne of God. And beside this city there flows a river, made broad and mighty by the hand of God. And in the midst of the streets of this city there is a tree of supernatural life, Our Lady’s parish, which for 125 years has borne spiritual fruits in the souls of the thousands of people who have been members of its spiritual household. And the fruits of that tree have been shared by the descendants of many nations.

III. OUR LADY’S LOOKS TO THE RIVER FOR ITS ORIGIN AND ITS NAME

It would indeed be safe to say that the life and history of Our Lady parish has long been closely associated with the river on his banks it was built. The towns of Shippingport and Portland came into being because of the profitable trade that the waters of the river carried. With the passage of the years and the completion of the canal and 1830 that trade increased and the towns grew. It was this thriving trade that influenced the large number of French immigrants to settle here, beginning and 1806, in which attracted the settlers from Ireland and Germany in the generations that followed.

The increase in the Catholic population of Portland created a need for a priest to administer to their spiritual needs. Fr. Stephen Badin was that priest. He visited Portland at least once a month for many years and all the time he was working towards the day when a parish could be established here. It was not until 1839 that his efforts were crowned with success. It was in that year the Bishop Guy Chabrat, acting as Coadjutor to Bishop Flaget, established a Catholic parish in Portland. He named it the Church of Our Lady of the Port. He chose Fr. Napoleon J. Perche as the first pastor. The church was to be built on land donated by Fr. Badin. On August 14, Fr. Perche took possession of his new parish and on the following day, the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, he offered the first Holy Mass and the parish they can trace its origin and its name back to the river beside which it was built.

IV. AND THE RIVER WAS ITS BOUNDARY

The river that helped give rise to Our Lady’s parish also served as its boundary. According to the decree of Bishop Chabrat, the Ohio River formed the northern and western boundaries of the new parish, the Salt River (at what is now West Point) formed its southern boundary, while the eastern limit was the present Eighteenth Street and its continuation, the Dixie Highway. It is interesting to us now to note how many parishes are within the limits of what was once Our Lady’s parish; there are no less than seventeen, and if we include the three that are right on the edge of those boundaries (St. Helen’s, St. Paul’s and Our Lady of Consolation) we have twenty.

V. BUT THE RIVER WAS NOT ALWAYS A FRIEND

But there were many times in the history of Our Lady’s when the river was something less than a friend. Time and time again it overflowed its banks and flooded the homes of the parishioners and damaged the church, school and rectory. The first floods recorded were those of 1883 and 1884, the latter being the worse of the two. Two–thirds of the homes in Portland were inundated and there must have been extensive damage to church property. Again in 1913 the waters returned, this time rising to a depth of six inches in the church, damaging pews, floors and walls. But the worst disaster came in 1937. I would never attempt to describe this catastrophe to you people who lived through it. But I will always recall the deep emotion in the voices of the many people who described it to me. They told of water half way up the eaves of the church, the complete destruction of the church’s interior pews, side altars, statues, stations, communion railing; the collapse of the floor which crashed down into the cellar, along with all the heating equipment. And the damage to the school in rectory was correspondingly great.

But after each flood, when the waters receded, the people return to their homes to repair or rebuild them and to their church to make it ready again for divine services. In 1937 it was nine weeks before Mass could be said in the school and seven months before the church to be repaired. But the work was done so thoroughly that in the words of The Record of September, 1937, “it was more substantial than it had been in many a year.”

But God has a way of bringing good out of misfortune. And it appears that these disasters have imparted some traits of character to the population of Portland that are seldom matched anywhere else. Says Fr. John Lyons, A former pastor in the history of the parish which he wrote 25 years ago: “There is a spirit of loyalty that is more pronounced in the people of Portland… A love for this section of the city which compels the inhabitants to cling to it, which incites the youth to dwell in the house of his father and his father’s father. There is a spirit of friendliness, too, the like of which is hardly found in any other part of the city. Perhaps the river, which has brought so much sorrow and distress, has bound these people to one another and to the very land which it has tried to take from them.”

The last blow that the river struck at this parish came in 1945. I can recall Fr. Lehmann telling of having to remove the pews to prevent them from being damaged. Now there is a flood wall behind which Our Lady’s and its people find a safe refuge from the ravages of floodwaters. But one cannot help but wonder if this wall and the blessed safety that it affords is not a wall of separation as well as a wall of protection. To make room for the wall, all the streets along the waterfront had to be bulldozed away. The same fate has befallen the last houses on Shippingport Island. This was once a church where worshipers were frequently distracted by the staccato whistle of steamboats and barges and the clanging of their bells. It was a church to which members of the crew would hurry of a Sunday morning after tying up their boats at the pier. It was the spiritual home of river pilots, steamboat captains, deckhands and stevedores. But how many of Our Lady’s parishioners are closely bound to the river other daily labors today? And how many families are directly dependent on the river for their livelihood? Is the wall that hides the river from you also a barrier that shuts out the river from all influence on the lives of the people it protects? I don’t really know the answer, but I hope that it is negative.

VI. SPIRITUAL FRUIT FOR SIX SCORE YEARS AND MORE

St. John’s spoke of the tree of life on the banks of the river as bearing twelve kinds of fruit and yielding them twelve times a year… that is to say, bearing abundant fruit continuously through many years. And that description fits Our Lady’s perfectly. For 125 years it has been a gateway to heaven for generation after generation. Who can enumerate the number of souls that have been given life here in the Sacrament of Baptism, nourished time and time again with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, strengthened for the battle of life by the Sacrament of Confirmation and fortified for the daily struggle against sin and temptations to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? How many boys and girls were taught the love of God in its school and then had their love for each other in God sanctified here at this altar? None of us can count the spiritual fruits, but all of them are recorded in the Book of Life from which they will never be erased and where we shall read them when our turn comes to eternal life.

Today we praise God for all these blessings poured out on His people during the long history of this parish. And we rejoice with the pastor and people who share in the glorious heritage of six generations who have made this parish their spiritual home, the place where God has visited his people and dwelt in their midst.

VII. ALL NATIONS CALL IT BLESSED

“And the leaves of that tree,” says St. John, “shall be for the healing of all nations.” Again, the description fits Our Lady’s. Immigrants from many nations have settled here and here and their descendants have made up the great family that has been Our Lady’s parish. There were immigrants from France at first, but then came the sons and daughters of Ireland and Germany and Italy. And when you read the history of the parish or scan the list of today’s parishioners you’ll find Swiss named, and English and Slavic… all nations. Truly the “leaves of this tree have been for the healing of the nations.”

VIII. AND WE CALL IT VENERABLE AND VITAL

And on this day of joy, as we look upon this parish we can say that it is venerable. Venerable because of its long and eventful history; venerable because it is the third oldest parish in the City of Louisville; venerable because its origin was so closely bound up with the venerable giants of the history of the church in Kentucky and America – Bishop Flaget, Fr. Badin, Fr. Perche; Venerable also because of the courage and faith of its people who, generation after generation, have preserved, maintained and over and over again, repaired and restore this house of god despite the many misfortunes – and there were others in addition to the floods.

But we also pronounce it vital. Our Lady’s is a parish that is thriving with life. After so many years it is so growing, adding new classrooms to a school, beautifying its church and making plans for a greater and more glorious future. Many of our older parishes are venerable and vanishing. Not so at Our Lady’s. She is venerable and vigorous.

Here one cannot help but recall a word written by the great Apostle, St. Paul. In relating to his people the incident in the life of Moses where the patriarch struck a rock with his rod and caused a torrent of water to gush fourth to refresh the people and their focks, Paul tells them that all this was a figure of Christ, that He was the rock that was broken and from which living waters flow for the life of those who believe in Him. This parish is the Mystic Christ living among His people, rent by many misfortunes, but from whom living waters have continued to flow and ever increasing abundance.

IX. AD MULTOS ANNOS

For our conclusion we might open the door a little for a glimpse at the future. And to do so we have to rely on the truth of the adage that the record of the past is the index to the future. And with truth in mind we can proudly and confidently take the words of David in the first psalm and apply them to Our Lady’s parish of the next and of succeeding generations: “I shall be like a tree which is planted near the routing waters which shall bring forth its fruits in due season… and its lead shall not fall off; and all whatsoever it shall do shall prosper.” [Pslam 1]

Social Activities

Dinner was served to the visiting clergy and seminary choir by the PTA. This memorable occasion reached its climax, filled with happiness, joy and good will, in the civic reception and party held at night and the churchyard. It was a folksy affair, featuring by a delightful concert by the talented Holy Name Band under the able direction of Mr. Joseph H. Herde, Jr.

Parish Mission

The 125^th anniversary of the foundation of the parish was filled with many activities and promises of continued spiritual growth. To conclude the observance of the anniversary, the head of the Carmelite Mission Band, Fr. Rene Hayes of Mundelein, Illinois, gave a parish mission from October 25 through November 1. The first four days were for men; the second four days for women. It was highly successful.

Conclusion of 125^th Anniversary

We have tried only to highlight a story which has been written by the faith, courage and sacrifice of clergy, religious and laity alike. Sweeping floods and global wars have come and gone and still, standing with its spire heavenward, is the Church of Our Lady. It stands by the river as if to remind all who passed it by, that there is a harbor of faith where a tired soul can drop anchor and find rest in peace in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ. Surely we cannot close without recognizing the many devoted priests like Fr. Lehmann, who have done so much for the parishioners of today and tomorrow. Surely the last 125 years is an inspiration for all to continue what has been so well begun. As we move into the next quarter century, who knows what new achievements within these parish confines will find a place in the record books of God?

125^th Anniversary Sponsors

A Alexander, Charles A.

B Baker, Mary E. Bay, Mrs. W. E. Becker, Elizabeth

Becker, Miss Gertrude Becker, John C. Becker, Kim C.

Becker, Mark A. Bakker, Thomas L. Jr. Clarence Bere Family

Bindner, Mr. & Mrs. Francis Bindner, Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Bondie Family

Brandenburg, Catherine Brennan, Rev. Matthew T. Briggs, Samuel

Buecher, Mr. & Mrs. William G. Burch, J. S. Butner, Mr. & Mrs. William

C Cahill, Mr. & Mrs. Lindsay E. Carroll, Mr. & Mrs. John Chamberlain, Lawrence

Clausen, Mr. & Mrs. John Connor, Mr. & Mrs. Theodore Craven, Joseph Edward

Craven, Mr. & Mrs. Louis Craven, Virginia Craven, Wallace

Cronon, Mr. & Mrs. James Crumpton, Beverly

D Doherty, Miss Elizabeth

F Fichteman, Georgia Fichteman, Henry Fichteman, Lily

Fichteman, Mary Fichteman, Mr. & Mrs. William J. Fichteman, William

French, Mr. & Mrs. Donald French, Mr. & Mrs. Lawrence L. Robert Frerman Family

Freemann, Mrs. Lucille

G Gentile, Mrs. Florence A. B. A. Gilhooly Family John B. Gross Family

H Hall, Mr. & Mrs. Joe Hardin, Mrs. Alberta Heffernan, Marilyn

Herron, Mr. & Mrs. Arnold Hicks, Miss Corinne Hicks, Mrs. Paul

Hillebrand, Mrs. Lillian Hughes, Mr. & Mrs. Frank J. Hyland, Mrs. Sally Kenney

J Jamison, Mr. & Mrs. John Jarboe, Mr. & Mrs. Robert F. Jessel, Herbert M.

Jones, Edward

K Kaelin, Mrs. Agnes Karibo, Mr. & Mrs. James R. Keefe, Lt. Donald USAF

Kelty, Mr. Thomas S. Kirkpatrick, Nell D. Y. Kline Family

Kneisler, Mr. & Mrs. R. J. Krekel, Mr. & Mrs. Louis

L Lally, Eloise Lally, Mrs. Nora Joe Lanham Family

Lehmann, Mr. & Mrs. Louis Logan, Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Logan, Mark A.

Charles Luckett Family

M Marshall, Mr. & Mrs. John G. McCoy, Mr. & Mrs. James A. Sr. McCrory, Patsy

McCrory, Walter Edward Mr. & Mrs. Donald McGuire Family McKnight, Mrs. W. C.

McLaughlin, Mrs. Mary Ann Joseph McTighe Family Miles, Mr. & Mrs. E. G.

Mitzlaff, Mr. & Mrs. Carl Mooney, Mr. & Mrs. James Morgan, Mr. & Mrs. Bobby

Murta, Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Murta, Gerald E. Murta, Helen

N Mrs. Earl Neff Family Noon, Mr. & Mrs. John M.

O O’Hearn, Grace Ogden, Mary E. Owen, Mrs. Mary W.

P Peak, Mr. & Mrs. Michael T.

R Recktenwald, Adolph Recktenwald, Ann Recktenwald, B. J.

Gerald Recktenwald Family Recktenwald, Rose Ross, Charles J.

Ross, Nellie M. Ross, Miss Teresa Ross, William J.

Rough, Hearl L.

S Sanders, Mrs. Hugh Schaub, Mr. & Mrs. Frank Scheckler, Caroline

Robert Scheckler Family Schmitz, Mrs. Anna Fred Schraffenberger Family

Schuchard, Mr. & Mrs. E. L. Shawler, Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Secor, Mr. & Mrs. F. V.

Seng, Mr. & Mrs. Irvin Stickles, Mr. & Mrs. J. J. Stith, Mr. & Mrs. Raymond

Paul Stoltz Family

T Lawrence Tegethoff Family Thompson, Dennis Thompson, Mr. & Mrs. Gilbert

U Unclebach, Charles A. Sr. Unclebach, Mr. & Mrs. C. F.

V Tyler Veasey Family Volpert, Mrs. Casper Volpert, Rev. Robert C.

W Paul Weller Family Westendorf, Mr. & Mrs. Eli William, Mrs. C. B.

George R. Wimsett Family

Z Zeigler, John J.

Our Lady of Fatima Shrine

In August, 1964, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd closed their convent at 8^th and Madison Streets in Louisville, which was the cradle of their order in the United States. As a memorial to the first sisters who arrived from Angiers, France, on December 1, 1842, and who resided with Lorettines at Cedar Grove Academy for nine months, while the 8^th Street convent was being built, the Good Shepherd sisters gave the Fatima group now on the rectory grounds to the parish. As noted in the annals of the Good Shepherd, “the Sisters remained nine months in Portland where they felt the love and generosity of the friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross.”