Benedictine Abbott Doug Mullen will preside at a Mass Sunday, Oct. 6, to celebrate the 100th year of the current St. John the Baptist Church building in Meire Grove. A reception will follow Mass. Historical displays have been organized which include parish and community histories commemorating the parish’s 1958 centennial.
St. John the Baptist, now part of the One in Faith Area Catholic Community, was an early parish begun by the Benedictine priests. New Munich had been started a year earlier, with St. Anthony, Freeport and others following.
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According to “Deep Roots, One Hundred Years in Meire Grove,” by Benedictine Paulin Blecker and other written histories, when St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville provided priests to minister to the spiritual needs of the growing area, St. John the Baptist Parish was founded. Benedictine Father Clement Staub presided at the first Mass in the fall of 1858, using a carpenter’s bench as an altar.
The original church was a log cabin; then a frame church was built in 1872 which the parish quickly outgrew. A grand church was built and blessed July 20, 1886, but was destroyed in a blizzard in February 1923. The church was rebuilt on the existing foundation — the present building — and celebrated its first Mass Oct. 7, 1924.
The town of Meire Grove was named for the Meyer family from Holdorf, Oldenburg, Germany. John Henry Meyer arrived in the United States and worked to earn money for his family’s ship passage, but died before the family could travel. Henry John, the oldest living son, immigrated to New Vienna, Iowa, and earned the fare for his mother Elizabeth and brother Herman. Because the best available land in that area had already been claimed, they moved in about 1857 to a new frontier area in central Minnesota.
Others joined in settling there. Many of the original settlers’ descendants still reside and worship in Meire Grove — there are numerous century farms within the parish borders.
St. John the Baptist fostered many sons and daughters in vocations of religious life; the parish school included a convent for the teaching sisters of St. Benedict’s Monastery (from St. Joseph).
The Meire Grove Band has its roots in the parish’s annual Corpus Christi procession to the four chapels at the corners of the parish. The band is Minnesota’s oldest continuous band.
Many great memories of the Corpus Christie procession each year. Memories recall only a single time the outdoor procession was canceled.
One correction; the 1872 church was destroyed by fire that occurred in that February 1923 blizzard. The present church was blessed and the first Mass celebrated in it on Oct 1924.
All are invited this Sunday, Oct 6, 2024, to commemorate this beautiful church and it’s people 100 years after that first Mass in it!