In 1857, a small group of German pioneers left Europe for the United States to escape military and political repression. They traveled in small ships, crowded together like slaves. Many perished on the voyage. Seeking freedom, they traveled west as far as Wisconsin, then up the Mississippi or on Great Lakes shipping and into the Minnesota Territory which had just been opened to settlers. Passing up the Sauk River valley through a region of granite hills, they found an edge of the northern Great Plains where the soil was rich and bountiful. Here in a wilderness they would farm, but these were stalwart Catholics and there were no churches.
But their longed-for priests were not long in coming. A few intrepid Catholic missionaries had been exploring that country and asked the bishop at St. Paul on the upper Mississippi River to send help. From a Benedictine abbey in Pennsylvania came priests and brothers, who erected a new abbey high in a maple forest west of St. Cloud. As soon as the pioneers of the new settlement became aware of the coming of the Benedictines, they traveled in oxcarts to implore the Fathers there to pay them pastoral visits.
New arrivals themselves, and scarcely established, the monks nevertheless heeded the call. A Benedictine Father came to perform baptism. In the earliest years of Christianity, anywhere a sacrament was administered by the first apostle-priests was considered a church. This baptism, the first Sacrament celebrated in what would become St. Martin actually predated Minnesota statehood. Thus, St. Martin parish can be said to be a few months older than Minnesota itself!
In 1858, the first Benedictine priests visited what was then called Ley's Settlement in west-central Minnesota. Father Clement Staub, OSB, walked thirty miles to say the first Mass in the house of Henry Ley, and to choose a site for a church. Father Clement loved high places, and the special reason why St. Martin was selected as patron saint for the yet-to-be-built church was that these Germans remembered how on the eve of St. Martin's Day they had kindled great bonfires (Martinsfeuer) on hill tops on the anniversary of their patron saint to herald their joy far and wide over the country. Today the town and church of St. Martin stand firmly and (we hope) far-seeing on the tall southern bank overlooking the Saul River Valley.
Our first church, in 1865, was a simple log and frame structure. But families grew and more people came to St. Martin. Several additions were made until the little church became quite ugly to the eye. So the people set about to build a church like they remembered from childhood in Germany. Construction began in 1886 but the church was not formally dedicated until 1891. Of Gothic design, its great brickworks and towering steeple resembled a European cathedral, especially on the inside. The communion rail was completely hand-carved from red oak; people came from miles around just to touch it, and to view the statuary, stained glass "saint" windows, granite scriptural wall inlays, or to hear the great golden pipe organ.
But time took its toll. Even as St. Martin parish took a commanding lead in the St. Cloud diocese for vocations to the consecrated religious life, it became obvious that a new church building must be built. In 1969 the old gothic building yielded to a large new church built in a circular design so that everyone could be closer to the altar during Mass. The new church seats 600 parishioners and there are no steps to climb or other impediments for the elderly or infirm.
The Church of St. Martin has by now contributed 116 priests, sisters and religious brothers to the work of the Faith worldwide, and every one of its pastors since 1858 has come from the great Benedictine abbey of St. John the Baptist, located not far to the east. The people of St. Martin are hard-working farm families and townspeople who love life, laughter, rollicking music and simple joys. Living close to the land, we appreciate God's bounty, have a special love for sharing, and even in hard times have always welcomed strangers.
Because a stranger, after all, is no stranger at all, but Christ walking in another's footprints.
