Wilhelm Eberschweiler

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Wilhelm Eberschweiler SJ

Wilhelm Nikolaus Eberschweiler SJ (born December 5, 1837 in Püttlingen , † December 23, 1921, Exaten estate near Baexem) was a German Jesuit , mystic , rector and novice master .

Origin and life

Wilhelm Eberschweiler was a son of the elementary school teacher Johann Franz Eberschweiler (1812–1889), who came from Felsberg / Neuforweiler and worked in Püttlingen, and his wife Johanna Margareta, born in Ernst on the Moselle . Nöhren (1804-1891). The marriage resulted in a total of five sons and two daughters, of which one son and one daughter died early. All four sons, Wilhelm was the eldest of them, joined the Society of Jesus . In the 1840s, the family moved to Waxweiler in the Eifel after their father had been transferred there. They lived there in the immediate vicinity of the church, where their mother often took Wilhelm with her. When the father was transferred again, the family moved with him to Bitburg . Wilhelm attended school here and received his first communion . Soon he became assistant to the sexton and preferred acolyte of Dechants . As a boy of 11 he took over the management of the winter school in the neighboring municipality of Masholder in Bitburg . At the age of 12 Eberschweiler was discharged from school and, prepared by Kaplan Persch, came straight away to the quinta of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Trier. Since his father only had an annual salary of 120 thalers, his aunt Anna Maria Nöhren from Ernst covered the expenses with income from her vineyards . In 1851 he entered the Bischöfliches Konvikt in Trier with the intention of becoming a secular priest , which is what the whole education in the Konvikt resulted in.

When a little later a senior prime minister and good friend had joined the Lazarists' cooperative and wrote to him how happy he felt, Eberschweiler wanted to do the same. He wrote back to his friend that he wanted to come to him and become a Lazarist, on condition that he should be used in the external missions. Eberschweiler then decided to leave the grammar school after completing the subprima, which his parents and especially his father disliked. In the following autumn vacation, the asset manager of the Trier seminary, who was in Bitburg on business, visited him and talked to him and his parents about the matter. When the gentleman, who had previously been sub-director in the Konvikt, indicated that he could follow the voice of God without further ado, but that he thought it sensible to go to high school first, since the delay would only cost one year, he agreed and graduated in 1858 with the school leaving examination. On September 30, 1858 he entered the Jesuit order in Münster as a novice together with his brother Friedrich, also known as Fritz . The decision was also borne by his parents. Later he was followed by his two other brothers Karl and Franz. As his health was weakened by overzealousness in the second novitiate year, his superiors sent him to Feldkirch in Vorarlberg to the boys' boarding school there. Here he worked as a prefect , and among his pupils was the later cardinal Franz Ehrle . Even after taking his first vows , he retained the position of prefect, but that changed when he returned to Münster in 1862 to study rhetoric . This was followed by further studies in philosophy and theology at the Collegium Maximum Maria Laach in 1863 without interruption . There, Bishop Konrad Martin von Paderborn ordained him as a deacon and Archbishop Paulus Melchers on September 13, 1868 as a priest in 1864 .

Wijnandsrade Castle

In the same month he was sent to Aachen , where he was supposed to prepare for his ministry by studying the church fathers . Since in Aachen at that time only one president was needed for the two student congregations and one preacher for the St. Mary's Church , Eberschweiler was given both offices. In order to complete his tertiary education, he went to Gorheim in 1870 , where he stood by the novice master Moritz Meschler (1830–1912) as a partner. After completing his tertiary education, he first became President of the Sigmaringen Student Congregation. When Meschler was transferred to Münster, he took over his office as novice master in Gorheim in 1871. After the Jesuits were expelled from Germany during the Kulturkampf , the novices moved to Exaten in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands in December 1872 and Eberschweiler took over the post of rector of the juniorate of rhetoric students in Wijnandsrade at Wijnandsrade Castle . When he received a successor in his office in 1876, the Provincial Father Caspar Hövel (1831–1899) announced to him that he would now be spiritual [of the community] and added the words, “ad multos annos”, for many years to come ! In 1881 he became rector and novice master on the Exaten estate near Baexem, which belonged to the Jesuits. In 1884 he went to Ditton Hall in England to the local order college, which had accepted Jesuit refugees from 1870, but returned to Wijnandsrade in 1889 and stayed there until 1894. He then went back to Exaten near Baexem with his juniores to work there as To work spiritually and as a confessor .

When the juniorate was merged with the philosophy of the Ignatius College in Valkenburg in 1903 , it stayed back in Exaten for years. From then on he was the spiritual of the house until his death. He received everyone with friendliness at all times, knew how to comfort, cheer up, and spur them on, just as the peace of mind and professional joy that reflected on his face also sounded in his words. His judgment was calm, sober, reasonably decided and at the same time carried by a lively spirit of faith and, as it were, transfigured by the extremely high conception that he had of the tasks of the Society of Jesus. He wrote the last lines in his spiritual diary, which he had kept since 1866, on December 15, 1921. A few days later he fell seriously ill and passed out during a celebration of the Eucharist , from which he could not recover. His body was buried in the cemetery belonging to the house in Exaten. In 1958 Eberschweiler's remains were transferred from Exaten in the Netherlands to Trier; “With a stopover in Waxweiler”, as the Jesuit Father Ludger van Bergen from Trier, the chairman of the Eberschweiler Bund founded in 1986 and who campaigned for the beatification of Eberschweiler, still knew.

Beatification process

Grave of Wilhelm Eberschweiler in the Jesuit Church in Trier

Wilhelm Eberschweiler was certified as having an exemplary, modest and loyal way of life, who was always friendly and always planned everything carefully. Although he was color blind and at times suffered from severe pain due to illness, he worked with great discipline and devotion to the will of God. He was said to have had supernatural favors and visions that were attested to in many ways and documented in his diary. However, he himself kept this mystical talent hidden. Because the reputation of holiness did not decrease, a process of beatification was initiated beginning on November 30, 1951 . The information process, which was carried out by the Curia of the Church in Trier, lasted until March 26, 1958, which was followed by a supplementary investigation from October 11, 1999 to July 3, 2001. After drawing up a positio, the question was discussed whether the servant of God had cultivated the virtues in a heroic degree, which was answered positively on October 20, 2016 after a specially convened meeting of theologian consultors .

Grave slab of Wilhelm Eberschweiler in the Jesuit church in Trier

On January 6, 2017, Bishop Stephan Ackermann wrote to the Vatican Congregation for the Process of Canonization in the Vatican and pleaded for the long-standing process of the virtue process to be completed as soon as possible, describing Father Wilhelm Eberschweiler as follows:

"For the believers of his time, and for generations after that, he was an outstanding spiritual personality who knew how to offer many people orientation for their lives - both seminarians and priests as well as lay people."

- Stephan Ackermann :
Rollup P. Wilhelm Eberschweiler in Waxweiler

A first preliminary answer was given in April 2018 when the Congregation voted for Pope Francis to issue the decree on the “heroic degree of virtue” of Father Eberschweiler .

"In their ordinary meeting on April 24, 2018, the Cardinals and Bishops under my chairmanship, Cardinal Angelo Amatos, declared that the Servant of God exercised the divine virtues and the cardinal virtues associated with them in a heroic degree."

- Angelo Amato :

On May 19, 2018, the Congregation published the Pope's decree, which was announced in the Official Journal of the Diocese of Trier on July 1, 2019 .

In 2020 the Eberschweiler Bund e. V. Create rollups in order to promote the presence of the ongoing beatification process on site. The rollups serve to provide concise information about the life and work of the religious as well as about some memorials. They were set up in the parish churches of St. Sebastian in Püttlingen, St. John the Baptist in Waxweiler, Liebfrauen in Bitburg and in the Jesuit church in Trier. It is also known that over 80,000 answers to prayer have been documented over the years.

siblings

Ida Eberschweiler (1830-1914)

Ida was born in Bettingen an der Saar in 1830 . She remained single and worked for 33 years as a housekeeper for pastor Friedrich von Kloschinsky (1839–1908) in the parish of St. Paulin in Trier. After his death she lived with the Franciscan Sisters in Trier, where she died on December 28, 1914.

Hugo Friedrich Eberschweiler (1839-1918)

The Jesuit Father Hugo Friedrich Eberschweiler SJ was born on June 19, 1839 as the third child of the Eberschweiler family in Waxweiler . Like his brothers Wilhelm and Karl, he also attended the Friedrich Wilhelm high school in Trier. After he had completed both the grammar school and the Bischöfliche Konvikt in Trier, he originally wanted to pursue military training. However, together with his brother Wilhelm, he decided to lead the life of a missionary and therefore they joined the Jesuit order in Münster on September 30, 1858. Friedrich was ordained a priest on July 15, 1870 in Maria-Laach and from then until 1871 worked as a chaplain in a field hospital during the Franco-German War . From 1871 to 1872 he went to Paderborn to complete his tertiate in the Jesuit order. When the Jesuit law came into force on July 4, 1872 as part of the Kulturkampf , he decided to travel to North America to the German Buffalo Mission, where he arrived on August 10, 1872. (Note: The Buffalo Mission was taken over by German Jesuits in 1869 in order to provide pastoral care to the then very large number of German emigrants in the American Midwest in the Great Lakes area . It covered areas from Minnesota to the US state of New York , where their center was.) Once there, he began teaching at the Marian Seminary in Cleveland . From 1874 to 1881 he worked as a pastor in St. Marien in the US state of Ohio and from 1882 in Burlington (Iowa) .

St. Peters Mission Montana (before 1908)

At the end of August 1883, Father Fredrick Hugo Eberschweiler SJ, as he called himself there now, came to Helena in Montana , where he was assigned to the St. Peter's Mission near Cascade . Here he was to become the first resident Indian missionary in the large area of ​​transition from the prairie to the Rocky Mountains . In the beginning, he cared for white and mixed race children in the area. Around the year 1885, he visited the Blackfoot and Crow - Indians and lived temporarily in their wigwams . During one of his visits to Fort Assiniboine in Montana, the Indians told him that they wanted a mission of their own. Thereupon P. Eberschweiler wrote a letter to President Cleveland and asked him for permission to build a mission with a school building on the area belonging to the Fort Belknap reservation. On November 1, 1885, he received a positive reply from Cleveland, and on December 8, the new mission was ceremonially dedicated. Father Eberschweiler learned the Assiniboine language with the help of the interpreter William Bent and soon afterwards he began teaching 20 Indian children. When he had also acquired the language of the Gros Ventre , it gained him great respect among the Indians.

Father Friedrich Hugo Eberschweiler SJ and Ursuline sisters in the St. Peters Mission around 1887

In the years 1886/87 the previous mission was relocated to the valley of the "Little Rockies" 40 miles away near Peoples Creek due to a shortage of wood, fuel and drinking water. The mission was completed on September 15, 1887, and a group of Ursuline sisters supported the fathers in their work in the school, which initially had 25 students. In 1888 the government officially opened the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation as a small remnant of the formerly large hunting area of ​​the Blackfeet and Nakoda nations. Father Eberschweiler took on the difficult task of turning hunters and gatherers into both sedentary farmers and Christians. By the end of 1887 Father Eberschweiler had baptized 138 children under the age of seven and 21 adults, and by the end of 1890 the number of his baptisms had increased to a little over 500. After Father Balthasar Feusi SJ (1854-1936) had been appointed as his successor in St. Paul, P. Eberschweiler was transferred in 1891 to Harlem (Montana), a train station on the Great Northern Railway , where he again looked after Assiniboines, which in the Fort Peck Indian Agency were working. In 1893 he was transferred to Fort Benton and in 1896 to Chinook (Montana) . In 1896 in Columbus, Ohio , he published a prayer book entitled “Watshegiyabe” in the Assiniboine language. From 1900 to 1912 Father Eberschweiler worked as a pastor for the white residents who had settled in the course of the construction of the North Pacific Railway and founded seven churches along the Great Northern Railroad. From 1912 he lived in Great Falls (Montana) with the Franciscan Sisters of the hospital that he had founded himself. Friedrich Eberschweiler died on July 13, 1918 in Havre in Hill County in Montana. He was buried in the Jesuit Cemetery of the Oregon Province in Spokane , Washington State . The gravestone of Father Fredericus Eberschweiler bears u. a. the inscription INC. SEPT. 30. 1858, which was the date on which he and his brother Wilhelm joined the Jesuit order (inc. For incipiens, lat. “Beginning”) in Munster.

Karl Mathias Eberschweiler (1841–1911)

Father Carolus Eberschweiler SJ was born on September 19, 1841 in Waxweiler. Like his two older brothers Wilhelm and Friedrich, he attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Trier. After completing the tertia, he began an apprenticeship with his godfather to train as a pharmacist. Then he and his mother visited the two older brothers in Münster. On the advice of his mother, as his mother told him, he made the retreat to protect himself against the dangers of world life. He officially entered the novitiate in Munster on October 7, 1860, thus creating a solid foundation for his spiritual life. After the novitiate, he completed studies of humanity and rhetoric at Friedrichsburg, which was followed by a three-year study of philosophy in Maria-Laach. In 1868 the college took him to Feldkirch in Austria as prefect in the first boarding school. In 1871 he returned to Maria-Laach to study theology for four years. He then completed his tertiary degree under Father Oswald and then went to India , which corresponded to his heartfelt desire. There he acted as prefect general in the colleges of St. Franz-Xavier and St. Mary's in Bombay . In the meantime he spent a year in the pagan mission when his superiors sent him back to Bandora in the Indian state of Goa . Here he fell ill after three years of apostolic work and, after a recovery in India was not expected, he had to return to Europe in 1890 . He first went back to Maria-Laach for a year and worked there as a spiritual director, as well as in Portico (England), where he stayed the following year. Then he moved to Elkenroth in the Westerwald for the next 9 years in order to further build up the Catholic workers' colony of St. Josef there. Another focus was the care of the parish under his control. After Elkenroth, his path led to the St. Francis Indian Mission in the US state of South Dakota . No sooner had he settled in there than he was recalled to work as a Spiritual in the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus . Here he celebrated his golden anniversary in 1910 and he looked after more than 100 students and over 50 seminarians for a total of 10 years. Towards the end of the 1911 school year he fell so seriously ill that he had to be taken to St. Antoniusspital, where on October 21, 1911 he was counted among those of whom it is called: “Beati mortui, qui in Domino moriuntur” (German : Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ).

Johann Sylvester Eberschweiler (1843–1850)

The second youngest brother, Johann Sylvester, was born on December 31, 1843 in Bitburg and died there at the age of 7 on July 22, 1850. The name Johann Baptist was noted in the act of death.

Charlotte Caroline Eberschweiler (1847-1850)

The youngest sister Charlotte Caroline was born on July 29, 1847 in Bitburg and died there on March 11, 1850.

Johann Franz Eberschweiler (1852-1911)

The youngest brother Johann Franz (Franciscus) Eberschweiler SJ was born on January 3, 1852 in Bitburg. After completing seventh grade in the boarding school in Feldkirch, he entered the novitiate in Gorheim on January 9, 1870, where he had his eldest brother Wilhelm for another year as novice master. Francis spent the rest of his life in the status of a scholastic who was fatally ill due to illness. Since he was treated outside the houses of the Jesuit order in the Sint-Annendael psychiatric clinic in Diest Grauwsteers , it is assumed that he was never able to finish his novitiate and ultimately died there of the effects of a mental illness on February 19, 1911.

Works

  • Grace and virtue as the epitome of inner life : Spiritual instructions especially for the purpose of monthly spiritual renewal, Wilhelm Eberschweiler (author), Walter Sierp (ed.), Verlag Warendorf 1932, 349 pp.
  • God is good: "Report on my life" , Wilhelm Eberschweiler (author), Peter Krumscheid (ed.), Paulinus Verlag Trier 1952, 66 pp.
  • Seeking and finding Christ : 3 lectures, Wilhelm Eberschweiler (author), Peter Krumscheid (publisher), Trier, Dackweiler 1967 and 1971, 71 pp.
  • Our friend: Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament , lecture by Wilhelm Eberschweiler, 6th edition, Trier, Ignatiushaus - Leutesdorf / Rhein, Catholic Schriftenmission 1978, 32 pp.
  • Blessing of devotion to the Sacred Heart: a lecture and novena , Wilhelm Eberschweiler (author), 2nd edition, Trier, Ignatiushaus - Leutesdorf / Rhein, Catholic Schriftenmission 1978, 40 pp.
  • Living as a Christian in everyday life , two lectures by Father Wilhelm Eberschweiler SJ on the right good opinion, 1st edition, Leutesdorf, K. Schriftenmission - Trier Ignatiushaus 1978, 48 pp.
  • Prayer booklet for admirers of Mary , Devis, Johann Baptist and Eberschweiler, Wilhelm, Münster (Westf.), Coppenrath 1911, 206 pp.
  • Confession , a lecture, Eberschweiler, Wilhelm, Trier Paulinus-Dr. 1975, 32 pp.
  • Gottesliebe , Eberschweiler, Wilhelm, Trier Ignatiushaus 1961, 34 pp.
  • The nine love services against the Sacred Heart of Jesus according to Blessed Margareta Maria Alacoque , Schneider, Joseph and Eberschweiler, Wilhelm, Paderborn Schöningh 1917, 95 pp.
  • Seelenführung , Eberschweiler, Wilhelm, Trier Paulinus Druckerei 1955, 18 pp.

literature

  • Alfons Friderichs (Ed.): Eberschweiler, Wilhelm , In: “Personalities of the Cochem-Zell District” , Kliomedia, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-89890-084-3 , p. 90 f.
  • Heinz Monz (Ed.): Eberschweiler, Wilhelm, Spiritual , In: "Trier Biographical Lexicon" , WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier 2000, ISBN 3-88476-400-4 , p. 93.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Beatification of Father W. Eberschweiler expected - ancestors come from Klotten, Alfons Friderichs, In: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Cochem-Zell, 1985, p. 58 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Ancestral list for Eberschweiler Wilhelm Nikolaus, created on June 29, 2018, source: Eberschweiler Bund e. V. Trier, 8 pp. (PDF)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Totenschau. P. Wilhelm Eberschweiler, pp. 147–153, by Otto Braunsberger , Archive of the German Province of the Jesuits Munich.
  4. ↑ a b c d Joachim Schäfer: Article Wilhelm Eberschweiler, from the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints , accessed on January 29, 2020
  5. ^ Novice master Moritz Meschler, German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE), 2nd edition, Volume 7, Menghin - Pötel, edited by Rudolf Vierhaus, KG Saur Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-25030-9 in the Google book search
  6. ↑ Jesuit Caspar Hövel 1831–1899, The Austrian Feldkirch and its Jesuit colleges “St. Nikolaus ”and“ Stella Matutina ”, by Bernhardloch, Peter Lang, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, ISBN 978-3-631-57381-5 in the Google book search
  7. ^ Sights in Leudal, Exaten Abbey in Baexem, In: historischer-verein-wegberg.de
  8. ^ Ditton Hall was owned by the Stapleton-Bretherton family until c1870 when it became a refuge for Jesuit students and was used as a presbytery attached to St Michael's Catholic Church. , In: aboutlancs.com (English)
  9. ↑ Now only one miracle is missing, the Jesuit father Wilhelm Eberschweiler, buried in Trier, takes the penultimate hurdle on the way to beatification, by Rolf Seydewitz, Trier May 23, 2018, Trierischer Volksfreund (PDF)
  10. ↑ In the Catholic Church, a positio (positio super virtutibus) is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared venerable, the second of the four steps on the path to canonization as a saint.
  11. ↑ a b c Congregations - Monday, July 1, 2019 - Volume: 163 - Article: 100, Beatification and canonization process for Father Wilhelm Eberschweiler SJ, decree on the heroic degree of virtue, Diocese of Trier, beatification and canonization process of the Servant of God Wilhelm Eberschweiler , Priest and member of the Society of Jesus (1837–1921), In: Bistum-Trier.de
  12. ↑ a b c After awarding the "heroic degree of virtue" to Father Wilhelm Eberschweiler SJ (1837–1921)
  13. ^ Father Wilhelm Eberschweiler SJ, A venerable servant of God, whose beatification is worth praying for. In: bistum-trier.de (PDF)
  14. ^ The apostolic heart, by P. Wilhelm Eberschweiler, In: kath-info.de
  15. ↑ a b c d e Father Friedrich Eberschweiler SJ from Waxweiler, "Apostle" of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Indian, by Bodo Bost, Grevenmacher, In: Heimatkalender Bitburg-Prüm 2014, 7th p.
  16. ^ Buffalo Mission, The Jesuit Mission to the Lakota Sioux, A Study of Pastoral Theology and Ministry, 1886-1945, by Ross Alexander Enochs, Sheed & Ward, Kansas City 1996, ISBN 1-55612-813-4 in the Google Book Search - USA
  17. ^ Friedrich Eberschweiler, Voices from Maria-Laach, Catholic Monthly, fourth volume, Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder'sche Verlagshandlung, 1873 in the Google book search
  18. ^ BalthasarFeusi, In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland
  19. ↑ Book "Watshegiyabe" The Bearer of This Letter, Language Ideologies, literacy practices, and the Fort Belknap Indian Community, Mindy Morgan, University of Nebraska in 2009, ISBN 978-0-8032-6757-2 Mindy J. Morgan in Google Book Search USA
  20. ^ For Father Fredericus Eberschweiler, In: Findagrave.com
  21. ^ Friedrich Eberschweiler 1839-1918, Les Ecrits Complets de Louis Riel, by Louis Riel, George FG Stanley, The University of Alberta Press, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 1985 in the Google Book Search
  22. ↑ a b c d Father Karl Eberschweiler, 6th p., In: Archive of the German Province of the Jesuits in Munich
  23. ↑ P. Karl Eberschweiler, The Catholic Missions, Illustrated monthly magazine, 1878, Freiburg im Breisgau, Herdersche Verlagshandlung in the Google book search
  24. ↑ Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, In: gregorien.info
  25. ↑ God is good. Report on my life Peter Krumscheid 1952, German Biographical Encyclopedia of Theology and the Churches (DBETh), edited by Bernd Moeller with Bruno Jahn, Volume 1, A – L, KG Saur, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-11666-7 in the google book search
personal data
SURNAME Eberschweiler, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eberschweiler, Wilhelm Nikolaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jesuit and Spiritual
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH Püttlingen
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 1921
Place of death Exaten estate near Baexem