Saint Meinrad Plaque

Product Description

The Saint Meinrad Plaque depicts a hermit monk (c. 797-861) in Switzerland who is known as the “Martyr of Hospitality.” He was killed in 861 by two thieves who coveted the gifts left by pilgrims at his hermitage.  This plaque is a wonderful gift for a birthday, baptism, confirmation, first communion, Christmas, and the feast day of Saint Meinrad on January 21st.

A Large Solid Bronze Plaque

This large solid bronze plaque measures 7.9 inches high and 6.3 inches wide. The plaque has a notch on the back to allow for easy hanging on any wall in office, home, or study. A world-renowned bronzesmith in Germany conceived and realized this solid bronze plaque. This plaque will be an excellent gift for that special “Meinrad” in your life!

Saint Meinrad – the “Martyr of Hospitality”

Saint Meinrad is depicted here at his hermitage in the
“Dark Wood.” The monastery and church of Einsiedeln Abbey were eventually erected on the spot where his hermitage had stood.  The great Abbey of Reichenau near Constance, Switzerland is where Saint Meinrad had entered the Order and had been ordained a priest. The two ravens were his constant companions during his life as a hermit. The bowl and jug are symbols of the hospitality which Saint Meinrad so readily and joyfully practiced. For an account of the martyrdom of the “Martyr of Hospitality,” go to the History/Story tab.

 

The Martyrdom of the “Martyr of Hospitality”

Early in the ninth century, a saintly, quiet-loving young Benedictine monk named Meinrad, while passing through the city of Zurich on his way to become a teacher at the small monastery of Bollingen, was deeply thrilled when the Abbess-Princess Hildegarde gave him a lovely three-foot wooden statue of the Mother of God holding the Child Jesus in her arms.

Very often during his several years at Bollingen, young Father Meinrad used to gaze out of the window of his cell with ever-increasing longing at a forest-clad mountain on the other side of the lake, for he wished more than anything else to become a hermit and to live a life of prayer, penance and meditation all alone in those woods, like the great hermit-saints of old. Having at last obtained his superiors’ permission, one day in the year 828 he took up in his arms his cherished statue of Mary and set out in a wide flat-bottomed boat to cross the lake and become a hermit in the Dark Wood on the slopes of Mount Etzel.

Soon after settling in a solitary retreat he found a nest with two young ravens, which he gladly adopted and tamed, perhaps because the Child Jesus of his statue held a small bird in one hand. Meinrad spent seven years on this mountain, and he was a happy young hermit except for one thing: more and more pilgrims were coming to visit him, attracted by his growing reputation as a saint.

Therefore he fled from his tiny cell, taking his statue and his two friends, the ravens, with him. He went still farther into the depths of the Dark Wood until one day he found, in the midst of the lofty pine trees on a small table-land surrounded by hills on three sides, a bubbling spring giving forth sparkling, fresh mountain water. Here he built himself a little log hut and a chapel, in which he reverently placed Our Lady’s statue. His faithful ravens often perched on either side of a crucifix on the gable and watched the holy hermit as he worked and prayed. He was completely happy in this solitude.

But one day a woodcutter discovered Meinrad’s retreat, and soon pilgrims were again flocking to receive his blessing and advice. Once some of his Brothers in religion came to visit him, and during the night one of them saw and heard Meinrad reciting his Office with a beautiful seven-year-old boy all dressed in white, who approached the astonished monk and secretly foretold many events which later occurred.

After more than twenty years of prayer and penance, while he was saying Mass in his little chapel on the morning of January 21, 861, the Feast of the Martyr St. Agnes, Meinrad learned by a divine revelation that this was to be his last Mass. With perfect resignation to the will of God, he devoutly received Holy Communion as if it were Holy Viaticum. Then with tears of love in his eyes, the old hermit looked up at his beautiful statue of Mary and begged Our Lady to strengthen him, asking her to offer to her Son the death which he was about to suffer for His glory.

During all the years which Meinrad had spent alone in the Dark Wood, he had never been harmed by the mountain bears or wolves or other wild animals who dwelt there. Now, however, two human beasts of prey, two hardened criminals, hearing that people made pilgrimages to the hermit, were tempted by the idea that he must have precious gifts and rich treasure hidden away in his lonely hermitage. And so this cold winter night they made their way through the deep snow to his retreat in the forest.

Meinrad was just finishing his Mass as they approached, and he now heard the shrill screams of warning of his faithful ravens. With a smile of heavenly joy on his lips, he went out and welcomed the two men with loving kindness and hospitality, setting before them some bread and wine. When they roughly demanded that he show them his hidden treasure he humbly led them into the little chapel, and pointing to the plain wooden statue above the altar, he said, “I have no other treasure.”

Then with a last loving look at Mary, he folded his hands on his chest, bowed his head, and added calmly, “That for which you have come, do…”

In a mad rage the two robbers seized and brutally beat the saintly old hermit to death with a heavy club, while his two ravens flew wildly about, screaming and trying in vain to help their good friend by pecking at the murderers’ foreheads.

Then the criminals dragged the Saint’s body to his couch of dry leaves in his hut and were about to begin their search for the supposedly hidden treasure when all of a sudden they noticed that a strange yet delicious odor pervaded the place. When they perceived that two candles standing by the hermit’s bed had somehow just been lighted without human hand, the two assassins fled in terror all the way to Zurich. But like the accusing finger of God, Meinrad’s two ravens persistently followed and attacked the murderers until they were arrested and had confessed the crime.

The body of the holy martyr was taken by his Brothers to the great Abbey of Reichenau near Constance, in which he had entered the Order and been ordained priest.

In the years that followed, pilgrims kept coming to the abandoned little chapel in the Dark Wood, and a few hermit-monks settled there. In the year 906, St. Benno of Strasbourg began to restore and add to the old structures. And in 934, St. Eberhard, also from Strasbourg, arrived and set about building a large monastery and church, the latter enclosing and protecting Meinrad’s holy little chapel, which was only eight and a half yards long by six yards wide. When this work was completed in the summer of 948, Eberhard, having become the first Abbot of Einsiedeln, invited St. Conrad, the Bishop of Constance, to consecrate and dedicate the Chapel of Our Lady of the Hermits….

It was not long before Einsiedeln became one of the three or four most popular pilgrimage centers in all Europe. For the past nine centuries it has been famous among the Catholic peoples of France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland as a great and beautifully situated shrine at which Our Lord performs many miracles through the merciful intercession of His compassionate Mother. For several centuries now, over 100,000 – and often as many as 200,000 – devout pilgrims have been visiting Einsiedeln every year. The large church has suffered half a dozen disastrous fires, but not once was Our Lady’s little chapel damaged, until the sacking of the shrine during the wars of the French Revolution. The present great basilica and monastery, built in the first half of the 18th century, are one of the most impressive religious monuments in Europe. In 1861 the Benedictine monks solemnly celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the death of their founder, St. Meinrad, whose body had been brought back to his beloved Alpine retreat in 1039, the year in which he was canonized. And on September 14, 1948, Einsiedeln duly marked the 1000th anniversary of the miraculous consecration.

It is deeply significant that, probably in large part due to Our Lady of the Hermits, the sturdy little Christian democracy of Switzerland, whose patron St. Nicholas of Flue was a hermit and a frequent pilgrim to Einsiedeln, has been able to achieve a hermit-like state of peace and sober well-being amid all the international and civil wars of our times, while participating actively in unselfish brotherly relief and charity work for the unfortunate of all nations. Switzerland has rightly been called the heart of Europe. And the Catholic Canton of Schwyz, in which Einsiedeln is located, is in the heart of Switzerland.

Additional Information

Weight	2.75 lbs
Dimensions	7.9 x 6.3 x 1 in