Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., paid a special visit to the Bordentown community of the Divine Word Missionaries June 30, sharing Evening Prayer, a social and dinner with members of the community.

According to Divine Word Father Guilherme Andrino, parochial vicar in St. Anthony Claret Parish, Lakewood, the evening involved nine members of the house and five seminarians staying in the home for summer break. It also included six members of the Society of the Divine Word New Jersey District, who serve in parishes around the Diocese.

“It was a great joy for us (in the) SVD to have the Bishop at our community,” Father Andrino said. It was the Bishop’s first visit to the Bordentown home, he added.

Father Andrino said that the casual evening provided those gathered time to share Bishop O’Connell’s company and to engage in discussion – as well as a chance to visit Father Stephen Schuler’s garden outside, from where vegetables are picked for meals served in the house.

“He took the social and dinner time to have a casual conversation with the people,” Father Andrino said.

During the visit, Father Raymond Lennon, rector of the house and former provincial for the SVD Chicago Province, also noted a connection between the Bordentown home of the Divine Word Missionaries and Bishop O’Connell’s order, the Vincentians.

“The house used to belong to The Vincentian Fathers of Philadelphia,” Father Andrino recalled learning, “then to Harris Hammond, and the SVD bought it back in 1941.”