Missouri celebrates 'venerable past'
August 25, 2021 at 7:27 p.m.
Dignitaries and rank-and-file Missourians were gathered around the steps of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City to celebrate their bicentennial of statehood.
"This is the day the Lord has made! Let us be glad and rejoice!" Msgr. Robert A. Kurwicki, vicar general for the Jefferson City Diocese, chaplain of the Missouri House of Representatives and pastor of St. Michael Parish in Russellville, Missouri, proclaimed in the invocation, quoting Psalm 118.
It was Aug. 10, Statehood Day, marking the 200th anniversary of the day President James Monroe signed legislation recognizing Missouri as the 24th state in the Union.
Msgr. Kurwicki thanked God for his blessings and for all the people who have contributed to building up Missouri in its first 200 years.
"We recall with joy our venerable past, we now live in our gracious and unfolding present, and we look forward to a hopeful future," he said.
"It took all of us, every single Missourian for the past 200 years, to make us who we are and to bring us to this day," Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Wilson said. "It will take all of us to move Missouri into the future – our future – that will be as bright as we make it, together."
[[In-content Ad]]
Gary Kremer, executive director of the Missouri State Historical Society, called to mind an assertion by the 19th-century Missouri statesman U.S. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton that those who owned land and cultivated the soil were "the chosen of God" and their occupation "the most fruitful in the creation of patriotic and good Christians."
Kremer noted that the approximately 70,000 people living in the state at the time of its founding could easily fit into the University of Missouri's Memorial Stadium.
The largest concentration was in and around St. Louis, with other groups scattered along the Mississippi River, in the lead mining region of the western Ozarks, "and a rapidly growing group along the Missouri River in the central part of the state, extending westward along the so-called Boonslick Trail," he said.
Howard County, in the heart of the Jefferson City Diocese, was at that time the fastest-growing county in the United States.
Kremer pointed out that many of the early European settlers came in search of good farmland that they could afford.
"They saw Missouri as a place of promise," he said.
Their lives were difficult and dangerous. They created a society that would sustain not only themselves but those who came after them.
"We owe them a great deal," Kremer noted.
Among them were numerous Catholic explorers, missionaries, pioneers, statesmen and waves of Catholic immigrants of all occupations whose baptismal seal left an imprint on these hills, plains and valleys.
"Our presence has been evident here from the beginning," Msgr. Kurwicki pointed out after the celebration. "Faith and religion have done much to influence good decisions, tolerance and charity, and prayer has always been powerful in the life of our government."
Kremer, a seventh-generation Frankenstein, Missouri, native and current member of St. Peter Parish in Jefferson City, spoke of fellow statesman as one might speak of family.
"Missouri and its people belong to me and I to them," he stated. "The state and its people sometimes confuse and confound me, even on occasion annoy and aggravate me, but I've never not loved it and them."
The years have brought change and complexity.
"We have become a complicated, diverse, interesting people, numbering more than 6 million, living in a complex, heterogeneous, intriguing place," Kremer noted.
Among them are about 27,000 descendants of Indigenous people who inhabited this place before colonial settlers, and descendants of about 100,000 enslaved people, "whose forced labor helped to build this state and nation although they were regarded as property, not people."
During the celebration, songs representing 20 decades of cultural amalgamation drifted across the Capitol grounds.
The Missouri Choral Directors Association's All-Star Festival Choir performed several rousing songs, including a rendition of the Black spiritual "We Shall Overcome" by Missouri State University adjunct professor James T. Gibson.
Chief Justice Wilson, an elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson City, spoke of what the state's people have accomplished and experienced together.
"Especially in difficult times, Missourians fought and labored to help each other, rescue each other, free the enslaved and protect defenseless people around the world," he stated.
"We did those things because we are a good people," he added. "We've shone more often than we've blushed. We've been a force for light more often than we've been the cause of darkness."
The festivities included the unveiling of a U.S. postal stamp honoring Missouri's bicentennial, and an official proclamation from Gov. Mike Parson.
The governor lauded the rank-and-file Missourians in the audience.
"The true dignitaries," he proclaimed, "are the Missourians who go to work, raise their families, go to Church, live a good life, are good neighbors, are people with good values and spread those values down to the next generation."
Other bicentennial events included the Aug. 9 unveiling of the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument on the Capitol grounds honoring families and other loved ones of military personnel who died in service of this country.
Sandra Deraps, a member of Annunciation Parish in California, whose youngest son was killed in 2006 while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq, was the keynote speaker.
On Aug. 10, the Bicentennial Bridge was dedicated. When completed in October, it will carry pedestrians and cyclists from the Capitol Circle to Adrian's Island, a park flanking the Missouri River.
Father Jeremy Secrist, pastor of St. Peter Parish in Jefferson City, blessed the bridge and prayed it will a sign of everything good that unites people in the community and that everyone who passes over it may find in God "a safeguard amid the joys and challenges of this world."
Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City shared his prayer for the state over social media: "May God guide and foster our unity in times of uncertainty; nurture social comity, justice and peace; and lead us all into prosperity."
Nies is editor of The Catholic Missourian, newspaper of the Diocese of Jefferson City.
Related Stories
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
E-Editions
Events
Dignitaries and rank-and-file Missourians were gathered around the steps of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City to celebrate their bicentennial of statehood.
"This is the day the Lord has made! Let us be glad and rejoice!" Msgr. Robert A. Kurwicki, vicar general for the Jefferson City Diocese, chaplain of the Missouri House of Representatives and pastor of St. Michael Parish in Russellville, Missouri, proclaimed in the invocation, quoting Psalm 118.
It was Aug. 10, Statehood Day, marking the 200th anniversary of the day President James Monroe signed legislation recognizing Missouri as the 24th state in the Union.
Msgr. Kurwicki thanked God for his blessings and for all the people who have contributed to building up Missouri in its first 200 years.
"We recall with joy our venerable past, we now live in our gracious and unfolding present, and we look forward to a hopeful future," he said.
"It took all of us, every single Missourian for the past 200 years, to make us who we are and to bring us to this day," Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Wilson said. "It will take all of us to move Missouri into the future – our future – that will be as bright as we make it, together."
[[In-content Ad]]
Gary Kremer, executive director of the Missouri State Historical Society, called to mind an assertion by the 19th-century Missouri statesman U.S. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton that those who owned land and cultivated the soil were "the chosen of God" and their occupation "the most fruitful in the creation of patriotic and good Christians."
Kremer noted that the approximately 70,000 people living in the state at the time of its founding could easily fit into the University of Missouri's Memorial Stadium.
The largest concentration was in and around St. Louis, with other groups scattered along the Mississippi River, in the lead mining region of the western Ozarks, "and a rapidly growing group along the Missouri River in the central part of the state, extending westward along the so-called Boonslick Trail," he said.
Howard County, in the heart of the Jefferson City Diocese, was at that time the fastest-growing county in the United States.
Kremer pointed out that many of the early European settlers came in search of good farmland that they could afford.
"They saw Missouri as a place of promise," he said.
Their lives were difficult and dangerous. They created a society that would sustain not only themselves but those who came after them.
"We owe them a great deal," Kremer noted.
Among them were numerous Catholic explorers, missionaries, pioneers, statesmen and waves of Catholic immigrants of all occupations whose baptismal seal left an imprint on these hills, plains and valleys.
"Our presence has been evident here from the beginning," Msgr. Kurwicki pointed out after the celebration. "Faith and religion have done much to influence good decisions, tolerance and charity, and prayer has always been powerful in the life of our government."
Kremer, a seventh-generation Frankenstein, Missouri, native and current member of St. Peter Parish in Jefferson City, spoke of fellow statesman as one might speak of family.
"Missouri and its people belong to me and I to them," he stated. "The state and its people sometimes confuse and confound me, even on occasion annoy and aggravate me, but I've never not loved it and them."
The years have brought change and complexity.
"We have become a complicated, diverse, interesting people, numbering more than 6 million, living in a complex, heterogeneous, intriguing place," Kremer noted.
Among them are about 27,000 descendants of Indigenous people who inhabited this place before colonial settlers, and descendants of about 100,000 enslaved people, "whose forced labor helped to build this state and nation although they were regarded as property, not people."
During the celebration, songs representing 20 decades of cultural amalgamation drifted across the Capitol grounds.
The Missouri Choral Directors Association's All-Star Festival Choir performed several rousing songs, including a rendition of the Black spiritual "We Shall Overcome" by Missouri State University adjunct professor James T. Gibson.
Chief Justice Wilson, an elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson City, spoke of what the state's people have accomplished and experienced together.
"Especially in difficult times, Missourians fought and labored to help each other, rescue each other, free the enslaved and protect defenseless people around the world," he stated.
"We did those things because we are a good people," he added. "We've shone more often than we've blushed. We've been a force for light more often than we've been the cause of darkness."
The festivities included the unveiling of a U.S. postal stamp honoring Missouri's bicentennial, and an official proclamation from Gov. Mike Parson.
The governor lauded the rank-and-file Missourians in the audience.
"The true dignitaries," he proclaimed, "are the Missourians who go to work, raise their families, go to Church, live a good life, are good neighbors, are people with good values and spread those values down to the next generation."
Other bicentennial events included the Aug. 9 unveiling of the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument on the Capitol grounds honoring families and other loved ones of military personnel who died in service of this country.
Sandra Deraps, a member of Annunciation Parish in California, whose youngest son was killed in 2006 while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq, was the keynote speaker.
On Aug. 10, the Bicentennial Bridge was dedicated. When completed in October, it will carry pedestrians and cyclists from the Capitol Circle to Adrian's Island, a park flanking the Missouri River.
Father Jeremy Secrist, pastor of St. Peter Parish in Jefferson City, blessed the bridge and prayed it will a sign of everything good that unites people in the community and that everyone who passes over it may find in God "a safeguard amid the joys and challenges of this world."
Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City shared his prayer for the state over social media: "May God guide and foster our unity in times of uncertainty; nurture social comity, justice and peace; and lead us all into prosperity."
Nies is editor of The Catholic Missourian, newspaper of the Diocese of Jefferson City.