Buried Prayers 2020

Each year, the Diocese of Owensboro receives numerous cards requesting prayers as people participate in the Disciples Response Fund. The cards are given their due reverence, collected in a small wicker basket and placed before the altar in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Pastoral Center.

This year, Tom Lilly, chancellor of the diocese, wanted to do something special with the prayer cards of the previous year. In November 2019, Mike Bogdan, director of the Office of Music for the diocese, was heavily involved with the Ursuline Sisters as they honored the 100th anniversary of the death of Father Paul Joseph Volk, the priest who brought the Ursuline Sisters to what is now Maple Mount.

“We decided to tie the cards in with the Ursuline Sisters’ prayer ministry,” Bogdan said.

On Nov. 2, 2020 – the feast of All Souls – Bogdan and Edward Wilson, director of Archives for both the diocese and the Ursuline Sisters, brought the prayer cards to the Maple Mount cemetery. There they buried the cards next to the grave of Father Volk, partaking in a long Catholic tradition of burying written prayers on holy ground.

“The sacred ground of the Maple Mount cemetery is a reliquary of sorts,” Bogdan said. “Not only does it contain Father Volk’s remains, but also those of Bishop John McRaith, many of our diocesan priests, and those of the Ursuline Sisters.”

Here are some photos from the ceremony:

Edward Wilson, director of the Archives, digs a hole between the graves of Father Paul Volk, left, and Father Louis H. Spalding, who was the chaplain at the Mount from 1914 until his death in 1920.
Edward Wilson prepares to place the stack of prayer cards in the ground next to the tombstone of Father Volk.
Ursuline Sister Nancy Liddy, a member of the Archives staff in Maple Mount, replaces the soil to complete the burial of the prayer cards. In back are Mike Bogdan, right, and Edward Wilson.