The Apostle of South Africa. Adalbert Ludwig Balling

had been misplaced, only to be found again much later in an attic in Darmstadt. I would have also visited Aachen and Brussels, if it had not been for a nasty footsore I had developed when climbing in the Tyrol Alps. Because of this sore I had to discard my boots and buy a pair of soft open shoes, the kind worn by ladies … Leaving Cologne, I travelled up the Rhine via Darmstadt and Worms to Speyer and from there to Heidelberg, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. I was lucky to be able to use one of the new railway lines as far as Freiburg.”

      His next longer stop was Strassburg, and only after he had marvelled at all the wonderful sights that famous city offered did he continue his journey to Basel and from there via Lake Lucerne to Switzerland. Though he did not climb the Rigi – “because it was shrouded in mist” – he did visit Flueli7 and Einsiedeln Abbey, where he paid his respects to Our Lady, whom he asked “to help me become a good priest”. On he went on foot to the “delightful Lake Zurich” and from there to Schaffhausen to see “the Rhine Falls”. Passing Constance and Bregenz he arrived home just in time to help with the hay. “Pleased to see you after so many days,” his father welcomed him drily. “We have had nothing but rain so far. Much hey and grass is flat … You will have lots to share I should think but the stories must wait until Sunday!”

      Once the harvest was in the barn, Wendelin had a few free days before he returned to Brixen for his final year of Theology. He had excellent professors: Fessler became Bishop of St. Poelten, Gasser, Prince Bishop of Brixen, while two others represented Austria at the Diet of Frankfurt (1848). At the Synod of Wuerzburg (also in 1848), his much esteemed teacher, the historian Dr. Gasser, was called the “living lexicon of Church History”.

       Ordination and first Holy Mass

      Wendelin was ordained sub-deacon on 14 July 1850, deacon, on 21 July, and priest, on 28 July – all by Prince Bishop Bernhard Galura, in the chapel of the Brixen seminary. Ten of the fifty seminarians ordained that years hailed from Vorarlberg! Soon after becoming a priest Wendelin traveled by horse carriage across the Brenner to Innsbruck and from there by postal coach via Reutte on the Bavarian border to Hindelang, where his father and the assistant priest of Langen waited to meet him. His first Mass was scheduled for 12 August at his home parish in Langen.

      Abbot Francis:

      “Very many of my relatives who lived scattered in different villages in the Bavarian Allgau came to Langen to welcome and congratulate their priest cousin, who was about to say his first Holy Mass. People in the Allgau consider a first Mass a particularly joyful event. The first thing these cousins and aunts of mine did was to kneel down to receive my blessing. People formed not just a procession but a triumphal parade, starting from the last village on Bavarian soil. Amid the crackling of small cannon and canopied by green triumphal arches I entered our homestead, people pressing in on me from all sides to wish me well. My mother stood with unconcealed pride in the doorway, ready to welcome me. She and my father knelt to receive my blessing, as also did my twin brother whom I had so often thrown into the grass during our boyish games in younger years. … My first Mass was a rare occasion for Langen, because the last such Mass had taken place fully twenty-five years earlier, when my priest uncle Wendelin had stood for the first time at the same altar as I. Now he and I celebrated together, he preaching the sermon.”

      Before we follow the newly ordained priest to his first assignment, it may be well to pause for a brief review. It is based on the reminiscences which Fessler from Bregrenz, one of Wendelin’s classmates shared in 1888 on the occasion of their 25th anniversary of ordination. Fessler wrote:

      “Pfanner was always serious about his studies. He excelled in Maths. I would like to illustrate his simplicity and self-control by referring to something he once said to us when we criticized a certain dish: ‘What does it matter how it is prepared as long as it is edible? Eat what is set before you!’ – While we were at the seminary, he was several times asked to mediate between rivalling friends and classmates. We came to appreciate his astute, practical mind, his clear vision and exquisite tact whenever he dealt with a sensitive issue.”

      The editor of an 1888 commemorative brochure in honour of Abbot Francis expressed similar sentiments. According to him, the abbot was even as a youth known “to be diligent, industrious, solidly grounded in faith and morals, above board in every respect, opposed to evil in any shape and form, and fearless in expressing an opinion when it was called for. A good speaker and excellent mediator, he knew no regard for persons when he brought warring parties to terms. His faith was not shaken; neither did he change his mind once it was made up. Not given to making big or many words, he did study the theory of a proposition before he tabled it.”

II.

       Parish Priest. Confessor to Sisters and Convicts

       Pastoral Ministry in Vorarlberg, Confessor in Croatia

      Four weeks after celebrating his first Mass, the new priest Wendelin Pfanner entered the pastoral ministry in Haselstauden near Dornbirn, Vorarlberg. Not used to speaking in public, he was shocked to hear his voice when he spoke from the pulpit for the first time, because “I had never before heard my voice echo back to me”. He remembered the advice of his professor in Pastoral Theology: “If you get stuck, pull all the stops! Take a quick look at your notes and continue!” Wendelin did not need it. Though the pulpit was new to him, he decided to speak freely from the beginning. But he carefully drafted every sermon. Unfortunately, he destroyed his notes as he did most other private papers.

      Wendelin’s father considered it an honour to see his son off by “taking a good load of furniture, bed linen and clothes” to Haselstauden, while the young priest, in the company of two clerics from the neighbourhood, followed by coach. Haselstauden, however, wrapped itself in silence. Pfanner was not welcomed by the municipal administrator nor was a single villager on hand to help offload his “dowry”. Strange people, his father thought, shook his head and returned home on the spot.

      The rectory seemed to have neither a kitchen nor a cook. The young priest did not see anyone until the following morning when, entering the church to say Mass, a grumbling old sacristan showed him round. But when he stood at the altar he was surprised that “the center aisle was filled with people. It was clear to me that they had not come so much to welcome me as to see who ‘the new one’ was.” How guarded, sceptical and suspicious these Haselstaudeners were! He wondered if he would ever be able to break down the wall behind which they were hiding. He did when typhoid broke out the following spring. It was a onetime opportunity to get to know them, and he seized it straight.

       Wendelin Pfanner shortly after his Ordination to the Priesthood

      Abbot Francis:

      “I visited every affected family. People needed me because hardly anyone dared to go near them for fear of infection. They even told me how much they appreciated the visits of ‘the young gentleman’, as they called me. Their attitude towards me changed overnight. The church began to fill up, not now from curiosity but from a genuine desire to hear what I had to say.”

      Biding his time and arming himself with much patience, young Fr. Pfanner won most of his parishioners back to the Church. He listened to them and learned to speak in a way they could understand. He instructed their children in the Faith, heard Confession and sought out the lapsed and critical. Occasionally, he read Leviticus to people who did not keep the Sunday holy, as for example, the innkeeper who when it was time for Sunday Mass sent his hired hands to work in the farm. He also persuaded two wealthy factory owners, both native Haselstaudeners, to donate stain glass windows for the parish church, Our Lady of the Visitation, which he wished to embellish. Their generosity bordered on a miracle. When twenty years later, as abbot of Mariannhill, he visited them, one remarked: “It would have been better if you had not become a Trappist. Why did you have to go so far away, first to these godforsaken Bosnians and then to the Hottentots in Africa? Haven’t we got Hottentots enough to convert?!” Nevertheless, he gave him a generous donation for the “black Hottentots”.

      As for the “pagans of Haselstauden”, the young priest did all he could to