Fr. Joachim Schieber passes away
Fr. Joachim Schieber, O.S.B., a Benedictine priest of Conception Abbey, died at 5:25 a.m. on Tuesday, December 17, 2013. Fr. Joachim was the oldest monk of the Abbey. He professed vows on August 30, 1939, and was ordained to the priesthood on September 23, 1944. He was the last monk to have ever met our founding Abbot, Abbot Frowin Conrad. Eternal rest grant unto him O’ Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, 17 December 2013, as the monastic community of Conception Abbey prepared for the singing of the office of Vigils, our beloved confrere, Father Joachim Schieber, O.S.B., surrendered to His maker the burdens of his earthly existence and passed into the realms of light. The senior member of our community at 94 years of age, Father Joachim had been a monk for 74 of those years and a priest for 69. Though he had resided in our Saint Stephen’s Health Care Center for many years, he remained vital, active and interested in the life of his community, the wider Church and the world at large, right up to his final days. Father Joachim presented a somewhat gruff exterior to those who were not familiar with him, and indeed, possessed an almost legendary reputation for sternness (deriving from his days as a seminary prefect in the 1940s). But none who came to know him could fail to discern, after even the briefest of contacts, the abiding warmth of heart and kindness of spirit that characterized his treatment of others.
Andrew Aloysius Schieber was born on 4 January 1919, youngest of the eleven children of John and Frances (Kern) Schieber. Baptized at Saint Benedict’s Parish Church in Clyde by the Rev. Frowin Mergen, a monk of Conception, the future Father Joachim was raised on the family farm near Clyde, Missouri, just a few miles from the abbey. Living “just around the corner and over the hill” from Conception, he came to know and love the monastic community and its works from an early age. After public grade school and parochial high school in Clyde, Andrew entered the junior college at Conception Abbey in 1936. In 1938 he entered the monastic novitiate and professed first monastic vows the next year. Upon completion of theological studies, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Charles LeBlond on 23 September 1944.
A complete list of Father Joachim’s assignments through so many years of devoted monastic observance and priestly ministry would overflow this account, so an abbreviated narrative must suffice. His early years in the community were given to service in the seminary as professor, prefect and a term as vice rector. During this period he also earned a master’s degree in History from The Catholic University of America. He then took up responsibilities at the high school of Mount Michael Priory, our daughterhouse near Omaha, Nebraska, serving in capacities similar to those he had exercised at our seminary here at Conception. He went on to minister as chaplain to the Sisters at Saint Michael’s Convent in Sturgis, South Dakota, for six years (1958-64). Returning to Conception, he served as Director of Development for two years, after which he entered a long stint of parochial ministry, first as pastor of Saint Aloysius Parish in Kansas City (1966-72), then as pastor of Saint Bernard’s in McLaughlin, South Dakota, ministering to the Native Americans on the Standing Rock Reservation there from 1974 to 1989.
At this point Father Joachim, upon the occasion of his Golden Jubilee of profession, was given permission to return to his academic interest in the field of history, being granted a sabbatical year for study and research in the Schieber Family genealogical history. The result of this year’s investigation was A Schieber Family Research Journal: From Conception, Missouri and Cascade, Iowa in America to Sandweiler, Luxembourg in Europe, gathered and published principally for family members, but nonetheless an exemplary exercise in the now-burgeoning field of genealogical research.
After his sabbatical, Father Joachim returned to pastoral ministry, accepting an assignment as Pastoral Administrator of Saint Joseph’s Parish in Trenton, Missouri. After two years there, he was transferred to Saint Mary’s Hospital in Blue Springs, Missouri, as chaplain, and then a year as chaplain of Marian Acres, a retirement home in Salem, Missouri. His advancing years finally required his return to Conception, where he took up residence in our Saint Stephen’s Health Care Center, where he came to be a source of constant and prayerful support for his large family, his many friends beyond the monastery walls, and his brother monks.
Though his life was most obviously given to the many forms of pastoral service that he took on, Father Joachim remained quietly proud of his academic achievements in the field of history. His master’s thesis on Father James Power and the founding community of the original Conception Colony had made such a positive impression upon the faculty at The Catholic University of America that he was offered a scholarship to remain and continue his studies. But knowing that his call was to monastic obedience in serving the people of God, he returned to the monastery to do just that. Many parishioners and friends are glad and grateful that he did so. Father Joachim’s later years were blessed with a sort of “new spring,” in which he found unexpected spiritual refreshment in the Catholic Charismatic Movement. This experience gave him a new mode of outreach to others who also shared in the joy of intense awareness of the movement of the Holy Spirit in their own lives and the life of the Church. Without doubt the monastic community has benefitted greatly from this element of Father Joachim’s spiritual life: many of his charismatic friends have become good friends of Conception Abbey as well. His life was truly given to the will of God and the service of the Church; may he enter into the kingdom of the blessed to hear the Savior’s welcome, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
Father Joachim was preceded in death by his parents and all but one of his siblings; he is survived by his monastic confreres, by his sister, Sister Mauricita Schieber of Mount Saint Scholastica Convent in Atchison, Kansas, and by numerous nieces and nephews.
Vespers of the Faithful Departed were prayed at 7:15 p.m. on Friday, 20 December 2013, and Mass of Christian Burial celebrated at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, 21 December 2013. We commend our beloved confrere to your prayerful remembrance. May his soul rest in peace.
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