Welcome to St. John the Evangelist Mission

Church is located in Bahner, MO

One half mile west of Highway M on Highway V

 

Office Address: 421 West Third Street, Sedalia, Missouri 65301

660.827.2311      shparish@charter.net

· Adoration is 9a to 10 a on Wednesdays

 

• Why Catholic for Lent will be on Fridays at 1pm in the Parish Center (school) led by Charity Dey

or after Stations at 7:30p on Wednesdays led by JoAnn Martin.

 

• Stations of the Cross will be at 6:30pm

beginning with the first Wednesday of Lent.

History of St. John

the Evangelist

             St. John’s celebrates its 175th anniversary in 2013. It is the

oldest Catholic Church in Missouri west of St. Louis and served the

needs of Sedalia before they had their own church. Sacred Heart and

St. Patrick’s of Springfork were both missions of St. John’s. The first

Catholic settlers in the southeastern

area of Pettis County, known as Lake Creek, were in the late 1830’s,

 from the Rhineland of Germany. Family names were Bruehl, Latch,

Hotzbach, Weller, Immhauser, Reusch and Bahner to mention a few.

Many living descendants of these early pioneers still reside in the community.

             Life was lived very much in the rough. Amenities were few and far between. The settlers' homes were generally devoid of anything but necessities and often these were lacking. Much of the equipment needed to farm their land or transport the goods produced was homemade, as was much of the clothing worn. Food consisted of what was grown on the farm, hunted, or could be traded from neighbors. The settlers lived apart from one another and were very self-sufficient, true pioneers in every sense. However, despite their isolation, the community depended on one another and when need arose, freely gave and received assistance from neighbors and friends, as we still do today.

             The spiritual needs of the settlers were met by prayer meetings and religious instruction held at the homes of various members of the community. Occasionally, they were attended by priests who came on horseback from Jefferson City and Westphalia, a distance of over 70 miles. Among the first priests to come here were  Fr. John Joseph Hogan (1845) who later became Bishop of Kansas City and the most renowned was Fr. DeSmet, the Jesuit explorer and Indian missionary.

             The parish received its first resident pastor, Fr. William Schmitt in 1880. He remained only several months, owing to the division in September of that year of the St. Louis Archdiocese, and the establishment of the Kansas City diocese under Bishop John J. Hogan. The little parsonage built by Fr.  Schmitt was left vacant. Lack of priests in the new diocese brought St. John's the Fathers of the Congregation of the Precious Blood, from Ohio in 1881. The last of the C.PP.S. priests during this time, was Fr. Thomas Meyer, from April to July in 1898. St. John’s was again given over to the secular clergy of the diocese in 1898.

             Just seventy-five years after St. John the Evangelist parish had been organized, a new school building was erected and equipped at a cost of approximately $2,000.00. The diamond jubilee celebration was held at Bahner, October 29, 1924. Visitors included in the gathering were two bishops, one monsignor, and twenty priests, some of whom had been pastors to the parish. The festivities included the Bishop's mass at 8 A.M. after which a class of forty-seven was confirmed. The new school was blessed and the Purgatorial Requiem High Mass was said.

             1931 saw the arrival of two Benedictine sisters. Their job was to provide religious and educational instruction for the school children. They took up residence in the old rectory which was rep1aced by a new rectory. Funds for the sisters' support were raised by sponsoring chicken dinners each year through 1958. These were very popular and drew large crowds. Each family provided five to seven fried chickens, a gallon of mashed potatoes with gravy, and homegrown tomatoes. Coleslaw was provided by the church. Games were part of this annual celebration. This was also the time period when field trials were held. In the late forties, men from all over the area brought their dogs and horses for an event similar to the English foxhunt while the women of the parish baked chicken. The money raised from this event also went to the parish. This event has been replaced with the St. John’s Ice Cream Social, which is held the last Sunday in June. The sisters remained at Bahner unti1 1955 when the school was closed because of a lack of teachers. However, the Precious Blood sisters from Sacred Heart School in Sedalia continued to hold Sunday school classes and summer school. This continued until the mothers in the parish received catechetical training under Sister Laura Will in 1974. The mothers still teach CCD classes on Wednesday evenings.

             There were thirty families that were active members of St. John’s in 1988 and in 2012 that number has increased to 34. Our current pastor in 2012 is Fr. Mark Miller, C.PPS. (here for the second time). Fr. Jim Betzen, C.PP.S. is the senior associate and we are blessed with a transitional deacon, Mr. Rev. Mark Yates. Two Priest-sons of the parish are Father Linus Kipping and the late Monsignor Arnold Weller. Monsignor Weller returned home to St. John’s in June of 1982 to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving on the occasion of his Golden Jubilee of ordination to the priesthood. We currently have one member in the diaconate formation. Eight girls of our parish entered the convent. . Ann Bahner recently celebrated her fiftieth anniversary of entering the convent. She resides in Mexico.