Fr. William Howard Bishop, the founder of the Glenmark Home Missioners, was born on this day in 1886 in Washington, DC.
The son of a prominent doctor, Bishop spent two years at Harvard University before dropping our because of ill health. After he recovered, he entered the diocesan seminary in Baltimore, Maryland. When he was ordained in March of 1915, his chalice was said to be a gift from a United States Supreme Court justice.
Fr. Bishop lived simply and worked hard as a pastor, spending nearly 20 years at a small rural parish in Maryland. He built a school, wrote newsletters, and was a founding member and later president of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.
Believing that the Church needed to better serve the neglected rural poor in Appalachia and the southeast United States, Fr. Bishop founded Glenmary Home Missioners in 1939, and the Glenmary Sisters two years later.
He died June 11, 1953, of a heart attack while visiting Glenmary missions in Norton, Virginia.
- Little Blue Book, December 19
How do you serve the community around you? Take some time to think of those in your community who might go unnoticed this time of year and what you could do to help them.