Monks and Students Meet the Monks - St. John's Abbey

ABBEY MISSIONS
January 3 of this year marked
the seventy-fi fth anniversary
of the death of Father
Chrysostom. For almost four
decades he labored to plant and
cultivate the seed of the Catholic
faith in the Bahamas.
Peter Schreiner was born in
1859 in Jordan, one hundred miles
south of the newly established
monastery in the Indianbush of
Stearns County. He studied at
Saint John’s, joined the community
as Chrysostom and was
ordained in 1884. A year later he
was appointed vice-president of
the fl edgling university. He established
discipline in the school,
was the fi rst to give students a
Christmas tree and founded the
school paper, The Record.
Chrysostom was assigned to
work in the Bahama Islands in
early 1891. He arrived in Nassau
on February 2 and soon wrote to
a St. Cloud newspaper:
“Here it is summer. Since
I have been here, windows
and doors have been continually
open. Oranges,
page 22 The Abbey Banner Fall 2003
Young Chrysostom
photo from Abbey Archives
Chrysostom Schreiner, OSB
Apostle of the Bahamas
by Daniel Durken, OSB
“Father Chrysostom’s name does not die in the Bahamas.”
lemons, and other Southern fruits
are hanging ripe on the trees. I
fi nd the people as agreeable as the
weather.”
Two months later Chrysostom chartered
the schooner Rebecca to visit a
number of the islands of the archipelago
and to further his research into the landfall
of Christopher Columbus. During the
night of April 4 the boat struck a rock and
sank. He later wrote of the experience:
“I vowed that if God would spare
my life and be pleased to use me as
an instrument, though an unworthy
one, for the conversion of souls to
Him, I would devote my life and
energies to the conversion of the
Bahamas. God accepted the offering
and saved not only my life, but
made me an instrument in saving
seven others [aboard the ship].
Hence, my life, strength, and energies
now belong to the Bahamas.”
The rest is history—the inspiring story
of the missionary efforts of Chrysostom
and his many Benedictine confreres who
eventually served to bring in the spiritual
harvest that proved so plentiful in the
Bahamas.
Chrysostom, at age 69, quietly slept
away on January 3, 1928, on the island
of San Salvador which he felt was the
site of Columbus’ landfall. Following
the custom of this isolated island, he was
buried the same day on the spot he had
chosen, his mortal remains facing the
sea where the Columbus expedition fi rst
encountered the new world.
_____________
The full history of Catholics in the
Bahamas is found in Upon These Rocks
by Colman Barry, OSB (St. John’s Abbey
Press, 1973, 582 pages). The book
is available by contacting Mel Taylor,
OSB, at St. Augustine’s Priory / P.O. Box
N3940 / Nassau, Bahamas, or
monastery @coralwave.com. The price is
$30 by check, payable to St. Augustine’s
Priory.
The grave of Chrysostom on San Salvador
Island, Bahamas, overlooking a bay that
may have been the landfall of Christopher
Columbus photo by Daniel Durken, OSB