HOLY NAME SOCIETY

prayers at a deceased brother’s wake and the Diocesan Eucharistic Holy Name Rally was attended every year. During the second decade in 1963, the Society Officers, seeing a necessity to maintain a closer touch with the membership, began a monthly newsletter, the “Holy Name Society Standard”. In each issue the President’s message conveyed the State of the Society and news of all upcoming Society activities received the essential promotion. A spiritual stimulus from the Moderator completed this monthly publication. The popularity of each issue was actually the cause for its demise, so marketable were the articles that the parish soon opted for a monthly magazine “Dialogue”, and all Holy Name events and news were now to be included in this periodical. During Father John Casey's tenure, the successor to Father Schwebius on his passing in 1969, he was called upon to further implement in the parish the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council, an undertaking that required the participation of all the parishioners, both men and women, not just the men of the Holy Name Society. There then was a feeling that the Society could disband and its activities be replaced by a social club. However, fellowship, always critical to a successful Men’s Club, had difficulty evolving within this new Club, for the type of camaraderie needed was now readily available in other fraternal organizations and after a year’s effort the Men’s Club folded. In late 1974, with the unforeseen death that July of Father Casey, the second time line of Our Lady of Mercy’s Holy Name Society came about. Father James E. Boesel, the new pastor, having been asked at a Parish Council meeting if a “Holy Name Society” could be reactivated, was agreeable if there was sufficient interest from the men in the parish. At Father’s suggestion, an interim Committee of former Society members, John Keenan, Ed Treacy and Frank White, formed and began initiating plans for a meeting of the former members. A first meeting was held in February 1975 with 58 members present, the nucleus of the new Society. (Read More)