By Amelia Kibbe
Editor-in-Chief
A place so peaceful and tranquil actually came from a time of riots and unrest.
That’s how Brother Kevin Kriso, O.F.M., coordinator of Mt. Irenaeus Life and Ministry to St. Bonaventure, described the idea which eventually became Mt. Irenaeus.
On Sept. 19, members of the Mt. Irenaeus community will celebrate the mountain’s official 30-year anniversary.
Brother Kevin said planning for a retreat location began after much unrest on campus during the 1970s. Students felt they needed a place that was away from campus and allowed them to listen and talk to one another, not at each other.
“Eventually the idea came up that wouldn’t it be great to have a place for that, and so that was really the beginning,” Brother Kevin said. “It was a place to be in a different space…”
Students began to talk with Father Dan Riley, president and animator of Mt. Irenaeus, who helped organize and purchase the land from the idea’s beginning, he said.
“Students were very involved in all of this, and they still are,” Father Dan said.
After nearly a decade of planning and forming committees, in 1984, the three-year-old mountain advisory board purchased 207 acres of land in West Clarksville, about 40 minutes from St. Bonaventure.
In 1985, Mt. Irenaeus became official.
Father Dan explained the name for the retreat was in honor of his friend and past St. Bonaventure librarian Father Irenaeus.
“I went to him and said, ‘Looks like we’re going to find this place, and we would like to name it after you,’” Father Dan said.
Brother Kevin added the mountain was also named after St. Irenaeus.
“St. Irenaeus lived in the very early church where everybody else was a ‘doom and gloom’ sort of prophet, you could say,” said Brother Kevin. “St. Irenaeus had a much more sunny outlook on life….It was a very positive approach to life.”
The celebration will actually begin Thursday, Sept. 17 with a musical performance and conversation in Café La Verna on Campus, Brother Kevin said.
Kim and Reggie Harris, members of the mountain community, will present “American Culture, Race and Racism Today” at 7 p.m. in the café. The event is free and open to the public.
“Kim and Reggie sing songs that are all the way back from the Underground Railroad up through the contemporary Civil Rights movement,” Brother Kevin said. “They are really very engaging kind of couple.”
On Saturday, Sept. 19, at 2 p.m. there will be a memorial celebration at the labyrinth, said Father Dan. He added this will honor the past members of the community.
Following the memorial, there will be a celebration of thanksgiving mass at 3:30 p.m. in a large tent outside the main house, he added.
After mass, a dish-to-pass dinner will be served in the tent, Brother Kevin said. At the end of dinner, Kim and Reggie Harris will perform again.
“We understand that students may not be able to bring a dish, and that is okay,” he said. “We still want them to come.”
In fact, the university will run vans from The Thomas Merton Ministry Center to the mountain, he said. The vans will leave at 1 p.m. and will return around 10 p.m.
Students can sign up in the Merton Center, he added.
Brother Kevin said he encourages anyone who can drive to do so. He said directions to the mountain can be found on the mountain’s website, and guests should rely on the directions posted on the website and not on a GPS device.
“We want to get together a bunch of people, who overtime, have become great friends with us, and people who are friends with us right now,” Brother Kevin said.
kibbeaa13@bonaventure.edu
