by Beverly Schmitt, Michigan
How I met the Mennonites is a story of stories which began in the early seventies. One glorious May Wednesday, my husband and I drove from our southwest Michigan home to the rural Shipshewana, Ind., community with three hundred some residents, for the weekly flea market and auction we’d heard so much about. On Wednesdays, however, an extra twenty thousand people, from all over the Midwest and beyond, showed up for the festivities: for the fruit and vegetable market, home-baked goods, and auctions of livestock, household goods and tools; acres of wares for sale and… the local community of Amish and Mennonites.
Yes, as we shared the road with horse-drawn buggies, we’d noticed the simple, white farm houses, no power lines, cheerful gardens, colorful laundry, teams plowing the fields, children at the one room schoolhouses, and bake sales of cookies, pies, breads, egg noodles and angel food cakes, tended by gentle people whose dress and language reflected another place and time. We stopped and sampled the quiet hospitality of folks living their faith with simplicity, in harmony with the land and others, not for show, but clearly in a way that set them apart. We were smitten, and wanted our Catholic grade-school children to experience this culture and its values – a spirit caught, not taught.
Each summer we returned with our family to Shipshewana. In flea market flurry one Wednesday morning, I spotted an obscure sheet of notebook paper tacked to a fence post, and on it a hand-written invitation to the Shore Mennonite Church down the road for a program titled “Who Are These People?” We went and were greeted by Pastor Harvey Chupp. My parents, our children and one other couple joined us in that church basement for Harvey’s slide presentation about the Amish and Mennonites. He began in a most powerful and disarming way by expressing respect for other faith traditions present and said this was about telling the Anabaptist story, not judging anyone – and hopefully answering some questions.
I was struck that not only did the Catholics and Anabaptists have common roots, but, the desire to return the church to the Word of God and the simplicity of Benedict’s 6th century monastic reform were at the heart of the breakup. With a love for Benedictines since childhood, I was drawn to Michael Sattler’s story. Prior of a German Benedictine Abbey, Sattler joined the Anabaptists in 1526 and, though brutally martyred a year later, is said to have influenced the shape of Anabaptism more than any single individual. Sadly, his wife Margaretha, a former Beguine, was martyred with him – one of many women to work and die for Anabaptist beliefs.
Harvey’s talk touched our hearts for peace, and my Catholic father, an engineer and organic gardener, appreciated the skills and integrity with which the Amish and Mennonites leaned into life. We left with much to ponder.
From the early 1980s on, I’d phone Harvey to schedule a Wednesday when I could bring a dozen or so international human services workers attending a three-month summer program at Western Michigan University (WMU): social workers, family therapists, psychologists, etc., from South Africa, Japan, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, for the slide-show history at his church. Harvey’s gracious “yes” and respect for other faith traditions as he told the Anabaptist story stirred hearts and inspired questions. It was a treasured dimension of their U.S. experience. Respect flowed each way.
Harvey’s healing touch and faithfulness to his dream for an interpretive center welcoming all visitors to Shipshewana bore fruit with the opening of the Menno-Hof Amish- Mennonite Visitors Center in May of 1988. Along with the director of the WMU summer program, my husband and I were invited to the Menno-Hof dedication service. Seated in the front row of that awesome tent with hundreds behind us, we faced the platform, risers and speakers’ podium. I was certain we were the only Catholics in a sea of Mennonites! Suddenly, I experienced the Eighth Sacrament: Mennonite Song. The rafters shook with the opening strains of “Come, Christians, Come to Sing” led by Topeka Mennonite Church. There also, for the first time, I heard that version of the Doxology lovingly known as “606.” Tears filled my eyes throughout the service.
Imagine my surprise when Holy Cross Father Andre Leveille was introduced to speak! A French-Canadian priest, Father Andre had a relationship with the Mennonites, and often brought his Notre Dame architecture students to experience barn raisings by experts in building from the ground up. He told of his deep friendship over the years and, suddenly, said something I’d never heard before from a priest. He humbly asked forgiveness for the wrongs committed by the Catholic Church against Anabaptists those centuries ago. Mennonite keynote speaker Marion Bontrager, in his talk “Were You There: Remember To Remember,” received Father Andre’s apology with humility and hospitality, and from his heart of hearts, spoke of a wholeness he experienced through worship once a year in a Catholic church. A burden of centuries lifted in that moment of grace for the healing of memories.
My involvement with Mennonites since then has been rich and consistent, each example a chapter in itself; from work in the 90’s with Gene and Mary Herr at their Mennonite retreat, The Hermitage, near Three Rivers, Mich.; to travels with Mennonites on Marlene Kropf and Willard Roth’s “Celtic Pilgrimage 2010” during which I sang heartily with Mennonites, learned more of our common heritage and experienced the present-day peace and justice work going on with both traditions in the United Kingdom. At the same time I’m part of Bridgefolk, a grassroots movement of Catholics and Mennonites since 2002. Proceeding in friendship, we share our stories of spirituality and peacemaking, pray, sing and wash each other’s feet. We study the document “Called Together To Be Peacemakers: Report of the International Dialogue between the Catholic Church and Mennonite World Conference 1998-2003,” aimed at the healing of historical memory.
I’m convinced Menno-Hof exists as a significant piece in a movement propelled by the grace of the Holy Spirit for the restoration of unity among all Christians. And why am I, a Catholic at the opposite end of the Christian spectrum from Anabaptists, so deeply engaged in conversation with Mennonites? Because of Harvey Chupp’s handwritten invitation at the flea market to come and learn “Who Are These People?”
Reproduced with permission from Reunion, the Menno-Hof Newsletter, Spring 2014.