Shrine of St. Martin of Tours

Please help fix our church bells so they can glorify our Lord and bless our community again ! 

“For bells are the voice of the church”–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

Our three beloved and historic church bells are original to our Shrine, cast and installed in the mid-1800’s.  BUT, they are now falling silent, and we need your help.  

Due to very old and failing mechanisms and structures from the 1940’s and prior, two bells have already fallen completely silent.  Soon we expect to lose all remaining function in the third.

With your help, we can reawaken the voice of our church, and evangelize, sanctify, and glorify our Lord. Church bells are powerful blessed sacramentals. Through their solemn blessing and consecration (traditionally called a \"baptism\"), they become sacred instruments dedicated to divine worship, extensions of the Church's sanctifying presence, and vehicles of spiritual protection and blessing. They have been treasured throughout the Church’s history and tradition for their unique role, including:

-         Territorial Sanctification: The sound waves physically carry blessing throughout the vicinity.

-       Spiritual Protection: Creating a sonic barrier against evil influences

-      Reflecting Divine Presence: Manifesting God's presence in the temporal realm

-         Sacred Time-Marking: Transforming ordinary time into sacred time

With these repairs, we will restore the regular chiming of the Angelus, the hours, and have all the sonic reach and grandeur that God and our forebears intended for St. Martin’s.  

By reaching this fundraising goal, we will also restore function to the spire clock, stopped in recent years due to an aged mechanism and structural issues.  This four-way timepiece housed one level about our bells faces each of the four cardinal directions, reminding the world that time belongs to God, and inviting us to mark our time always in light of eternity.  With your help, its hands will move once again!

Please click the donate button to help restore and protect the legacy of our magnificent church bells and help reawaken the voice of St. Martins’ !

 

About Our Three Church Bells:

Bell #1 is 56” diameter & 3,500 lb., from the Hanks Bell Foundry  (Cincinnati, OH; operated between 1851 and 1869) 

Bell #2 is 44” diameter & 1,800 lb., from the Niles Works Bell Foundry (Cincinnati, OH; operated between 1860 and 1869)  

Bell #3 is 34” diameter & 800 lb., from Kaye & Co. Foundry (Louisville, KY; operated between 1841 and 1895)

To go further into the history of the bells at St. Martin of Tours, click here.

About Us:

The Shrine of St. Martin of Tours is a very special place of devotion, prayer and piety…a treasure of the entire Archdiocese.  Like Catholic shrines all over the world, it is especially dedicated to prayer and devotion to the liturgy, service to the poor, and veneration of the saints. A place of pilgrimage, where the faith is flourishing and where the Word of God is preached in its fullness.   

Now 170 years young and open 24 hours a day, our shrine provides perpetual eucharistic adoration of our Lord, and enables veneration of Saints Bonosa and Magnus at their glass tombs. It is known for beautifully reverent liturgies along with many pious devotions that richly share timeless traditions of the Catholic faith. The renowned sacred music, beautiful statues and radiant stained glass iconography uplifts minds and hearts to God every day.    

St. Martin’s also follows the demands of the Gospel by serving, feeding and clothing Christ in the poorest of the poor, caring for the most vulnerable among  us.  The shrine’s Schumann Center and Golden Arrow Center provide vital help to needy men, women and children in our community.  

The shrine warmly welcomes and serves the entire archdiocese as a vibrant place of refreshment, refuge and faith-building for all ages.  Our doors never close!  Providing all the liturgical functions of a regular parish, our members include many young people and growing families, as well those devoted for a long-time.  People from all over the surrounding area come to St. Martin’s…just to visit, make a pilgrimage, or to make it their spiritual home. 

Thank you for your help!