Fr. Ray Brenner, a priest of the Diocese of Evansville, is considered a "lifer" at Saint Meinrad. He attended high school, college and theology at Saint Meinrad and has maintained his connection to the place and people over his 53 years as a priest.

Fr. Ray's connection to Saint Meinrad began long before he attended high school here. He recalls visiting Fr. Aemilian Elpers, OSB, his mother's second cousin, at Saint Meinrad when he was a child and sitting on the porch of the rectory at St. Wendel Catholic Church outside of Evansville, IN, talking with Fr. Placidus Kempf, OSB, who was also a Saint Meinrad monk.

"He got me a bunch of literature," explains Fr. Ray. "Of course, most of that would have been to join the monastery. My calling was not to join the monastery, but to be a diocesan priest."

Fr. Ray knew he wanted to be a priest in second grade. As he prepared for his First Communion, he thought, "I want to do that."

"It's one of those things," says Fr. Ray. "People say, 'You couldn't have known.' I say, 'You ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up, and they all have an idea. Some you know will not be able to accomplish that, but others, it is a possibility.'"

Fr. Ray took his dream from possibility to reality when he enrolled in Saint Meinrad High School in 1957. Twelve years later, he was ordained with two classmates at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Evansville.

His career included assignments at St. John the Evangelist in Loogootee, Sts. Peter and Paul in Haubstadt, St. Mary Catholic Church, Sullivan, St. Ann, Shelburn, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Dugger, St. Joan of Arc, Jasonville, 16 years at Resurrection Catholic Church, Evansville, and 17 years at St. Joseph in Jasper.

In 2019, he decided it was time to retire at St. Joseph and turn things over to somebody else. He was 76 years old and in his 50th year of priesthood.

As Fr. Ray's career matured, he decided to take out his first annuity with Saint Meinrad and later, before retirement, would take out two more. (See story about annuities on page 3 of this newsletter.) He liked that he could donate a chunk of money while he is still alive and has more to give. Saint Meinrad could use it right away and, as time went on, he would receive some of the money back.

"It was a charitable way of giving rather than accumulating it for myself," explains Fr. Ray. "It's like yesterday's Gospel. If your life is required of you tonight, to whom will all this stuff go? I designated where, if I have anything left, it is to go when I die, but this is one way of giving now to make sure that it goes where I want it to go."

Fr. Ray developed his personal sense of giving and serving others by watching his parents. He grew up on a farm outside Evansville with seven siblings.

"We had dairy cattle. We had hogs. We had chickens," says Fr. Ray. "We sandpaper brushed every egg if it had dirt on it and packed them up in cases and took them to the hatchery."

His father had an egg route, delivering the eggs that were too big or too small to people along the route.

"We always had a big garden, and we'd plant rows of sweet corn," he remembers. "Mom had a saying, 'We eat what we can, and what we can't, we can.' We basically lived off the farm and never really had much money, but we had each other and what we needed."

His parents would donate corn to the Little Sisters of the Poor to feed their chickens. Any extra produce that was harvested from the Brenners' garden was given to the widows and widowers along the egg route.

"We had everything that we needed. They just believed in giving away whatever extras that they had," says Fr. Ray.

Just as his parents have helped people and organizations in the community that they cared about, Fr. Ray has helped Saint Meinrad over the years in many ways. He has shared his time and talent by serving on the Alumni Association Board of Directors and has kept his classmates in touch and up to date by serving as class chairman.

"I just have always loved Saint Meinrad. I've always been interested in what Saint Meinrad's doing and trying to help in whatever way I can," explains Fr. Ray. "They're always looking forward to the future of the Church, and I think that's what really fascinates me about the place."