Annual Baraga Days held in Florida

Clergy and lay Catholics of the Diocese of Marquette traveled to Florida to celebrate the annual Baraga Days in February. Originally organized in the mid 1980s by John Matthews of Manistique, the event is held at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Holiday, Fla. 
Matthews was a Fourth Degree Knight, who served on both the local and state level. In 1983, Matthews and his wife Helen were honored with the Baraga Man and Woman of the Year award, and shortly after this honor he arranged the event in Florida. Since its conception, the event has been supported by the Michigan Knights of Columbus.  

Matthews created this event as a way for individuals from Michigan who winter in several areas of Florida to celebrate the life and labor of Bishop Baraga. The event includes a Mass of Thanksgiving, a luncheon and a program, which includes updates from the Michigan Knights of Columbus, the Bishop Baraga Association and Bishop Baraga’s Cause for Canonization.

Matthews died March 13, 2014, at the age of 97. To ensure the event continued, Matthews recruited two Michigan Knights of Columbus to carry on the planning and organizing of the event. In 1996, Herbert Wegener began assisting Matthews, and in 1998 Glenn Barry joined them. Barry passed away in 2021. 

The event held this year on Feb. 11, 2023, was a more somber occasion for members of the Bishop Baraga Association; Wegener passed away on Jan. 19, 2023, coinciding with the anniversary of Bishop Baraga’s death. At this year’s event, other Knights stepped up to help with the planning and rebuilding of this event, which was impacted from the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, to honor the legacy started by the three Michigan Knights.

The congregation at the host parish has a large Vietnamese population. This year, representatives from the Diocese of Marquette and the Bishop Baraga Association took Baraga prayer cards written in Vietnamese as a way to evangelize to the parishioners and for them to support Bishop Baraga’s Cause for Canonization.

Baraga Days Florida is held on the second Saturday of February. Anyone interested in helping to plan and promote this event or to receive updates about the event can contact the Bishop Baraga Association at [email protected] or (906) 227-9117.

To read this story and others in The U.P. Catholic, visit https://www.upcatholic.org/UP-Catholic-03102023-e-Edition/13/