Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy (Mt 25:21).
Our confrere Brother Bonifaz (Franz Josef) Kellnberger OSB died on Monday, 1 July 2019, a month after his ninetieth birthday.
Brother Bonifaz was born in Regensburg on 30 May 1929 as the first child of Maria Kellnberger. He was baptized on 31 May in the former monastery church of St. Emmeram in Regensburg with the name Franz Josef. At the age of one, he went to live with his grandparents in Landau on the Isar, where he spent his childhood and also attended primary school from 1936 to 1944. After completing his initial schooling, he began an apprenticeship as an office clerk with the public works in Landau. From 1943 to 1944, Franz Josef attended the commercial vocational school in Deggendorf. He received his diploma in Landshut in 1947. He was employed until 1949 by the public works as an accountant, with the additional jobs of cashier and electrical and water meter reader.
At the age of twenty, he decided to enter Schweiklberg Abbey. He was admitted into the postulancy on 5 October 1949 and the novitiate on 9 September 1950. He made his first profession of monastic vows on 21 September 1951 and his final profession on 26 September 1954.
From 1949 to 1950, he was assigned to the monastery garden and from 1950 to 1954 to the chicken farm, then to the piggery and again to the garden. From 1959 to 1963, his main area of work was the cow barn, where he served first as a milker until 1963 and then in the dairy until 1977.
After a severe heart attack, he had to give up the work in the cowshed. From 1973 to 2015, his work was in the Schweiklberger Geist distillery, especially keeping the accounts, which he fulfilled with great diligence and accuracy. After further heart attacks that brought him to the brink of death, he had to give up his work in the distillery in 2015. He spent the last years of his life in our infirmary under the care of our brother nurse. Here he was zealous in prayer and tried to remain mentally fit.
We thank our deceased confrere for his faithfulness in service to the monastery, for his helpfulness and his thoughtful friendliness and especially for his zeal in prayer, and we ask for prayers for him.
Prior Administrator Fr. Benedikt Schneider and the community of Schweiklberg Abbey