A Small Place Where God's Love Is Made Big
Tucked into the Winton Place neighborhood on Derby Avenue, St. Bernard Parish has called a single block of Spring Grove Village home since 1919. The parish's motto, "a small place where God's love is made BIG!" captures what drives a community that has held onto its intimate feel across more than a century of change. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati named St. Bernard a Laudato Si community for its recycling efforts and its pollinators garden, recognizing the practical stewardship that mirrors the parish's wider sense of care.
St. Bernard is one of five parishes in the new Our Lady of Divine Providence Family of Parishes, joining Assumption, St. Bartholomew, St. Clare, and St. Vivian under one pastor as part of the Archdiocese's Beacons of Light pastoral planning process.
Sunday and Weekday Mass
Sunday Mass is celebrated at 11:00 am, and the rhythm of the week continues with Mass on Wednesday at noon and Thursday at 8:00 am. The parish describes its liturgies with "good music, great homilies, and a prayerful, engaged community," a tradition shaped by decades of volunteer musicians. After the Second Vatican Council, the parish moved from traditional choirs to music groups led by guitarists, and that contemporary thread still runs through Sunday worship alongside the Church's standard liturgical repertoire.
Children and the Christian Year
Children's Liturgy of the Word welcomes young parishioners ages 4 to 12 once a month during Sunday Mass. Adults accompany children to the rectory for a participatory session on a sacrament, a tradition, or a Bible story. A Children's Corner publishes printable Sunday lessons that walk kids through each week's Gospel, with an archive going back through the seasons of the liturgical year.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults invites those curious about the Catholic faith to join a journey that usually begins in September and concludes in the Easter Season. The first gathering sets the schedule so participants can shape the time together, and adult parishioners are encouraged to share their faith as sponsors and team members.
The Hispanic Community
St. Bernard has long been known as a welcoming community, and Hispanic families have shaped the parish's worship and social life for years. Bilingual songs, traditional celebrations like Las Posadas and the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Hispanic participation as lectors, extraordinary ministers, musicians, and altar servers all reflect a community that draws from two languages and two cultures.
Bereavement Care and Visits to the Homebound
The Bereavement Committee, made up of adult parishioners comfortable with every part of a parish funeral, walks with families through planning the Mass or service and organizing the luncheon. The committee also coordinates an annual Remembrance Service for the families of those buried from St. Bernard in the past year, a moment to gather again, pray, and remember.
A separate Ministry to Shut-Ins sends a steady group of adult parishioners out each month to bring the Eucharist to those in nursing homes and to those recovering from illness at home. The work is one of the quiet, reliable threads that keeps St. Bernard a community even when members cannot get to Derby Avenue on Sunday.
The Men's Group
The Men's Renewal team took root after a Christ Renews His Parish weekend in 2006 and has kept meeting twice a month on the second and fourth Wednesdays ever since. About fifteen men come together for shared song, personal prayer intentions, responses to the upcoming Sunday scriptures, and reflection on experiences of God in their daily lives.
Reading Scripture Together
Bible Study began with Fr. Jim Shappelle's deep love of Scripture and still follows the format he started. Eight men and women now meet every Tuesday morning, reading the upcoming Sunday's readings and working through a scripture commentary that broadens their perspective. It is one of the parish's longest-running ministries and a foundation for many of the friendships that hold the parish together.
Kairos Prison Ministry
St. Bernard is one of the parishes that supports Kairos Prison Ministry, a lay-led short-course program that builds Christian community inside correctional facilities. The parish points to the work as part of its wider sense of mission beyond the parish grounds and as a continuation of the call shared by every lay ministry at the parish.
St. Vincent de Paul: Direct Help for Real Crises
The St. Bernard St. Vincent de Paul Conference handles home visits across the neighborhood for neighbors facing rent shortfalls, medical bills, or a sudden crisis. Stories from the conference capture the texture of the work. One recent case involved a restaurant cook going through chemotherapy who fell behind on rent and was helped by prayer and practical aid; another helped a mother of four who had fled an abusive partner in the middle of the night establish stable housing, beds, and clothing for her daughters; a third assisted a former forklift operator whose asthma left him disabled in finding subsidized housing, after which he began teaching neighborhood kids to repair bicycles and working in a community garden. One Vincentian explained the work this way: "The work pushes me to become a more open, caring person and to meet vibrant neighbors that I'd never get to know otherwise."
Rooted in Catholic Social Teaching, the Social Justice Committee complements that one-on-one help with prayer resources, education, and leadership for action on local, national, and global issues. Loving neighbor, the committee teaches, means both direct service and working on the causes of inequality and discrimination.
Building the Neighborhood
St. Bernard's reach extends well past the church building. The Winton Place Youth Center, founded in 1984 by neighborhood residents and members of the New Jerusalem Community, is an after-school program aimed at helping neighborhood kids advance in school and cultivate positive attitudes. Members of St. Bernard have served as tutors, volunteers, board members, administrators, and program directors from the center's first days and remain at its heart.
The Village Development Corporation was founded in 1981 by members of St. Bernard Parish and the wider community to provide affordable housing for low- and moderate-income buyers. VDC buys, renovates, and sells distressed properties and supports small business development in the Spring Grove Village neighborhood.
La Amistad, also started in 1981 and still staffed by St. Bernard parishioners, offers affordable rental housing and a path to home ownership for Hispanic immigrants and refugees in Spring Grove Village.
Fun and Fundraising Together
Parish life outside of Mass is full and varied. A monthly breakfast, monthly movie night, and monthly card night are open to everyone. The famous Lenten fish fries, a chili cookoff, rummage sales, an annual parish picnic, a riverboat cruise, and a train ride draw neighbors together for fellowship and fundraising in equal measure, what the parish calls social discipleship.
The Shappelle Center
For its centennial year, the parish renovated its annex building, naming it the Shappelle Center in honor of Fr. Jim Shappelle, the parish's longest-serving pastor and a man whose ministry knew no boundaries. Two new HVAC systems, updated restrooms, interior and exterior painting, and sound-deadening acoustic panels are already in place; new flooring and an updated library room are still to come.
A Century on Derby Avenue
A community of faith was planted in Winton Place on May 18, 1919, with the arrival of the first pastor, Fr. Martin Varley (1919-1924). The young priest and his parishioners set a tone that has held for a century: lay-led, Christ-centered, and welcoming. The Holy Name Society, the Madonna Society, and the PTA led the fundraising that built the church, dedicated in July 1920, and the school, whose groundbreaking came in April 1925. Fr. Henry Westerman (1924-1939) oversaw the school and its teaching staff of Franciscan Sisters of Oldenburg; the school eventually closed in 1972 as demographics shifted.
The arrival of the charismatic New Jerusalem community under Fr. Richard Rohr brought a wave of mostly young worshippers and a worship style that included guitars. New Jerusalem's later move to its own space in the former school basement was a painful chapter, and Fr. George Jacquemin's pastorate through the 1970s and 80s rebuilt communal life through festivals, the Turtle Derby, and a parish picnic. Fr. Jim Shappelle served as pastor from 1984 to 2012, building a beloved spiritual presence through his love of Scripture and his readiness to step in as chaplain at local schools, cemeteries, and hospitals.
In 2012, Fr. Robert Thesing, S.J., took on a Jesuit pastorate, with Bob Ivory as pastoral associate. After a three-year process, Sr. Margie Niemer, OSF, joined as Pastoral Administrator in 2018, marking St. Bernard as one of a small number of parishes to take that step.
The Pastoral Team
Fr. Henry Hoffmann serves as pastor of the Our Lady of Divine Providence Family of Parishes. Fr. Ronald Haft and Fr. George Jacquemin serve as parochial vicars. Fr. Bob Thesing, S.J., and Fr. Paul Macke, S.J., continue as sacramental ministers, with Fr. Paul coordinating Jesuit mission work at the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Milford and Fr. Bob a familiar presence at parish liturgies. Sr. Margie Niemer, OSF, serves as Pastoral Administrator, supporting Catholic education, sacramental preparation, and religious education across the parish.