On the border between Madeira and Indian Hill, where Miami Avenue bends into Shawnee Run Road, a brick and stone church has stood for more than sixty years, its belfry reaching above the trees and a fourteen-foot bronze figure of Christ welcoming visitors above the main entrance. It belongs to St. Gertrude, a Roman Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati pastored almost from the start by the Dominican Order. For a hundred years the people of this corner of the eastern suburbs have built a community known for three things: preaching, teaching, and beautiful and reverent liturgy. Five weekend Masses are celebrated, confession is heard six days a week, the Blessed Sacrament is adored from morning to night in a chapel named for Our Mother of Mercy, and a school of more than three hundred and sixty children is led by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. New families still register every month.
A Hundred Years on the Corner of Miami and Shawnee Run
St. Gertrude's story begins on November 16, 1923, when representatives of about twenty-five Catholic families met with Archbishop Henry Moeller of Cincinnati and asked him for Sunday Mass somewhere in the vicinity of Madeira. The archbishop agreed so quickly that, on November 25, 1923, two Masses were already being said in a private home at the corner of Naomi and Miami Avenues. The little group chose their name by accident: their first meeting with the archbishop had fallen on the feast of St. Gertrude.
Within months the founding families raised the money to buy land a little south along Miami Avenue, and the first church building was finished in 1925. Its first Mass was celebrated on February 8, 1925. Later that year the newly consecrated Archbishop John McNicholas, himself a Dominican, asked the Order of Preachers to take pastoral charge of the new mission. Almost from the start, then, the parish was Dominican. In 1944 it grew out of mission status and became a full parish of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
The school came in 1934, founded the same year with forty students in the first through eighth grades and staffed from the beginning by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, the Nashville Dominicans. Enrollment passed five hundred in 1955, and by 1956 the parish roll had topped eight hundred families. A building campaign in 1958 paid for a larger church and the third school addition. On Palm Sunday, April 10, 1960, the cornerstone was laid for the present church, designed by the architect Edward J. Schulte. It was dedicated on April 16, 1961, and its three bells, cast in 1868, were hung in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, St. Joseph, and St. Gertrude.
The Dominican Order was so taken with the location that it asked the archbishop's permission to build a priory on the Shawnee Run Road side of the grounds, financing the whole building itself. The priory houses the friars and, since 1984, has been the novitiate for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. A parish center followed in 1985, and in the years around the turn of the millennium the parish raised and spent again: a restoration of the church to its 1961 beauty, a new convent for the Dominican Sisters, an expanded parking lot, and a brand new school building. Construction of that school began on October 5, 2004, and the building was dedicated in August 2006. Today more than two thousand families are registered.
A Roman Catholic Parish Shaped by the Dominicans
St. Gertrude describes its mission in plain terms. It is a Roman Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, enlivened by the charism of the Order of Preachers. It teaches and preaches the Truth, reverently celebrates the liturgy and sacraments, and gathers as a community so that all may encounter Jesus there. The Order of Preachers was founded by St. Dominic de Guzman in 1216. Its members take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, devote themselves to contemplative prayer and theological study, and live out the mission confided to them by the Church, preaching for the salvation of souls.
At St. Gertrude that Dominican character shows up everywhere. The Rosary is prayed publicly, the Liturgy of the Hours is chanted, sermons are doctrinal and substantive, the sacred music draws from the great treasury of the Church, and a children's choir shares the schola loft with adult singers in the European cathedral tradition. The vision statement calls the parish a community of disciples united in their Eucharistic Lord and sent to transform the world in the light of the Gospel, and the core values named in the parish's own materials are reverence, humility, magnanimity, generosity, and intentionality.
The friars at St. Gertrude Priory form a working community. The prior is Father John Langlois, O.P., a Church historian who came to St. Gertrude in 2020 after serving as President of the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. The novice master is Father Darren Pierre, O.P., a former theoretical physicist who first made his novitiate at St. Gertrude in 1998 and returned in November 2022. Father John Paul Walker, O.P., the pastor, was raised in the Chicago suburbs, holds degrees in chemistry and environmental engineering from the University of Illinois and Johns Hopkins, and was ordained a Dominican priest in 2002 after ministries in campus ministry, teaching at Providence College, and pastoral formation. Father Luke Mary VanBerkum, O.P., a parochial vicar, grew up outside Detroit, graduated from Notre Dame in 2016, made his novitiate at St. Gertrude, and was ordained in 2022 after earning a licentiate in sacred theology and pastoral work with the Latino community. Father Louis Bethea, O.P., also serves as a parochial vicar. The deacon of the parish is Deacon Mike Muse.
Other friars in residence include Father Vincent DeLucia, O.P., who first entered the Dominican novitiate at St. Gertrude in the early 1990s, served as prior in New Haven and Youngstown, and has now returned to where his Dominican life began; Father Reginald Hoefer, O.P., a parochial vicar who also made his novitiate at St. Gertrude and served here as deacon in the summer of 2020 before ordination in 2021; Father John Corbett, O.P., a moral theologian who helps in the novitiate and assists with Mass, preaching, and confessions; and Father J. Alobaidi, O.P., a retired professor of biblical theology and languages who serves as an instructor of novices.
Mass Times Built for Everyday Life
St. Gertrude runs on a generous sacramental rhythm. Five Masses are offered each weekend. On Saturday evening, the vigil Mass is celebrated at 4:30 p.m. and is preceded by an hour of confession from 3:30 to 4:30. Sunday brings four more Masses: 8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m. The 10:00 a.m. Sunday Mass is celebrated as the Dominican Community Mass.
Daily Mass is celebrated three times on weekdays. Monday through Friday a 7:00 a.m. Mass and an 8:00 a.m. Mass are offered in the church, and on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays the 11:30 a.m. Mass is the Dominican Community Mass. On Wednesdays the 11:30 a.m. Mass is offered without the Dominican community focus. The parish Saturday morning Mass is celebrated at 8:00 a.m. as the Dominican Community Mass, with a public Mass at 11:30 a.m.
Confession is heard six days a week. On Saturdays the sacrament is offered from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., and Monday through Friday from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. On Wednesday evenings, the parish adds a Holy Hour with confession from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Confession can also be arranged through the parish office for anyone who cannot make those times. Midday Prayer is prayed in the church at noon on weekdays except Wednesday, and on Tuesdays mothers with small children are invited to a special Moms and Littles Holy Hour from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.
Worship aids are published weekly for the 4:30 p.m. Saturday vigil Mass, the 10:00 a.m. Sunday Mass, and the 12:00 p.m. Sunday Mass, and the parish bulletin is published each weekend.
Adoration Around the Clock at the Mother of Mercy Chapel
The Mother of Mercy Adoration Chapel is open daily from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., with overnight adoration on Wednesdays. The parish's goal is to keep two or three guardians present for every hour of the day so that the Blessed Sacrament is never left alone. Eucharistic adoration is one of the clearest signs of the parish's devotional life, and the chapel's team works with the schedules of ordinary parishioners, including substituting for one another when needed.
Volunteers, single hours or several, can sign up to be a guardian. The parish is still building its roster for many of the hours, and substitute guardians are welcome. The chapel operates under its own handbook, which is available from the parish office and describes the rhythm of adoration and the procedures for guardians.
The Dominican Rite
Once or twice a year the parish celebrates Mass in the Dominican Rite, the Order's own proper liturgy in force from the thirteenth century until the late 1960s. The Dominican Rite uses its own Missal and Breviary and includes prayers and chants distinct from the ordinary Roman Rite. Bl. Humbert de Romanis, the fifth Master General of the Order, established a unified Dominican liturgy in 1256, drawing on Gallican, Roman, and Parisian usages, and his successor Giovanni da Vercelli obtained a papal bull from Clement IV forbidding any further changes. While new feasts have been added since then, the form of the liturgy has remained substantially unchanged for almost eight centuries.
Each year the friars celebrate four Dominican Rite Masses, all beginning at 7:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted: a Solemn High Mass in honor of Holy Father St. Dominic in early August, with music by Josef Rheinberger; a Sung Low Mass for All Souls of the Order of Preachers in mid-November, paired with Duruflé's Requiem; a Sung Low Mass for the Blessed Virgin Mary on a Saturday in January, with chant sung by the Novitiate Choir; and a Solemn High Mass in honor of St. Agnes of Montepulciano in April, with music by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani. A separate FAQ sheet is available for newcomers to the liturgy.
Music and the Sacred Music Series
Music at St. Gertrude is one of the defining features of the parish. The Director of Music is Christopher Holman, PhD, and the parish sustains a choral program of six choirs. The Schola Cantorum pairs children's treble voices with professional adult singers in the European cathedral tradition and is among the few such choirs in the country. The high school choir Collegium, the Parish Choir, the Novitiate Choir of Dominican brothers, and two further ensembles round out the program.
For its third season, the parish presents the Sacred Music Series, a year-long program of concerts, musical meditations, and liturgies that brings world-class artists to Madeira. Featured programs have included Bach's Mass in B Minor performed on period instruments with the Bach scholar's own soloists and players; an All Saints' Vigil featuring Parry's Songs of Farewell; Duruflé's Requiem sung during the medieval Dominican Rite for strings, organ, and harp; an Advent Lessons and Carols service with the Schola Cantorum and the Novitiate Choir chanting the Great O Antiphons; excerpts from Handel's Messiah before Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve; Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb during the parish's annual Prayer Service for People with Health Issues; Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil sung entirely without accompaniment; a Choral Tenebrae with Allegri's Miserere sung by three choirs spaced throughout the church; a Rosary Meditation on the Glorious Mysteries with violinist Zachary Carrettin and harpsichordist Christopher Holman; and Fanny Mendelssohn's Oratorium, paired with Bach's Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen.
Ticketed programs are priced at twenty-five dollars for adults, ten dollars for students with valid identification, and free for children under twelve, with a sixty-dollar family maximum. Season passes are available at a discount. Friends of Sacred Music is the donor circle that supports the series, instruments, and the choirs' international outreach tours.
St. Gertrude School: K-8 in the Dominican Tradition
St. Gertrude School is a Catholic K-8 school in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati led by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, with a strong emphasis on religious faith formation and academic excellence. The principal is Travis Johnson, and the assistant principal is Sister Mariana Thayer, O.P. The school draws students from throughout the Cincinnati area.
The parish's 2026 feasibility study reports enrollment above three hundred and sixty students. The school's patroness is St. Gertrude, and the faculty is a mix of Dominican sisters and lay teachers. The parish's accounts of its recent capital projects note that the present school building was begun in 2004 and dedicated in August 2006, replacing earlier structures on the same campus at the corner of Miami and Shawnee Run.
Substitute teachers for the K-8 program are hired as openings arise. Candidates need a bachelor's degree, a background check, fingerprinting, and a Safe Environment account with the archdiocese, as well as a substitute license issued by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. The school prefers Catholic candidates.
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and Other Formation
Faith formation at St. Gertrude is built around the home as the first school of Christian life. The largest single program is the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori-influenced faith formation experience developed in the 1950s by Dr. Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi. Children gather in an atrium, a prepared environment filled with handmade child-size materials, and are given presentations drawn from Scripture and the liturgy along with time for personal work. The catechist's task is to attend to each child's unspoken plea, help me come closer to God by myself.
CGS began at St. Gertrude in 2014 and has grown from a single temporary atrium with a handful of catechists to two permanent atria and one portable atrium served by more than forty trained catechists. Over two hundred and fifty children currently participate. Level 1 is offered for children ages three through six, with sessions on Sunday, Thursday, Friday, and twice on Monday. Level 2 is offered for children in grades one through three, with sessions on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. Level 3 is offered for children in grades four through six. Parents are encouraged to enroll their children in CGS at least by first grade to prepare them for the sacraments of Reconciliation and First Communion in second grade.
Beyond CGS the parish offers a constellation of programs for children and youth. Rooted is a family baptism formation experience for parents of young children. Family Faith supports families with children in grades three through six. Sacramental Formation prepares children for First Reconciliation and First Communion, usually in second grade. Junior High Youth Ministry invites seventh and eighth graders to ask their hardest questions and grow in friendship and discipleship. L'alto, the high school youth ministry for grades nine through twelve, gathers teens for prayer, formation, mission, and Christian community. The Little Flower Girls' Club serves girls in grades K through four, and the St. Anne and the Child Mary Guild serves girls in grades four through eight. Children in grades four through twelve are invited to become Altar Servers.
Confirmation preparation is open to all seventh and eighth graders of the parish, including those who are homeschooled, enrolled at St. Gertrude School, or receive faith formation at other Catholic schools. Over the next several years the parish plans to open the reception of the sacrament to anyone twelve and older, with eighth graders confirmed in the 2026-2027 academic year, seventh graders and older added in 2027-2028, and full expansion to anyone twelve or older in 2028-2029. The program costs one hundred dollars per child, with financial assistance available.
Becoming Catholic and the Sacraments
Adults who are curious about Catholicism are welcomed through the Become Catholic process, an exploration of the Creed, the meaning of discipleship, the sacraments, and Catholic prayer. There is no commitment to become Catholic at any point, and the parish extends a standing invitation to come and see. Children and youth ages seven through sixteen who are interested in becoming Catholic or completing their sacraments of initiation are encouraged to contact Walter Plummer, the Director of Children and Youth Evangelization. The Become Catholic experience is rooted in the parish's Pathway of Discipleship, with four stages called Start, Encounter, Nourish, and Transform, whose initials form the word SENT.
The seven sacraments of the Catholic Church are all celebrated at St. Gertrude. Baptisms for infants and young children are typically celebrated on Sunday afternoons, with parents invited to participate in Rooted, Family Baptism Formation when it is their first child or when it has been more than five years since their last baptism at the parish. Adults and youth age seven and older are typically baptized at the Easter Vigil. First Holy Communion is celebrated in the spring, often during the Easter season, in coordination with the Sacramental Preparation program. First Reconciliation is typically celebrated during Lent. Confirmation for eighth graders is celebrated at a special Mass on a Sunday afternoon in May. Weddings are usually celebrated on Saturdays throughout the year, and couples are asked to contact the parish office as soon as they become engaged.
Men discerning the priesthood are referred to Fr. Mario Calebrese, O.P., and Fr. Michael Willig, both linked from the parish vocations page, and men discerning the diaconate are referred to Deacon Mark Machuga. The parish's own prayer for vocations asks the Father of mercies to bless the archdiocese, parishes, homes, and hearts of the diocese as fruitful ground for vocations.
Pastoral Care: Anointing, Funerals, and Walking with the Suffering
Pastoral care at St. Gertrude is taken seriously. The sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is offered to those facing serious physical or mental illness, advanced age, or surgery, and is offered as part of the Last Rites to those near death, together with Reconciliation and the Eucharist. The parish priests are available twenty-four hours a day for emergencies through the parish emergency line at (513) 561-5953, extension 2911. Communion to the Sick or Homebound is brought by priests and lay ministers to those unable to attend Sunday Mass due to illness or being homebound. Names of the sick or recently deceased are listed each week in the bulletin so that the whole parish community can pray for them.
Funerals at St. Gertrude are usually celebrated at 9:30 a.m. or 1:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and may not be celebrated on Sundays, Christmas, Good Friday, or Holy Saturday. The parish provides an organist and professional cantor for every funeral Mass and can help arrange a choir, chant ensemble, or instrumentalists. A visitation may be held in the Parish Center on the day of the funeral if the building is available, and a reception for up to fifty or sixty guests can be hosted afterward in the St. Dominic Lobby by the Funeral Hospitality ministry, coordinated through Nancy Lucas and the email address funeralhospitality@stgertrude.org. Pre-planning a funeral is welcome, and convalidation is available for couples who were married outside the Church.
Two named ministries offer additional support. Seasons of Hope is an adult support group for those grieving the loss of a loved one, whether the loss is recent or many years past. Heaven's Gain Ministries serves families experiencing pregnancy loss, before, during, and after birth. Pre-planning a funeral and arranging a reception can both be done by contacting the parish office.
Athletics, Stewardship, and a Parish Looking Ahead
The parish's athletic program, run by the St. Gertrude Boosters Association, offers K-8 sports instruction through the Greater Cincinnati Catholic Youth Sports and Greater Catholic Youth League programs and is open to students of St. Gertrude School, to children of the parish who are homeschooled or attend other schools, and to parishioners of St. Andrew and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parishes. The athletic director is Jake Dummermuth, reachable at jdummermuth@stgertrudesch.org.
Stewardship underwrites much of the parish's life. Donations can be made online at stgertrude.onlinegiving.org, with options including bequests through MyCatholicWill.com, IRA rollovers for donors seventy and a half and older, donor-advised fund gifts, gifts of appreciated stock, gifts to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Catholic Education Foundation's Scholarship Granting Organization for the benefit of St. Gertrude School, and contributions to the St. Gertrude Parish or School Endowment Funds. The parish is also conducting a 2026 Feasibility Study for a potential capital campaign, working with Greater Mission. The published report notes that Mass attendance has grown by more than fifty percent over the past three years, that the parish runs more than sixty established ministries, and that the school now enrolls over three hundred and sixty students. The same report identifies pressing facility needs, including meeting and gathering space, an aging organ, a parking lot safety hazard for schoolchildren walking to gym class, and a new convent for the Dominican sisters.
The parish communicates through a weekly bulletin, a Saturday afternoon e-newsletter, the parish podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, an Instagram account, and Vimeo for special recordings. The parish office at 6543 Miami Avenue is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The church and school campus sits at the corner of Miami Avenue and Shawnee Run Road, on the border of Madeira and Indian Hill, with the priory, the parish center, the school, and the Mother of Mercy Adoration Chapel sharing the grounds with the 1961 church of brick, stone, and bronze Christ.