Victor Hermann Balke
VICTOR HERMANN BALKE
Born: September 29, 1931
Deceased:
Bishop of Crookston, 1976-2007
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Origin/meaning
As common in US episcopal heraldry, the arms show the arms of the diocese impaled with the personal arms of the bishop.
The bishop's devotion is trinitarian. That is he has a sense of awe at the revealed truth that God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit-has caught us up in His own life and love. This is symbolised in the chief of the personal arms of the bishop.
The shield is divided by a chevron inverted so as to resemble the letter "V," for Victor, the baptismal patron of the Bishop. The color of the shield is red to resemble "love," the color of the Holy Spirit. The crescent moon is a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It indicates the bishop's connection with the Seminary dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and his past and present connection with two dioceses, each dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.
He chose the symbols of St. Boniface, Apostle to Germany added for the sake of his German ancestry. One of the symbols for Boniface is the book of Gospels with open pages; most of his writings were on the Gospel, and when he was martyred he was holding the Gospel Book which was cut by the sword which felled him. The three acorns refer to the legend around his death; "On a day which had been publicly announced, and in the midst of an awestruck crowd, he attacked with an axe one of the chief objects of (pagan) popular veneration, Oonar's sacred oak, which stood on the summit of Mount Gudenberg at Geismar, near Fritzlar. Almost as the first blows fell upon it, the huge oak tree crashed, splitting into four parts, and the people who had expected a judgement to descend upon the perpetrators of such an outrage acknowledged that their gods were powerless to protect their own sactuaries. ".
The motto is "Bless the Lord, my soul!"
The achievement is completed with the heraldic insignia of a prelate of the rank of bishop by instruction of the Holy See, of March 1969, confirmed in March 2001.
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