Last week I referred on this page to the dismal showing of so many of
the priests of my generation (the 1950's) and of the following two
decades with respect to providing a reasoned defense of the Church's
judgment on contraception, correctly perceived as a grave disorder in
the use of the faculty that engenders human life. Too many of the
priests in those age cohorts simply "jumped ship" when it came to
offering support for the Church's teaching; many even went so far as to
repudiate the teaching, whereas with rare exceptions those priests
ordained in earlier decades stood courageously with Christ's Church on
this as on all other tenets of the Catholic faith. I also noted last
week that a distinct "climate change" began to show itself in the
1980's, in the early years of the reign of Pope John Paul the Great, a
shift that intensified with each successive year. I am speaking about
the incremental return to orthodoxy on the part of so many seminarians
and younger priests. By and large the "John Paul" priests have shown
little hesitation in teaching gently but firmly the
doctrine of the Catholic
Church, without temporizing, while the typically aging rebel priests
either have left the priesthood or are finding themselves today in a
visibly eroding minority within the ranks of the archdiocesan clergy.
In illustration of the kind of across-the-board witness to the truth
offered by the priests ordained in the era of World War II, not to
mention those ordained in earlier generations, one need look no further
than to the life of Monsignor James Lavin, who died this past September
17th at the age of 93. At Monsignor Lavin's funeral Mass Father James
Stromberg, for many years Monsignor's colleague at the University of
St. Thomas, offered a moving tribute to a priest's priest, whose
response to Christ and to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through
Christ's Church was a lifelong consistent "Yes!" - not "Yes to what I
like but No to what I don't'' but a humble "Yes!", period, and a "Yes!"
offered gladly -
May I share with you here Father Stromberg's recollections of a great
priest of this archdiocese, a man whose example inspired incalculable
thousands over the course of many decades.
Monsignor James Lavin
(1918-2012):
A Priest Who Said "Yes' to
Christ and His Church
Father James Stromberg
"We know that when the earthly tent in which we dwell is destroyed, we
have a dwelling provided for by God, a dwelling in the heavens, not
made by human hands but to last forever." (II Cor. 5:1)
My dear friends in Christ:
In mid-August of 1945, Deacon
James Martin Lavin and his classmates at the St. Paul Seminary were on
a retreat, preparing themselves for their ordination to the priesthood.
The sound of the bells of the city's churches broke the silence of the
retreat. At last, victory! World War II was over. A few days later, on
August 18, Archbishop John Gregory Murray ordained him a priest of the
Archdiocese of St. Paul. He and all his classmates in the course
of that ceremony were asked to promise obedience to the Archbishop and
to his successors. Their Latin response was "libenter." What they said
was "willingly, "freely." It could even have been translated as
"gladly." James was assigned to the St. Paul Cathedral, where he would
live out the first year of his priesthood.
In 1946 the Archbishop appointed
him a member of the faculty of the then College of St. Thomas. That
is what Archbishops did in those days. St. Thomas was clearly an
archdiocesan institution. And there were no forebodings of any change
in that state of affairs.
Father
Lavin was to be a teacher in the religion department, a
department that would in later years bear another name.
But in addition to his duties at St.
Thomas, the Archbishop had some other things in mind. Father Lavin was
to be chaplain at the Provincial House of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
And one more thing. "Father Lavin," Archbishop Murray said to him,
"Mother Antonia will ask you to teach a religion class at the College
of St. Catherine. And you will say, 'Yes."' And of course, he did.
"Yes" was the word that would mark his priesthood for all of
sixty-seven-plus years.
His life began even as his priesthood did - when the guns of war fell
silent.
He was born in Aurora,
Minnesota, just a day after the armistice that ended World War I. It
was November 12, 1918. A long time ago. If his birth was an
occasion of joy for the family, the time was nonetheless a tragic one.
His twin sister died shortly after birth. Five days later, his mother
died, an influenza victim. The flu epidemic brought with it the harsh
rule that burial must take place within twenty-four hours. Another
cause of sadness. Besides that, James and his twin sister were born
prematurely. With a big smile, he remarked that that was the only time
in his life that he was early for anything.
St. Thomas students - like
students everywhere - had the habit of tagging staff with nicknames.
The legendary Fr. Vashro was "crash Vash." James Shannon was "Fr.
Sunshine." And with good reason, they called James Lavin "Scooter" - a
name memorialized still in a campus eatery in the new Anderson Student
Center. He was frequently late and often in a hurry. But there was more
than that behind the name; there was affection in it. Students sensed
that this man was very much the priest, a good priest on a mission with
their good in mind. He was at their service.
His father married again - one Mary O'Brien, a woman who cared for him,
and, as you would expect, whom he cherished and cared for in turn. His
father's remarriage meant that he would one day have a half-brother and
he would inherit a couple of aunts, his stepmother's sisters.
We would hear a lot about those aunts at the priests' table in Murray
Hall. One of them, a good woman, was a bit on the ornery side, but
James Lavin nonetheless dutifully and affectionately saw to her needs
until her death.
James' father had a position with a company with connections to the
construction business, and that meant that the family moved with some
frequency. Aurora, Hibbing, Minnesota; Jefferson City, Missouri;
Cincinnati, Ohio; a town in Wyoming; somewhere in Indiana.
He attended some seven different grade schools. As a result he must
have set some sort of record for the St. Paul Seminary: he needed a
goodly number of dimissorial letters from the various bishops in whose
dioceses he had lived.
He contracted polio while in
grade school. That meant special shoes and special exercises throughout
his life and had a great deal to do with his love of hiking, mountain
climbing, and pitching tents in state and national parks. And
polio meant, too, that he would spend some time at the Dowling School
for Children in Minneapolis. This was the occasion of what may have
been the most significant "purple patch" in his life. He wasn't quite
ten years old. He was summoned to the principal's office. The charge
was gambling while on the school bus. He had managed to squirrel away
some twenty-five cents of his milk money. And with it he bet another
student on the election results of 1928. Al Smith lost. James lost his
quarter. Not an insignificant sum to a young boy in 1928. Back then a
quarter bought a lot of things.
After graduating from De LaSalle
in Minneapolis he began his long relationship with the College of St.
Thomas. His freshman year was 1936 - a year of dust storms,
heat waves, a country still in Depression. His major was English with
minors in Latin and history. It was as an English major that he met the
priest who was one day to become president of the College, Fr. Vincent
J. Flynn. James Lavin had taken a course in paleography. And he brought
the skills he acquired in that course to bear on some documents from
Tudor times, documents that were to play a part in Vincent Flynn's
doctoral dissertation on William Lily, a figure in sixteenth-century
Tudor England. Fr. Flynn had seen the scholar in the undergraduate
James, and so when he came to the college as a priest,
there were plans to send him off at some
point to get his doctorate in English literature and then to take a
post in the college's English department. That, however, was not to be.
Fr. Flynn died in the summer of 1956, and somehow, what had been
planned never came to pass. He did do theological studies with
the Dominicans in River Forest, and as well, did graduate work that led
to a degree in counseling, something that would serve him well in his
role as academic counselor.
Some of us at St. Thomas, especially during the early Shannon years,
had, as junior clergy, the duty of serving as floor deans in the
student dormitories. We were under the leadership of the Office of the
Dean of Discipline, the much feared Father Vashro, One of the aims,
under the Shannon regime, was to bring some order to the student
boarder life, and especially, to see to it that bad drinking habits
would not begin too early in their lives. We, the floor deans, were the
disciplinarians, ready with the Board of Discipline to mete out
punishment that would make plain that we meant business. But there was
Fr. Lavin, always ready to plead the malefactor's case to us and to the
Board of Discipline if matters got that far. And it is said that when
Christmas and Easter vacations were over and students were returning
from Chicago or wherever, James Lavin could be found at the train depot
with lots of hot coffee to prepare them for their encounter with the
disciplinarians. If
we were
justice,
he was mercy. Good
priests are always on that mission. He had the more important job.
In his classroom years he had
the good fortune of teaching what he dearly loved - in theory and in
practice: the Mass and the Sacraments. As a priest, of course,
he could act in persona Christi, anointing the sick, absolving from
sin, and bringing to students and all God's little ones the Mass, the
sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ, the. supreme act of mercy from which
all the works of mercy - spiritual and corporal - must flow.
That, of course, was done in addition to
all the other duties of a college chaplain in charge of all matters
liturgical on campus.
There is scarcely anyone with a connection to St. Thomas and even
beyond who has not heard of
his
willingness to live for decades among the students in Ireland Hall. Most
of the priests of the house looked eagerly to the day when such living
arrangements were no longer necessary - not out of contempt for
students but because of fatigue. But
Fr.
Lavin remained - counselor, confessor, confidant. And, yes, with the
now legendary peanut butter and jelly sandwiches served on Thursday and
Sunday nights - Lavinburgers and prayer. The available priest always on
the ready to give aid and comfort to undergraduate innards and
undergraduate souls.
In the later years of his many
years at St. Thomas, now a university, he was, as mentioned earlier,
student academic counselor. Again, the source of sound academic
counsel, and when the opportunity presented itself, source of the other
kind as well. And always the priest.
And he was very much the priest not just to students but to everyone
with whom he came in touch. The clergy, especially those his junior -
there he was ready with the Sacrament of Penance, ready with good
advice and encouragement, never too busy to talk, and always a model
priest.
And then there was the man about to be released from a prison in
Lafayette, Louisiana. A phone call set up the place where the freed
prisoner was to pick up some cash. Then a trip to Snyder's Drug where
the money order would be purchased and several hundred dollars would be
sent on its way to a newly released prisoner. The freed man would have
gotten Fr. Lavin's name from an earlier freed prisoner who left it with
someone still behind bars. Fr. Lavin was about to inherit another
prisoner in need. Mind you, he never met these men.
There are, I am sure, many stories yet untold about the good deeds done
by this good man, this devoted priest. There is one that may be unknown
to many of you here this morning, and it is typical of James Lavin. It
especially showed great and Christian sensitivities. There was an
elderly gentleman named Bill Farley who had worked for the college over
the years. There came a day when retirement was in order. He was given
a tiny room in Ireland hall in exchange for just a few simple chores.
But there came the day when he needed the care that a nursing home
could provide. He was without anyone. Pretty much alone in the world.
James Lavin would check him out of his nursing home early on a Saturday
afternoon and take him to a piano bar on University Avenue. There Bill
would enjoy a beer or two while he watched a nice-looking lady play the
piano. He could only watch because he was nearly stone deaf. Meanwhile,
Fr. Lavin could be found in a quiet corner of the bar with just enough
light to read his breviary. After returning Bill to the home he would
be off to help with confessions in one of the local parishes.
Yes, James Lavin's life was a
series of good deeds and it was always as a priest, an emissary of
God's mercy. A quick temper at times, peppery - but it never lasted
long. And it was followed by quick apologies. And when the duties of
the classroom and academic counseling were no more, he took on a new
work of mercy. You do remember that one of those works is
burying the dead - which includes a lot more than just being
shovel-ready.
Fr. Lavin was St.
Thomas' presence at the wakes and funerals of countless alumni and
alumnae and their families. There was not a mortician in the Twin
Cities and its suburbs and in the near countryside unfamiliar with Fr.
Lavin. He heard the hymns "How Great Thou Art" and "On Eagles
Wings" many more times than any priest in the Archdiocese. His record
will stand. And then, too, there was not a grieving widow or widower
with connections to St. Thomas that went without his caring letters of
condolence.
My dear friends,
if in the greater
part of the twentieth century and on into the present century St.
Thomas had a Catholic face, it was largely that of James Martin Lavin.
If he was generous with his things and himself - and he was -
in some years that were very difficult for
the Church, he was a model of loyalty and fidelity. One always knew
where he stood: with the successors of Peter and the Twelve. He
knew that the Church he loved could never be separated from the Lord he
loved.
And now for the last time his body is present for the Mass, the
sacrifice of Calvary within its sacramental veils. It took a bit of
doing to get him to choose the readings for this Mass. He chose the
first from the Acts of the Apostles. An upright Roman centurion,
Cornelius, prompted by a vision, invites Peter to his home. Peter
responds, and Cornelius acknowledges his kindness in doing so. We heard
Peter's words to the household of Cornelius in the passage read this
morning: "I begin to see how true it is that God shows no partiality.
Rather, the man of
any nation
who fears God and acts uprightly is acceptable to Him." (Acts 10:
34-35) The good news of peace of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is for
all. "God anointed Him with the
Holy Spirit and power." He was busy going about doing good works. But
He was slain by some of His own people by being hanged from a tree. But
God has raised Him from the dead. Sin and death done in. With Peter,
James Lavin witnessed to the demise of sin and death.
And then, my dear friends in Christ, those lovely lines from St. Paul's
Second Letter to the Corinthians.
You
might have expected a camper and mountain climber to have been drawn to
the figure used by St. Paul: "We knew that when the earthly tent in
which we dwell is destroyed we have a dwelling provided for as by God,
a dwelling place in the heavens, not made by hands but to last
forever." (II Cor. 5:1)
"Therefore," says St. Paul, "we continue to be confident."
(II Cor. 5:6) We, like Msgr. James Lavin "...walk by faith." The
Christian difference. But what is the Christian difference upon which
our faith bears? Pope Benedict XVI recently put it this way:
"Christians-we have a future." Our flesh will decay. Like the best tent
that Gander Mountain can sell us it will ultimately decay. But God has
raised His Son and we too will have-not a tent, but a building, not of
our manufactured building that will last forever. That is what James
Lavin preached, what every priest of God must preach, and to which all
the Christian faithful must give witness. .
And the Gospel he chose for today makes plain that God has revealed
this to "the merest children." His children. "Amen I say to you, unless
you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of
Heaven." (Matt. 18:3) It is the humble that shall be exalted to the
vision of God's face in the glories of the resurrection.
James Lavin preached and celebrated what is the Christian future.
And among his many good works were his many
prayers for the dead, that they may be helped on their way to the
vision of God. It would be ungrateful on our part if we did not pray
for him, if need there be-pray for him as he climbs the mountain of the
Lord to the gate of that building that will last forever.
"Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?
Who shall stand in His holy place?
Who desires not worthless things...
He shall receive blessings from the Lord...
Such are the men who seek Him,
Seek the face of the God of Jacob." (Ps.
24)-the God of our James.
Do show him Your face, O Lord, and let him
hear the sound of Your voice. For Your voice is sweet and Your face is
beautiful. Say "yes" to him who has said "yes" to You, "yes" to the
good news, "yes" to Your church.
Father James Stromberg, PhD.,
was a colleague of Monsignor Lavin at the University of St. Thomas.
Father Stromberg taught philosophy from 1956 to 2002 and for many years
was Department Chairman. He is Professor of Philosophy emeritus and
lives at the Leo C Byrne Residence for retired priests in St. Paul.
During the years when Father Leo Dolan was pastor here at St. John's
Father Stromberg was the weekend assistant. For many years, continuing
to the present day, he assists the pastor of Holy Family Parish in St.
Louis Park, currently Father Joseph Johnson. For some 17 years Father
Johnson's predecessor was Father Thomas Dufner, whose parents and whose
aunt and uncle attend daily Mass here at St. John's. His aunt and
uncle, Jim and Marie Humphrey are St. John's parishioners. Father
Dufner is now the pastor at Epiphany Parish in Coon Rapids, the largest
parish in the archdiocese.
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