Fr. LaBran Memorial

I first met Father LaBran in 1990. It was near the end of my freshman year, and I met with Father to see if the Spiritual Exercises that he was leading at the end of the school year would be a good match.

Way back then Father told me joyfully that "the end was near", that he "would be going home soon", that death was imminent and that it very well may be his last retreat.

Luckily - God had Father LaBran stay with us for another fifteen years!

There are five words that I connect with Father LaBran which I would like to touch on briefly. I appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to share them with you and to speak to you about our friend.

The words are: Death, Friendship, Service, Dedication, and Love.

Death

From that first meeting with Father LaBran, he helped me to begin to see what death is for all of us that BELIEVE! In Corinthians it is written: "Where O Death is your victory? Where O Death is your sting?" Father LaBran loved life. He enjoyed parties, tailgates, meeting people, being a priest and all the while he spoke of death. He took the sting right out of it! His rock solid faith in the promise of eternal life, for those that believe in God, helped the grief stricken at the hundreds and hundreds of funerals he attended. It helped the countless people he visited when they were sick and dying. It helped me, when my Dad died, to have heard Father LaBran speak of life in heaven so joyfully and excitedly.

Fred Sanford, from the television program Sanford & Son, and Father LaBran shared the same quirk of calling attention to death. I realize that underneath Father's words he was coming to grips, first with the limitations of old age and then with his own mortality. But for me he was constantly reminding us that life here on Earth is just the beginning - a vital lesson for all of us as our own lives unfold.

Friendship

A book came out about a year ago entitled, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul. It was a bestseller and I estimate that about forty friends of LaBran shook their head and said, "I should have written that book." This Father Joe lived in Great Britain and I just want to share a quick excerpt with you:

I'd always believed - simply on the evidence of his deep love and abiding concern - that what was the defining friendship of my life was also a prominent fixture of his. All great friendships help both parties discover the uniqueness their self possesses…Your true friend joins you on a voyage across the sea of self whose outcome neither can know as they board. And which will change them both.

Common sense suggests it would be hard for one person to maintain in one lifetime more than a few such friendships. It would be taxing physically - the toll it would take on time, energy, patience, concentration - and brutally hard on the emotions, let alone the spirit….Father Joe had undertaken not just a few, or even a few dozen, but hundreds of such life-altering voyages.

There are so many of us and there was just one Father LaBran. He had such concern and compassion for us - he traveled for baptisms, weddings, funerals, parties - to be there for us. Of course, he needed those trips, those events, those parties, and he needed us to keep himself going. I recharge my 'batteries' by pulling away, by lounging on the couch watching TV. Father LaBran re-charged his 'batteries' by giving and receiving friendship.

I think of the saying: It is not enough to be busy - what are you busy about? Father LaBran was busy - and all of us were what he was busy about.

Service

TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN, MUCH IS DEMANDED

That call to service is always heard in my head in the voice of Father LaBran. They were words he spoke and lived. He felt blessed by his parents and the wonderful childhood they gave him. He felt blessed by the opportunity to attend the College of the Holy Cross. I admire his faith and conviction to join the Jesuits and to serve God's flock here at Holy Cross and at Baghdad College.

Visit the sick and bury the dead is another call to service that I connect with Father LaBran. Old age, hearing and vision loss, and lack of mobility were no excuse to stop serving. All of us are called by God to serve. For me it was fifteen years, for others it was fifty years, and for others twenty-five - we saw and were inspired by Father LaBran as he lived out this calling.

Dedication

During the Spiritual Exercises Father LaBran had a series of cards that he would hand out at different points. One of those cards contained the following by Teilhard de Chardin:

O Risen Christ, grant me the Grace to be ever young for God's greater glory young, i.e., Optimistic - Active - Smiling - Perceptive

I never asked, but I think this may have been Father's favorite. He worked hard at being young in spirit. He was optimistic that the young people he sent off would serve God and his people well. The smile that Father had was infectious. Until the very end, Father LaBran was active and perceptive as he made connections with people of all ages and all backgrounds and found ways to be of help.

He was not perfect and at times the smiling and optimism went by the way side if he felt wronged or felt a friend was wronged. It did not matter if you agreed with Father LaBran on a matter or not - his dedication to living fully for God's greater glory was always at the forefront.

I am sure it has been written before that looking at both what upsets a man and what makes him happy is the best way to discern what kind of man he was. I think what made Father happy and what made him angry was right in line with what God expected from him. It easy to be liked but respected is what we should strive for and Father LaBran's dedication to his calling always afforded him our utmost respect.

Love

One of my favorite LaBran stories, and one I would ask him to repeat, was how he gave up smoking. He said that he woke up one Christmas morning in Clark and, before getting out of bed, he prayed and asked Jesus what he wanted for his birthday? The answer came to Father that he needed to give up cigarettes. From that Christmas forward he did not smoke. Father LaBran is in a loving relationship with God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and in turn he loves us. Father LaBran spoke the words "I love you" often. He was never ashamed to weep loudly or to laugh loudly. He spoke of a spiritual fecundity for us - he would enunciate clearly and loudly "Though I did not physically begot you, I love you like a Father!"

We love you Father!

We miss you dearly and we thank you for being our father, our friend, our priest...