Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tribute To Fr. Larry
Tribute To Fr. Larry
COMMUNITY SCHEDULE
January/February
Immaculate Conception – Bronx
Seelos House – Chicago
Villa Redeemer – Glenview
Young Adult Ministry
March/April
St. Clement Maria – Berkeley
St. Mary’s of the Assumption –
Whittier
Sacred Heart – Seattle
St. Michael’s & Mission Team –
Chicago
May/June
Mission House & Mission Team –
Liguori
Larry was and is a real leader. He doesn’t always wait for people to follow. We met in Thailand and were stationed
together in 1967, when the Communist insurgency was heating up and the Indochina war was consuming lives and
land in Southeast Asia. Larry was the best student ever to graduate from the Baptist Thai Language School, and was
the most fluent of all the foreign missionaries in Thailand. Larry was first stationed in Bahn Dung, about 80 kilometers
west of Bishop Duhart’s grubby little hovel in Udonthani. Our first Vice Provincial was Fr. Wil Lowery, now is his 80s
but to this day still working with Lao refugees throughout the Midwest and south of the U.S.A.
Bahn Dung looked like a frontier town in the old days of the West. It was made up of old wooden houses, dusty
streets, dirty stores and a police station. There, Bishop Duhart told Larry to find funds and build a church. Bro. Corne-
lius was there to do the building. Just as the church was finished, Larry was stationed in the minor seminary at
Sriracha on the Gulf of Thailand. This transfer nearly broke Larry’s heart. He loved the northeast, with its utterly poor
but simple and friendly folk. Larry grimly did his duty in Sriracha. In 1974, he was transferred to the leper colonies
around Khon Kaen, back in the northeast. This was the toughest appointment one could get, physically and mentally.
I could nearly fill a book with stories Larry told in those days. Thank God Larry has a great sense of humor, because he
needed it. But typical Larry, he settled down to do the work. He purchased books about leprosy, to the point he knew
more about the disease than did the doctors. The lepers were not an easy group to work for: they were uncooperative,
jealous and ungrateful. Larry overcame these problems, and worked hard to get medicine in from Holland and else-
2 denverlink September/October 2010
Clockwise from left: Fr. Larry with those he most loves:
the children helped by the Father Ray Brennan Foundation,
including the Redemptorist School for the Blind and the
Vocational School for the Disabled in Thailand.
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This past December, Larry was in Nongkhai
to direct the budding new handicapped
school of 17 students, who are temporarily
staying at the Novitiate building (The
Novitiate has been moved to the Philippines
to serve Novices all over Southeast Asia).
The Redemptorists have land, and Larry
was getting ready to put fill dirt on the
property. The next morning, Larry had a
seizure that threw his shoulders out of the
socket. He is recuperating at St. Clement
Health Care Center in Liguori, MO. People
from all over Thailand are praying for him to
recover and return. His presence is sorely
missed, and his work is still not done. Please
join us in prayer for Larry. God broke the
mold when he made him.
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