Death of Father LaVerdiere
Blessed Sacrament Father Eugene A. LaVerdiere, a leading American Scripture scholar of the post-Vatican II era and the Senior Editor of Emmanuel magazine, died on Thursday, November 20, 2008, at a nursing home in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, following a prolonged illness.
Two of his siblings, Sister Claudette LaVerdiere, M.M., and Brother Gary LaVerdiere, S.S.S., were with him at the time. He is also survived by a second brother, Peter, of California. Father LaVerdiere's parents, Laurier and Gladys, died in recent years.
Father LaVerdiere wrote extensively on the Gospel of Luke and also on Mark. He loved to say, with a wide smile on his face, "My home is in Luke, but I have a nice condo in Mark!" He published scores of books and articles during a long and distinguished teaching and lecturing career that took him to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and to every part of the United States. A special focus of his study and writing were the various meal narratives in the Gospels and in other New Testament works. His last book, Firstborn of God: The Birth of Mary's Son Jesus, Luke 2:1-21, written with Father Paul J. Bernier, S.S.S., was released in August 2007.
A graduate of the renowned École Biblique in Jerusalem, he taught at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, the Jesuit School of Theology and the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, and Fordham University, New York City. For many years, until his retirement in 2005, he served as the National Secretary of the Pontifical Missionary Union for the Clergy and Religious and as a consultant for mission education of clergy and seminarians for the National Office of The Society for the Propagation of the Faith in New York City, where he collaborated closely with Auxiliary Bishop William J. McCormack, the Society's Director.
Prior to moving to Cleveland three years ago, Father LaVerdiere lived at Saint Jean Baptiste Church and served as the local Superior of the Blessed Sacrament Community at Saint Jean's. He was also a Provincial Consultor of the American Province of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament and the Director of Formation.
Father LaVerdiere accepted the effects of a debilitating neurological condition with grace and equanimity. Even in illness, he was teaching us.
The Funeral Mass was held at Saint Paschal Baylon Church in Highland Heights, Ohio, on Monday night, November 24. His body was laid to rest the following morning in the Blessed Sacrament Community's plot at All Souls Cemetery, Chardon, the same cemetery where an uncle, Father William LaVerdiere, S.S.S., a popular Pastor of Saint Jean Baptiste from 1944-1958, is interred.
A dramatic change in his overall health situation forced him to leave Saint Jean's and New York City in 2005. He never left our thoughts and prayers, however. Requiescat in pace, Gene.
Death, a Pascal Event
Comforted by the prayer of the community
and by the Eucharist received as viaticum,
our brothers will then be ready to die in the Lord.
The death
of a brother
shall be celebrated as a paschal event,
in a prayer filled with hope. . . .
Filled with hope, we
journey on Congregation of the Blessed
Sacrament, Rule of Life, 13, 26
toward that new world
where God will be all in all.