Fr. Larry Lentz, CSV, celebrated his 60 years of religious life in August with parishioners at St. Viator Catholic Community in Las Vegas. But on Wednesday, he celebrated again, only this time with his confreres and lay associates of the Viatorian Community, who gathered this week for the annual Provincial Assembly.
Fr. Larry Lentz and Associate Deacon Michael Underwood open Mass.
Celebrating Mass and later socializing with all these Viatorians seemed fitting. After all, it was the community aspect of the Viatorians that first drew Fr. Lentz to religious life. He fondly recalls when he first met the Viatorians, as a freshman in 1959 at Griffin High School in Springfield, where nearly all of the faculty members were professed Viatorians.
“They were just nice guys. They got along well with one another,” he says. “How they lived in community made a big impression on me.”
Fr. Lentz entered the community as a novice in 1963, after graduating from Griffin. He professed his first vows in 1964 and his early ministry followed in his teachers’ footsteps. He earned an undergraduate degree in English and did graduate work at Cambridge, before carving out a career at Saint Viator High School, where he went from English teacher and department chair, ultimately to principal and president.
Yet, he would go on to spend even more time during his 60 years as a Viatorian in pastoral ministry, serving at St. Viator Parish in Chicago and Maternity BVM Parish in Bourbonnais, before heading west to serve as rector of the Guardian Angel Cathedral in Las Vegas.
Fr. Lentz reflects on his six decades as a Viatorian in his homily.
He now calls Las Vegas home after having served as Assistant Provincial of the Viatorian Community, from 2013 to 2017, and in particular overseeing the development of new associates, before returning to serve at St. Viator Catholic Community.
On Wednesday, surrounded by many of those associates and his brother Viatorians, he reflected on advancing the vision of the Venerable Fr. Louis Querbes and the mission of the Viatorians, together.
“It’s not just about my God and me,” Fr. Lentz says. “It’s about my brothers and sisters — and me — in community that makes all of this apostolic work able to be lived out in a genuine way.”