Fr. John Larson, MIC

Parochial Vicar of St. Peter’s Parish and Holy Rosary Parish
Kenosha, Wisconsin

First Vows: 8/15/1997
Final Vows: 8/22/2002
Priestly Ordination: 2/11/2006

Previous assignments and dates:
Priest in Residence/Shrine Staff, National Shrine of The Divine Mercy: 2018 - 2022
Second House Counselor at Marian House of Studies, Steubenville, Ohio: 2017 - 2018
Superior at Marian House of Studies, Steubenville, Ohio: 2011 - 2017
First House Counselor at Marian House of Studies, Steubenville, Ohio: 2006 - 2011
Deacon/Priest in Residence, St. Mary’s, Plano, Illinois: 2005 - 2006

Do you have a devotion to a particular Saint?
I have a particular devotion to St. Lawrence of Brindisi.

Do you have a favorite story or anecdote from your ministry? 
When I was accepted into the Marians in 1995, I attended the Mary, Mercy, and the Eucharist conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville that year.  A number of Marians were there from the Washington, D.C., house. While there, I thought it would be wonderful to actually go to that university, but I realized that I was giving up that possibility by joining the Marians, who did not go there at that time.

When I was accepted for first vows in 1997, the Provincial Council also decided on buying a house at Steubenville for Marians to attend for Philosophy and undergraduate degrees. I was one of two Marian brothers chosen to attend the school (the other being Fr. Donald Calloway).  I spent three years there as a student and graduated with a degree in philosophy in 2000.

I thought that was the end of my time in Steubenville, but God had different plans. After being ordained a priest in 2006, I was stationed in Plano, Illinois, but my new assignment (which I learned of the day I was ordained) was to be a priest at the Steubenville house. I was there for 12 years. I even taught a night class twice at the university. I celebrated Mass on campus many a Wednesday afternoon.

Thus, the place I gave up any possibility of attending became a place I was at the longest - 15 years all together.

Favorite quote from the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska?

As I was conversing with the hidden God, He gave me to see and understand that I should not be reflecting so much and building up fear of the difficulties which I might encounter. Know that I am with you; I bring about the difficulties, and I overcome them; in one instant, I can change a hostile disposition to one which is favorable to this cause. (Diary, 788)

Favorite prayer to Our Lady?
Holy Mary, be thou help to the helpless, a strength to the fearful, a comfort to the sorrowful; pray for the people, plead for the clergy, make intercession for all women vowed to God; may all feel thine assistance who keep thy holy remembrance. (Bishop Fulbert of Chartres, from his Sermo IX, De Annuntiatione Dominica)

In the original Latin: Sancta Maria, succurre miseris, iuva pusillanimes, refove flebiles, ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo sexu: sentiant omnes tuum iuvamen, quicumque celebrant tuam sanctam commemorationem.

Amen.

His story:
In my teens, I moved away from my faith somewhat, but still had some curiosity about the Bible and philosophy. But in 1990, at the age of 19, I was listening to Christian rock music and decided to commit my life to Christ.

In the middle of 1992, I began to sense a call to the priesthood. Around the same time, my parents sent me a videotape of that year's EWTN telecast of Mercy Sunday at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy on Eden Hill, in Stockbridge, Mass.

On the telecast, Fr. Larry Dunn, MIC, the Vocation Director at that time, invited young men to consider a vocation as a Marian priest or brother. It struck me that maybe I was being called to join the Marians.

I also started to pray the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy and entered my parish's RCIA program in early 1993, since I hadn't been confirmed as a teenager.

Through friends, I learned about the gift of being a Catholic, and especially the gift of devotion to Our Lady. I joined the Legion of Mary and read about Marian apparitions throughout history. Around this time, I saw "Song of Bernadette," the 1943 film based on the life of St. Bernadette Soubirous. She had visions of Our Lady in Lourdes, France, in 1858. In these apparitions, Our Lady identified herself as the Immaculate Conception.

I had a desire to see this place where Our Lady had appeared. I took the opportunity to go there in February of 1993. It was a very powerful pilgrimage. I felt that Mary was there, present in a mysterious way. It was an important element in my discernment of a religious vocation.Interestingly, by the end of the pilgrimage, some of my fellow pilgrims had the impression that I was going to be a priest!

Just two months later, I was confirmed in my parish. And the date was significant. It was on April 19, 1993 -- the day after Sr. Faustina's beatification in Rome. Thus, I had the joy of calling upon her as Blessed Faustina when I was confirmed.

Over the course of the next couple of years, I corresponded with Fr. Larry, visited the Marians in Washington, D.C., and discerned. I applied in 1995, and was accepted. Shortly before I entered as a postulant, I attended the Mary, Mercy, Eucharist Conference at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in June of 1995. During a Holy Hour there, which was led by Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, I felt completely at peace about joining the Marians.

After 10 years of preparation and study, I was ordained to the priesthood on Feb. 11, 2006 — the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, at the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

After my ordination, I was first an assistant pastor at our parish in Plano, Illinois. From 2006 to 2018 I was stationed in Steubenville, Ohio, serving in many capacities, including ministering to students at Franciscan University of Steubenville and to various religious communities of women in the area.

In 2018, I moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to help with ministry at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy. That assignment lasted until 2022, when I moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to become a Parochial Vicar at the two parishes administered by the Marians here. Since I grew up in Wisconsin, I'm now back in my home state. Parish life gives me the opportunity to administer the Sacraments and help in building up the Church at the local level, and I'm also reconnecting with my Wisconsin past.

Publications:
Mother Thrice Admirable: An Introduction to the Mariology of Fr. Joseph Kentenich

More on Fr. John:
Conversations with Moms: 'Out of the Blue'
Thank God for St. Joseph — but why March 19?
Why a Book on Fr. Kentenich? It Had to Happen.
A Marians' Marian
'My Kind of Library'