From the Heart of the Shepherd

From the bulletin for Pentecost (2026 May 24)

May 24 - Pentecost

Except for a few weeks in September, from summer of 2021 to summer of 2022 St. Mark’s was without any maintenance staff. To paraphrase Michael Scott, “somehow we managed.” A Latino family came on Sunday nights to clean in the church. A facilities management company was contracted to take care of the mega-boiler and large projects. A local lawn service company took care of the mowing and snow plowing. Since I had just graduated from seminary, I was sufficiently educated to change the light bulbs around campus (sometimes all by myself!).

Yes, somehow we managed. But it wasn’t pretty. The patchwork solution was relatively expensive and yet fell short of providing comprehensive upkeep of our parish facilities. Come 2022, the work orders were piling up, roofs were sagging, and yet still no new head of maintenance could be found.

And then came Larry Leif.

Larry had begun to attend daily Mass at St. Mark’s during COVID. Though he and his wife were members at another parish “across the way,” St. Mark’s was close to his job at Memorial Blood Center. Friendly guy that he is, Larry rapidly became connected at our parish. They made it official at St. Mark’s in June of 2020. Shortly after that (if not before?) he began sacristaning at the 7am Mass. Then in April of 2022 he attended a men’s retreat with the Catholic Advance Movement. And somehow in the course of that silent retreat, he learned that his new parish was looking for a new head of maintenance.

So he applied for the job. Though a far cry from his job at the time delivering lifeblood, Larry (an ongoing student at the University of YouTube) was already a consummate handyman, the kind of guy whose idea of a “vacation” was flying to Florida who to help paint a house or build a wraparound deck for some new acquaintance. It was an easy hire. And so, in summer of 2022, at the age of 67, “Mr. Larry” made St. Mark’s his latest project. He told parish leadership at the time that he planned to work for three years and then retire.

There began a transformation of our parish campus, which, like the “hut of David” was slowly falling “into ruins” (Amos 9:11). With his can-do pluck and inexhaustible energy, Larry set to work, undaunted by the long to-do list. But he was hardly alone. With gifts for activating gifts, Larry was constantly associating others in the work, from skilled tradesmen (whom Larry would convince to donate their time and expertise) to armies of ordinary parishioners (or college students), many hands would make light so much of the work. (I recall a day earlier this year when Larry had three different jobs being taken care of by volunteers around campus, all on a Tuesday morning!).

It would be futile here to try to list all of the projects completed in the past. That photo-slide show, however, exists on Larry’s cell phone. To provide merely a sample: one of Larry’s first “jobs” was to move his office from the school basement to the parish office, to better integrate with the parish staff. Working with Dave Schmidt, he resealed the bay window of the parish office before it fell out, patched the sidewalk in front of the PC and Preschool, and more recently patched the crumbling plaster of the Community Room. Working with Hans Brenner, he made a number of key electrical improvements in the Church. Working with Mark Steigauf, he fixed the Bridal Room door and mounted the St. Therese relic. With his Saturday morning crews, he oversaw the new lighting install in Carolyn Hall and completed a major landscaping project outside of the Church. With Randy’s help, all of the maintenance work we had formerly farming out (custodial, lawn car, snow plowing, boiler checks) is now taken care of by staff, volunteers, or a more affordable service. Our preschoolers, who noticed that it was Larry whom their teachers called on when something needed fixing, even bestowed on him the title of “Principal,” figuring he must be the one really in charge.

Well, after three years Larry did not step down. But last year he did semi-retire (though we hardly saw a downtick in his productivity and certainly not in his ever-ready helpfulness). This year, however, Larry will “drop to zero hours,” at least for the summer. When you see him around the parish (for he will still be around, meeting new people, worshipping, sacristaning, serving on the prayer team ministry, etc.) please join me in thanking him for all he has done for our community and for its buildings.

Thankfully, we do not expect to go the next year without maintenance staff. Gene Thill, who joined Larry’s team part-time a couple years ago, will remain helping evenings and weekends. And Matt Hoffman, who has been a very part-time member of the parish staff for about as long, starting last week will now be fulltime in the maintenance department. But there is only one Larry Leif, and we thank God for having sent this living image of our handy-man Savior our way for (about) three years of active ministry (and more)!

From the Heart of the Shepherd: The Ascension of the Lord