A 'late' vocation, Father Lauden loved to the end

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Father Edward J. Lauden, a widower and a late vocation who served for 15 years as a priest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, was remembered at his Funeral Mass Oct. 26 as a man of deep commitment to his family and his church.

Father Lauden, 77, died Oct. 21. He was the pastor of St. Mark Parish in Ama.

“If there is one word that could describe Ed’s life, that would be commitment,” said Archbishop Gregory Aymond told those attending Father Lauden’s Funeral Mass at St. Charles Borromeo in Destrehan, his first assignment as a priest.

“Throughout his life, he was very committed to a merciful God, to his family and as a teacher in Catholic education to his students,” the archbishop said. “He was a dedicated priest. His life was one of commitment to God and to the people of God whom he served with great fidelity.”

Thought early of vocation

A native of Salem, New Jersey, Father Lauden attended high school in Cocoa Beach, Florida, before going to Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in physics. He later earned a master’s degree in earth science from Virginia State University.

His journey to the priesthood was an odyssey that took the better part of his lifetime.

At age 62, the widower of six years began serving as a priest, a vocation to which he had felt drawn as a young college student.

Upon graduation from Spring Hill, he entered the Jesuit order at Grand Coteau, Louisiana, and remained for five years in formation before deciding he needed to refocus his career to become a teacher.

He taught Algebra I and II

at Jesuit High School in New Orleans for two years and then moved on to De La Salle High School, where he spent the next 24 years teaching first boys, then boys and girls (when the school became coeducational in 1994) the subjects of geology, astronomy and physics.

A happy marriage

In his early 50s, he met Susan Miller, a New Orleans native, and they married.

“It was the happiest time of my life,” Father Lauden told the Clarion Herald in 2005 before his ordination to the priesthood. “When I left the Jesuits I fell away from faith for many years. It was my wife who inspired me and got me back into the church. I embraced faith in a whole new way.”

Susan died in 1999, just four years after their marriage.

“The fact that she came into my life was a grace of God,” Father Lauden said. “When she died I wanted to return to some sort of religious life.

He considered living and serving in a monastery, but after speaking with Father John Noone, then pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Church in Picayune, Mississippi, he said he realized God needed to have more diocesan priests for guidance and teaching. “Father John married me and my wife and he buried her,” he said.

He entered Notre Dame Seminary at the age of 61.

As a transitional deacon, Father Lauden served at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Destrehan.

“I want to spend the rest of my life serving the people of God as an example of what holiness can be,” he said just before his ordination in June 2005.

Father Lauden served as parochial vicar at St. Charles Borromeo, St. Joan of Arc in LaPlace, St. Andrew the Apostle in New Orleans, St. Gertrude in Des Allemands, St. John the Baptist in Paradis and St. Anthony of Padua in Luling.

His pastorate was at St. Mark Church in Ama until the time of his death.

Beloved by parishioners

Parishioners said he demonstrated his great love for God and for his vocation by walking “slowly to the altar and so reverently kissing it at the end of his last Mass on Saturday, Oct. 18 – mere hours before his physical heart gave out.”

“He loved being pastor of St. Mark, his ‘little country parish,’” the parish Facebook account read. “St. Mark is a better place because he was our pastor, and his parishioners are better people for having known him and seen what it means to live the Gospel of Christ.

“The irony is that the physical heart would fail on someone whose spiritual heart was so large and so loving. Father Ed said that he was devastated when his wife died, but not long after her death, he felt not called – but compelled – to the priesthood. He believed that being a priest was both a privilege and a responsibility to follow Christ as closely as possible.”

In his homily at the Funeral Mass, Msgr. Harry Bugler said Father Lauden was a man of sublime humility.

“Ed possessed a common sense wisdom,” Msgr. Bugler said. “He was very much at home in his own person.”

Msgr. Bugler said Father Lauden was not a sports fan at all, so that when it came time to decide who might celebrate the Sunday evening Mass on Super Bowl Sunday, Father Lauden always volunteered.

“He thought sports was such a waste of time,” Msgr. Bugler said, smiling. “So he took the Mass so I could watch the game instead.”

Patient and loving

His health was never the best, Msgr. Bugler said, and he suffered from diabetes for many years.

“But spiritually he was a tremendous grace and blessing to a great many people,” Msgr. Bugler said. “He was a person of no pretense.  What you saw was what you got. He had an abundance of patience, and he was never in a hurry with people.”

Msgr. Bugler said Father Lauden had characteristics that reminded him of St. John Vianney, patron saint of priests who was known as a very wise and consoling confessor.

“He focused on the goodness of the other and the goodness of the Lord and the goodness of the church,” Msgr. Bugler said. “The role of any ‘father’ is to create life, create family and create memories. ... Well done, good and faithful servant.”

In addition to his pastoral assignments, Father Lauden served as the spiritual advisor of the Westbank Magnificat.

Father Lauden is survived by his brother, Gary Lauden, and his wife, Jody of McKinney, Texas, as well as a niece, two nephews, and seven great nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Susan Miller Lauden, and parents, Edward Lauden Sr. and Agnes Cross Lauden.

He was buried at New Palestine Cemetery in Picayune, Mississippi.

Ron Brocato contributed to this story. [email protected].