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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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by Sue Orsen Father Larry Blake recently returned to his family in Victoria after spending 100 days on active duty with the Air Force working as a chaplain in Iraq. Larry not only returned to his wife and children, as well as his hometown community, he also returned to the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Waconia and the parish families he serves there as priest and parochial administrator. There is yet another family that welcomed Father Larry home after his tour in Iraq, and that family is the student population at the St. Joseph Catholic School in Waconia. Our Father Larry Blake was missed by a lot of people while serving in Iraq. Very few priests fill the role of father in such an all encompassing capacity -- in a biological family, a parish family, a student family, and a military family. At this time, having just celebrated Memorial Day, the 100 days in Iraq rise to the surface, but maybe it's a good idea to first give a brief summary about how he came to be called Father Larry. Larry and his wife Diane converted to the Catholic faith in 1993. Their children John and Sarah followed them into the faith. Their son Joseph was born in 1998. Because Larry was an ordained Lutheran pastor at the time, he sought to continue that calling as a Catholic priest. Such a move doesn't happen very often, but Larry's love of the Eucharist enhanced his chances to go from ordained minister to ordained priest and the rest of the story is history -- in the literal sense. His story was featured in the January 2000 issue of the Victoria Gazette and was entitled, "A Bridge to the New Millennium." Larry was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on December 11th, 1999, with the permission of Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Harry Flynn. Back in 1991, when he was writing a monthly column for the Gazette as Pastor Larry Blake of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, he wrote that he often considered the military service, being impressed with the commitment of chaplains to serve both God and country. He even tried to enlist as a military chaplain, several years after his marriage to Diane and ordination as a Lutheran pastor, but was not accepted because of a chronic neck issue related to a sports injury. And then, about six years ago, he tried again to volunteer as a military chaplain, this time as a Catholic priest, and this time he was accepted into the Air Force Reserve. "I always wanted to do something to serve my country," said Father Larry. "My dad and my father-in-law were World War II veterans. When I contacted the Air Force, they said, 'We're really short of priests. We'd love to have you.' So I went to Officer Training School in Montgomery, Alabama, and became a Commissioned Officer in 2005." Larry calls himself "a traditional reservist." He reports to his unit -- the 934th Airlift Wing -- for two days every month at a base located on the north side of the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. "Plus I get training for two weeks every summer, and that training can be elsewhere," he explained. "I've been out to Washington State and Washington D.C." Over the past few years, Father Larry was contacted several times by the Air Force about the possibility of deploying overseas, because of the presiding need for Catholic chaplains. In November 2010, he was again asked to deploy and he accepted with the permission of Archbishop John Nienstedt.
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June 2011 |
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Father Larry Blake was welcomed home to Victoria by his wife Diane, son Joe, and daughter Sarah. |
