by Sue Orsen
It happened in the nick of time, in the 12,000^th month -- the final month -- of the second millennium, and it created an immediate bridge to the third millennium.
On Saturday, December 11^th, 1999, Larry Blake of Victoria was ordained a Catholic priest at St. Hubert's Catholic Church in neighboring Chanhassen where he is employed as business administrator.  Not too many years ago Larry was a Lutheran.  Not just a Lutheran but a Lutheran pastor.  Not just a Lutheran pastor but a Lutheran pastor with a wife and children.  It's obviously an extraordinary bridge to the new millennium.
Ten years ago he was writing monthly columns for the Victoria Gazette with the byline of Pastor Larry Blake, Holy Cross Lutheran Church.  Today, parishioners and students at St. Hubert's have started calling him Father.  But his wife Diane still calls him Larry, while John, Sarah, and Joseph still call him Dad.  Together they have walked the bridge.
A bridge is a structure that spans and provides passage over a gap or barrier.  This bridge from married Lutheran pastor to married Catholic priest spans the millenniums and breaks a barrier, one that has been broken before but ever so seldom and never before in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. 
Larry, 48, is quick to point out that the barrier is not so great as one may think.  "Every Protestant is in communion with the Church," he said.  "It's just not a full communion, but we recognize that there are legitimate faith communities.  We share the same baptism."
Along these same legitimate lines, Larry credits his devoted Lutheran mother, now deceased, for having an enormous influence on his spiritual life, then and now. 
"Our home was always a prayerful place," he says.  "I am the oldest of six brothers and sisters, and we used to joke that we were in church as much as the minister's kids.  Both of my parents were always involved in church.  It was very much a part of my growing up."

Larry was born to Robert and Lorraine Blake on September 19^th, 1951, in Boston, Massachusetts, where his father worked for Boston Edison, a large utility company.  Mr. Blake, now 77 and retired, resides at Braintree, MA, in the family home with son Bob, wife Christine, grandson John, and baby granddaughter Kelly.;
Larry attended nearby public schools and in tenth grade knew he wanted to become a pastor.
"It was at my pastor's recommendation that I applied at Concordia," said Larry of the Lutheran college in the Fargo/Moorhead area of Minnesota.  "I was accepted there, and elsewhere.  I must have had some adventuresome spirit in me to do that."  Even now Larry seems astonished that he traveled so far from home and family to attend college.
"In those days North Central Airlines had one building at the airstrip in Fargo," he recalled.  "We descended the plane on outdoor steps to the runway.  I landed there in 1969 and I thought it was the end of the world." 
It was at Concordia College that Larry met his bride.  "Diane came from Robbinsdale and we met in the fall of 1970 through a program called Outreach Teams," he explained. 
"I played the guitar and sang a little bit.  We became acquaintances right away, and then friends.  Diane can tell you that I ignored her at first and didn't have a clue in the romance department.  I thought we were just friends, which is not what a girl wants to hear.  People had said I would need to be hit with a two by four.  We began dating in our junior year."
Larry graduated in 1973, Diane in 1974, and they became Mr. and Mrs. Larry Blake on June 15^th, 1974, at Elim Lutheran Church in Robbinsdale.  Larry received his Master of Divinity from Luther Seminary in St. Paul in 1978 and was ordained that same year.
He served as pastor in Deer River, MN, from 1978 to 1982; associate pastor of St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Bloomington from 1982 to 1989; pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran in Excelsior from 1989 to 1993 and from which he resigned upon his decision to join the Catholic Church.
From 1993 to 1994 he was pastoral minister at All Saints Catholic Church in Lakeville; from 1994 to 1995 chancellor for the Winona diocese; and from 1995 to 1999 parish administrator at Risen Savior Catholic Church in Burnsville.  In May of 1999 he became business administrator at St. Hubert's.

Diane, too, was raised Lutheran.  Which of the couple broached the conversion issue first?  "I think it was me," said Larry.  "But I can't honestly tell you how that conversation got going.  I know we talked about the practical implications."  Number One practical implication was how to continue to support a family without his job as pastor.
"As each of us looks back on our lives today," he said, "we see that there were signposts along the way.  It's been a gradual journey."
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