‘Deacon Dan’ Blessed Enid Parish With Music, Humor
By Candace Krebs
For the Sooner Catholic 

ENID —  St. Francis Xavier Church is bringing a busload to help celebrate Deacon Daniel Letourneau’s ordination to the priesthood on June 2. Described by various parishioners as exceptional for his blend of “spirituality, joyfulness and musical ability” and respected for the maturity and life experience he brings to his endeavor, Deacon Letourneau made himself an integral part of Enid’s parish family.

As a transitional deacon, Letourneau came to Enid a year ago in May for his pastoral internship but stayed longer than anyone originally expected.

“He came in May. He was supposed to leave again in October but because of the hurricane, he couldn’t. He had to skip a semester. So we tried to keep him busy,” said Bea Parker, the church’s religious education director.

Keep him busy, they did. He contributed to every facet of parish life, helping with liturgy, with content for the bulletin, with vacation bible school, with St. Joseph’s School and at Our Daily Bread soup kitchen across the street.

“He found himself running around in circles,” Parker adds. “He was really fun to have.”

As a result of Hurricane Katrina, the parish also had the unique privilege of hosting his diaconate ordination on Dec. 28. Future priests are normally ordained to the diaconate at the seminary in which they are studying, but - as a seminarian studying at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans - he was allowed to be ordained in his home diocese.

St. Francis Xavier deserves credit for giving Letourneau a wide range of experiences in preparation for the priesthood.

It was his idea to initiate a talent show night, engaging young and old in a chance to express their artistic gifts.

For St. Francis of Assisi feast day last October, he found himself blessing parishioner Carol Lahman’s chickens.

“He came over to my house and blessed my chickens, ducks and geese,” she said. “Father Kevin was a little bit busy and asked Deacon Dan if he would do it, and he said fine. He was very personable. He was very nice to the chickens. Every time he’s here (at church) he asks me about them. He says, ‘I think of them often.’”

Lahman - who is Enid’s city attorney - says mortality rates among the birds have declined since he was at her farm.

“Fun” is a word that comes up often as parishioners recall his contributions. A talented musician, he once kidded about creating a First Communion tour T-shirt that would list all of the towns where he had assisted with the ceremony, which of course would include Enid.

“His tour will be the The Grateful Dan tour,” jokes parishioner Sheila Morris.

“He did seem to be grateful to everybody for everything,” she continues in a more serious vein. “He had a delightful spirit. Instead of a pied piper, he’s the pied guitarist. He delighted in all of our little idiosyncrasies.”

While at St. Francis, Letourneau was under the tutelage of Father Kevin Ratterman and Father Ernest Flusche, retired priest-in-residence and a gourmet cook. While helping at the soup kitchen, he reportedly smuggled leftover cookies into the rectory, since they would not have been up to Father Flusche’s high culinary standards.

While volunteering at Our Daily Bread, an ecumenical food pantry, Letourneau forged many friendships and is likely to attract some Baptists to his ordination. “The people from Emmanuel Baptist church just loved him,” said Morris, a long-time parishioner active in the church. “He was a man of the people. To know him was to love him. He had a great sense of humor and great rhythm. He had it all. He was the whole package.”

Deacon Letourneau’s ordination is also expected to draw crowds of well-wishers from St. Mary’s in Ponca City - where his parents Lloyd and Delores Letourneau live a block from the church - as well as St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Edmond. Shannon Gray, who works in the bookkeeping office at the Ponca City church, said spaces are available on the church van and several families will be driving their own vehicles to the ceremony.

The weekend immediately following his ordination, Letourneau is expected to make a much-anticipated return trip back through Edmond, Ponca City and Enid to celebrate his first official Masses as a priest.

“I think the community is pretty excited,” Gray says, adding that the local Knights of Columbus chapter is planning to present Letourneau with a special gift.

Last August, Letourneau rode on one of two buses that traveled from St. Francis in Enid to Oklahoma City for the Archdiocese’s 100th anniversary Mass and suggested the idea then of another bus trip for his ordination.

“We have 54 spaces on the bus,” said Betty Landwehr, St. Francis church receptionist. She expects the bus to be full.

Marie Mogab was one of several parishioners who served on an oversight committee formed to give Letourneau feedback during his participation at the Enid parish. She plans to be at his ordination.

“I thought he was wonderful. I never gave him a bad critique,” she says. “Whatever parish gets him in the future will be very lucky to have him.”