by Marc and Julie Anderson
mjanderson@theleaven.org
LAWRENCE — One hundred prayers. An ornament-making session. A dinner featuring barbecue, Mexican and German cuisine. And a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Shawn McKnight.
These are just a few of the ways the 800 families of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Lawrence celebrated the centennial anniversary of its church the weekend of Nov. 22-23.
Although the parish was established in the 1850s, its current church was dedicated by Bishop John Ward on Nov. 26, 1925.
Father Jordan Rojas, OFM Cap., has served as the parish’s associate pastor since 2024, but pastor Father John Toepfer, OFM Cap., began his tenure here just earlier this year. His ties to the parish, however, date back to his college days.
“Our theme this year has been: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches,’” explained Angela Zysk, chair of the centennial committee. “And this evening our love for Jesus and each other are shining through our parish charism of hospitality. Our logo is: ‘One hundred years, one St. John,’ because we are united in our faith.”
In his remarks, Father John elaborated on that theme, quoting what Jesus said in John’s Gospel:
“I am the vine, and you are the branches. And whoever remains in me . . . and I in him will bear much fruit.”
“We thought that captures the spirit of St. John Parish,” Father John continued. “That all of us here — each one of us — are here because of our faith in Jesus Christ, who is the true vine. And every one of us are branches of that vine, each one of us who are called to bear fruit for the kingdom of God.”
All of this, he concluded, is “because of our faith. It’s because way back in 1855, there was a small group of Catholic families who came together and said, ‘We want to live our Catholic faith.’ And they found a priest in Lecompton, Kansas, and they brought him to town.
“But we also want to walk confidently, hopefully and joyfully into the next 100 years.”
One couple that has joyfully served the parish for decades is the family of John Chavez.
At 89, John, along with his wife Loretta, has countless memories of the parish.
Although he was baptized at St. Theresa Church in Perry, John’s earliest memories of St. John’s begin around age 4. One of 15 kids, he remembers going to Mass every Sunday. Growing up, he recalls serving as an altar boy, and he specifically recalls when the parish hosted a watermelon feed for altar boys in 1949. He still has a picture from that one-and-only event. He was around 12 or 13.
After John married Loretta, the two lived in Topeka for 17 years, returning to the parish in 1975 with their family that eventually grew to include 10 children. The couple soon joined the choir, as did other family members. After their son died, John volunteered to mow the grass at the parish cemetery located directly across the street from their home. In succeeding years, they found countless other ways to be involved in parish life. But they are best known for helping to found the parish’s annual fiesta.
Held every June since 1981, the fiesta is one of the parish’s biggest celebrations and fundraisers, drawing hundreds from the parish and the community at large. It includes Mass, Mexican food and mariachi music, among other activities. The all-day event involves hundreds of volunteers, many of them members of the Chavez family.
And while John and Loretta were unable to attend the centennial celebration, their family was one of the many that Father Jordan was no doubt thinking of when he offered a roll call of gratitude the evening of the celebration dinner, thanking parishioners who had been in the parish for different periods of time, beginning with those who had been members within the parish for 90 years or more and ending with those parishioners who had become members within the past five years.
As he progressed through the groups, he mentioned qualities they bring to the community — joy, steadfastness and service, among others.
“Truly, you’re the living stones of this parish,” he said, “the ones Christ has gathered, has shaped, has carried, has knit together over a century of grace.”
Father Jordan concluded by saying he sometimes sits in the church in the dark, running his hands over the pews while contemplating “the amount of heartbreak, sadness, happiness, joys, celebrations that have touched those pews.”
“Every prayer whispered, every candle lit, every sacrament received, every act of service offered, God has used it all to build something far greater than any one of us,” he added. “So, [tonight] you don’t just celebrate the building. You don’t. You celebrate what God has been building in and through all of us.”
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