mari$ a
ll
Eulogy for
Brothe
r
August
in
e Pinard
(January 6, 1919 - September 13, 1987)
Florent Aldeo Pinard entered our Marist Brotherhood from Hevey School in
Manchester, New Hampshire. He was invested into the Institute at St. Ann's in
Poughkeepsie, New York in 1936, completed his Scholasticate in 1939, and made
his vow of stability in 1957. Brother Augustine served as principal of Our Lady of
Lourdes High School in Poughkeepsie, New York and Central Catholic High
School in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was also Dean of Discipline at Mount
Saint Michael Academy in Bronx, New York and a teacher for many years. "Pop"
died in Lawrence, Massachusetts after a long battle with cancer.
Brother Thomas Petitte delivered the eulogy at St. Anne Church, Lawrence,
Massachusetts.
During the past several years the Marist Brothers, family members, and friends of
the Brothers have often gathered here in St. Anne's Church to celebrate the rebirth
of one of our Brothers into eternal life and to support one another in the natural
human grief that accompanies the pain of earthly separation and the reality of
death. Sometimes death comes suddenly and surprisingly as a thief in the night.
Sometimes it has lingered and seemed to be a natural companion to the final
years of old age. Then at other times it has been viewed as a tardy friend, whose
coming is hoped for in order to release one from a life that has become overly
burdensome for a frail, pain-wracked body. No matter what our Brother's stage of
life or age when death visits him, those who are left gather in the community room
or stand talking in the hallways about the experience of heaven that the deceased
Brother must now be enjoying.
Often, as we attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, we Christians arrive at
some strange ideas and even stranger analogies. Throughout the centuries some
of the greatest religious thinkers have struggled with and attempted to explain the
issue of death and heaven. St. Augustine, when writing of our journey back to our
heavenly homeland, gave the analogy of two horses carrying their masters to a
banquet at the king's table. On the journey, these horses discussed what they
thought would be a marvelous menu at the king's banquet... They finally agreed
that the most perfect meal for their masters would be chopped hay and toasted
oats! Their horse appetites could not imagine anything better.
Like St. Augustine's talking horses, our earthly values, the things we consider
important, find their expression in our ideas of heaven. For many of us our worldly
values, mostly centered upon ourselves and our sense- satisfaction, determine
what so often are distorted views of heaven. If we like to golf as Brother Augustine
did, then heaven will mean never waiting to tee off, but unending matches with
exciting shots and holes-in-one. If we like classical music as Brother Augustine
did, then Beethoven and friends will be there to perform for us. And, of course,
there will never be any lines in which to wait, appointments to keep, or meetings to
attend, all of which Brother Augustine disliked. He used to say meetings are places
where you keep minutes and waste hours.
Our often sugary, self-centered ideas of heaven do not match God's revealed word
in scripture. The essence of heaven, as Paul writes in his first letter to the



Corinthians, is among "the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard,
things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him"
(1 Cor. 2:9).
Although we cannot imagine what awaits us, just as a child in the mother's womb
cannot imagine the life that awaits it outside its confinement, yet from scripture and
the sublime moments of joy we have experienced on earth we can gather some
ideas of our life with God that we call the Kingdom of Heaven.
When we strip away all our earthly imagination about heaven as an objective place
where we will be eternally happy without any more suffering, and turn to scripture,
we find heaven as relationship. We relate to God in joy, peace, and complete
fulfillment. We think of heaven and see God as the goal of all our earthly striving.
He alone is the complete reason for our existence. The idea of heaven therefore
stresses the fullness of our awareness that God is not only the beginning and end
of all reality, but that He is in fact our God! We were created out of God's
Trinitarian community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to share intimately in the very
life of God. He who is love wants us to enter into that ongoing life of the Trinity's
love. This awareness of a personal, loving God guided the life of Brother
Augustine. He seemed to be driven by an inner force, a burning passionate desire
to know and lovingly serve God in the deepest intimacy possible. A gentleness and
caring about this man permeated his life and touched all of us who knew him. He
was not only content to be unseen and out of the limelight, but often spent much of
his time trying to be unobtrusive and lost in the crowd. Whenever a community or
provincial election approached, the Brothers would threaten to vote for him and
Brother Augustine, unsure of whether we were serious or not, would become
flustered and begin to list the reasons why he was not the right man for the job. He
never sought positions of leadership but was always willing to do any job for the
community or school, even if that meant being the moderator of the girl
cheerleaders.
This spirit of humility, dedication, and service endeared him to the Brothers and to
a tremendous number of students. We often joked with him about being a "smart
man" and a "saint" With a smile that said he knew better, Brother Augustine would
tell of his early childhood whenas- according to him, "I was always in trouble." He
told us of being a youngster in Manchester and belonging to a very close-knit and
religious French- Canadian family. He often got in irouble for throwing stones at St.
Patrick's Irish Church. Since the parishioners didn't speak French, he knew they
couldn't be Catholics. He had a specially mischievous twinkle in his eye when he
told how his mother sent him to St. Joseph's Juniorate in Tyngsboro so "the
Brothers could straighten me out.~' From those early days that seemed so wild
came a respected, much loved educator, friend, and Religious Brother whom
many of us fondly called "Pop."
As an educator and administrator, Brother Augustine brought an unsurpassed
sense of professionalism and dedication. His love of mathematics was exceeded
only by his love for his students and for young people in general. Those young
men who were fortunate to have been in his class always spoke of how clearly he
presented his material, the interest he had in each student, and the extraordinarily
loud snap of his fingers that would inevitably sound the call to prepare for prayer.
His concern for his students went beyond academics and reached the very core of
their being. Upper- most in his mind was their spiritual welfare and so, regardless
of what prayer was said over the public address system at the end of the school


day, Brother Augustine's class would always stand and say the Act of Contrition
before leaving for the day.
Brother Augustine knew the difference between being a friend and just an
acquaintance. His close friendship with Dr. Gene Connelly and his family was one
of his most valued possessions; he treasured his visits when they opened their
hearts and home to welcome him as one of the. family. A man who intellectually
could be at home with college presidents, professionals, and researchers went out
of his way to gather poor children from the neighborhood surrounding Central
Catholic to teach them string art and how to paint peach stones for play jewelry. It
was not unusual for a Brother to answer the door bell and have a small child ask if
Brother Gus could come out and play. Once again Brother Gus saw the beauty in
simple things and used them to present spiritual values. All the children in the
neighborhood gathered daily in October and May to pray the rosary with their
beloved Brother Gus. Our Lady was his dearest and most valuable friend.
To many of us here he was both friend and Religious Brother. I arrived in
Lawrence as a young administrator sixteen years ago with absolutely no
experience in administration. Brother Augustine, along with Brother Marcel and
Brother Vincent, was a source of advice and encouragement to me. His support
during many trying times helped to make a difficult job bearable. His sensitivity to
the needs of the poor and suffering was intense and sincere. He could not watch
the reports of suffering children in Ethiopia on television nor read of the increasing
problem of homeless families in America without tears in his eyes and an
unsettling heaviness in his heart. For years he supported an orphan child in India
and bought Thanksgiving turkeys for local poor families from his own small
monthly stipend.
I will miss Brother's concern, his kindness, his laughter at my French-Canadian
jokes, the sight of him walking in the driveway fingering his worn rosary beads, or
with computer manuals under his arm, a crushed blue cloth hat on his head,
struggling to go to the school's computer room in spite of his weakened condition.
During one of his many visits to Pop in the hospital, Gene Connelly gave him a
collection of quotes that he thought Pop would enjoy reading. Pop was touched
deeply by the words of a Negro spiritual and put them to music. On Gene's next
visit, Pop sang the following for him:
Goin' home, gain' home,
I'm a-gain' home,
Quiet like, some still day
I'm just gain' home.
Mother's there 'spectin' me,
Father's there waitin' too,
Lots of fol ks gather there,
All the friends I knew.
Pop, this evening may our Mother Mary and her loving Son welcome you home.