 Fr. John Augustine Myhan, OP
The summer of 1956 brought me a wonderful friend who has been a part of my life ever
since. Between my sophomore and junior years in high school, the pastor of our parish, St.
Vincent in Vallejo, asked whether I had been given my driver’s license. When I responded in the affirmative, he asked if I
would drive to Oakland to collect the new high school teacher recently assigned to the
house and the school.
The small man who
emerged from St. Albert Priory proved to be a giant
in many ways. He was a Dominican throughout, a
priest in an honored and almost lost tradition of service and availability and, at his
best, a school master! In the classroom he
brightened, enlightened, cajoled, battered and elicited.
He was everywhere and seemed to know everything--especially about History. American History, Latin American History,
Diplomatic History and much more flowed from a head filled with facts and an enthusiasm
without bound.
Father John Augustine Myhan
spent most of his Dominican life in education. He
taught high school in Portland, Vallejo, Downey and Los Angeles. He was the Founding Dominican principal of our high
school in Los Angeles and set it on a path of excellence that marked it until the
Dominican departure from the school twenty-five years later.
He was a campus minister in Oregon, California and Nevada and a college
teacher and chaplain in Portland, Moraga and in his beloved San Diego. For years he lived in a student residence at the
University of San Diego and served countless students and colleagues as a priest,
counselor and professor. Sprinkled throughout
his work in education were pastorates in Washington, California and Oregon and even there
it was his teaching and constant service that marked his life.
His body was always a bit frail but it contained a
spirit, wit, and clever tongue that caused one to forget his diminutive stature or
constant cold. While the quick and amusing
remark was something that all of his students remember, sometimes with chagrin, he was
just as memorable for his willingness to be available to his students and to any whom he
served day or night. At St. Mary’s
College, while he was a professor and chaplain, he installed a buzzer and confessional
next to his dormitory room and let everyone know he would respond to a request to receive
the Sacrament or just to talk day or night. For
those of us who took advantage of this generosity he will always remain a giant of a
friend.
Among the people who gathered for his
Liturgy of Christian Burial were two high school classmates of mine and former students of
Father Myhan. Both remarked specific things
that he had done for them that marked a change of life and represented a refuge in stormy
times--a common feeling among his present and former students. Preceded always by one or another of his dogs,
usually named something like Duke, and wearing his impish smile, Father Myhan longed to
serve the Lord in joy and faithfulness. He tried to model his life after that of St.
Dominic and certainly was a troubadour among the thousands of young people who found in him
the Dominican always preaching, teaching and blessing the Son of God. C.
S. Lewis
remarked once “There are some who have not a sentiment but a belief: a firm, even
prosaic belief that our own nation, in sober fact, has long been and still is, markedly
superior to all others... I once ventured to say to an old clergyman who was voicing this
sort of patriotism, ‘But sir, aren’t we told that every people thinks its own
men to be the bravest and its own women the fairest in the world?’ He replied with
total gravity - he could not have been graver had he been saying the Creed at the altar -
‘Yes, but here it’s true.’” How
easily I can hear Father Myhan saying that about his Faith, his Dominican Family and his
Country! May he rest in the peace of those who
were there in Jesus’ name when the least of his people needed him.
--Fr. Patrick LaBelle, O.P. |
