Father Larochelle's finest hour

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press 

His vocation suddenly became clear – at the Hour of Divine Mercy.
Father John Louis Larochelle, 40, who was ordained a priest for the Worcester Diocese Saturday, tells the following story of how this happened.
“My journey probably starts when I was a teenager,” he said. He’d been serving Masses at his parish, Our Lady of Czestochowa in Worcester. He called the pastor, Father Thaddeus X. Stachura, “a good model and a spiritual father to me.”
“I was thinking about the priesthood,” Father Larochelle said. He attended retreats about priestly religious life, but decided he was not called to priesthood at that time.
He continued his education, earning his associate’s degree in business from Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester in 2000 and his bachelor’s in business/accounting from Nichols College in Dudley in 2002.
From 2002-2015 he worked in public accounting, earning a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) designation in 2014 and ending his career as a tax supervisor at AFF CPAs in Westborough.
“Every once in a while, the thought of becoming a priest would come up again,” Father Larochelle said. “I had a long commute to work. … I started listening to Emmanuel Radio. … I would listen to the Mass in the car. … I would pray the rosary sitting in traffic. We had always prayed the rosary as a family when my father got home from work.”
His father, Gervais Larochelle, is deceased now. His mother, Virginia Larochelle, homeschooled him and his four brothers and three sisters, through the Seton Home Study School. (He’s putting her up for sainthood!) He now has 14 nieces and nephews.
While praying the rosary as an adult – in traffic – “these thoughts of the priesthood became much stronger,” Father Larochelle said. He tried to ignore them.
“I was making good money, I was on the upward track, but I wasn’t happy” at work, he said.
Searching for more, he started serving with the Red Cross as a disaster services volunteer in 2009 and finished as a disaster services supervisor in 2015.
“I did a lot with the Red Cross because it was … helping people in their hour of need,” Father Larochelle said. It was practicing corporal works of mercy – providing food, clothing, shelter “and lots of coffee,” mostly to fire victims, usually from 1-3 a.m. The work also included helping them emotionally.
“We would get called by the fire department,” he said. “We would work with the families right there at the fire scene. … It wasn’t easy work, but it was extremely rewarding work.
“The biggest things I responded to were the Springfield tornado” and the Halloween snowstorm, both in 2011. After the tornado he helped coordinate the initial response, including damage assessment, feeding people and distribution of cleanup supplies, he said. For the first two nights of the snowstorm he was in charge of a shelter for those who lost power.
In 2014 he received one of Worcester Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty awards for young leaders who’ve impacted their community.
But praying the rosary helped crystalize a call to serve in a different way – as a priest.
“God, if this is what you want for me, you might have to be a little more direct,” he prayed. “I will give you more time.” He did that by visiting the adoration chapel at St. George Parish in Worcester and attending weekday Masses.
“Ultimately, that all came to a head over one weekend,” he said.
That Saturday in May 2015 his parents visited the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge. He hadn’t told them of his recent thoughts about priesthood but “they knew I was struggling with a big decision,” he said.
“My dad had a great devotion to Divine Mercy,” he said. “And that weekend they prayed for me – during the 3 o’clock hour.” (That afternoon hour commemorates Jesus’ death, and is the hour to especially implore his mercy, according to revelations of Jesus to St. Faustina Kowalska.)
While his parents were praying for him at 3 p.m. at the shrine, he was praying at his parish, St. John in Worcester.
“It was so crystal clear,” he said. “In that moment all of my doubts, all of the things I’d been struggling with … fell away and left me with this certainty that this was what God was calling me to. … I talked to Father (John) Madden that day. … He was my pastor. He said, ‘I had a feeling about you.’”
The next day, he talked to Father James S. Mazzone, who was then director of the Worcester Diocese’s Office for Vocations, and they got together soon afterwards.
Open to pursuing priesthood, he prayed, “God, however long this takes, I’m ready.” He figured on a couple years, but by that August he was starting studies at St. John Seminary in Brighton, where he earned his bachelor’s of philosophy, master’s of divinity and bachelor’s of sacred theology (S.T.B.) degrees. In 2018 he participated in “The Rome Experience,” an advanced study/formation program in Rome.
As a seminarian he served at St. Gabriel, the Archangel Parish in Upton, Our Lady of Czestochowa and St. Paul Cathedral in Worcester, and St. Bernadette Parish in Northborough.
“I feel like everything that has happened has been in God’s time, according to God’s plan,” Father Larochelle said. “I’ve had a great peace since that weekend at St. John’s, a great certainty that this was God’s plan. … I’m joyfully looking forward to getting into a parish and being a parish priest.”

His favorite saints include St. Faustina (of course!), St. Therese of Lisieux; St. John Vianney, patron of parish priests, to whom his father had a devotion, and St. John Eudes, who worked to reform the priesthood. (St. John Eudes’ feast day is Aug. 19, Father Larochelle’s birthday.) 


Before starting his new assignment in parishes in the Blackstone Valley, he is to celebrate several Masses, with  blessings afterwards, to which all are welcome: at 5 p.m. June 26 at St. Bernadette Parish, Northborough; 9:30 a.m. June 27 at Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish, Worcester; and 5:30 p.m. June 27 at St. Gabriel, the Archangel Parish, Upton.