Brother Venard F. Ruane, MM

Born: April 4, 1927
Oath: August 30, 1948
Died: February 11, 2025

Brother Venard F. Ruane died on February 11, 2025 in the Skilled Nursing Unit at Maryknoll, New York. He was 97 years old and a Maryknoll Brother for 76 years.

Thomas Francis Ruane was born on April 4, 1927 in Waterloo, Iowa, one of eight children of Thomas and Frances McGuire Ruane. His early schooling took place in Sacred Heart Parish schools in Waterloo. After graduating from Sacred Heart High School in 1944, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving first in Guam where he assisted the chaplain and read The Field Afar in his spare time, and then in Tientsin, China, where he was impressed by the missionaries he met. Six months after his discharge, he entered Maryknoll in March 1947. He pronounced his First Oath at the Brothers’ Novitiate in Akron, Ohio on August 30, 1948 and chose the religious name of Brother Venard.

Brother Venard worked in the Bedford, Massachusetts promotion house for a year doing clerical work and then spent two years at the Maryknoll-run Japanese mission school in Los Angeles. He worked in the Junior Seminary in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, and while there, pronounced his Final Oath on August 30, 1951.

On May 6, 1952, Brother Venard was assigned to the Hawaii Region and served at Sacred Heart Parish and the Maryknoll Schools in Honolulu for eighteen years. His duties were many, including opening and closing the church each day, maintenance work, driving the school bus for students, teaching catechism, serving as Boy Scout Master, and working for nine years as the first Athletic Director at Maryknoll High School. In October 1970 he was assigned to the Hawaii Region Center House on Dole Street to serve as bookkeeper, purchasing agent and driver.

Brother Venard was assigned to the U.S. Region in December 1975 and was appointed manager of the 39th Street House in New York City, where he remained for two years.  In 1978 he was reassigned to Hawaii.  He attended the Spiritual Renewal Program in the fall of 1983 and, upon its completion, returned to resume his duties running the Honolulu Society House. His gracious hospitality was greatly appreciated by the many visitors to this residence, as was his wonderful sense of humor. He also served as the Financial Officer for the Hawaii Unit, and as a Eucharistic Minister at Shriners Hospital for Children in Honolulu.

Brother Venard was assigned to the Retirement Community (now Senior Missioner Community) in October 2001, and in 2002 was invited to move back to the rectory of Sacred Heart Parish. His presence and mission spirit left a lasting impression on those he encountered during his many years in Hawaii. A Maryknoller once reflected that it was hard to go anywhere in Honolulu without people asking for Brother Venard. He remained in Hawaii until March 2007, when he moved to the Maryknoll Residence in Los Altos, California. At the time of his leaving Sacred Heart, a parishioner was quoted as saying:  “He’s the campus memory – he remembers every student’s name and smallest details of their schoolhouse days. Brother will be sorely missed by all.”

In 2007, Brother Venard was inducted into the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, knighted by Roger Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception at the University of San Diego. He continued to enjoy an active retirement at the Maryknoll Residence in Los Altos. In 2019 Brother Venard relocated to the Society Center at Maryknoll, New York. He celebrated his 75^th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Brother among family and friends in June 2023.

Brother Venard is survived by his sister, Rita Bast, his nephews, Richard and Brian Bast, as well as other nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his brothers, Ray and Robert, and his sisters, Frances Felkins, Mary Glory, Nora Asch and Alice Albright.

Wake services were held on February 19, 2025 in the Holy Spirit Chapel and the Queen of Apostles Chapel at the Maryknoll Society Center. Mass of Christian Burial followed at 11:00 a.m. and was concelebrated in the Queen of Apostles Chapel. Father Edward Shellito was the Celebrant and homilist. Brother John Blazo read the biography and Father Clyde Phillips read the Oath. According to his wishes, Brother Venard was cremated following the Funeral Mass and his ashes were interred in the Maryknoll Society Columbarium.