Father Lawrence McDonnell died on Jan. 23. A funeral Mass will be offered for Father McDonnell on Jan. 26 at 10 a.m. at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, 60^th Street and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan. Father McDonnell was 85 years old at the time of his death, and a member of the Paulist Fathers for 65 years.

The future Father McDonnell was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., in 1927. He attended St. Paul’s College in Washington, D.C, earning a bachelor’s degree, then earned a master’s degree from The Johns Hopkins University.

Father McDonnell made his first promise with the Paulist Fathers on Sept. 8, 1947 and was ordained on May 1, 1953.

Make a gift in memory of Fr. McDonnell Father McDonnell’s first priestly assignment was as a faculty member at St. Peter’s College in Baltimore – the Paulist Fathers junior college – from 1953-59. He then joined the Paulist missions based in Detroit from 1959-62 before serving at St. Ann’s, the Newman Club of Boston University, from 1962-66.

Father McDonnell then returned to teaching at St. Peter’s in Baltimore fro 1966-67 before ministering at the Newman Club at The Ohio State University in Columbus form 1967-68.

Missionary work again beckoned, and Father McDonnell joined the Paulist missions based out of New York City for 1968-73. He then became the Paulist archivist, still based in New York City, from 1973-82 before taking a special assignment as the director of ecumenical ministry at Manhattanville College from 1982-83.

Father McDonnell began parish ministry as associate pastor at St. Gregory the Great Church in Harrison, N.Y., from 1983-84 and Good Shepherd Church in New York from 1984-86 before joining the preaching apostolate out of Good Shepherd from 1896-90 and the Church of St. Paul the Apostle from 1990-97. He entered senior ministry at St. Paul the Apostle in 1997, while taking a special assignment at Holy Family Parish in New Rochelle, NY.