BRO. VICTOR NAEGELE, S.M.
January 31, 2007

I need to say at the start that I am not here because I knew Bro. Victor Naegele well. I did not. I have never lived in community with him. He left a note asking that one of the Marianists whom he knew as students would preside. Today I have the honor of asking God to receive the soul of our fellow Brother.

I did not take typing or shorthand at Central, but Bro. Vic sometimes helped Bro. Charlie Rahe with drama. I was in a play, “The Monkey’s Paw,” that needed a candle on a table in the middle of the stage to go out at exactly the right moment. It was Vic who mounted a billows on a frame behind the curtains at the side of the stage, some 15’-20’ from the candle, and aimed it directly at the candle, and helped frighten everyone in the audience with the sudden darkness at exactly the right terrifying moment.

One of my close friends from high school, with whom I have stayed in contact, would get in touch with Bro. Vic whenever visited San Antonio. He said on the phone last night (the friends name is Homer Brem) that he picked Bro. Vic up not too many years ago and took him to a ’50 class reunion at Carl Pfeiffer’s ranch. I asked Homer if he had any stories on Vic and he said “Yes, but you may not want to tell it!” But here it is.

In the last semester of their senior year, Homer Brem and Homer Fetzer were absolutely tied for first place in their four year grade point average. Then Homer got an 89 in shorthand from Bro. Victor and slipped a decimal place of a point behind Homer Fetzer, who then got the full scholarship to St. Mary’s University. Homer Brem said that I should say to Bro. Vic today that he is forgiven. And congratulations to Homer Fetzer.

I worked on the year book at Central, and already then in 1950, Bro. Vic was providing exceptional photography.

As I read the biography of Bro. Victor Naegele, here’s what struck me. I think there are two ways (maybe more) in which Marianists express and act out their collaboration with the mission of the Society of Mary. Some of us find our definition in a specific gift, polish it greatly, and use it over and over: Bro. Bill Hamm and physics; Bro. Edward Collignon and chemistry; Fr. Charles Newman and Theology.

Then there are some who go where they are asked to go and bring forth and perfect gifts to meet that world where they find themselves. That’s the version of faithful Marianist life that I hear from Bro. Victor’s life. He developed an expertise is sociology when that fit his call, not a dabbling but an expertise. He earned a Master’s Degree in Education. Quite later he earned a graduate degree in Marriage and Family Counseling, and was Director of a Family Life Center in Milwaukee. He taught sociology at St. Mary’s University, and was also Director of the office of Mexican American Studies at St. Mary’s. For a period of time he was also Director of Development at Central Catholic.

His photography was extraordinary. He photographed archaeological sites in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. And how many people do you know who taught English in Romania? Twice!

“Here I am, Lord, what shall I do, here where I am?” Bro. Victor Naegele seems quite regularly to have done it.

I would like to end with a poem which a student once included in a graduate paper in a Sacraments Course. The paper was on the Anointing of the Sick. It is from the American poet, J. Peter Meinke.

ON THE DEATH OF THE MAN
WHO INVENTED PLASTIC ROSES

The man who invented the plastic rose
is dead. Behold his mark:
his undying flawless blossoms never close
but guard the grave unbending through the dark.
He understood neither beauty nor flowers
which catch our hearts in nets as soft as sky
and bind us with a thread of fragile hours.
Flowers are beautiful because they die.
Beauty without the perishable pulse
is dry and sterile, an abandoned stage
with false forests. But the results
support this man’s invention, he knew his age:
a vision of our tearless time discloses
artificial men sniffing plastic roses.

This is really a poem about human finitude: “Beauty without the perishable pulse is sterile and dry.” We are all bound with the thread of fragile hours. Each of our Brothers who goes before us reminds us of our creaturehood and the beauty that accompanies how God has made us. We are all God’s fragile sons and daughters.

We thank you, Bro. Victor Naegele. Your death belongs to the perishable pulse. You were beautiful when you lived, and you are beautiful because you die--for the perishable pulse is the human condition, and we who are here are “it.” Bless us, Bro. Victor Naegele, from there where you are now.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Bernard J. Lee, S.M.
St. Mary’s University