Father John Lesnick, known for compassionate outreach, dies at 71

When Anders and Lauren Yanike’s youngest son, Eli, was diagnosed in 2018 with a rare disease that causes polio-like muscle weakness and paralysis, Father John F. Lesnick, their pastor at St. Joseph in Taneytown, took them under his wing.

The priest visited the family regularly at their home to provide spiritual support, encouraged other parishioners to join him in praying for Eli and checked in with the parents at Mass every Sunday. He teased that he couldn’t wait for Eli to get his full strength back so they could arm wrestle.

“Eli was in a cast for two months,” remembered Lauren Yanike, “and Father had asked for a piece of his cast when it came off so that he could always remember Eli and our family in his prayers.”

Yanike said her friend “half-joked” that the cast might become a saint’s relic someday.

“Then he would straighten into a serious glance and remind us that that’s the whole point of this life – that we’re all called to be saints one day,” she said.

Father Lesnick, remembered by friends and parishioners for his compassion, a heart-felt concern for helping others grow in holiness and a quiet, unassuming ministry, died Feb. 26. He was 71 and had previously suffered from heart problems and prostate cancer. He had led the small Carroll County faith community since 2015.

The eldest of four children, Father Lesnick grew up at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish in Highlandtown and Church of the Annunciation in Rosedale. He was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop William D. Borders in 1978 after studying at the Liberal Arts College of St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Catonsville and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg.

Albert Lesnick, Father Lesnick’s youngest brother, said his sibling was a gifted musician who played the organ at St. Elizabeth of Hungary as a youth. His parents had purchased an organ at a Highlandown music shop and arranged for lessons for him.

John Lesnick wanted to become a priest from the time he was a child, Albert Lesnick said. As a teen, the future cleric attended a day seminary in Baltimore called St. Paul’s Latin High School. After struggling in Latin, however, Father Lesnick transferred to Patterson High School, where he was class president and wrote the school song.

Father Lesnick was preparing for his last semester as a music major at the University of Maryland in College Park when a church official called and asked if he would consider coming back to the seminary, since there was no longer a need to know Latin following the changes of the Second Vatican Council.

“He was on his way to becoming a music teacher,” Albert Lesnick said, “and he just dropped everything and went right back to the seminary.”

Father Lesnick served as associate pastor of St. William of York in Baltimore, 1978-80; St. Michael in Frostburg, 1980-81; St. Rose of Lima in Brooklyn, 1981-83; St. John the Evangelist in Severna Park, 1983-86; St. Clement Mary Hofbauer in Rosedale, 1986-87; Our Lady of Hope in Dundalk, 1987-1992; and St. Michael the Archangel in Overlea, 1992-98.

Father Lesnick served as chaplain at St. Elizabeth Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Baltimore, 1998-2005. In the mid-2000s, he was also chaplain at St. Martin’s Home for the Aged in Catonsville. After a sabbatical, he served in special ministry at St. Augustine in Williamsport in 2006, before being named administrator and pastor of St. Peter in Hancock 2006-2009.

After a discernment sabbatical, Father Lesnick returned to special ministry, first at St. Timothy in Walkersville and then at St. Patrick in Cumberland, both in 2010. He was a chaplain at Frederick Memorial Hospital while also serving at St. Anthony Shrine in Emmitsburg and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Thurmont until 2013.

From 2013 to 2015, Father Lesnick was associate pastor of St. John in Westminster and an area health minister.

Monsignor Robert Hartnett, a longtime friend who will deliver the homily at Father Lesnick’s March 5 funeral Mass at St. John in Westminster, said Father Lesnick was known for his sincere piety and a good sense of humor.

“When somebody asks me to give them a blessing, I’ll give them a blessing,” Monsignor Hartnett said. “But Father Lesnick would give a blessing and then find a medal or rosary or scapular for them. It wasn’t just words. There were actions attached to his engagement with people. He genuinely cared for people.”

Monsignor Hartnett, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Essex, said his friend avoided the limelight.

“He didn’t ever want to be the focus,” said Monsignor Hartnett, who has known the Lesnick family going back to his youth in Baltimore, where their brothers played soccer together. Monsignor Hartnett also attended college seminary at St. Mary’s with his friend.

School Sister of Notre Dame Sister Irene Pryle, principal of Our Lady of Hope-St. Luke School in Dundalk, knew Father Lesnick when he was associate pastor at Our Lady of Hope. He was very involved in the school, she said, training altar servers, visiting classes and getting a yearbook started. At the parish, Father Lesnick celebrated Mass for the School Sisters and even served for a time working as the organist when he wasn’t celebrating Masses.

“You weren’t afraid to ask him to help with something,” Sister Irene said. “He was always willing to share his time.”

Throughout his life, Father Lesnick had a special concern for the elderly. He took care of his parents in their later years and several of his assignments focused on seniors full-time.

“Dealing with people at the end of their lives is a difficult part of the job,” Albert Lesnick said. “But he looked at it like that’s when people need you the most.”

Albert Lesnick said his brother was able to be compassionate while holding his own emotions in check.

“He could hold it together,” Lesnick said. “That’s a skill a lot of people don’t have.”

In a 2005 interview with the Catholic Review, Father Lesnick discussed ministering to people in their 80s and beyond at St. Martin’s Home for the Aged. He described the importance of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.

“Before you anoint somebody, they can be agitated,” he said. “After the anointing, for some reason, God’s grace, I guess, they become very peaceful and quiet and accepting of God’s will.”

The grace is “wonderful and also mysterious,” Father Lesnick said.

“You receive the grace to realize you’re not in the fight alone,” he said, crediting the Little Sisters of the Poor who serve at St. Martin’s for their presence and prayers.

Many of those who knew Father Lesnick said that although he was a garrulous man who often held two-hour phone conversations, his homilies were always under five minutes. Albert Lesnick said that brevity probably came from the influence of John G. Lesnick, their father, a World War II prisoner of war who wasn’t afraid to tell a long-winded priest there was no need to keep repeating the same thoughts in a homily.

“Father Lesnick’s homilies were short, but highlighted foundational faith values, were always full of good advice and always ended with ‘and may God keep you well on your journey of faith,’” remembered Anders Yanike of St. Joseph in Taneytown.

Father Lesnick included jokes in his homilies, Yanike said, and also often reminded parishioners that they should be ready to meet the Lord because “you never know when the good Lord is going to call you home.”

At St. Joseph, Father Lesnick oversaw a variety of capital improvements, including the painting of interior church walls, installing a new speaker system and more.

“If I had one word to describe John, it would be ‘devoted,’” Albert Lesnick said. “He was devoted to his faith, devoted to my parents and our family and devoted to his parishioners. God was always number one with him and he devoted his life to serving God.”

A viewing and visitation will be offered March 4 from 3 to 6 p.m. at St. Joseph in Taneytown, followed by a vigil service at 5:30 p.m.

Archbishop William E. Lori will celebrate the funeral Mass March 5 at 11 a.m. at St. John in Westminster. The liturgy will be livestreamed on St. John’s Facebook page.

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 8 p.m. on March 2 to clarify the college seminary attended by Father Lesnick and Monsignor Hartnett.

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