Brother Mark McVann
Getting to Know our Lasallian Brothers:
Brother Mark McVann
Our two weeks in Rome brought a new understanding and affection for the Brothers, through our study of the mission and work of St. John Baptists De La Salle and though the new relationships we formed with the Brothers in Rome, like Brother Michael French. He translated for us with eloquence and humor and led us in lively, meaningful music-making. When we talked about the formation of this website, bringing LaSalle to the forefront through articles, pictures, and conversation, we all agreed that getting to know the Brothers on campus was one thing we would try to accomplish with this site. This first article is inspired by the work Brother Mark McVann does during the January Term class he leads in Sao Paulo, Brazil. An unexpected connection to our time in Rome was revealed during the interview, which you will read about in the article below. We hope to “get to know” all of the Brothers on campus in the years to come.
Brother Mark McVann came to St. Mary’s of California in 2000, from Lewis University (our Lasallian University just outside Chicago, Illinois), where he also did service projects. It was while he was at Lewis University that he first went to Brazil for an academic conference and he just “fell in love with the place.”
On the Moraga, California campus, he teaches in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and leads a January Term class to Sao Paulo where students work at a Catholic parish in a lower class neighborhood, close to a well-known slum (favela). The students also visit the slum at least one time. The work itself involves cleaning and painting classrooms in the parish hall.
For all of his ten years on our campus, Brother Mark has lived in the dorms with students and for nine of those ten years he has been in freshman dorms. While at St Mary’s he has organized trips to Mexico, to an orphanage in Morelia, and has also taught at a big federal University in Brazil for two summers, and at LaSalle University in the state of Rio de Janeiro. He has lectured in Brothers’ formation houses on the New Testament in Sao Paulo as well as the Jesuit University in Lima, Peru. In November, he published an article in Biblical Theology Bulletin was published and he spoke to the cloistered Dominican Nuns in Los Angels, California. He has a chapter about Flannery O’Conner in a book about Catholic Studies published in December of 2008. He is writing an article on popular devotion to Mary in Brazil and Peru. He is the editor of “Listening”, a journal of Religion and Culture, the journal where the article on Mary will appear in May of this year.
Brother Mark was born in Washington D.C. on August 28, on the Feast of St. Augustine, a great theologian. Br. Mark’s family moved to Duluth, Minnesota when he was twelve years old. He attended Catholic grade school and high school there. He got his bachelor's degree in Music at Minnesota State University Moorhead, and it was in his senior year there that he became aware of the Christian Brothers. He and his friend Brother Michael French joined the brothers together on a trial basis for one year to “come and see.” He liked his experience and then went to the novitiate where he read LaSalle’s work. This is where he first became aware of the term ”Lasallian.” For him, “Lasallian” means service to the poor through education. This is the vow that the Brothers take. He interprets the word “poor” to be the economically poor and he feels the Brothers need to teach responsibility to our community in order to make a difference in the lives of the poor.
Brother Mark has lived Lasallian in all of his adult life by dedicating himself to teaching in schools, about the Bible (his area of academic specialization.) Teaching the Catholic tradition though the Bible and literature is his job, and tries to encourage students to build and maintain an intellectual life. For him, the service projects he leads in Mexico and Brazil are n important part of ways he lives Lasallian, but his primacy vocation is as a Lasallian Brother who teaches the Bible.
He describes himself as a “Culture Vulture,” having once been a singer himself in college, he appreciates the human voice over all other instruments… “Nothing matches it” he says. He does not understand when some say that affection for the opera is “elitist”. Rather, he feels that music and singing are deeply spiritual and that they nurture the soul.
This summer he will be lecturing in Sao Paolo and is currently at work with Brother Charles Hilken (History Department ) on a conference to be held in 2010 on “Mary in the Modern World”.
We are grateful to have Brother Mark on our campus and happy to get to know him a little bit better!
