ABBEY BANNER - St. John's Abbey

Bruce Luverne
Wollmering, OSB
1940-2009
Luverne was the oldest of the
five children of Gregory and
Marie (May) Wollmering who
farmed near Hastings, Minnesota. Before
his fourteenth birthday he began
studies at Saint John’s Preparatory
School, entered the abbey as Novice
Bruce and professed his first vows in
1961. He completed the undergraduate
degree in philosophy and classical
language and his seminary studies and
was ordained in 1967.
For the next thirty-six years Bruce
dedicated his considerable talents to
academic affairs, primarily as associate
professor and chair of the department
of psychology at St. John’s. He
interspersed his teaching assignments
with master’s and doctoral degrees
in psychology at the University of
Arizona.
Bruce conducted more than fifty
workshops and seminars on topics
such as dream analysis, therapeutic
hypnosis, human sexuality and
Aelred Senna, OSB
healthy spirituality. He was recognized
as a hard worker, a skilled teacher, a
good leader and a tireless administrator.
Upon his retirement from the university,
Bruce gave proof to the saying,
“You can take the boy out of the farm
but you can’t take the farm out of the
boy.” He chose to concentrate his
energy and enthusiasm on the good
earth. Working with Paul Schwietz,
OSB, he helped establish Saint John’s
Arboretum and its restoration of prairie
grass, wild flowers, oak savannah
and marsh lands of the Collegeville
campus. He served on the Arboretum
Advisory Council and chaired the
Abbey Forest and Lands Committee.
For the past four years Bruce increased
the amount and variety of food
grown and served at Saint John’s. His
volunteer gardeners enhanced monastic
dining with an abundance of fresh
vegetables. He renovated the root cellar
for the winter storage of vegetables
and supervised the new “hoop house”
nursery for the early and late growth
of plants.
Bruce deserves the title “The Bird
Man of Collegeville.” He identified 39
species of birds that visited the campus
including his favorite, the Eastern
bluebird. He built more than 70 nesting
boxes to encourage the re-popula-
OBITUARIES
tion of the bluebird and kept meticulous
records of the nesting success.
Like his parents who died suddenly
in an automobile accident in 2001,
Bruce died unexpectedly on February
4 from a traumatic head injury caused
by a collapse in the basement locker
room of the monastery.
In his homily Abbot John remarked,
“I don’t think Bruce ever imagined
becoming an elderly monk. He said
more than once that he prayed that
God would take him quickly when the
time came. At the same time, I don’t
think Bruce ever imagined dying in
this particular way. But he would have
had little patience with the year by
year diminishments that are part of
growing old. . . All of us will miss his
outgoing energy and care.”
The Mass of Christian Burial was
celebrated for Father Bruce on February
10, 2009. May he rest in peace. +
Bruce and his garden
harvest
Bruce and a blue bird nest
Aelred Senna, OSB
Abbey Banner Spring 2009 page 17