1922 – 1993 (November 20)
Bernard James Lamond was born August 15, 1922 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to John J. Lamond and Margaret Hennelly. Baptized in Saint Mary’s Church, August 18, he attended the parish school and in 1939 graduated from Central Catholic High School in Lawrence. In that same year, at the age of 17, he was accepted as a postulant at Augustinian Academy, Staten Island, New York. He entered Our Mother of Good Counsel Novitiate, New Hamburg, New York, in 1940, and professed simple vows on September 10, 1941. Three years later he took solemn vows at Saint Mary’s Hall, Villanova, Pennsylvania. Graduating from Villanova with an A.B. degree in 1945, he studied theology at Augustinian College in Washington, DC. During the summer months he took graduate courses in education at the Catholic University of America. On February 11, 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood in his home parish of Saint Mary, Lawrence.
Father Lamond’s first assignment was as instructor at Saint Augustine High School, San Diego, California. In 1952 he was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Chaplain Corps of the United States Navy. During his first tour of duty he served in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Atsugi, Japan and Bainbridge, Maryland. Released from active duty, he was assigned to Monsignor Bonner High School, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, where he taught until 1961. Responding to a shortage of chaplains, the Province permitted Father Lamond to return to active duty in the Navy. Until illness forced his retirement in 1973, he served on the USS Essex and the USS Saratoga; as chaplain for the United States Naval Forces in the Philippine Islands; at the Naval Hospital and the school command at Newport, Rhode Island, and at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. In 1975, when his illness was discovered to be cancer, he was permitted to take up residence at Gaithersburg, Maryland, in order to take advantage of the medical treatment at Bethesda. During those years he assisted at various parishes in the suburbs of Maryland. In 1991 he was transferred to the Augustinian health care program at Our Mother of Good Counsel
Monastery on the campus of Merrimack College, North Andover, Massachusetts. As his condition grew worse, he was moved to the health care unit at Saint Thomas Monastery on the campus of Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania. It was there he died peacefully in his room on November 20, 1993.
Father Bernard’s life can be summed up in a brief report he made while a chaplain: “Perhaps the most important result of my life as a religious priest and chaplain has been a small but important understanding of people from all walks of life.” Father had a sister who was a religious of Notre Dame and two older brothers who were Augustinians, Father Augustine Lamond, who died in 1991, and Father John Lamond who died less than a month before Father Bernard in October, 1993.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated November 24, 1992 at Saint Mary’s Church, Lawrence, Massachusetts. Interment followed in the Augustinian plot of Saint Mary’s Cemetery, Lawrence.
