1930 – 2015 (August 20)
Joseph Andrew Jordan was born on September 28, 1930, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of two sons and one daughter of John Jordan and Cecilia McGuigan. He was baptized on October 12, 1930, at Saint Monica Church, Philadelphia, and attended Saint Monica Parochial School. From there he attended West Catholic High School, Philadelphia, from 1944 to 1948, and afterward worked briefly as a clerk in an engineering firm. In 1949 he entered Augustinian Academy, Staten Island, New York, as a post-graduate postulant. He was received into the Order as a novice on September 8, 1951, and following his year at Good Counsel Novitiate, New Hamburg, New York, made first profession of vows on September 10, 1952. He then attended Villanova University, from 1952 to 1955, and obtained a BA in Philosophy. He professed solemn vows on September 10, 1955. Joseph then attended Augustinian College, Washington, D.C., where he pursued theological studies from 1955 to 1959. During the summer months he returned to Villanova where he obtained an MA in Religion in 1959. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 7, 1958, at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC, by Bishop John McNamara.
Fr. Jordan’s first assignment, in 1959, was to Monsignor Bonner High School, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, where he taught for twenty-four years, until 1983. He was then assigned to parochial ministry at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, Staten Island, New York, as associate pastor. He remained there until November, 1990, when he was assigned to Saint Thomas of Villanova Monastery, Villanova, Pennsylvania, and was appointed to serve in the Province’s Development Office, as Director of the Augustinian Seminary Guild, the Office for Foreign Missions and Collector of Masses. In 2002 he was appointed treasurer of Saint Thomas of Villanova Monastery. In 2006 he completed his service to the Province in these areas, but continued to be actively engaged in parish weekend ministry at St. Theresa of Avila Parish in Audubon, where he assisted from 1991 to 2014. He reluctantly withdrew from this assignment only when his health began to diminish.
Fr. Jordan is numbered among the many friars of the Province who worked quietly and diligently in the various responsibilities entrusted to him, faithful to the very last to the diverse components of community life. Fr. Jordan died peacefully in St. Thomas of Villanova Monastery in the early hours of the morning of Thursday, August 20, 2015.
A Mass of Christian burial was celebrated at the church of St. Thomas of Villanova, preceded by a viewing in the church. Father Jordan is buried in the Augustinian plot at Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
