Meet Our Board Member Fr. Len

Fr. Len Kraus, SJ is one of the founding Board members of L’Arche St. Louis. Fr. Len is a Jesuit priest and has been for the last 60 years. His first contact with L’Arche was in the 1980s through his friend, Sr. Marjorie Wisor, OSF. Sr. Marjorie was part of the L’Arche community in Clinton, Iowa when they visited Kansas City on vacation where Fr. Len was living at the time. While visiting, Sr. Marjorie invited him to join them for a prayer night. There, Fr. Len met numerous community members who shared the mission of L’Arche with him.

Many years later, in around 2006, Fr. Len was working as a pastor at St. Louis University. Both he and Sr. Marjorie, also in St. Louis at this point, had received lots of interest about L’Arche from friends and acquaintances. This intrigue from the public sparked the desire to initiate a L’Arche in St. Louis, Missouri! Fr. Len and many other like-minded individuals worked towards this goal for several years, eventually becoming an approved community in 2010. They then needed to construct a Board of Directors. Due to his influence in establishing L’Arche St. Louis, Fr. Len chose to continue to contribute to the new organization as a Board member.

Ever since his first experience with L’Arche, Fr. Len has been enchanted by the joy and love that fill the community. Fr. Len especially cherishes all of the Core Members he’s ever gotten to meet, saying that they never fail to bring a smile to his face. He describes that prayer night in the 1980s as being, “something that feels like heaven,” and believes that L’Arche is a model of an ideal humanity, one full of happiness, respect, and belonging.