ST Gregory 's Abbey Cemetery

Shawnee, Pottatomie County, Oklahoma

© Cooper Funeral Home
Submitted by: Terry Dudley

Brother Kevin (Eugene) McGuire, O.S.B

May 17, 1939 ~ July 7, 2022

Brother Kevin (Eugene) McGuire, O.S.B., monk of St. Gregory’s Abbey, died on Thursday, July 7, 2022. He was 83 years old. Br. Kevin was born on May 17, 1939, in Oklahoma City, OK, to Paul and Doris (Ayotte) McGuire. He was baptized the next day and raised in the parish of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help along with his two brothers and one sister.

After graduating from St. Gregory’s High School in 1957, Br. Kevin entered the novitiate at St. Gregory’s Abbey. He professed first vows a Benedictine Lay Brother on July 11, 1958, making his commitment permanent by professing Simple Perpetual Vows on April 13, 1962. He was nearing the sixty-fourth anniversary of his first profession at the time of his death.

Br. Kevin possessed a deep sense of piety throughout his life with particular devotion to the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and the love of God made manifest in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During his many years of outdoor work he developed great appreciation for God’s self-revelation in the natural world through the changing of the seasons, the beauty of trees and the numerous species of birds that make the grounds of the monastery their home.

Br. Kevin served the monastic community in a wide variety of ways through manual labor, as caretaker of the Abbey cemetery and as a member of the Abbey Senior Council. He worked with the care of Abbey cattle, the harvest of farm crops, the maintenance of the facilities and vehicles, and the beautification of the monastery and college grounds. He was particularly committed to adding trees to the campus, eventually planting most of the current trees on the property. He installed and maintained a complex irrigation system to bring water from monastery ponds to trees, shrubs and other plants during the long Oklahoma summer.

A natural engineer, Br. Kevin used discarded materials to design and build a number of tools and devices to use in his work. In the early 1980s he combined an office chair, scrap pipe and an old car to build a system with which he ascended, sandblasted, cleaned and tuck-pointed the brick exteriors of the Abbey Church and the monumental academic center, Benedictine Hall. Along with serving as mechanic for the monastery, he assisted generations of students and friends who were having trouble with their vehicles. A triumph of his engineering and mechanical skills was the motorcycle he made from scrap, which he christened “Recycled Grace.” For many years he used it to make an annual four-week “pilgrimage” to various parts of the United States to visit with family, friends, strangers and the occasional law enforcement officer whose curiosity was piqued by the unusual bike.

Having lived his entire monastic life in residence at the monastery, Br. Kevin forged bonds of friendship with countless persons of all walks of life, backgrounds and ages. He read widely, and often expressed himself through poetry and the beautiful prose of his extensive correspondence. Many found inspiration, wisdom and guidance in his simplicity of life, spiritual outlook and direct manner of speaking.

As he likely would have wanted, Br. Kevin died while engaged in outdoor work on July 7, 2022. He is survived by the monks of St. Gregory’s Abbey, brothers Hilary Paul (Phyllis) and Frank McGuire, sister Kathy Milot, and many nieces and nephews.

Public visitation will be at The Conference Center at St. Gregory’s Abbey on Thursday, July 14, from 9:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. A vigil service will be held in the Abbey Church on Thursday, July 14, at 7:00 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated in the Abbey Church on Friday, July 15, at 10:30 a.m., with interment following in the Abbey Cemetery. Memorial gifts should be directed to The St. Gregory’s Abbey Benefit Trust, 1900 W. MacArthur, Shawnee, OK 74804, 405-878-5490.