Sacred Heart Br. John Hotstream

Sacred Heart Brother John Hotstream (Brother Lucian), recognized as a “master teacher,” died Dec. 25 at Ochsner Hospital in Gretna at the age of 87 after 73 years of religious life. 

Brother John, the eldest of the nine children of Esther Mae Aprill and John B. Hotstream, was born March 19, 1937, in New Orleans. He attended eighth grade at St. Stanislaus in 1950, where he met the Brothers of the Sacred Heart and was inspired to join. 

He began his juniorate formation as a high school student in Metuchen, New Jersey, in 1951 and entered the novitiate class four years later. He professed his first vows on Aug. 15, 1956. His perpetual vows were pronounced at Spring Hill, Alabama, on July 28, 1962. 

Brother John earned a bachelor's degree in secondary education with a major in English from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, in 1961, as well as a master's degree in English from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1971. Brother John ministered at St. Aloysius (New Orleans); McGill Institute (Mobile, Alabama); Catholic High School (Baton Rouge); E.D. White Catholic High (Thibodaux); and St. Stanislaus (Bay St. Louis, Mississippi). He also served in the foreign missions, teaching and evangelizing youth in Nyapea, Uganda and  Gulu, Uganda for five years. 

In recent years, Brother John focused his attention on the poor at St. Anne's Mission in Klagetoh, Arizona. He continued his ministry of evangelization through his adult Scripture study classes at St. Luke Parish in Thibodaux, and at St. Paul Church in Baton Rouge. 

A Memorial Mass was celebrated Jan. 11 at St. Matthew the Apostle Church in River Ridge. Since Brother John donated his body to science, his cremains will be interred in the cemetery behind St. Stanislaus in Bay St. Louis. Donations to the Brothers of the Sacred Heart Foundation (4600 Elysian Fields Ave., New Orleans, LA 70122) are preferred.