Rev. James M. Weeks, M.S., 81, a Missionary of Our Lady of La Salette, of 85 New Park Avenue, Hartford, CT, died March 30, 2015 at St. Mary Home in West Hartford. He was born September 3, 1933 in Clinton, MA, son of the late James A. and Anna (McNamara) Weeks. He attended high school in Clinton, MA and Hartford, CT and received his Associates Degree at the La Salette Seminary in Altamont, NY before entering the novitiate of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette on July 1, 1955 in Bloomfield. He professed his first vows there on July 2, 1956. After completing his studies in La Salette seminaries in Altamont, NY and Ipswich, MA, he was ordained to the priesthood on May 26, 1962. Following ordination, Father Weeks was assigned to ministry at the La Salette Shrine in Ipswich, MA. In 1964, he volunteered to minister in the La Salette Missions in Argentina, where he worked untiringly to promote peace, justice and human rights, even at the cost of unjust arrest and persecution. While there he began a La Salette mission in Las Termas. On August 3, 1976 while teaching at a seminary, he and five seminarians were arrested in Cordoba by the military. They experienced the ordeal of fear, physical abuse and "spiritual strengthening" during this two-week period when he often feared that the soldiers would carry out their threats to kill him and the seminarians. He did not let the experience deter him and over the forty-eight years that Father Weeks ministered in the missions, he continued to support programs of peace and justice. After his release, he returned to the States and spent a year in Washington testifying on behalf of the Washington Office on Latin America at congressional hearings about the dictatorship in Argentina. He then returned to South America where additional assignments included ministry with pastoral teams in the Carmelite Prelature of Sicuani in Peru, serving as Assistant to the Superior of the La Salette Region of Argentina when elected by his confreres, as Director of the Jose Ignacio Diaz House of Formation in Cordoba, and pioneering the mission in Bolivia serving in Tarija and Cochabamba for many years.
The seminarians who studied in the formation program under Father Weeks, have expressed their gratitude to him for inspiring them in their missionary lives.
Upon returning to the USA in 2013, Father Weeks became a member of the Hartford House Community and recently had been in residence at St. Mary Home.
In addition to his La Salette confreres, Father Weeks is survived by his sister, Janet Maddocks; two brothers, John and Robert; a close cousin, Jane Kane; all of Clinton, MA and many nieces and nephews.
A Mass of the Resurrection will be concelebrated on Monday, April 6, 2015, at 10:30 AM in the La Salette Chapel of Hartford House, 85 New Park Avenue, Hartford. Burial will be held at Mt. St. Benedict Cemetery in Bloomfield. Friends may call at Hartford House on April 6, 2015 from 9:15 to 10:15 AM, prior to the Funeral Mass. Contributions in memory of Father Weeks may be made to: Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette Retirement Fund, 915 Maple Avenue, Hartford, CT 06114-2330. To share a memory with the Community or family, please visit www.dillonbaxter.com.