A funeral Mass for Father Christian “Cris” Janson, SM, was celebrated Sept. 23 at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in San Antonio, Texas. Father Janson, a longtime teacher, pastor, chaplain, campus minister and vocations director, died Sept. 14 in San Antonio. He was 83 years old and a professed member of the Society of Mary (Marianists) for 64 years.
Christian Aloysius Janson was born on March 6, 1941, in St. Louis. He was the third oldest child in a family of 14 siblings born to Gregory W. and Emma C. (Groner) Janson. Baptized as an infant, he attended various parish grade schools in the St. Louis area and enjoyed an upbringing “in a totally Catholic environment,” as he later wrote. From early on, he developed an attraction to daily Mass and other religious practices and remembered thinking that he might become a teacher one day.
He first encountered the Society of Mary when he enrolled at St. Mary’s High School in the mid-1950s. Asked by one of the Marianists in his sophomore year whether he’d ever thought of becoming a brother, he replied “yes” — a response that led to him finishing high school at Maryhurst in Kirkwood. He then entered the novitiate at Marynook in Galesville, Wisconsin, and professed first vows there in 1960. Brother Cris returned to Maryhurst to begin scholasticate studies. He went on to enroll at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1963.
Prior to seminary studies, Brother Cris taught Latin and English for several years at St. Joseph’s School in Victoria, Texas, and then at Don Bosco High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He returned to St. Louis in 1968 and enrolled in graduate studies at Saint Louis University, earning both a master’s degree in education (1969) and a master’s in divinity (1972). He was ordained to the priesthood on Jan. 20, 1973, at Our Lady of the Pillar Church in Creve Coeur.
For the next seven years, Father Cris continued working in the classroom while also serving as chaplain at St. Michael High School in Chicago and later at Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth, Texas. Then came a turning point in his ministry when he was asked by his provincial to consider a parish assignment in Mexico.
“That I did not know Spanish did not disturb him,” Father Cris later wrote. “He simply replied, ‘learn it.’” Agreeing initially to a three-year commitment, Father Cris would spend most of the next 16 years in Mexico – serving as a pastor, teacher and chaplain in three different cities as well as working in formation at the Marianist novitiate in Querétaro.
Upon his return to the United States, Father Cris taught and served as chaplain for two years at Chaminade College Preparatory in St. Louis and then joined the provincial staff as assistant vocation director in 1998. He moved to San Antonio in the early 2000s, working in campus ministry at St. Mary’s University until 2005, when he was named pastor at Holy Rosary Parish. Father Cris served in that role for the next 11 years, always bringing to it his love for teaching.
He continued in parish work after leaving Holy Rosary, serving as a pastoral associate at St. Joseph’s Parish in Sykesville, Maryland, until suffering a debilitating stroke in 2019. Father Cris then moved to the Marianist Residence in San Antonio, devoted his time to a ministry of prayer.
He was preceded in death by six siblings and survived by his sister, Patricia, and six brothers, Ray, Mike, Steve, Harry, Gerry and Dwight, along with many cousins, nieces, and nephews.
