Family ties: Father and son ordained together as deacons

“I wouldn’t say coincidence because I don’t think anything with God is a coincidence. It was an amazing event.”

Beautiful, via the Press-Republican newspaper in upstate New York:

The Most Rev. Terry Lavalley, Bishop of Ogdensburg, approached Deacon James Carlin at one of his Deaconate Program classes a year ago.

“He said, ‘What do you think about the opportunity to be ordained with your son?’” Carlin said.

“I was blown away by that. For that to have happened, a million things have to be in the right place at the right time. We honestly, Leagon and I, our paths got to where we got the deaconate were very different. The way he came to his faith and the way I came to my faith. To have those two intersect at this one particular day was just absolutely amazing. I wouldn’t say coincidence because I don’t think anything with God is a coincidence. It was an amazing event.”

James was #6, his twin and two-minute older sister, Mary, #5, of seven children of Stuart and Beryl Carlin, an Air Force family that lived on the former Plattsburgh Air Force Base before relocating to Cumberland Head.

James arrived in the North Country for kindergarten, and his first communion and confirmation was at the recently razed St. Mary’s of the Lake Church.

He graduated from Beekmantown Central School, Class of 1981 and attended SUNY Plattsburgh, where he majored in political science and history.

He and his wife, the former Beth Leagon, are the parents of three – Sarah, John and Leagon – and grandparents of three – Colin, Addison, and Lucy.

“Leagon is the last male that they know of in my wife’s family,” James said.

“We decided we would give him that name so he could carry that name on for at least one more generation.”

… In 2008, James felt a call to do something a little different.

“I went on my first mission trip with the North Country Mission of Hope,” he said.

“That is where I strongly felt the call to do something more within my faith. Several instances there, it came up several opportunities there that I had to witness faith in action and witness people with just true faith.”