FR BRENDAN O'ROURKE

FR.BRENDAN O'ROURKE

My full name is Brendan Samuel O’Rourke. I was born in Wexford town in 1949, the youngest of 4. Studied with the Loreto Sisters and then the Christian Brothers in Wexford and then travelled to Limerick City where I did my secondary education in the Redemptorist College, now called St Clement’s.

I took my fist vows as a Redemptorist in September 1968. Studied in University College Galway, and graduated with a BA in French and Philosophy in 1972, and then a Bachelor’s in Divinity in ’77 from Kimmage Manor, Dublin. Was ordained June 5th, 1977, in “Marianella”, Dublin. Two of us were ordained that day. The other man was Leonard Martin. We were the first to be ordained in the relatively new chapel in Marianella. Leonard and I had been classmates since Primary School in Wexford!

In the last number of years I have gone back to the Philippines, for a month at a time to direct a three week counselling course there in our “Scala” Retreat House in Bacolod City. Each year I go back I come to a deeper respect and appreciation for the people of the Philippines. It has been great to try using Cebuano again also! One of the earliest gifts the Philippines gave me, as a young man, - apart from the mango fruit which is absolutely heavenly – was the realization that the Filipino people had ways of faith and ways of dealing with life which differed a lot from what I was used to in Ireland. And yet I could not deny that the Filipino way was often at least as good, and often better than my Irish way! That was a big shock at first. But it was the beginning of a training in respect for difference in life and the great variety and diversity of God’s rich creation!