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| Fr Brian Reynolds OP |
Brian was born in Salthill, Co. Galway on December 5, 1938. He joined the Irish Dominicans in September 1960 and was ordained a priest in 1966. Before joining the Dominicans Brian was studying accountancy.
Though born in Co. Galway, he spent his early years living in other parts of the country, due to his father's work as a Civil Servant in the Pensions' Office.
Brian's mother was a teacher. She returned to teaching on the death of her husband, who died while Brian was in Australia.
Brian always considered Galway his home. He attended St Mary's School in Galway before moving to Dublin, where he was a student at St Vincent's CBS on the north side of the city.
He was a great lover of books. On one occasion on a day visit to the Dominican Priory in Limerick he spent the entire day visiting bookshops in the city.
Visiting the famous Charlie Byrne's bookshop in Galway on one occasion he spotted Jacques Paul Migne's collection of the Church Fathers. He bought the entire set, made up of 30 volumes, for the princely sum of £1 per volume.
Brian was related to the owners of the publishing company Clonmore and Reynolds.
Above all else, Brian was a pastor. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of those in the parishes where he worked. He also went out of his way to get to know those who attended Dominican churches.
One of his Dominican confreres commented how Brian made contact with relatives of his fellow Dominicans.
"My own mother appreciated visits from Brian when he was pp in St Saviour's in Dublin. He also visited my sister and her husband when he was in Galway and through his visits they became close friends," he said.
He took great interest in people and their families.
Brian had an uncanny ability of tracing people's genealogy. If he knew a married couple, then he was sure to know their parents, their cousins, their children and their children too. He was networking long before the word was common parlance.
He made it his business to visit all the homes in the parishes where he worked. It was his key pastoral strategy.
At a superficial glance one might describe Brian as an old-style Irish priest.
He went that proverbial extra mile to visit the sick and those in hospital.
When his fellow community member, Ross McCauley was seriously ill some years ago, Brian was most attentive to him. He visited him most days in the nearby nursing home, where he was a resident. And I know that first hand from my own visiting Ross.
After priestly ordination Brian did post graduate studies in the University of St Thomas in Rome before moving to Australia where he taught theology to the Dominican students in Canberra. He was later engaged in pastoral work in Melbourne.
Brian took great delight in talking about the 12 years he spent in Australia. Whatever was the conversation, Brian always managed to direct the subject to matters about Australia.
A fellow Dominican on hearing of his death commented: "Brian drank in the culture of Melbourne. He knew every house and every person in the parish."
He was prior and parish priest at the Dominican Priory in The Claddagh, Galway. He held both those positions in Limerick and was also parish priest at St Saviour's Dublin.
At the time of his death he was assigned to the Dominican Priory in Newbridge, where he had been a curate for a number of years in the parish.
He was also a member of the board of governors of the school and served as a member of the board of the Galway Marriage Tribunal. While in Galway he was appointed to the diocesan marriage tribunal.
For many years he suffered a hearing impediment and because of that there were occasions when he gave the impression he was not interested in the conversation at hand. It often led to embarrassing moments. He made up for his deafness by talking, it was his way to coverup his hearing difficulty.
Brian closely adhered to theological orthodoxy but he came to cherish the importance of the virtue of prudence. And this led him to have a great empathy for people, especially the weak, the fragile and those laid low with illness.
Brian Reynolds was a kind and gentle person, who gave his all to other people.
May he rest in peace.
His funeral Mass is on Friday, May 8 at 11.00 in the Dominican Priory church in Newbridge, Co Kildare. It will be live streamed. Web address is,
http://dominicansnewbridge.ie/live-streaming/
[If there is any information in this obituary that is inaccurate, please contact the blog. Thank you.]
5 comments:
The Migne collection consists in about 382 volumes: 161 for the Greek Fathers, 217 for the Latin Fathers. Some volumes were divided into several tomes.
Fergal,
The comment of course referred to the entire collection that was available in the shop at the time.
Thank you for your observation.
Apologies for misnaming you.
Thanks Michael! A true & accurate portrait of Brian. Hope his family get to read it. I also have many stories of him going that extra mile. Solas na bhFlaitheas dá anam.
I knew Brian well from our shared time in Galway. He was PP in the Claddagh when I occupied that role in St Augustine’s. All you have written about him is true. He was the ‘people-person’ par excellence. He had great powers of recall and he matched names to faces with great ease. I guess he visited every house in the Claddagh parish while stationed there. And he could be found at the funeral of any person even remotely connected with the Claddagh.
His powerful memory always amazed me. But he could make the odd ‘slip of the mind’ or tongue. I vividly recall one such slip. I was concelebrating at a funeral Mass Brian was celebrating for a parishioner of the Claddagh. When it came to the Memorial part of Eucharistic Prayer III, I was somewhat taken aback by the subject of Brian’s prayer: “Remember Dick Lyng; in baptism he died with Christ; may he also share his resurrection when Christ will raise our mortal bodies and make them like his own in glory.” Then, pointing to the missal, he invited me to complete the prayer. I was glad to be in a position to do so!
By the time we returned to the sacristy, someone had obviously pointed out his error to him. He apologised profusely to me. We often laughed about it late and, I suspect, we both dine out on it a few times. (At least I did).
You are right. Brian was a lovely man with a passionate interest in people. I am so sorry to hear he has died. May he rest in peace.
Dick Lyng, OSA
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