 Fr. Dominic John Maher, OP
When Fr. Dominic died, he was the oldest priest in California, having served many people
all over California. He was born in England and went into the Novitiate at
Woodchester, England with the intention of being a friar of the Western Dominican
Province. He did his preliminary studies there and after ordination, went on to
higher studies in Louvain, Belgium.
In 1879 he arrived in Benicia, California and
began his ministry. After a year he was appointed Sub-Novice Master, and taught the
Dominican students Church history. He took over the Novice Master role the following
year from Fr. Dominic Lentz, OP and continued to teach the students. In 1884, he
turned over his teaching position to Fr. Reginald Newell, OP. After a year of being
Novice Master, he went back to teaching the Dominican students. In 1888 he became
Novice Master again, but only for a year. In 1892, he went to San Francisco to be a
Moderator Conferentiarium. He returned to Benicia to teach after six years in San
Francisco. In 1914 he became Subprior and in 1923 he became the confessor to the
Mission San Jose Dominican sisters. In 1926, after a total of forty-one years in
Benicia, he was assigned to Mission San Jose to be the chaplain to the orphanage. In
1929 Fr. Albert Lawler, OP joined him there for a year. In 1932 he moved to St. Mary
Magdalen's in Berkeley. The Novitiate opened in Ross, California in 1933, and Fr.
Dominic was one of the first friars to live there and retire. He eventually went
blind, but is remembered by some friars as having been a joyous friar, even in his
nineties. He died at the age of ninety-six, after seventy-seven years of religious
life and seventy-three years of priesthood. May God have mercy on him and reward
him for all his service.
|
