Love Prepares the Way

Many of us remember our educational experience with a mixture of pleasure and pain. Very often, the pleasure came from dedicated teachers who cared enough to encourage, assist and motivate us through our difficult times.

St. Mary’s was fortunate to have just such a teacher in Brother Terry O’Connor. His students and friends admired him for the infectious enthusiasm of his subject and especially for his genuine concern for people. Always accessible, he was a willing listener and a trusted confidant to the young and not so young.

He credited the brothers at Central Catholic High School with shaping his zest for teaching and instilling in him an approach to teaching that served him and his students well over the years.

He recalled how the brothers went out of their way to help students, painstakingly producing study guides and other learning materials. In like manner, O’Connor furnished his students with the clearest of class notes and study guides and, more important, he made himself available for personal conferences to all who needed his assistance.

“I don’t think the brothers taught me a particular style, but certainly I learned from them that dedicated teachers can make really good things happen – and they can do that in a lot of different ways.”

O’Connor joined the Marianist religious order right after his high school graduation. He earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Mary’s University in 1955 and then left for the Marianists’ international seminary in Fribourg, Switzerland. He taught languages at St. Marys from 1983 until his death in 2011.

Brother Terrence O’Connor, S.M., Assistant Professor of Languages, was a Marianist for 50 years.