Fr. Pius Francis Driscoll, OP

"'I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy Glory dwelleth.' (Ps. 25, 8)

We are gathered together here today to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is being offered for the repose of the soul of Very Rev. Father Francis Pius Driscoll, the beloved former Provincial of the Dominicans here in the West, whose mortal remains lie her before us.  We extend sincere sympathy to his bereaved sister and nieces and other relatives and friends, who mourn with them and us.

Francis Driscoll was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts and came to this city and parish when a mere child.  His delight was to be near the altar in the church, and soon he became an altar boy. Then it was he heard the voice of God calling him to follow the example of the good priests whom he served and become a religious priest.   At 15 years of age, with the blessing of his good parents, he left home and father and mother and sisters to enter the Dominican Monastery of Benicia.  There seeing the Monastery for the first time, he exclaimed enthusiastically leading on his Altar Boy companion: "Behold our future home."  And his enthusiasm lasted to the end of his mortal life.

Some of you here present may remember him as an altar boy; others, as a priest, when he sang his first solemn high Mass here, 45 years ago; more, when he was assistant pastor at the time of earthquake and fire; but most of you, when he was Provincial here ten years ago.  In Vallejo his memory is revered as a very active assistant and also pastor; in Porta Costa and Crockett, as assistant pastor; in Antioch, as pastor; in Seattle, Washington, as founder of the parish of the Blessed Sacrament; in Berkeley, California also as founder; in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, for the third time as a founder, organizer and pastor.

It is worthy of note that he received the Dominican habit and his religious name Pius from the founder of this Province of the Holy Name of Jesus, the Very Rev. Father Francis Sadoc Vilarrasa, Commissary General of the Dominicans in the West, and was inspired by the saintly Father Vincent Vinyes and the well-known Father Pius Murphy, being as it were, a link between the old and the new, helping to build up materially and spiritually this Province of the Order.

He was a faithful follower of Saint Dominic, striving always for the salvation of souls.  His devotion to the Blessed Virgin and her rosary was child-like and unending.  Above all, he was overwhelmed with the thought of the tremendous dignity of the priesthood.  Especially did he appreciate the wonderful privilege of offering daily the sublime sacrifice of the Mass, keeping for years a count of the number of times he brought Christ down upon the altar.  When he erected churches, it was principally for places where the glory of God could dwell, through the ministry of His priests.

His parting words, daily to all who greeted him, were, "God bless you."  So now we, his friends, must not forget him, but in our prayers and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we must ask God and the Blessed Mother to bestow their blessings upon him.

To him we may well apply the words of the Psalmist, "I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy Glory dwelleth."   May the glory of the earthly house of God, prepare his soul for the glory of the temple not made by hands, in which he, a priest of God may see and glorify God forever!"

- Fr. Charles V. Lamb, OP

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