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Br. Daniel Michael Thomas, OP
Born in Oakland, California in 1941 "Michael Anthony"
attended Catholic grammar and high schools and entered the
Dominicans in 1959 being given the name, "Daniel" by Fr. Gerald
Albert Buckley. When none of the names that I submitted were
available, Fr. Buckley took a big copy of Buttler's Lives of the
Saints and started going through it. He called out names, "Abraham,
Balthasar, Ceslaus, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel Thomas, Danny Thomas.
Yes, that's it. Danny Thomas!" And my life, name and identity was
forever changed. I became a cooperator brother for our
province.
I was involved in a variety of jobs in my early
years and cooked for awhile, helped in the library at St. Albert's
Priory and took care of some of the elderly friars when the Brothers
Formation House was established at Kentfield, Marin County,
California.
My professional training was in printing and I
worked in the Albertus Magnus Press in the basement of St. Albert's
Priory until the early 70's when I moved into campus ministry at
Arizona State University in Tempe.
Since that time I have done parish work in
Ashland, more campus ministry at Riverside and there began my
Liturgy Training Workshops called "Beyond Banners." A brief, but
happy assignment at St. Dominic's in San Francisco preceded my
assignment to McKenzie Bridge in 1991. I remained in that assignment
as Director of St. Benedict Lodge Dominican Retreat and Conference
Center until the summer of 2005 when I left for my current
assignment in Kenya, East Africa.
My primary job description in Africa is to assist
at the fairly newly established parish of St. Catherine of Siena in
Nairobi. There I help in the liturgy celebrations, train lectors and
musicians, teach adult catecheses and conduct liturgy and public
speaking workshops around the Diocese of Nairobi.
Since Africans - and in fact most younger people
in general - don't have any awareness with the connection of the
name, "Danny Thomas" to the late entertainer and TV personality in
the US, I have become known in Africa simply as, "Brother D."
Last updated: May
23, 2008 |
