Br. Cecilian of Jesus

Patrick  O'Connor was born the son of Patrick and Margaret Collen O'Connor, at  Leitrim, Ireland, on April 11, 1837, and entered the Novitiate at age twenty  in Montreal, Canada, on November 3, 1857.   There he received the habit and religious name of Brother Cecilian of  Jesus on December 24, 1857.  For twelve  years, 1858-1870, he taught in schools in Albany, Westchester, and New York  City.  In 1870 he was assigned to St.  Patrick's School in Chicago, Illinois, where he remained for two years.  Brother Cecilian was assigned to the  Orphanage at Bridgeport in 1872 and became Sub-Director there in 1873.  The remainder of his tour of duty took him  to St. Michael's in Santa Fe; Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco; and  to the Community of Ancients in Martinez, California in 1886.  Illness plagued the last years of his life  and he died at age eighty, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for  sixty years.