Gregory was twenty-three when he first arrived in the valley at Ampleforth. His first view was from the other side, looking across to the Abbey from Gilling Castle, where he came to fill a teaching post in the old Prep School. As a Preparatory School, Gilling in those days was an oddity, having no top forms; they were separate in the old Junior House; so it was very little boys below the age of eleven that he came to teach as assistant to the monks who were working there. It wasn't exactly his vocation; he hadn't been trained for it, but it seemed to suit him; he stayed for five years and was becoming an institution there when one day he had a conversation over in the Abbey with one of the monks, Fr Luke Rigby, who was later to be the first Procurator of St Louis Abbey and later Abbot.
It was a light-hearted conversation at first, but the mere fact that it happened on the other side of the valley is an indication that something was stirring inside Gregory (or Paul as he was called then by his Christian name). Lay-teachers at Gilling did not normally come to know the community well; but Paul O'Brien did and had got on well enough with Fr Luke to fall into a chance conversation in which he tossed off the light-hearted comment that the monks at Ampleforth seemed to him to have quite a 'cushy' life. Paul came from Lancashire, where they say what they think, and so he was well able to understand the brief and direct reply he received: 'Well, if you think the life is so easy, why don't you try it and find out?' Unexpectedly to both it went home; for Paul it was the beginning of a monastic vocation from which he never wavered; but perhaps we should not call it a beginning; the beginning was deeper and earlier; this brief exchange was only the catalyst; but then, as so often, a catalyst was needed to reveal his monastic vocation, even to himself.
Vocation - the call of Christ, the imperative from within, where the Spirit dwells in the hearts of the baptised, which counters and, when listened to, shatters our comfortable fantasy that we belong to ourselves. At the moment of that little exchange with Fr Luke, Gregory was no stranger to the gospel idea of vocation. He grew up in Liverpool in a strongly united Catholic family. His parents took in their stride the idea that he had a vocation to the priesthood when he was a schoolboy of fifteen at St Francis Xavier's College. They readily agreed to his transfer to Upholland, where his sixth form work and the ambience of prayer and dedication would be itself a preparation for the seminary. In 1938 he was received into the seminary where he completed two years of study in Philosophy and two further years in Theology on his way to the priesthood. He even (as was common at this stage in war-time) received the tonsure, which made him a 'cleric' in canon law and seemed to confirm his personal dedication to the ministry of the priesthood. His seven years in Upholland in school and seminary against the background of the confident Catholicism of Liverpool of the time left a deep mark of positive formation which Gregory never lost. His life seemed set for the pastoral ministry as a diocesan priest which he loved. Then the dream came to an end with the shock of separation. He was advised, for reasons which remained obscure to him, not to seek perseverance to the major orders. His response was sadness at a mysterious decision; he accepted both the decision and the sadness without taking refuge in bitterness or rebellion, and sought a new way of approaching life. In the due course it took him to Gilling Castle; it began to look as though he must find through teaching, as many others do, the God he sought to serve.
However that early vision of dedicating his life to God as a priest had not entirely evaporated. What Fr Luke's challenge discovered deep inside him was that the hope he thought dead was still living; disappointment had overlaid but had not extinguished it. Here, after all, might be another way - the one God really intended - of finding the path for him to the priesthood he loved so much. If the demanding responsibility which rests on the diocesan clergy was not for him, then perhaps in the strength of Benedictine community life he might yet find a role to fulfil. He went to talk about it to Abbot Herbert Byrne, who understood. Abbot Herbert's time as a parish priest in Liverpool, which had meant so much to him before he became Abbot, enabled him to empathise with the young laymaster from Gilling. He not only understood but encouraged Paul to seek God and give himself also to the priesthood as a Benedictine. And so in 1950 he received the habit and the name of Gregory at the hands of Abbot Herbert. This second attempt to find the outer expression of his inner conviction was blessed. He made his profession and after further study was ordained priest in 1957.
After that it must have been interesting when the Abbot sent him back to Gilling to pick up as a monk the teaching he had begun as a layman. He had another four years there teaching the little boys but there was a welcome new outlet for his deep pastoral instincts when he was given charge of the mass centre in the chapel in Gilling village. There was one dramatic, unforgettable occasion during this time of teaching at Gilling when he went swimming one day in the lake and sank to the bottom. He lay there unconscious and apparently drowned, until Fr Piers single-handedly found him and brought him to the surface. It was an experience mysterious and awe-inspiring in itself which, in a more pious age, would have needed only a slight touch of myth-making imagination to emerge as a miracle. Fr Gregory recovered quickly and began to wonder - or rather to say that he wondered - whether Fr Piers' intervention had really been worth it, but that was only his way of expressing the self-doubt that so often hung over him.
A more positive and God-centred answer began to unfold when he was sent to Leyland as assistant in 1964. There he could at last really give himself to pastoral work (he never did abandon entirely the vision which took him originally to Upholland) while he lived in a close and small community which included Abbot Herbert in his old age. One of Fr Gregory's gifts was that he was a really good mimic. Abbot Herbert was a good subject and after a time there was little he had said, or might have said, that was not safely preserved in Fr Gregory's cherished and ever growing repertoire. The presage of gloom that haunted Abbot Herbert's more memorable remarks and the humour that lightened them and made them tolerable appealed to Fr Gregory. As time went on, imitating Abbot Herbert became second nature to him and in the end he was often giving an 'Abbot Herbert' performance even without realising it. His preaching tended to be an HKB performance mutated by his own personality and delivered with a touch of self-mocking humour. It was quite genuine and sincere, and he had learnt the self-mocking also from Abbot Herbert. That is significant; it was his great escape from the self-doubt and self-distrust, which haunted him. Gregory had a titanic struggle with his temperament; it made for difficulties with his brethren - creative difficulties, as St Benedict with insight that transcended the centuries would have called them in line with RB ch 73. Abbot Herbert understood his struggle, even when perplexed by it, and helped him, more by being himself than anything else, when no-one else could. Fr Gregory's mimicry was not satire; it was an act of relief and gratitude. It was more than that; it was a way into a new confidence tinged - ever more strongly - with the holiness of his model. No-one was ever so enriched by an alter ego.
Fr Gregory seemed to carry his whole life with him into old age, just as his room became a museum of everything he had acquired on the way. And so it was that more and more on our parishes he found fulfilment of his early desire for pastoral work and responsibility. His devotion to Our Lady at Lourdes was a sign and inspiration; it was with parishioners and fellow pilgrims that he loved to go there often to pray. He really did love to make himself available to the faithful and to share their problems and pray for them.
Fr Gregory's contribution to ecumenical work on our parishes was undramatic but deep and strong in understanding. While he was at Workington a really deep friendship grew between him and Keith Hutchinson who was Rector of Workington. They came to understand each other in a way which made many other ecumenical initiatives look pale. This friendship was deeply valued by Gregory. It continued and grew when Fr Gregory moved to Warrington and then back to the Abbey. It was a special joy to both, when Keith became a Catholic and was accepted for the diocese of Middlesborough and appointed as parish priest to Pickering. Fr Gregory himself would have liked to be in charge of a parish and had one important experience during a period as acting PP in Cardiff. He himself saw this experience as a watershed in which he took delight in responding to the people and they to him. When it was over and he had manifestly done a difficult job well, he was encouraged, fulfilled and calm in facing the prospect of retirement to the Abbey because of his health. Still from the Abbey he was able to do some pastoral work, notably at Easingwold and as acting chaplain to RAF Leeming and there was a new and valued dimension through getting to know some of the younger monks, which he greatly valued.
The beauty of Fr Gregory's old age (and it was a beautiful transformation for those who knew him well in earlier days) arose from the gradual reconciliation, which is always exclusively the work of grace, in the struggles he faced successfully in his own temperament and in the sometimes apparently discordant ideals to which he had dedicated his life - his zeal for pastoral involvement and his no less genuine instinct for quies and stability, monastic fuga mundi, contemplation. He found a new interest in photography - at least it was new in its inspiration during his last years. He had much latent artistic ability, which from Gilling days had found expression in handwriting and lettering. Now he began to pour his devotion to people and places and to Ampleforth into his carefully chosen photographs. The one, for instance, of the Abbey Church, which was made into a postcard, says as much about Fr Gregory in the light of his own life as it does about the Abbey Church.
In his last few years he was back in the heart of community life gradually, as illness encroached, receding into the monastic infirmary. It had been good to choose the strength of community. He enjoyed the contact with younger monks and owed much to them as well as to Mary and Heather, who nursed him. His illness was not disabling but it was prolonged and often tested his confidence. His strong faith which had in fact shaped his life was equal to the test as in the end the summons came unexpectedly. May his faith be fulfilled in peace.
Paul Gregory O’BRIEN 1919 Dec 11 b. Liverpool ed.St Michael’s Elementary School York St Liverpool St Matthew’s Elementary School Clubmoor Liverpool 1931-1935 St Francis Xavier’s College Liverpool N. Univ matric 1935-1938 Upholland College SC, & HC. (Oxford & Cambridge) 1938—1932 Upholland College - Philosophy (2 yrs) & Theology (2 yrs) 1941 Jun 7 Tonsure at Upholland 1942-1945 Working as layman 1945-1950 Assistant Master Gilling as layman 1950 Sep 24 Habit at Ampleforth - Abbot Byrne 1951 Sep 25 Simple Vows - Abbot Byrne 1954 Sep 25 Solemn Vows - Abbot Byrne 1954 Sep 29,30 Minor Orders - Abbot Byrne 1955 Jul 17 Subdeacon - Bishop Brunner 1956 Jul 22 Deacon - Bishop Brunner 1957 Jul 21 Priest - Bishop Brunner 1957 Apr-1961 Jan Gilling Castle Staff 1958 Jul Rescued from drowning by Fr Piers (see file) 1958 Sept Priest in charge Gilling Village Chapel 1961 Jan-1963 Dec Ampleforth - teaching 1964 Jan Leyland Assistant 1966 Sept Workington Assistant 1984 Nov St Benedict’s Warrington Assistant 1986 Apr St Mary’s Warrington Assistant 1990 Oct 17 Supply to Cardiff for 10 months & 10 days 1991 Jun 28 Priest in charge, Cardiff St Mary’s 1991 Aug 28 Returned to St Mary’s Warrington Assistant 1995 Feb 18 Returned to Ampleforth Abbey Priest in charge Easingwold 1996 Oct 19 Officiating Chaplain (Cat.B) at RAF Leeming 1998 Nov 10 Died in York District Hospital