George P. McNamara, O.S.A.

1910 – 1994 (April 20)

George Peter McNamara was born on February 16, 1910, in Lawrence, Massachusetts to Timothy McNamara and Mary Hannon. He was baptized in the church of Saint Laurence O’Toole in that city, attended the parochial school, and graduated in 1923. That same year, at the age of 13, George was accepted as a postulant at Augustinian Academy, Staten Island, New York, and graduated in 1927. He then entered Our Mother of Good Counsel Novitiate in New Hamburg, N.Y., and professed simple vows on September 9, 1928. Three years later, at Saint Mary’s Hall, Villanova, he made his solemn profession of vows. In 1932 George graduated from Villanova College with an A.B. degree and began his theological studies at Augustinian College in Washington, D.C.

During the summer months he did graduate studies in religious education at nearby Catholic University and earned a master’s degree in 1936. On June 11, 1935, George McNamara was ordained a priest by Bishop John McNamara in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington.

During his 66 years as a religious Father McNamara was stationed in only two places. From 1936 to 1946 he was assigned to Havana, Cuba, where he taught at the Colegio San Agustin and assisted at El Cristo Church. In 1946 he returned to the United States and began a 48 year assignment as an assistant at Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish in Bryn Mawr, PA.

Father McNamara ministered to at least two generations of parishioners at Bryn Mawr. His continued service and presence during a period marked by vast changes in post World War II America and even greater changes in the post Vatican II Church assured many that the basic relationship between the creature and his Creator remained unchanged. Included in his ministry at Good Counsel was the pastoral care for patients at the expanding Bryn Mawr Hospital. In 1950, the Prior Provincial assigned Father McNamara as confessor to the professed clerics at Saint Mary’s Hall, the collegiate seminary at Villanova College. On June 16, 1985 Father celebrated 50 years of priesthood and, although past the age of retirement, remained active in the parish. In the spring of 1994 he entered Bryn Mawr Hospital and there, on April 20, 1994, at the age of 84 he died.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at Our Mother of Good Counsel Church on April 25, 1994. The celebrant was Father Joseph A. Duffey, O.S.A. former Prior Provincial. The homily was preached by the pastor, Father James Martinez, O.S.A. Internment on the following day was in the Augustinian plot of Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken, PA.