Dr. Martin L. Brenner R.I.P.
Dr. Brenner was a Professor for Scripture at Orchard Lake SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary.
I met Martin while we were living together at the Convitto San Tommaso in Rome which is run by the Dominican Fathers. At the time, the unforgettable Irish Dominican, Fr Luke Dempsey was the rector. Martin was much older than we were at the time. We were in our twenties and Martin was over fifty, but he still looked like a young men.
He was a convert from Judaism. As he told me, he had a most unusual conversion experience during a history class on Christianity (something like a vision?). After the class he went up to the professor in order to find out that the professor was a convert from Judaism.
Martin told me how he made a big effort to bring his family to Christ and to the Church and that his mother used to accompany him to Mass.
Martin was a great, humorous, generous and pious guy. He used to help many students at the Convitto with their Macintosh computers, some of them were priests from Korea. Another who needed his help, was a Swiss seminarian, Philippe Schönenberger, who is now a priest in Geneva. When he entered Philippe's room, Martin once said, "It is nice to help you because I do not need to take off my shoes when entering your room." [this was the rule for Korean rooms].
For a while, Martin considered entering a religious community but he eventually got married in an age when others become grand-fathers.
He became the loving husband of Barbara Stanhouse Brenner who was much younger than he was.
I did not know that he had "so many" children (actually, nine children should be the average): Beatrice, Dru, Aloysius, Jack, Isaac, Francis, Lily, Benedict and Christopher. They lived together in Bloomfield Township.
Dr. Brenner was a Professor at Orchard Lake SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary, a four-year Catholic Polish seminary in Orchard Lake, Michigan.
It was founded in 1885 in Detroit, Michigan, to prepare candidates for the Roman Catholic priesthood primarily to serve Polish American immigrant communities.
The Funeral Mass for Martin will be held Wednesday, July 6, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. at Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church, 3700 Commerce Road, Orchard Lake.
The family will receive friends Tuesday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Riverside Chapel, Simpson-Modetz Funeral Home, 5630 Pontiac Lake Road, Waterford.
Rite of Committal All Saints Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Good Counsel Homes in Hoboken, New Jersey.
May the soul of the faithful departed Martin rest in peace.
In paradisum te deducant angeli.
