Fr. Gordon Cook, OMI

Celebrating 30 Years of Priesthood

“Living the Dream”

When I sat down with Fr. Gordon Cook, OMI, I started with the same question I often use to begin these conversations: Can you share your vocation story? I had no idea what his answer would be.

“I felt that I was called at the age of 12,” he told me.

At the time, Gordon believed God was calling him to missionary work. He didn’t really know what that meant yet. He imagined it might take him somewhere far away. At 21, he entered the Oblate Pre-Novitiate. A year later, he left. He married, had two children, built a career as an accountant and carpenter, and spent the next 20 years living a life that looked very different from the one he had imagined as a boy.

But apparently, that call wasn’t finished with him. Years later, while Gordon was working in forensic accounting, his business partner came to him one day with something rather unusual to share.

“I had a dream last night,” he told Gordon.

In the dream, God was calling Gordon to become a priest, and Gordon wasn’t considering it or being open to it. Gordon’s response was understandable. “Well, I’m kind of old for that right now.” Three months later, his business partner had the same dream again. At that point, Gordon decided maybe he should pay attention. And somehow, the story gets even better from there.

By then, Gordon was in his early 40s. He took leave from work and spent time with the Franciscans in Cochrane, discerning whether God was really calling him back to religious life. He eventually went to Newman Theological College in Edmonton and told Fr. Don MacDonald he believed he was being called to the priesthood.

There was a problem. Gordon didn’t have a university degree. He was told he didn’t qualify. Gordon accepted the answer and was on his way out when Fr. Don called him back. Something was telling him they needed to talk. The two spent the next several hours together. By the end of their conversation, Gordon had been accepted to begin studies at Newman.

Back home in B.C., Gordon was still trying to figure out exactly what he was doing when someone approached his building looking to buy a condo, something Gordon was told simply didn’t happen. Gordon happened to have one. He explained that he was considering giving up his career and everything he had built to pursue the priesthood.

“I’m 42 years old. I think I’m doing something crazy,” he remembers saying. A couple of hours later, the prospective buyer returned. He bought Gordon’s condo. “Well, God,” Gordon remembers thinking, “I guess you’ve got a plan for me.”

By this point in our conversation, I was completely invested in where this story was going. But there were still a few more closed doors ahead.

Gordon approached the Franciscans.

No.

The Redemptorists.

No.

The diocese.

No.

Even the Oblates initially told him they weren’t interested. So Gordon figured he had his answer. He would return to Vancouver and go back to his business. Then, by chance, he encountered the Oblate vocation director near Annunciation Church.

“Gordon, I need to talk to you.”

The Oblates had reconsidered their candidates. They wanted Gordon to join them for pre-novitiate. In fact, he was told something he certainly hadn’t expected to hear:

“You’re number one on the list.”

Even then, Gordon assumed he would become an Oblate Brother. Without the academic background normally required for priestly studies, he thought he could put his accounting and carpentry skills to work wherever the Oblates needed him. Once again, someone had a different idea.

His spiritual director called him in and told him the Oblates had met to discuss his future. They had decided not to call him to be a Brother. Gordon was prepared to return to Vancouver.

That wasn’t what they meant. They believed God was calling him to be a priest. For Gordon, the possibility that this could actually happen was almost difficult to comprehend.

“This is a dream for me,” he told me. “This is what I’ve always desired.”

As he spoke, he stopped for a moment.

“I got goosebumps just talking about it.”

I understood why.

More than 30 years later, he could still feel the significance of that moment.

Fr. Gordon professed his First Vows as an Oblate in 1993 and was ordained to the priesthood on September 1, 1996. The dream had become real.

The missionary part of that childhood dream became real, too, although not quite as Gordon had once imagined. As a 12-year-old, he thought missionary work would mean travelling somewhere else in the world. Instead, he discovered just how much missionary work there was to do in Canada. After his ordination, Fr. Gordon was sent to northern British Columbia. He loved it. “I loved every moment,” he told me.

He was curious about the communities around him and eager to meet people. Shortly after arriving, he drove into one of the Indigenous communities he would serve and came across people boarding up a school. Fr. Gordon was a carpenter. So naturally, he started helping. Nobody knew who he was. Then Sunday came, and the helpful stranger walked into church wearing his priest’s collar.

They were shocked. But Fr. Gordon also knew there was a great deal he didn’t understand. So he asked questions. Lots of them. Eventually, someone in the community offered him some very simple advice. “Start to listen.” So he did. And things began to change. People started coming to him for counselling. Relationships deepened. Trust grew.

Then, about a year into his ministry, Fr. Gordon was invited to a large feast attended by hundreds of people. He didn’t know what they were celebrating. Eventually, he found out. They were honouring him. “Father Gordon is our priest,” he remembers being told, “but he’s our brother.” That changed everything. “I was now their brother,” he said. “I was welcome into their family.” He wasn’t a brother to one particular clan. “I was a brother to all clans.”

Fr. Gordon began his ministry there, serving three Indigenous missions. By the time he left years later, he was serving nine.

As Fr. Gordon continued telling me stories, I began to notice something. Again and again, his stories were about finding ways to bring people together. He told me about a young woman who died tragically in a car accident. Her family asked him to be part of her funeral, and Fr. Gordon asked them to gather as many candles as possible. Around 200 people gathered in a field and formed a circle.

Fr. Gordon lit the first candle and spoke about the young woman. Then another candle was lit, and another person shared a memory. The flame continued around the circle. Eventually, everyone moved toward the centre while a minister sang. Fr. Gordon remembers the candles surrounding them like a “ring of fire.”

In another community, hurt and division ran deep. Fr. Gordon gathered everyone together around a fire and handed out paper and pencils. “ Write down your pain,” he told them. “Write down your hurts.” For about half an hour, they stayed silent. Then, one by one, people walked to the fire and burned what they had written. “You’ve burnt the past,” Fr. Gordon told them. “You let go. We’re going to come together as brothers and sisters.” As the smoke rose, he invited them to imagine their prayers rising to the Creator with it, prayers for healing and forgiveness.

I loved listening to these stories because they helped me understand what Fr. Gordon meant when he talked about being a missionary. It wasn’t simply about where he was sent. It was about walking into a community, listening, building relationships and finding ways for people to come together.

There was something else about Fr. Gordon’s story that stayed with me. The life he lived before becoming a priest didn’t disappear when he entered religious life. He brought it with him. Fr. Gordon had been married for 20 years. He was a father and is now a grandfather. That meant he understood family life in a way that many priests couldn’t experience firsthand. He understood parents struggling to get children ready and arrive at church on time. He understood the realities of marriage and raising a family. And, as he pointed out, he had changed plenty of diapers. “I can relate,” he said.

His accounting background came with him, too. Over the years, he used those skills to help churches get out of debt. And then there was his carpentry experience. At one parish, they were considering plans for a new church that would cost about $1 million and seat about 100 people. Fr. Gordon looked at an existing hall and had another idea. “We’re going to take this hall, and we’re going to turn it into a church,” he told them. “And I’ll do most of the work.”

With the help of a contractor friend, that’s exactly what he did. The renovated church could seat 300. There was just one small issue. At the time, Fr. Gordon remembers having only about 12 to 15 parishioners. People laughed. “Father, you’re crazy.” Within a year, he says, the church was full.

As I listened, it occurred to me that the accountant, carpenter, husband, father and grandfather weren’t separate from Fr. Gordon’s vocation. They were part of it. Every chapter had given him something he would eventually use in ministry.

Thirty years after his ordination, Fr. Gordon’s journey looks very different from the one the 12-year-old boy in Winnipeg might have imagined when he first felt called to missionary life. It took him through seminary and away from it. Through marriage and parenthood. Through accounting offices and construction projects. Through closed doors and doors that opened at precisely the right moment. And eventually, it took him into communities where he discovered that perhaps one of the most important things a missionary can do is listen.

The dream wasn’t simply becoming a priest. It was the missionary call he first felt at 12 years old. It was finding his way to the people he was meant to serve. And it was discovering, somewhere along the way, that he wasn’t simply their priest.

Thirty years after his ordination, Fr. Gordon Cook is still living the dream.

By Shanlyn Cunningham