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Deaconbob.barryyahoo.comSpotlight on Deacon Bob Barry
by Bev Montresor
Ordained as a Deacon in June of 2012, Bob Barry was assigned to St. Patrick as his first parish assignment. Deacon Bob has been a member of St. Patrick parish for over 27 years. He and his family recently moved to Bloomfield after living in Farmington for the last 27 years. Deacon Bob was born in Southington, CT and grew up in Bristol. He attended St. Joseph Grammar School and St. Paul High School both in Bristol. He graduated from Morse School of Business in Hartford as a Computer Science Major. He is married to his wife Jennifer Devanney Barry since 1983. God has blessed them with 3 beautiful children; Megan, Rob and Patrick.
Deacon Bob has held jobs from the age of 14 as janitor at St. Joseph Church and School and a few restaurant jobs through his teens. He began his career in 1980 in the Information Technology (IT) field at the State of Connecticut. He moved to Travelers (where he met Jennifer) and after 6 years left to work as an IT consultant. A year later he left the consulting firm to join a friend as Vice President of Infosys Inc. of CT. He spent 6+ years in that position consulting 2 years at General Electric in Bridgeport and 4+ years at Cigna. Bob accepted a full time position at Cigna and at the same time Jennifer started her business as a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). Deacon Bob is currently director of the Software Engineering Systems Large Systems Group at Cigna.
He has 2 sisters Jane St. Pierre(Rocky Point, NY) and Colleen Eddy(Parrish FL). He has 3 brothers, Bill(Galway,Ireland), Mike(Avon, CT) and John(Medway, CT). Their parents, Bill and Jane, and a sister (Kathleen Rose) are all deceased.
When asked when he first became interested in becoming a deacon, Deacon Bob had this to say, “when my parents passed in 1994 within 2 months of each other I began to look to become more spiritual. I first started thinking about becoming a deacon a few years after that when Fr. Pilon, the pastor of St. Patrick at that time, suggested to me I should look into it. I inquired but at the time they were looking for people who had more involvement in the Church and I only had taught 8th grade CCD. I thought at the time that was God telling me it wasn't my calling. However, over the next several years I had more people approach me about it and felt maybe this was God talking through others. I thought about it for awhile and discussed it with Deacon Bill Farrell. Bill was a big factor for me since I admired all the service he has done and is doing. It still took a few years of discernment before I reapplied”. Bob goes on to describe his calling;
“after my parents died I went on a retreat and then took a "Life in the Spirit' seminar with my wife. This helped build my spiritual life and as a friend recently told me, it helped 'raise my antenna' to be aware of God's calling. It wasn't like God came and talked to me through a burning bush but He did use others to get His message across. My wife Jennifer was extremely supportive and I feel, one of God's messengers”.
The program is 5 years in length explains Bob. “The first year of Aspirancy is spent helping discern if we are truly being called. Our wives joined us for the classes and they had several deacons and their wives come talk to us about what to expect. Years 2 through 5 are primarily academic with term papers, quizzes, tests and final exams. However, we pulled together study groups and helped each other get through the work. I felt it was well put together with classes on the Bible, social justice, the liturgy, spirituality,homiletics and several practicums on the Mass, baptisms, funerals and weddings. Each September we had a retreat at Holy Family as part of the program, which in our case bonded us together where we became brothers rather than just classmates. Our final year was primarily focused on homiletics”.
His first impressions as a Deacon at St. Patrick are that, “there are so many parishioners doing things that go unnoticed, helping set up the church for Mass, traveling to the nursing homes to bring the Holy Eucharist, making garments for the baptisms and many more. Seeing this helps bolster my faith and I thank God for assigning me to St. Patrick parish. When asked what his hardest duty is so far, Bob responds that it is “preparing and giving homilies, although I hope in the future I become much better at it”.
You can contact Deacon Bob bob.barry@yahoo.com