Father Y. David Brault – who achieved one of his dreams as a priest when he became the founding pastor of a parish, Our Lady of the Presentation in Poolesville, Maryland, in 1992 – died on Dec. 21, 2024 at the age of 77. He died at the Saint John XXIII Residence for Priests in Hyattsville, where he was in hospice care.
The priest had retired in 2023 after serving in recent years as the pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Father Brault, a native of Quebec, Canada who grew up in Ontario, was ordained as a priest of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington in 1977 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, and he served as a priest of the archdiocese for 47 years. In his early years as a priest, he served as a parochial vicar at three Maryland parishes – Sacred Heart in La Plata, Sacred Heart in Bowie and Holy Redeemer in Kensington.
Then in 1991, Father Brault was assigned to start a Catholic mission in Poolesville, and the next year he became the founding pastor of Our Lady of the Presentation Parish there.
“It was the fulfillment of one of my dreams,” Father Brault said in a 1977 interview for an article marking his 40th anniversary as a priest. He said that he remembered “sharing with my classmates, that I hoped that I would get the opportunity as a priest to found a parish.”
In doing so, he was following the legacy of his mother’s late cousin, one of many members of his family in Canada who became priests or entered religious life.
“I grew up with a lot of vocations in the family,” he said, noting that five of his great uncles were priests, and five of his great aunts were women religious. In his mother’s generation, a number of cousins, men and women, were in religious life, and her eldest sister was a Benedictine nun.
The tragic death of one of his mother’s cousins, a young priest who died in a snowmobile accident in 1965, especially influenced the future Father Brault.
“I had just turned 17. That put an active bug in my mind,” he said, noting that the priest was very pastoral and had visited their family home. One month before his death by drowning, that priest had participated in the dedication of a church for a parish that he had founded that was named for the Canadian Martyrs.
Before his ordination as a priest for the Archdiocese of Washington, Father Brault studied at St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, and at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Reflecting on his service as the founding pastor of Our Lady of the Presentation Parish, Father Brault noted that the new parish’s name reflected the desire by Cardinal James Hickey, then the archbishop of Washington, to complete the joyful mysteries of the rosary after the establishment one year earlier of the nearby Our Lady of the Visitation Parish in Darnestown.
The pioneer parishioners in Poolesville pitched in, setting up chairs and the altar for weekend Masses at the town’s elementary school, and in 2001, their own Our Lady of the Presentation Church was dedicated. Father Brault praised the small town spirit, deep faith and sacrifice among parishioners that helped build that church.
“We were a small community. The bond of faith was there, nurtured by the common goal to worship the Lord and eventually have our own parish church… We were able to build a vibrant community of faith,” he said.
Father Brault said a similar spirit animated the establishment in 1994 of Mary of Nazareth School in Darnestown, a regional school sponsored by seven upper Montgomery County parishes, including Our Lady of the Presentation. “Everybody was making an act of faith,” said Father Brault, one of that school’s founding pastors.
After leading the mission and then the parish at Our Lady of the Presentation Parish for 12 years, Father Brault served as the pastor of St. Mary’s of Piscataway Parish in Clinton, Maryland, from 2003 until 2011, when he became the pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish in Silver Spring.
Reflecting on the importance of parish schools, Father Brault noted how parishioners support the work of sowing the seeds of faith in new generations of schoolchildren.
“You’re given the opportunity to weave the story of the Lord in the lives of kids,” said Father Brault.
In that interview for his 40th anniversary as a priest, Father Brault said he remembered how his family members and friends supported him on the way to ordination, and how he was sustained over the years by the witness of the priests he served with and by the people he served. Father Brault said his daily walk from the rectory through the church to the parish offices reminded him that his work was centered on serving the Lord, and he was conscious of all the blessings that he experienced along the way.
The founding Father of Our Lady of the Presentation Parish will be prayed for at a vigil at that Poolesville church on Thursday Jan. 2, from 3 to 7 p.m., with a Vigil Mass there at 7 p.m. A second vigil for Father Brault will be held on Friday Jan. 3 at St. John the Baptist Church in Silver Spring from 3 to 7 p.m., with a Vigil Mass there at 7 p.m. Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory will be the main celebrant at a Mass of Christian Burial for Father Brault on Saturday Jan. 4 at 11 a.m. at St. John the Baptist Church, and interment will follow at Gate of Heaven Cemetery at 2:30 p.m.
