Phil Bennenbroek

My name is Phil Bennenbroek and I am 38 years old. I grew up in a Catholic family in a small rural town called Pokeno, just south of Auckland in New Zealand. I studied electronics and computer technology and worked in New Zealand for 11 years before doing my “O.E” (Overseas Experience) in London for three and a half years. While there, I worked as a software developer and lived in a lay Augustinian community, which is where I got my first taste of community life with all its joys and challenges.

When I returned to NZ in 2006, I started my own business as an I.T. contractor, then, in 2007, moved into the Catholic Discipleship College community in Auckland where I worked part time. It was during this year that I began to discern more closely the possibility of a vocation in the Priestly or Religious life which had been on my mind for many years, and in particular of joining the Society of Mary and becoming a Marist Priest.

I entered the Marist Seminary in Auckland at the start of 2008, then in January 2009 went to the Philippines for my novitiate year. I was professed into the Society of Mary on 25 March 2010 in the Philippines and have now returned to Auckland to continue my studies.

Philip lights a candle at his first profession