ORANGE — The Catholic priesthood is not a career, but rather a vocation, and one does not simply retire from it and live off savings and Social Security. Still, the Rev. Shaun O’Connor is stepping away from administrative duties and leaving St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, where he has served as the priest for nearly seven years.

“I’ve enjoyed it. It’s a nice community, great folks. And it’s been a real pleasure to be here,” he said on Monday. “We’ve done a lot of great projects ourselves and with some of the other churches in town.”

O’Connor, 70, started at St. Mary’s in November 2017, having been transferred from Most Holy Redeemer Church in Hadley. He will celebrate his final Mass on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

“It’s a very nice parish community,” he said. “People have a great sense of community and involvement and they’re very keen to take part in parish life.”

O’Connor, who was ordained in 1982, is also retiring from Elms College in Chicopee, where he taught classes to men aspiring to become Catholic deacons. He will be replaced at St. Mary’s by the Rev. Mark Glover.

O’Connor has a passion for genealogy and he plans to spend his retirement traveling broadly, including to places connected to this family’s history. His father’s history is Irish and his mother’s side is Scottish and French Canadian, with ties to the founding of Montreal centuries ago. He previously told the Greenfield Recorder he was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and moved at the age of 5 with his family to Daytona Beach, Florida.

Although O’Connor grew up attending church on Sundays, he said he never thought much about his faith until he was in middle school and a close friend died from injuries sustained in a car crash. This made him start thinking about life’s meaning, so he began to more closely read the Bible and ponder his purpose in the world. After high school, he attended the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., and then Graduate Theological University and the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.