1. Prologue - Leave And Go

March 2011

“Leave your country, your family and your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1)

I’m kneeling in the sanctuary of Thurles Cathedral and the above line of Scripture comes back to me – God calling Abram, sending him to an unknown place. In this sanctuary I was ordained 31 years ago. In this Cathedral I sat waiting for Confession in the warm half-light of Saturday nights as a student.

God has used Thurles in the past to call, to draw me to Himself. And I feel He is doing it now, again on this March evening 2011. It’s as if my boat has already been launched from this familiar shore and is moving in the direction of a new horizon that is unknown to me. 

“Leave…and go…” – the call of Abram has always enthralled me, found deep resonance in that nomadic part of my spirit. The mystery of the unknown that seduces the wanderer. My mother often called me Siddhartha after the character in the novel by Herman Hesse. She saw in me the searcher, the wanderer.

 At the age of 56 I am coming to the end of something and have absolutely no idea what the future holds for me. It is almost as if I have no future, only a present, this present time.

For 21 years I have served on the Provincial Council of the Irish (Mother of Divine Love) Province of the Pallottines and for the past 6 years I have been Provincial with responsibility for the Pallottines in Ireland, UK, Rome, Argentina, USA, Tanzania and Kenya. It is a mission that has indulged my love for flying, long distance flying. More importantly, it is a mission that has forged connections between others lives and mine, connections of heart and mind, connections that I dearly cherish. It has been a labour of love, a messy labour and a beautiful one. And it is coming to an end on April 30.

God is telling me to leave and go in faith to the place of His choosing, a place that will be revealed to me by my successor. In this there is opportunity and freedom.

I have MY plan and it involves a sabbatical year and I hope it will be allowed. First I want to go home to rest and get ready. I also want to make the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in Spain, a 500 mile walk and in doing it I want to learn again how to travel light, how to walk in a relaxed manner into the life God has prepared, along that path of delight that He will show me (Psalm 16).

In departure I will decide what to leave behind and what to take with me. There is dust to be shaken from my feet, an abundance of rich experiences as well as my compromises and failures to be left behind. Only what is essential will come with me.

This might be my last big chance to live life as it should be lived – positively and without compromising who I am meant to be; the man, Pallottine, priest that God created me to be.