The holy spirit amen Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy wom Jesus holy Mary Mother of God and our mother pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name
Of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen what’s up are you guys welcome back to Fireside with fathers uh tonight we have our second Irish Dominican that we’ve interviewed on Fireside with fathers father Conor mcdna who I think you’re month older than me or younger than me I’m April 8th
1986 yeah you’re younger yeah okay so I knew there was something in there where uh we’re the same age um very different backgrounds as far as getting to the priesthood which I love I think that’s so beautiful I I I think there’s you know the the diversity in like stories
And Vocational stories are so important and um I always try to like see if we can get more more wider ranges of stories not just all about like you know maybe dark destruction to light um sometimes there’s even you know different there’s obviously different paths but uh first of all thank you so
Much father Connor for slotting Us in there to uh to give your interview hopefully this is the first of a couple um because I kind of want to get as much out of you as I can uh you guys are doing massive work my third Dominican
That I have on the radar is Father John Harris I kind of want to Pepper him with questions as to like what happened to these Dominicans in Ireland um we have we have a good Community like following us in Span like Spain they speak English but uh they would have a different
Impression of Dominicans and they’ve always told me like when they hear that there’s there’s like real Dominicans somewhere they they get U they get very excited so we have that lined up as well hopefully we’ll get the story behind the Irish Dominicans but uh first of all
Thanks father Conor for taking the time to come on um it’s great to have you uh we had a comment just starting the show um I don’t know who comments I really don’t know the names they’re just usually YouTube usernames um we’ll call them you in whatever just for you know
Conversation sake he was asking us like he’s like what the heck you guys doing uh you know talking about inward vocational stories you know like we should be addressing what’s going on in the a strip there it is is putting up there uh you know looking in where that
Vocational sharings can you not get real um isn’t that why No One Believes much in the church thing the Bin’s waiting for this one so basically this isn’t a real thing this is kind of just you know we’re talking about inward experiences and has nothing to do with
Reality I thought this was a very perfect sparking question so uh thank you Yan for that um I think it Sparks us because this is so real um this is conversion um the best we can be doing right now for not only the situation in Palestine the whole world because look
You could have another person asking me how come you’re not talking about Bishop Strickland and what’s going on in the church and like oh man like everything’s going upside down you guys should be talking about that look everybody’s talking about that everybody’s talking about the Middle East I understand but
Um the best thing I think we can be doing for the world right now uh and and for your own soul yesterday’s gospel was the you know we got to be awake your own soul you could the in the night could come after you so the best thing you can
Be doing is your own personal conversion and uh these are little nuggets of nutrition father Conor like I mean I think people really need um spiritual nutrition we’re just we’re we’re stuffing ourselves with so much stuff on a daily basis so much stuff is coming in
And it’s going into the heart and I don’t think people are walking away with spiritual nutrition so look it’s your story so I mean you you can even you were just in the Holy Land I mean like you’re one of those Irish people that
Was over there yeah so I I I was there with a group of 52 pilgrims and first of all can I just say thanks so much for having me it’s really great that you’re doing this here I love how you’re building Community through through this platform and people need Fraternity in
The Irish Church they need fellowship and the interet isn’t a perfect place to do it but it’s great that you do it on the internet um and I know what it is really valuable to people so thanks for doing it um so yeah I was over in the
Holy land and I’m coming back you know I was really powerfully aware at you know some of the small things that were bothering me how how insignificant they were in relation to the huge events that are going on over there the huge suffering the big questions that are to
Be asked um but I think you know you gave me that question before the before we went live and and one thing that came to mind is the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings which sounds like a crazy kind of a starting point um but if you think
Of the hobbits there um they’re not kind of people who play a big role in history necessarily they’re not thinking about all of these political questions they’re not active in that world but what are they they’re they’re faithful in small things and in this story these are the
Ones who end up defeating evil that’s kind of the message of the Lord of the Rings is that it’s small people who are faithful in small things and who live good Lives who end up conquering um evil which looked completely unconquerable um so for me I mean you you said this is
The the most real thinking about the action of Grace in our lives that’s where things get really really real and sometimes thinking about bigl IAL questions which we should do we should be active in politics we should be active in in protesting and standing up for justice in all kinds of different
Ways but sometimes it can be an escape it sometimes it can be a way to to look away from myself look away from from what’s going on in my life by being absorbed in politics and so it’s no harm every so often to kind of just think a
Little bit about the action of God in one person’s life and what that might say about the lives of of everybody who’s gathered here this evening um so yeah so it’s it’s a real privilege for me to to be here with you to do that and
I mean you were you were literally there when when the strike happened so I mean father Connor is probably one of the last you know I don’t know pilgrims for a while I was there a month before you just a month yeah literally a month before the whole thing so we’re very
Privileged but uh I was I was saying before your vocation story um it’s it’s yeah it’s a lot different did you grow up in um let’s say a Catholic Family what kind of environment did you start off in yeah so I mean it was it was
Really in many ways it was an ideal environment um you know Mom and Dad had Faith um the you know the Lord was kind of a welcome presence in the family home I wouldn’t say we were an exceptionally Pious there’s that’s me playing Jesus um
In an nativity play at home so that was the first time I was in Persona Christie um so we you know I wouldn’t say it was overly Pious we definitely I mean I never served Mass growing up or anything like that we weren’t hugely involved in the parish but I think partly through
Things like the charismatic renewal maybe you know my mom especially was somebody who was actively reading scripture actively living a life of prayer and kind of witnessing to to the Lord in different ways evangelizing there she is there with the three the three young ones and Damon my little
Brother there um in our arms and my sister and Marie um but my mom breida yeah so she was she was kind of evangelizing all the time and when I was a teenager it was kind of a bit embarrassing because she’d be like evangelizing people in shops and
Different things like this but I mean always doing it in a really sensitive way looking back she’s an extraordinary gift for that um but so Mom would it would be normal for Mom to be reading scripture at home and her Bible is just the most well-used Bible you’ve ever
Seen just full of notes means so much to her the word of God she knows it far better than I do I should say recently she was she was talking about something and I said Mom where are you getting that from I’ve never heard that before
And she just looked at me and she says Connor have you not read second mccabes and I was like oh okay may maybe I missed that there you know she was dead right um so the faith was there um it was a real blessing my dad as well you
Know he he has he has great faith as well which has been tested you know like in Every Family Life tested by different tragedies and and maybe you might say kind of a quieter sort of a faith but very very real that’s our that’s our family there I was laughing at this so
This is it looks like it’s one of those posed photographs to show kind of chaos going on in the family but that was we were actually trying to take a good picture and and that’s that’s how it ended up so big gang of us there um but
So with Dad I mean I remember going in even to churches uh just as a small kid and just seeing that kneeling in prayer and just how significant that was for me and I just remember one moment in particular but I mean just in general to
Seek dad kneeling at prayer not only in the church but also at home and whenever we prayed the rosary at home dad would always kneel um and it was such a great thing to to witness that so like I said the faith was very real at home but I
Never had any sense that it was oppressive either um and I think it was probably still a time when it was fairly normal to be C Catholic in Ireland um fairly normal to be going to mass um it wasn’t kind of that strange a thing there was you know a little bit of
Slagging from kind of friends and teammates at different times about you know being practicing or or you know praying myself or whatever it might be but it was still relatively normal and it meant that the family didn’t it didn’t it wasn’t like we had to be super countercultural I never really felt like
We were being countercultural and it was kind of we were still mainstream this was the late 2000s and early like late 90s early 2000s um and uh yeah so it was it was kind of a pretty relaxed but very committed Catholic home that I grew up
In and that was a real a real privilege for me how many brothers and sisters do you have so I have four brothers and one sister um and now I think there’s 17 grandchildren as well so it’s a big big big noisy noisy family you mentioned so you mentioned teammates um you would
Have grown up so cuz usually I mean priests wouldn’t be associated with I don’t know athletic or normal boys you hear it all the time yeah like if if you know the priest was into sports so you would have you would have grown up in I
Mean playing sports was it g yeah yeah playing like every every sport possible so and we played I mean Athletics was ended up being my big thing at like 100 meters 200 meters um but you know we played golf we were right next to a golf
Course so we used to play golf in the summer H we played tennis in the summer as well we were no good at that but we tried and then we were very involved in G in in football especially we had an amazing uh football team um uh so we had
A reunion actually of our football team we won the all Ireland under 14 the phala which is like it was when you’re under 14 that’s like as serious as your life will ever get I think in terms of sport and and so to win the old irelands
At that stage I mean it was downhill from there um but it was that was great achievement so we had a reunion of the team um and and actually I think maybe you guys know the guy one of the guys who was managing that team um Sean
Armstrong who was you know such a blessing to us so actually I remember I mentioned kind of getting a bit of bullying for prayer I remember the whole team went to mass um and one of the guys in particular was kind of slagging me for kind of kneeling after receiving
Communion and I remember looking around and um just kind of not knowing what to do I looked around and there was Sean uh kneeling really just prayerful really devout um and I I I just thought like you know I don’t really care about uh the slagging anymore you know I know I’m
On the right track here and so it was a real blessing to be at his funeral God Rest them and and yeah but in any case that that under 14 team uh and and throughout all the way up and was was a really really great team we had hurling
Team as well we were no good at hurling there was like division a b and c and we were in c special and so we weren’t really good but we had so much fun playing hurling and just made great friendships as well it was it was the
Best and lots of other sports as well but yeah I was very very active kind of teenage years tons of sport and then tons of reading as well I’d say I loved study I loved learning loved science loved all that kind of stuff I was what
I was just about to ask you what would have been your expertise or where did you start going as far as school goes or like see I loved like the art and I loved the Sciences I just loved I loved kind of everything pretty much the one
Thing I was no good at was business studies or accountancy and that’s like all my family they’re all accountants and I have just zero interest I’m in the right job you know thousand of poverty no bank account um uh so you know I had no interest in that at all but
Everything else I loved I loved history I loved literature I loved uh physics I loved chemistry all that kind of stuff and then you know by the time we came to the leaving search I had to kind of start thinking about what I was going to
To focus on and in the end I decided to focus on the Sciences um and I I did all Sciences for my leave inser so physics chemistry biology applied maths um and and then the languages as well but yeah um so I went to kind of the scientific
Route um and ended up then starting off a science degree uh in England at the age of 17 um so that was kind of my my route but I at the same time I loved um I loved reading about my faith and when I was growing up in my teenage years I
Had huge doubts about my faith I should have mentioned that as well that I’d real had real doubts about lots of the controversial topics um that people question me about now as a priest like when I was a teenager I was raging about this or that issue and annoyed
About this or just you know big doubts and one thing that happened to me that was an immense blessing and this is why I’m so glad you’re using the internet for good when I was um when I would ask my teachers these questions these hard questions that I had they wouldn’t treat
Them seriously they wouldn’t really even try to answer them they would joke about them they would say oh ask Mr so and so you know he loves hard questions but then I found an online Forum run by EWTN um and you were able to post your questions into the um into the whatever
The Forum and they would be answered on a Friday by a theologian with a doctorate in theology it was an amazing service like I mean it was incredible um so I be so excited to get like my real questions and real questions answered by real experts it was it was a blessing so
When I was like 15 around that age I would do that and then I started to discover St Thomas aquinus and I don’t know if people know St Thomas aquinus he’s kind of one of the great theologians of the church really prolific writer Dominican frier 13th
Century he was living and um one of his Major Works is called the sum theologia and H I found it online and it’s still there on the same website it’s amazing like you know over like whatever I don’t know how many more than 20 years later the same website new
Advent yeah it has it there so that was the website I found it on and I would read it and I would realize oh my gosh there is such richness here such beauty this is rigorous stuff it’s not made up it’s not arbitrary there you go there’s
The summer um it’s not arbitrary it’s not just um kind of childish or infantile um there’s something serious here that requires real thought and that other people have thought about very seriously and the great thing about Thomas acquaintance is he’s always asking questions he’s not like throwing answers at you he’s always asking
Questions he’s always thinking about objections to the faith and he takes those objections seriously he’s not just preaching at you all the time he’s a real thinker um and I realized okay maybe I understood about 10% of what he was saying because sometimes he uses technical terminology but I just
Realized there’s something really deep here and something I can learn more about and I realized okay I’ve got questions I’ve got doubts but that’s not the end of my faith that’s just a starting point for questioning how old were you when you first tapped into St
Thomas aquinus I 15 I was around 15 and yeah but like I said it was it wasn’t something that I understood a great deal of um but it was just more kind of a sense of okay there’s there’s there’s something and the Catholic encyclopedia as well that was on the same website and
I remember like reading articles taking notes we had a little computer room people don’t have computer rooms now but I had a computer room uh at home and the computer screen would just load like that slow you know and um i’ just be there taking notes and um and and trying
To learn a bit more about my faith um but it was motivated by like anxiety and a real concern um you know is this true um and so there was that kind of intellectual Journey that was going on but at the same time there was a bit of
A journey in prayer as well and and I remember especially I mean it happened occasionally but but especially after like one night out where we went out like it was I don’t know if this is a thing that many people experience now but there were these like youth disco
Kind of things out in country areas that we would go out to like we were in gway city in Sal Hill and we would all get on a bus and go out there and everybody just go absolutely nuts um and I remember coming back from one of those
And like just the kind of the sound still ringing in my ears and it had just been a night of kind of disappointment um but um yeah so I I I just remember sitting down in my room turning off the lights sitting down on the floor and
Just turning to God In Prayer um and and just asking the Lord for for guidance but just really saying Lord I’m actually really unsatisfied with what I have been hoping for so I’ve been hoping for all these different things all these different experiences and I found them profoundly unsatisfying and this desire
Then for something greater was growing in my heart and so I and I had some beautiful experiences in prayer I’d really encourage people listening don’t rush away from prayer like take your time sometimes I would sit in silence for a long time didn’t know what to say
Didn’t really know what to do but those moments of just sitting and you know I didn’t have a smartphone so that was a blessing people have that challenge now um but just sitting in silence in the darkness with the Lord on my own and sometimes with like a verse of scripture
You know something that my mom might have shared with me a line from a Sam whatever just going around my head those are some really powerful intimate moments with God that really kind of set me up um and I realized okay God is real
God is God is acting in my life um he’s speaking to me um in a way that that you know it gives me life so that was it’s encouraging because you’re a normal Irish youth um you know what everything you just describe there I mean your mom
And dad are giving me the impression they’re a bit extraordinary in the sense that like you know they were they had a very powerful Faith so not surprised that these seeds were like were slipping through the cracks and getting in there um but like you kind of went through the
The Irish upbringing I mean the 15-year-old Searcher as well that’s very encouraging to hear as well I think we have them I think they’re just so scared of the peer pressure yeah sometimes we have we get that sensation when we’re in the classrooms that you do have them and
It’s usually like the ga heads you know like the boys that are kind of like taking the mick out of everything those lives would kind of have more of a powerful but they’re there and it’s it’s encouraging to see that you know like you said you know they can just put it
Into to Google and they can kind of search for it you said you went to England um yeah well I just follow up on that because I I go in and give talks in schools and I I see exactly what you’re saying there are people searching and there are people who are dissatisfied
With what is currently being offered to them um and I get so excited because these people wait after that class and they have more questions and they want to talk more and they say what did you mean by this and sometimes they’re reading amazing stuff like I mean and
Not everybody but I mean I remember I was giving a talk in a school a while back and a kid came up to me and said I’m reading Dante at the moment I’m reading the the comedy by Dante and and I I’m interested in Reading ainus to
Help me understand Dante and I was like yeah you should um you know and and he but he was a normal Irish guy and you would never have guessed that this kid was reading and I say his friends probably didn’t no I3 know but any there
You go so you you have experiences like that of people who are um who are really searching and I definitely recognize myself in them um and I’m always encouraging people like read this book check out this website listen to this podcast and and there are great resources available now there were not
Great resources available when you and I were growing up father Luke you know not as much as there are now there’s so much good stuff so much bad stuff so much good stuff if you have like a nose for it and a hunger for it yeah that’s great that’s so encouraging to
Hear um yeah sorry to to cut you off there but I was just uh you got so you got into England uh do you want to get into more detail of where you were so I was I was 17 um I you know when I was at school I was really interested in
Science as I mentioned and I just heard you know well you know Cambridge is a great place to study science and and I was you know 16 years old you know my school had never sent anyone there we had no tradition of that um but I just
Said you know I said to my physics teacher I was almost really embarrassed to be honest to even mention it to him but he was incredible Mr Healey he was just such a great support to me if it wasn’t for him I would never have applied I would never have gone there so
I got in um and when I finished my leave ins search I moved over to that like that college right there Kings College I lived in like if you can see um the background of that uh of that photo that’s where I lived um and at the big
Chapel uh like I would go there every even you know an evening every week one of the best choirs in the world would sing even song There Anglican Anglican Vespers and I used to read there and it was like the most incredible thing to live in that place and have my meals
There and but the great thing was Community um so we had in the Catholic chapy which is about five minute walk from there I found a really strong Community there so I had I was doing science I was focusing really hard on my studies uh I met loads of people who
Didn’t believe like more than in Ireland a lot more people who are kind of actively opposed never been exposed to the Catholic faith and I suddenly realized I was a bit different and I remember people used to call me like oh that’s Irish Catholic Connor you know
Like that it suddenly became part of my identity because I was unusual for the fact that I was going to maass and and I never thought of myself as Catholic Connor I was just like I’m I’m just Connor you know um so going to Cambridge
Meant that I had to make a decision well is this something I’m actually committed to um and I got involved in the Catholic chapy I’d really encourage people they’re in college to get stuck in even if things aren’t perfect in their chapes get stuck in get involved find
Brotherhood find Fellowship there um it it’ll really make a difference to your college Years and it made a difference to mine so um I mean we in the Catholic chapy we do have mass every day at one o’clock after that we’d have lunch which cost a p50 for like sandwiches and c and
All this kind of stuff there was a bar once a week um where it was a pound a pint um and 50p for a whiskey so like like that was pretty popular night as well and we’d have social events and we would have a rosary so that big Chapel
That you saw there King’s College Chapel but after even song when all the tourists would leave there would be maybe five of us in that Chapel I would I would be given the keys and we would kneel in front of this painting by Peter Paul Rubin um of the Nativity and we
Would pray the rosary we had a little Rosary group every week in that huge Chapel just a small group praying the rosary is the most beautiful thing we had a vocations discernment group called consider your call we we set it up ourselves because we were like yeah we
Want to discern our vocations we want to figure out learn more about marriage learn more about the single life learn more about religious life learn more about D A and priesthood so just big gang of us used to get together we used to pray complant together we used to
Have praise and worship in each other’s rooms kind of spontaneous stuff it wasn’t like this was all organized for us we didn’t have Focus or anything like that you know it was it was pretty spontaneous um and pretty hit and miss that’s a group of us there who went and
A retreat in a Benedictine Monastery and and some of my best friends I’m I’m in there some oh I’m on the right hand side some of those people are my my my very best friends now um and um one of them kneeling down the front there is a
Consecrated virgin um in the arch diis of s and she’s in charge of divine renovation in the UK this Parish renewal program but at that stage we were all just trying to figure out figure out our calling figure out our vocation we’re all like you know 1920 but we were open
To whatever God wanted us to do that was really important we were very inspired I think all of us by John Paul II we were reading his writings um so we would we went in like a little reading holiday to Donny Gul and we used to actually act
Out his plays around a Turf fire I mean it sounds like something completely bizarre but it was really beautiful moment of friendship we were friends in search of Truth and wanting to live the best lives we could with God’s help and and uh so that that kind of friendship
Is rare and really precious but I found but it’s it’s a listen to it and I guarantee you that people like this goes back to what we said in the beginning father caral because this is this is the spirit like bursting out you know like
He is so creative and he’s so full of life and love and beauty and in a world where it’s just like it seems like that’s all suppressed like what you just said you know I’m I’m hoping people are listening to this and it’s just like an injection of Hope because it does exist
And maybe someone has it in their heart that they really want to break out of the mold and they would really love this kind of you know and you never know like this is what Tes about you know you’re saying it look this is this happened to
Me and this is the reaction and um hopefully people are getting you know inspired I’m what I’m surprised about is like you know I would just think Cambridge you know science England that would just be the complete opposite you know you go there to just lose everything and you know like you know
The whole thing like now it’s now we’ve got science obviously you hear that all the time you know like oh now father yeah I don’t uh I don’t believe in you know Faith it’s like I believe in science you know that’s the whole kind of argument you know and I know you’re
Going I’ve heard one of your talks on that yeah well that’s why I’m here in Newbridge I’m not in my own room I’m in Newbridge College because tomorrow I’m giving that talk three times and to different year groups here about science and Faith Catholic faith and how they
Work together and and how the church has been a really good friend of Science and actually The Day After Tomorrow is the Feast of St Albert the Great a Dominican Theologian and scientist like he was a pioneering scientist and he was just amazed at everything he saw in the
Natural world rocks plants animals a lot and he actually said at one point um even the entrails of worms give glory to God and and I really felt that when I was studying physics especially I was like everything I see her I I mean there
Were times when I really wanted to be an atheist I really tried hard for moral reasons in other words I thought if I can get rid of God I can just do what everyone else is doing I don’t have to make these hard choices and I’m not
Making out that I was living an incredibly saintly life you know I was making all the mistakes that everybody makes um but you know I wanted to get rid of God out my life at certain times and it it was actually science and my studies that made me realize I can’t get
Rid of him like he’s there you know I mean it’s this is the truth and I would be shutting my eyes to the beauty of the world like that’s what I would have to do in order to reject God and I can’t do that and so even though it was sometimes
Awkward for me and for the kind of the life I wanted to live um at the time um I just I just couldn’t deny that truth so science actually in some ways you could say it kind of saved my faith and that’s beautiful I mean I would say a
Lot of people would declare themselves young people I mean I always would say that the lads especially you know these younger guys that they’re they’re like atheists you know I’d say that they’ve done a bit more research than than Albert Einstein because he could never he never declared himself an open
Atheist maybe agnostic maybe he was you know unsure about like his own you know Jewish roots in the Bible and everything but he just saw too much Harmony and he saw too much order and he said it would be you know almost I’m paraphrasing but just like it would require more faith to
Believe that this all came from chaos than to believe that it came from an intelligence you know you’re asking me to believe something more difficult the probabilities are just and it’s like it’s beautiful I mean he just wants us to discover and unlock these secrets and just find out how massive and and
Unbelievable intelligent he is and at the same time we better our lifestyle we better ourselves you know science is I love it like I love the whole when you really yeah when you really have faith and you really see what the whole plan is it just it is beautiful so I mean
Thanks be to God I think I think there’s something to be said for there um yeah definitely especially the times we’re living in now so you made it out of Cambridge uh at what what stage did you feel maybe the little prinkl tickle of a maybe a possible
Vocation yeah I mean I guess it was there so um I mean I I was looking at my old copy books from school um my mom got them out from from from hiding somewhere um and there like when I was 8 years old I remember my my grand had given me a
Book called 6 Saints for boys and I reading the lives of the Saints I was really inspired by monastic Saints St Benedict St CPR like they were my they were my favorite I think also because St C was my birthday it was the same day as my birthday and Benedict was like the
Day after so I just thought these guys are my guys um so I actually remember like writing stories and I found them in a copy book of like designing the monastery that I was going to live in when I when I grew up and like this is
This is where the library is going to be this is where the chapel was going to be now obviously I’m not a I’m not a benedic monk I’m I’m a Dominican frier and in the meantime in those teenage years the priesthood wasn’t really a major feature of my my thinking or my my
Self- understanding wasn’t really a feature it really came out in in my University years through conversations with friends so that includes friends who are non-believers I just realized actually I love these conversations with them I love hearing their doubts I love um you know kind of uh sharing the
Gospel with them in whatever way I can praying for for them praying with them at times um I mean that happened occasionally that friends who had no faith would say look can I come to mass with you H I just want to I just want to
You know reach out to God somehow and I just love those moments you know bringing people to the Lord somehow or being something of a bridge and then also in my conversations with friends who had very strong faith so like those people you’re looking at there now
Hannah that she’s the girl I mentioned so she’s a consecrated virgin in the in the Ares of sou she was a very strong friend of the faith and guy on my left there um is now father Philip Thomas who’s in the community of St John in
London and out of our year group there’s like there’s four Dominicans from our year group in Cambridge um and a capan frier and all these different people so in any case we were challenging each other we were asking each other what are we going to do with our lives you know
And so naturally we were asking ourselves about religious life about priesthood and we were getting to know so you just saw in the the earlier photo father Lawrence Lou Who was then a novice in in Cambridge and we used to go up to the Dominicans in Cambridge they
Would give us free food I mean that was always a good way to get students in breakfast after Mass on a Friday morning and you could have breakfast with the Dominican community and that was so cool it was like I don’t know it was like going behind the scenes or something
Like that on your favorite toe um and you could ask them questions I mean poor old old Dominicans probably just wanted to have like quiet breakfast but I’d be there saying okay let’s talk about Essence and existence you know um so the in any case I got to know the Dominicans
A little bit we had a little kind of Dominican you know prayer group if you like um just thinking about what what did what St Dominic was all about that was as a student and I got to know the Dominicans more and more and I suddenly realized you know the four pillars of
Dominican life are prayer study community and preaching and I just realized these are all you know they’re the pillars of my life I love sharing the gospel I know that I need to spend time in prayer I know that I need to study in order to do this well I know
That I have this friendship group around me which is like my support group as I go out and you know try to be an apostle in like basic ways um and I just said this is what I feel I was made to do this is you know I just feel like I was
Made to do this with my whole life um and it was kind of that awareness it wasn’t necessarily an intensely Supernatural moment um but it was a kind of a progressive awareness over time there were little Supernatural signs there were little kind of Winks from Heaven um that kind of confirmed me or
Nudged me along the way because I took my time I was me our vocations director for three years I worked as a teacher after leaving University and I’m really glad I did it was very important for me to do that work to gain like experience about how to you know how to interact
With um uh with young people uh how to communicate all that kind of stuff um but I um yeah so I I I was meeting our vocations director for a long time um and I was learning about the Dominican Saints uh learning just reading all kinds of Dominican literature and I just
Always I just kept feeling more and more this is what I was made to do with my whole life and I felt ready to enter also I got to know young Dominicans and this is something I would encourage people if you’re interested in Discerning a vocation if you’re well one
Old old Dominican sister said to me in Cambridge he says whatever you do whatever Community you join do not join the community of Perpetual discernment um and I think that’s a really good point because sometimes people say yeah I’m Discerning I’m Discerning religious life and the question always then is
Well how are you how are you discerning great to be praying about it great to be reading your scripture on your own but are you actually what we might say going on dates in other words are you actually spending time with a religious community intentionally are you actually getting
To know the Saints of a particular Community or a particular tradition in the church um because it’s then that Things become concrete H and you actually come to the point of making a decision with the Lord um so there’s St Dominic um he’s our man we’ve we’ve
Loads loads of Dominican saints that I really just fell in love with um and and that that was that was really important to me it was that that period of um of of going on Livin getting to know the young Dominicans and the old Dominicans so I remember meeting like one guy
Father Ned um when I was on a living and he was he was then about 90 um maybe he was even younger than that because he died at the age of 99 just about uh two years ago so he um was asking me questions that were new questions to him
Based on what I was saying about my studies in other words new questions were occurring to him at that age and he was still thinking about God in new ways at that age and I was thinking my gosh if I’m like that at the age of
808 or 89 or whatever I would have lived my life well you know and uh so it was a real privilege to to actually be with him when he died as well that that that wonderful man um so in any case that’s what kind of helped me come to um to
Actually make the decision to enter and I joined the Dominican order with 12 other guys in 2009 in Cork that’s where we always start off uh in Cork well no I’ve I’ve been I’ve been blown away as well by the Irish Dominicans I mean I mentioned the Dominicans in the
Beginning it would have been a a pocket like a particular pocket I’m thinking of in Spain which is just too bad because it’s just a bit the pillars that you’re speaking about you can see when they you know you kind of drift away from the pillars you kind of drift away from the
Charism and it’s just it doesn’t have the same you know you don’t the charism isn’t you know shown as it should be so I mean coming here to Ireland my my first impression of the the Dominicans you know first of all you see him you have the white habit which already gets
The attention you know it just calls your attention right away uh the rosary as well um I won’t go into too many details but yeah these particular ones I’m thinking about they wouldn’t you know they wouldn’t really even believe the rosary or uh St Thomas aquinus he’s
A bit kind of outdated so it’s kind of you can see if you if you start straining a bit from from these these massive charisms that you’ve received and these gifts it’s it’s extraordinary and I could see it you know as a young person now um especially if they’re kind
Of you know more inclined to just be the pondering in the Stu the studies and taking that so seriously it’s a beautiful vocation and uh I would really hope to see you know people hopefully listening to this to start asking that question you’re dead right like an active discernment um the Perpetual
Discernment is is so frustrating and you do come across it and they just they seem to just be going over it and over and over and they never make a decision and then 20 years later it’s the same thing you know actively check it out
Your case you can see the hand of God you know you already had that you know the draw towards that charism that you know you’re reading you’re looking you’re searching your mom has that evangelization kind of like embedded in the family um in community as well like
Obviously your prayer group there in in Cambridge is for me is is also very inspiring I really hope that’s inspiring for for other college students as well because you never know maybe someone’s just waiting to see something uh it’s just I had a buddy went to Loyola
University and he was dying to see something like because he you know he had this whole idea you know the Jesuits loyol it’s going to be great and he felt like that was the one thing he’s just really was lacking like just even if it was two or three more on campus I
Guarantee you they’re there yeah they’re there for sure and and I I remember first thing I would say is that I think things are better on Irish campuses now I mean miles better than they were 10 or 15 years ago and I know people and that’s kind of strange because people
Think are so used to think in terms of decline um but I think in terms of the faith and the community of the faith things are so much stronger than they were and I’d say I know a lot of people who had Faith who went to went to
College and never just never connected in that time let’s say 10 or 15 years ago never connected with the chaplaincy or with the Catholic Society or whatever it might be and just drifted through and and didn’t really grow in their faith on campus they might have been doing things
Apart from that but now you have got incredible things in in UCD for example um in Queens in Manu there are good things happening in UCC there’s great things happening and and just things popping up everywhere largely through the efforts of of focused missionaries but then just so many other good things
Happening apart from that as well um so I really see student ministry as a as something that’s really growing and I would encourage if anybody is in in in college who’s watching um just get involved and I’m so excited now because when people say to me let’s say you know
A mother might be anxious and says you know my son is or my daughter is is at College um and I’m kind of worried about their faith I ble to say to them which college are they at I’ll give you a number of somebody that they can go to
There’s a there’s a meeting that happens on a Monday night go to there um and that’s something I couldn’t have said you know five years ago which is really exciting well it makes sense these are the exciting times because demographics are what they are we just had a talk
There by David Quinn we had like a diois and assembly and we had you know whatever and he just he just basically just painted out like the way things are going this is what it’s going to look like in this number of years it’s just obvious the next 10 years you know 15
Years what this country she’s going to look like so the spirits and our lady I I’ve been seen I’ve only been here for 5 years but I’ve just seen like it’s it’s just been we’ve just turned up we just turned a throttle up in this country and
Uh you can see it like yeah you’re seeing it like you just mentioned um you have to get to these youth they’re the college students we’re in secondary schools it’s just what we’re we’re doing like in the dases but um I I have a huge
Thing in my heart to get into the you know the university ex just cuz you kind of like separate a bit from the peer pressure you kind of start thinking on your own yes there’s bigger decisions at play it’s it’s yeah makes such an important time it’s such an important
Time yeah and and like I said I just see it in my own life those few years with those very strong friends in the faith it was just utterly life-changing and I just realized more and more how I ow to that time um and you know we um St
Dominic was passionate about getting getting involved in universities when he sent out the friers from tulus he sent them mainly to University towns and you know the second master of the Dominican order bless the Jordan of Saxony he would go every lent he go like one lent
To Paris and the next lent he would go to Bologna and he would give a lent in mission in either of those two places every year because they were University towns um and you would just have tons of people leaving the universities coming to join the Dominicans bringing the best
Of university life with them and just going out on Mission wherever they went so there’s a real lovely Synergy for us between the world of universities and the world of evangelization for us they’re not like two completely opposed things they go together we have to be
There we have to I I totally 100% agree I was in it was a university chaplain I mean I was in a Catholic University I mean but I wasn’t really at all interested in living my faith but it was through University chaplain that that
Got me in and uh that’s the age and they really want to hear the authenticity they want to hear like the preaching as well you mentioned that I was converted by preaching um the homes it it was his this this priest homes were it was always like a story there’s always a lot
Of passion in it as well so you could see like he’s actually really actually believes what he’s talking about like you could you could see that this is something he actually lives you know it wasn’t it wasn’t just something like you know and uh and there was always
Something that had to do with the gospel which just uh it would cut through you and it would hit you like in a new way and uh that was hands down my conversion so I think we’re in the age of we need we need preachers you know and I think
People don’t go to mass anymore and I think they’re kind of writing it off but I I think we’ve dropped the ball there as well I just think they’ve been stale um preaching you know and you look at the Protestants in the States you know they’re you you’re easily spending 23
Hours preparing your Sunday hom because for them it’s the preaching and the music that keeps their mega church alive so it’s like people start flocking to another one you’re losing your commission like so it’s it’s all and they have some yeah I mean they’re just I mean it’s obviously it’s not all just
Like a an act but we do have to put more we have to put more import oh so much more like we’re so lazy I think we’re so lazy in communicating the faith and um and it’s just it’s it’s a bad culture of preaching in Ireland I remember I spoke
To one priest a guy I really like and and he I’ll tell you about that story in that picture in a minute that’s a really interesting picture but um the um and not just because of the fine mustache on the lad in front um so the the um the I
Got distracted by the mustache sorry uh so we were we were what was I saying about preaching exactly that we have a a kind of lazy culture of preaching um so I was talking to this priest and and he kind of said yeah BAS basically he says
He thinks every priest has about like you know three or four homilies in them and they just cycle through them like that’s that’s all like you just realize after while that’s all you’re doing and for me I just couldn’t understand that and again it was it was because I
Suppose living with with Dominicans who are so passionate about preaching of every stripe I mean they’re not all they’re not all thinking the same way they’re not all reading tons of things Thomas quaintness but they’re committed preachers and they will study the scriptures and they will prepare their
Homilies well and they will always have something to say um and as I said we’re not all perfect it’s not that we’re all amazing preachers but they take this task and this Grace seriously um and and and and I’ve never believed that that you know every Priestess has two or
Three homies and they just cycle through them no the word of God is alive and active if we are attentive to it we’ll find new things in it every single time we come around you know to to to preach on this or that gospel we always find
New things the word of God is life and active um and I think in Ireland we have this yeah we have a a failure to really appreciate the power of the word of God I think and there’s kind of a you know maybe an over Reliance on the sacraments
And not enough emphasis on on preaching as what prepares us to for the sacraments what helps us to participate fruitfully in the sacraments and so on yeah no and you can tell like if it’s it really goes back to prayer which is the other pillar is if because if this isn’t
Becoming alive in prayer you’re going to go up there and you’re just you’re not you’re going to only have two or three things really that you have in the you know just it has to be a living experience one-on-one with him in prayer it’s really him he’s given it to us like
And he’s opening up the scriptures for us and he’s he’s making the heart burn and uh like a priest that goes up there you know um bored or fed up with it you know I pray for him obviously it’s it is sad but um I don’t I don’t see how if a
Priest is really living his vocation how that you know how that can be a come of thing like not every priest is going to be extraordinary and unbelievable but they’re they’re words are anointed um and it really but it does have to happen that has to be that that previous step
There in prayer cuz if not it’s not it’s like the clanging gong I think but um yeah father Connor so there’s uh I think we’re going to get into your first mass here maybe your oration or getting into the well I was going to say the other
The other picture first just well no maybe the first mass the first mass first maybe and then I’ll go back to the other one because it was in it was in Iran H that other picture um so uh I don’t know which one they have they have
Ready to go but I can tell you tell you either story but we have the Dominicans have a church in in Iran um and and we no we no longer have a priest there and unfortunately we’re not able to have a priest there but going there as a deacon
For Holy Week um was just an extraordinary experience for me there they are there are the lads um and these guys are you know um they they they suffer for their faith um they they struggle it’s a very small Christian Community um but to hear that church full of people singing Allelujah on
Easter Sunday morning in the heart of a society that is not all that kind to them I mean Iran is full of amazing people the most beautiful hospitable people but the regime is not kind to them just to be there and to hear them singing Allelujah was just absolutely
Extraordinary um now those guys are not Iranians H you know those guys that’s Jesus youth um so that’s another thing like I was able to go you know I’m I’m linked in with them as a priest I have all these different groups where I experienc Brotherhood and I think that’s
Really important that okay you’re a spiritual father that’s absolutely true and it’s really important not to deny that but one thing that’s lacking in a lot of priest lives is Brotherhood um and I experienced it as you know in my Dominican Community but also in in the
Prayer groups that I’m part of it’s so important to me to be with Brothers and Sisters in Christ um and I would encourage people again people who aren’t who are watching who aren’t priests you know reach out to your priests as as brothers and as well as you know not
You’re not always necessarily you don’t always have to be looking for things from them or asking them to do things just to spend time with them and and and to to socialize with them in the Lord is such a blessing um so I yeah that’s been
That’s been a real blessing to me uh to have groups like that where I I find Brothers and Sisters in Christ who call me on and that’s really really nourishing to me but you mentioned ordination so I mean after after seven seven or eight years or whatever it was
Of of studies I was ordain priest um with a big group of us there eight of us orain together and I we have our first mass our mass of Thanksgiving we could kind of choose where to have it so this was in the clada church in gway which is
The Dominican church it’s one of our later churches so it was founded in 1485 I think it was which is a lot later than most of our foundations which go back to the 13th century but it’s a really special place um and I I was really Keen
Because at a Mass we were talking about this earlier that um as a priest you can be put up on a pedestal and especially just I mean just with basic self- knowledge you realize I’m not the saint that people think I am I’m not the savior of the church that people think I
Am um this isn’t good this isn’t healthy and it can be it can be a lot to take um uh so one thing that I kind of felt moved to do was H at my first mass I asked my little nephew there and and his family if he’d like to make his first
Communion there and it was kind of just to show um in the context of this Mass what priesthood is about it’s not mainly about the priest I mean you’re ordained priest not to have some new status you’re ordained in order to serve the unfolding of the holy of the Holiness of
The people of God so it’s kind of pried for the sake of of of of communion and and serving Grace in that way um and it was a really really beautiful moment um and just one of the highlights of my priesthoods so far I just mentioned one
Of the things that just struck me there the the chazel I’m wearing um was so the the stole I’m wearing there has embroidery made by Dominican nuns in the 18th century and I I just knocked up with the the Dominican nuns in gallway um who who went through a time of
Intense persecution in the 17th century and they said oh we were waiting for you uh this is before I was ordained and they said we have a stole that we want to give you and this had a little bit of this embroidery made by nuns in the 18th
Century in gway and they gave me this sto and the chazel I’m wearing was lent by a woman it had some of the same embroidery by nuns but the the the actual chazel was made by this woman donating her wedding dress um and so it was kind of
Made of um Saturn I think it was and it was just incredible to be connecting with all these generations of Women of Faith um who who honored the Lord in this way through their hands through the work of their hands and through giving over these beautiful things that they
Owned and what I didn’t realize when I was doing my first blessings one of the women I gave her first blessing and she said I’m I’m the woman who gave my wedding dressed for that child well she was a very elderly woman at that stage and it was so moving just the connection
Between different vocations coming together um it was it was it was really powerful just how much as priests we owe the sacrament of marriage you know um we serve that Sacrament we we witnessed that Sacrament but please God if we were brought up in within the context of
Married life you know and our parents um as you can see there um that we owe so much to that Sacrament ourselves oh yeah no we wouldn’t be anything that’s yeah that’s 100% um it was making me think you just said something there uh I lost it but uh
No anyways I was it speaking about that it made me think also of your um what you guys are doing with treasure Ireland I love that treel when I read that I said that’s that I mean they nailed you nailed the title really Treasure Treasure Island but I mean just like
Going back to the roots of this country the stock that the that these people come from that they’re made of is just like I like I said I’m absolutely blown I’m kind of like delving into it and finding out it’s so it’s so intensely beautiful and like yeah that’s just
Another example there the wedding dress that’s that’s gorgeous yeah and so I mean we that treasure Ireland thing that if people aren’t aware of it so I was given the job of of online promoter of online preaching for the Dominicans in Ireland and one of the things we do on
Our YouTube channel Irish Dominicans um is we put up one video every week uh at a site of Christian Heritage in Ireland so we’re going county by county about 10 sites in every County and we’ve filmed in I think eight of them now um and we’re on our six counties being uploaded
At the moment gway and Mayo are in the works um so we’ve been to l kildair h Kilkenny Carlo um Lee and then gway and goway Mayo as well there you can see that all that’s St Bridges um cathedral in in in cair um so we went we we’ve
Been to all these different places and we tell stories not just of like early Christian Ireland or not just times of persecution but all kinds of stories really like there’s the Knights Templar um not many people know that Knights Templar were there so we kind of link
That in with Assassin’s Creed um and there’s a museum in uh in in Manu um where this incredible priest did amazing experiments in the 19th century he produced the highest artificial voltage in history up to that point um and just the connection between faith and science
There um that’s where St John Paul II got down on his knees and asked the IRA to to stop their bombing campaign um I mean there was just absolutely incredible things so we we we go around Ireland we use history as a means of evangelization partly because history is
Sometimes used by people as a means to undermine the faith in Ireland today but really bad history so people just tell tell a kind of a different story of Ireland where there is the Christianity sort of written out of the history as if Catholicism only came to Ireland in the
19th century or something like you have this crazy idea that people have so what we do we don’t get polemical we don’t get angry it’s just simply telling the stories so each video will be about 5 minutes long the most recent one is the story of the black Abby in keni um which
Is the only medieval Dominican PRI which we still have in our possession and it’s only because the friar wouldn’t leave they stayed in the town they stayed there when when you know through tiain and whenever they had a chance they would kind of break into the ABY again
And start saying Mass until they were kicked out again um so we told that kind of inspiring story but there’s other great stories coming up a Mayo nun who’s kind of well we we might I I should probably not go into it too much because
We might spoil that but we have the link in our description as well father Conor we’re going to promote that and it’s something I’ve been thinking for the schools as well because I like before I had seen Treasure Island I was thinking we need to come up with some kind of
Package of Irish figures Church figures because you know we’re just getting painted with like this brush of just like you know these nuns and Priests and the the Christian Brothers and it’s constant it’s all like the the church you know the impressive church we got to
Throw it off and just really put these put the history like you’re saying the facts of like you know the you know people that probably never you know heard of or thought of but um this might be actually a little answer there uh you know Treasure Island which is also like
I said it’s a great it’s a great title but um we’re just wrapping up almost here father Connor do you have um would you say anything now to um I think it’s all been very inspirational and uplifting and hopeful like uh you mentioned you know like it’s not all
About like you know focusing and grabbing onto the decline it this this country and obviously God has a plan God knows what’s going on he knows what’s going on right now on the Gaza STP he knows what’s going on everywhere um and like what he’s asking for us it’s like
The guys who went up to to our Lord and they’re like oh did you see what they did with the tower there I don’t know if it was Sil away like you know pilot you mix the blood and they built the Tower and it fell and he’s like look yeah I
Heard the news the news is there but um just you go back home and pray you know the same thing doesn’t happen to you you know like you know what I’m saying like it’s we have to kind of go back in and you said you know I’m I’m definitely one
For you know like we know what’s going on we’re we’re we’re there we’re not heads not under the the sand but the personal conversion especially in the times we live in right now is so so important and the amount of things he wants to do with individuals it’s just
Unbelievable he just he’s just a bomb I don’t know if it’s is it St Thomas is just you know he’s talking about the Holy Spirit like I think the most used word is it movement is it like that it’s just movement like don’t quote me on that father Conor yeah yeah sure no
Sounds good though like like I mean it’s it is about the Holy Spirit is though he is dynamic he is movement and he is uh he’s life he’s The Giver of Life like we’re we’re really supposed to have him in us and he’s he really wants to take a
Hold of us and just burn he wants he wants this place just on fire in his in his you know in his fire uh like your mom your mom had her fire in her own way uh you yourself it’s just it’s it’s just extraordinary it’s extraordinary the gospel is absolutely extraordinary
Because God is he’s extraordinary so exactly great would you have any last words or maybe something that you can say b b based on what you said there I mean what you said is 100% true and I think um just to to recognize that you say kind
Of you know God is burning in our hearts but he produces all kinds of different things and there’s a beautiful line in from St serel of Jerusalem that I just read recently he talks about the the holy spirit being symbolized in water because water comes down like the rain
Comes down upon a garden in the same form so the same holy spirit is given but produces all kinds of different life you know violets and roses and and U trees and grass and whatever and and takes all kinds of different shapes in people um and and just to recognize that
I mean for me just accepting the fact that God had a plan for my life even though I wasn’t I didn’t seem as heroic or as as impressive as you know these people that I might be reading about or whatever but just to really accept no let’s let’s have no false humility here
God really does want to do something through me and you know just think of L’s words the almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name just to accept that the almighty wants to do great things through you and for you um
And and you know as you are with your personality with your story um never mind being like other people but there’s a specific shape of Holiness um that God has in mind for you and just to to accept that and not to um not to diminish the importance of the work that
God wants to do through you yeah that’s amazing and the uh the personal conversion is the best thing and the most important thing for all of us right now father Connor I’m hoping to hopefully get you he more this is great and um I do remember I’ve been at a I’ve
Been to your sanctum my my first talk I was at was in sanctum and you’re talking about purgatory you know shredding for the wedding and and shedding for the wedding that was that was great and uh a lot of other things I’ve seen your your presentation there on um faith and
Science as well and uh it’s great and it’s it’s a breath of fresh air it’s a breath of fresh air and you got to keep it up as well like you have a very good presentation and language you got to get the Dominican you know St qu he’s got to
Get out there into the streets as well because people are thirsting for it it’s authentic it’s great so if you will maybe leave us with your blessing and like I said we’re going to plug in their um the Dominican Irish Dominicans their YouTube and treasure Ireland especially
You guys check that out definitely um we have an American audience but they they love anything really that comes from here and I think you you definitely learn things and you’ll hear things you’ve never heard ever it’s they’re very uh particular kind of like original nuggets so check them out um so father
Conor if you leave us with your blessing and and hopefully please God we’ll see you guys next Monday thanks so much Luke and to all your team there and to everybody who’s watching you you just do wonderful work and and and yeah just bless this community the Lord be with
You and with your May almighty God bless you father son and holy spirit amen go in the Peace of Christ thanks be to God be to God God bless you guys see you next Monday
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