Like Father, Like Son

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New book from Irish Dominican Wilfrid Harrington

Like Father, Like Son, published on 18 March, comes from an Irish Dominican whose has given his whole life to studying and teaching the Bible. He shows how the Bible presents a vivid and entrancing engagement with the mystery of how God can live in a human person.

Further information on http://www.dominicanpublications.com

Sunday Mass and COVID-19

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Due to the COVID-19 restrictions Sunday and sometimes Weekday Masses are suspended or restricted in a number of Diocese. 

Please contact you local Dominican Church if you are not certain if there are any Sunday Masses.

St. Mary’s in Cork does not have any public Masses due to the restrictions but will broadcast the Sunday Conventional Mass live at 12:30pm. Weekday Masses and the Mass for St. Patrick’s Day will be at 11:00am. For more information and the link to the stream please visit the following webpage: https://www.dominicanscork.ie/live-mass/

The Fenning Collection

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Ms Marie Jennings continues to catalogue the private library of the late Fr
Hugh Fenning, O.P., at St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght.
Weak and/or damaged books are tied with a soft cotton tape as a temporary preservation measure.
To avoid attaching adhesive labels to the spines of the older books, the call numbers are written on acid-free bookmarks which are then inserted into the books so as to stand proud when the books are shelved.

Beginning, Middle, & End: C.S. Lewis and the Christian Art of Storytelling

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This lecture was given at Trinity College Dublin on 21 November 2019.

The hand out for this lecture is available here: tinyurl.com/rxd7o43

Fr. Conor McDonough, O.P. teaches theology at the Dominican House of Studies, Dublin. He studied science and theology at Cambridge University, and recently completed postgraduate studies in theology at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

For more information on this and other events of the Thomistic Institute go to thomisticinstitute.org/events-1

A talk delivered to the Guild of Catholic Scholars

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A talk delivered to the Guild of Catholic Scholars in St. Saviour’s Priory, Dublin, on Saturday, 1st, February. In it Fr. Terence Crotty, lecturer on Scripture in the Dominican Studium, Dublin, shows how Scholarship on the Bible has happily changed and evolved in recent decades in a way that gives greater and greater support for Christian Faith, as we should except from this sacred book.

Fenning Collection

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Ms Marie Jennings, a professional librarian, is currently creating an electronic catalogue of the private library of the late Fr Hugh Fenning, O.P., S.T.M. The collection is located at St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, and contains approximately forty-eight shelves of printed books and pamphlets on Irish Dominican history, Irish Church history, and Irish local and general history, with annotations. It also contains bound volumes of offprints, photocopies of articles, and a number of journals. The items will be catalogued to international standards and classified using the Dewey Decimal System. The catalogue will be searchable by author, keyword, and subject, and provenance information will also be noted. Extra subject headings or tags will be added where there is relevance to the Dominican Order. The photographs are intended to provide an indication of the progress of the project since it began on 10 January with funding approved by the provincial and his council.

The history of the Irish Dominicans at home and abroad was the focus of Fr Fenning’s research and publication for more than fifty years, affording him the subject for his doctoral thesis and for his tome on the eighteenth-century history of the province. He was also the author of a fine collection of scholarly yet popular historical accounts of various foundation of the Dominican Order in Ireland and of the obituaries of his brethren.

Conferring of the S.T.B.

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On the 28th January 2020, the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, Frs. Matthew Farrell OP and Jesse Maingot OP received their Bachelor of Sacred Theology (S.T.B.) degrees. This is a graduate-level academic degree in theology awarded after four years of theological studies at the Dominican Studium in Dublin.

The degree was awarded by the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum, in Rome to which the Dominican Studium in Dublin is affiliated. They were presented with their parchments by Fr. Joseph Dineen OP, the Regent of Studies of the Province of Ireland, in the presence of Fr. Gregory Carroll OP, Prior Provincial of the Province of Ireland.

Fr. Gregory Carroll OP, provincial, Fr. Matthew Farrell OP, Fr. Joseph Dineen OP and Fr. Jesse Maingot OP

Turning Wounds into Wisdom

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Dominican Publications have recently published a book of sermons by Bishop Martin Drennan of Galway. It covers every Sunday of the three-year lectionary cycle, and all the sermons are focussed on enabling readers to see the face of Christ. More information can be found on the website.

Rosary Pilgrimage to Knock

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The annual Rosary Pilgrimage to Knock takes place this year on the 13th of October.

The ceremonies begin at 2:30pm in the basilica. The preacher this year is Fr. Paul Murray OP.

Many Dominican Priory’s around the country organise busses to take part in the pilgrimage.

Paul Brendan Murray was born on 26 November 1947 and grew up in County Down. He joined the Irish Province of the Friars of the Order of Preachers in 1966 and took profession in 1967. Already a notable and promising poet, his first volume of poetry, Ritual Poems, was published in the early 1970s. Paul was ordained priest in 1973, one of a group of eight Dominicans ordained priest that day. (The group included Fr Gregory Carroll, current Provincial of Ireland, and Fr Mark O’Brien, who has served as Provincial of the Australian Province of the Order.)

After further post-graduate studies, notably on the poetic work of T. S. Eliot, Paul began teaching in the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome, the ‘Angelicum’, and after living in the Priory of San Clemente he transferred residence to the Convitto, a community located nearer the university campus. Paul’s life is one of preaching, teaching, as well as travelling to give lectures and retreats all over the globe. He works also in a consultative role for a Vatican department, and is visiting professor at Notre Dame University in Sydney, Australia.

He would have known Mother Teresa of Calcutta quite well, and personally, and has been called upon to offer counselling and support to many who are major international figures (not only in the Church). He has written extensively on the spiritual teaching of St Catherine of Siena, who has inspired many writers and teachers even in our own day, including Paul himself. His latest book, God’s Spies, was published by T&T Clark, and deals with a number of internationally renowned authors and their search for the true meaning of life. These ‘spies’ include Dante, Michelangelo and Shakespeare, among other poets. In a lengthy review of Murray’s new book, in Spirituality, Thomas McCarthy described it as ‘a gem’, and spoke of how highly he valued the insights described between its covers.

Reception of the Habits

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The Feast Day of the Irish Province is the Exaltation of the Cross, celebrated on September the 14th. This is the traditional day that the new noviciate starts and the new Novices receive their habit, as they start their journey as a Dominican. This year four men joined the noviciate and received the habit during the 11 o’clock Mass.

From left to right: Br. Bruno Mary Kelleher; Br. Nathan Peer; Fr. Gregory Carroll OP,  Prior Provincial; Br. Mark Murphy; Br. Laurence Augustine Rigney & Fr. Philip Mulryne OP, Master of Novices.

Please keep our novices (and those discerning a vocation) in your prayers, that the Lord might continue to bless them and give them the graces that they require to keep following His call!

Please find some photos of the event below.