Courtney McGrailSophie Overall learns how a roadside encounter rerouted Fr Alan Neville’s life towards the Sacred Heart Missionaries
Sophie Overall
Fr Alan Neville, from the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), entered adulthood with plans for a career in business, but like so many others, he found God had very different plans for him.
The MSC priest’s early life followed a rather “normal” trajectory. He was raised Catholic, and grew up with his family in Cork. They attended a local parish church, where he met priests and, around age 10, had his first thoughts about pursuing a religious life.
During his teen years, Fr Alan reflects, he went through the “identity stage” that many young people go through. He notes that these years can force you to reconcile who you really are, or who you want to be, with how you truly perceive yourself.
Fr Alan began a commerce degree in UCC, but everything changed after one day when, on his way back from class riding along on his moped, he saw what he believed was a black bag on the side of the road. Upon riding closer, Fr Alan realised it was a person. As he approached the person, Fr Alan recalls that he had two options: he could pass by, or he could stop and see if the man needed help, so he stopped to help. The man was incredibly intoxicated, Fr Alan noted, so he helped him to a safe place away from the road to make sure he was, for the most part, out of harm’s way.
This episode inspired Fr Alan to join a homeless charity. While at the charity a few weeks later, he saw a familiar figure walk in: it was the man he had helped on the side of the road. Upon greeting each other, and realising that the man was again incredibly intoxicated, he invited Fr Alan to play a game of draughts, where Fr Alan was crushed by his new friend three times in a row.
Fr Alan continued with his studies, but remembers a revelation he had one day during his first year as a commerce student. “While leaving class, I asked myself, can I do this for the next three and a half years? Yes. Can you do this for the rest of your life? No. So I finished the year and went on sabbatical, and worked in a homeless charity in Dublin.”
Despite the cosy living setup, with 17 people, nine beds and three rooms, Fr Alan called it “the best year of my life”.
After the year passed, Fr Alan got a degree in social science and did a masters in youth and community work, but he still had the idea of charity work in the back of his mind.
As he was 25 at this point, he decided to explore his vocation and joined the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Dublin in 2000. He spent three years there, before making his first profession in South Africa during a year there, following this with two years in Venezuela, where he made his final profession, as well as time in England.
Ordained in 2009, Fr Alan has spent the past five years as vocations director with the MSCs. His work has taken him to the north of Spain for a pilgrimage where anyone and everyone can go to find out “where God is calling you”. He has been to South Africa, volunteering to work in orphanages, and this year attended World Youth Day in Poland.
Perhaps most dramatically, Fr Alan has begun running a surf retreat at the MSC retreat house in west Cork. Part of the NET (National Evangelisation Teams) ministries programme of peer-to-peer youth ministry, this retreat allows young people to surf two hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, along with more spiritual pursuits.
Fr Alan explains the special purpose of these retreats: “These young people are given an opportunity to reflect through the retreats. When I was that age, I didn’t have that. It helps to find your place in the world, and it also brings people together.”
He notes how these retreats provide an authentic space for reflection and team building. A typical Saturday on the surf retreat would start with a prayer, an introduction to the day, a surf session, afternoon prayer, and then free time. Fr Alan regards this free time as, “necessary if you want to create an environment where people feel safe to share and grow”, adding that there are also opportunities throughout the day for reconciliation.
Fr Alan says his favourite part of being a priest was the Camino, his long pilgrimage across Spain, where you can “let stuff go.” It is on these journeys that Fr Alan observes: “Everyone carries so many things with them, whether emotionally or spiritually. And through these moments with God, you can let them go, and you can go into a space of mercy.”