Personal Profile
Fr Maurice Colgan reflects God’s light into the world through his vocation as a Dominican, and through his work with the Alive! newspaper, although, as is so often the way, he didn’t see his life’s path taking this shape.
“I had no serious inclination towards the priesthood so my future as I saw it, or maybe as God saw it, was you know, the practice of the Faith was going, was there. There was a relationship with the Lord,” he tells The Irish Catholic.
“There was a continuation of my youth into my 20s, and I thought the way things were going was towards “normality”. You know – marriage, children, etc. And then, at 28 years of age, the Lord decided to call me to religious life, particularly.”
Fr Colgan felt the spiritual pull towards the Dominicans in his youth, despite his preoccupation with another order; namely, the Capuchins”
Where did this religious seed come from? It’s a question Fr Colgan ponders to this day, but he thinks the Catholic culture of Ireland’s past may have had a hand in it.
“I’m 48 years of age, so to put it to that context, when I was growing up – so I suppose I’d start off by saying that when I was growing up in the 70s/80s, the majority of people, overwhelming majority of people, were going to Mass, and that includes young people. So friends of mine and acquaintances all in the area, at least, would have been going to Mass, you know? I’d be finding it hard to think of an exception to that,” he recalls.
Asked whether there was a danger people took the Faith for granted in those days because of its widespread cultural acceptance, he affirmed that he himself and others encountered God deeply in their faith lives.
“Looking at people who I grew up with and their Faith practice today, like there’s definitely people that I grew up with who are still practicing, you know? Still attending Mass on a Sunday which would suggest that there was a depth back then that just wasn’t cultural.”
He continues, “So I’d say that you’d definitely have to include the culture as an influence in the sense of something that you just did. So there definitely was that part of an habitual practice but you’d have to argue as well there was enough support there and enough invitation to various different prayer meetings and retreats that were aiding one’s deepening of their relationship with the Lord.”
The issue of rote Faith-engagement versus a real encounter with God is of particular interest to Fr Colgan, as the Dominicans currently try to understand what it is of their order that speaks to people of God, as is evidenced by the continuing interest expressed in their community by young men of Ireland.
“I think the Lord has a plan for the Dominican order in Ireland. I think that’s evident and clear because, you know, men are being called to the Dominican way of life. Obviously, there’s things in place within Dominican life that people are attracted to – the communal life and the prayer life, absolutely, and of course the focus on study.
“But in saying all that, there’s, talking to the men who have come in over the last 20 years, a lot of them are coming in from various different backgrounds and you know, there’s no reason why, or rather there is a reason, but the Augustinians, the Franciscans, the Capuchins, etc, all offer something very unique in their own charisms and own ways, so the Holy Spirit is obviously moving men towards the Dominicans for a very particular purpose and that’s something around our charism of preaching, you know?”
Fr Colgan felt the spiritual pull towards the Dominicans in his youth, despite his preoccupation with another order; namely, the Capuchins.
“I felt a greater attraction towards the work of the Capuchins and at the time, that was my job. My job was, my bread and butter at the time, was working with people in addiction. So I was working in something that would be very much – would coalesce, would fit, very easily with the Capuchin way of life, which would be an outreach to those who are in vulnerable situations, you know? But the Lord knows, there was no bargaining. The Dominicans was the way the Lord wanted,” he laughs.
Fr Colgan found a home not only with the Dominicans, but with the Alive! newspaper too. However, the same issues greet him there as they do on a vocations front – how best to appeal a country that’s changed so much over the course of his lifetime.
We’re trying to extend an invitation to, or at least encouragement, to re-engage with the Faith, you know?”
“I suppose with Alive!, the way it was set up, there’s a certain freedom to it in the sense because it’s not a paid paper, it doesn’t have a price tag on it, people aren’t asked to pay for it, there’s a freedom in that and it’s a way of, like The Irish Catholic – it’s an alternative voice in Ireland today, which is quite a dramatic statement at one level when you think of, you know, for a Catholic paper to be an “alternative voice” nowadays, when you think about it, what an about-turn it’s been, but that’s really it.
“It’s trying to speak into the new culture which exists today and how in particular, I suppose the Alive!’s objective really, is to try and speak to people that might, maybe, be struggling with the Faith or might be baptised and away from the Faith. One of our demographics that we’re trying to speak into is that – people that are struggling with the Faith or have moved away from the Faith. We’re trying to extend an invitation to, or at least encouragement, to re-engage with the Faith, you know?”
Despite the shifting cultural landscape, Fr Colgan’s work continues to reflect the unchanging Dominican motto, whether on a vocations or media front: Laudare, benedicere, praedicare (To praise, to bless, and to preach).