Ruadhán Jones
Personal Profile
Fr Colm O’Mahony OSA wears many hats: vocations director for the Augustinians in Ireland; student master for the pre-novitiate; and prior and bursar of the Drogheda community. But it was always the call of community life that attracted him to the Augustinians, and his zeal for work ‘on the ground’ is constantly renewed through fresh engagement.
This initial training and interest came in the years before Fr O’Mahony discerned his vocation”
“One of the main reasons I went for the Augustinians was because our whole charism is community – working as a community, praying as a community, but also engaging with the community,” Fr O’Mahony told me. “That can be people who come to church, or people who don’t come to church. I’ve had the opportunity to work in prisons, schools, hospitals – it’s very much the case my initial training and interests have been fulfilled.”
This initial training and interest came in the years before Fr O’Mahony discerned his vocation. He studied social sciences in University College Cork for three years, before heading into the world of work. But the call to the priesthood was always in the back of his mind.
“Even in secondary school I felt a desire to become a religious, but at the time no one I knew was interested in religious life or priesthood or anything like that,” Fr O’Mahony says. “And I wanted to go to university and live a proper experience of life. After school, I went to university and I felt that once I went to university, either it would disappear or else I would have some experience of life. And it didn’t.”
Fr O’Mahony didn’t immediately begin a process of discernment, deciding instead to get a job and test the call he felt a little more: “I decided I’d never worked anywhere properly, so I might as well get a job first, see how it works out and then if it doesn’t go away, I’ll know it’s genuine.
“I worked for a year or so, it didn’t go away, so I decided to do something which, at the time, I thought made perfect sense, and I applied for and entered Maynooth for the diocese of Cork and Ross. But I never actually wanted to be a diocesan priest, I always felt called to be a religious. But I went for Cork and Ross because I thought it would be an easier option. I’d be stationed in Cork, close to home, so it would be fine.
“I was three years in Maynooth. Great experience, I had no complaints, the lads were fantastic, but it just wasn’t for me, I just wasn’t called to be a diocesan priest. So I left and I went back working for a couple years and then applied for the Augustinians and at least 16 years later I’m still here.”
In the course of his work as vocations director, Fr O’Mahony has travelled widely and met many young people in the discernment process”
Fr O’Mahony now leads a busy life with the order, both for the order nationally and his own community in Drogheda, where he’s prior and bursar.
“The prior of the community has overall responsibility for looking after and maintaining the community, their needs, the physical buildings that we have, the ministries, the volunteers, the staff and things like that. I pay all the bills and go to all the various meetings in the parish and the town, liaise with the local officials, voluntary groups and things. Everything comes through me. The bursar means I’m in charge of the finance of the community, upkeep of buildings and the like.
“In Drogheda we’re very active, there are only four friars. We’re part time chaplains to the hospital, to the secondary school, chaplains to the primary school, we engage with the Red Door and people in addiction, we work with St John of God services, we work with people with specific needs, we do a lot of work with people who are homeless, we do work with people who are refugees. For the four of us, as well as doing all three Masses a day, we’re quite connected with the local community.”
In the course of his work as vocations director, Fr O’Mahony has travelled widely and met many young people in the discernment process. Asked if he notices any commonalities among those discerning, he says it’s “the search for God, the search for meaning, the search of the community, the search of where do I sit in this whole scheme, how can I fulfil my vocation”.
Often, his work in vocations means dealing with people in the initial stages of their vocation, who are still asking questions and trying to figure things out. This can have fruits for Fr O’Mahony’s own vocation, as he says it “holds a mirror” up to it.
“Not only do they ask questions but it really does hold a mirror up to your own religious life,” Fr O’Mahony explains. “Because you’re expecting people to come and experience religious life and you have to be confident that what you’re offering is life giving, life sustaining, is relevant, is valuable.
“It may be a different experience of how their friends experience life at the moment. It has to have some engagement with the wider world, some sense that it’s not just a group of guys, behind a wall praying all day, that we actually do get out and engage with the community, engage with people.”
We’ve one friar studying for novitiate, we’ve one friar who has just taken his solemn vows and we have a couple of guys who are interested in entering in August or September”
Fr O’Mahony believes there has been a small “turn in the tide” for vocations to the Augustinians, and praises the help Vocations Ireland have given in supporting the order’s efforts.
“There seems to be a very small change in the tide. We’ve one friar studying for novitiate, we’ve one friar who has just taken his solemn vows and we have a couple of guys who are interested in entering in August or September,” he finishes.