Mags Gargan
Friar James Mary McInerney A look at the work of Friars Minor Conventual
In Ireland when we speak of Franciscan friars we generally mean the OFMs (Order of Friars Minor) in their brown habits. However, that is just one branch of the First Order of Friars Minor founded by St Francis of Assisi. Down the years since Francis died in 1226, the order he founded experienced various divisions as different aspects of the charism of Francis were given greater emphasis. Today there are three main branches: the Friars Minor (OFM), the Conventuals (OFM Conv.) and the Capuchins (OFM Cap.) Each owes its existence to the original charism of Francis and has its own jurisdiction, but there is a shared sense of brotherhood. St Anthony of Padua was part of the order of Friars Minor Conventual or Greyfriars.
“Most people in Ireland are used to the Brown Friars but if you were to go back to before the Reformation the Greyfriars had 32 houses in Ireland,” explains Friar James Mary McInerney OFM Conv., the Vocations Promoter in Ireland. “Then a lot of our friaries were destroyed and we had to leave or go abroad to different countries. Then in the French revolution we lost a lot of friars and when emancipation came to Ireland we didn’t have the numbers to come back whereas the Brown Friars had a lot of vocations at that time and they were able to come.”
The Greyfriars are in two locations in Ireland, a parish church in Dublin and a friary in Wexford. After an absence of nearly 450 years the order was invited back to Dublin in the 1980s by Archbishop Kevin McNamara, who had a special devotion to the recently canonised Conventual Franciscan St Maximilian Kolbe. In 1985, Archbishop McNamara appointed two friars, Fr Patrick Griffin and Fr Jarlath McDonagh, as curates. These appointments were made on the understanding that after the incumbent parish priest had retired, the parish would be entrusted fully to the care of the Conventual Franciscan Order. The permanent transfer of the parish occurred in 1987.
Ordained
St Francis Friary in Wexford was built in 1802 by the Observant Franciscans (Brown Franciscans), but in 2007 they decided to leave Wexford due to the aging of their friars and a lack of vocations and they offered the friary to the Conventual Franciscans (Greyfriars) so that it would stay within the Franciscan family.
There are four priests and one deacon, who was just ordained at the end of May, in Dublin and four friars in Wexford. However, Fr James says the Province of Great Britain and Ireland is seeing a promising increase in vocations.
“We are very blessed in that we are doing well for vocations. We have four new postulants starting this year and 10 others at different stages in the Province of Great Britain and Ireland. We are very happy with vocations. We seem to have a lot of interest, we even have six interested for the following year. It has really has grown a lot, which is great because eight years ago we hadn’t had a vocation for almost 20 years,” he says.
Visibility
When asked what has led to the recent increase in interest, Fr James says there are a number of reasons. “Certainly wearing the habit is very important. We found that people liked that we are visible and that is how we meet vocations. Another thing is a great devotion to our Blessed Lady, which very much reflects the heart of St Francis, who had a great Marian devotion. Also a devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, which is very important for the men coming to us because many already did a lot of holy hours as lay people,” he says.
“A visible witness, a good prayer life and they also like a community faithful to the Church and where there is a real unity in working and serving the Church. They also love to do pastoral work but they like it to flow from a deep prayer life. The men joining us are men who first of all want a really good deep prayer life with our Lord, that would feed and nourish them to be able go out and do beautiful ministries.”
Fr James, who is based at Fairview church, remembers the large crowds that came to venerate the relics of St Anthony of Padua during the last visit in 2013.
“It was a wonderful experience and there is a great devotion to him here in the parish,” he says. “I think Anthony is a very popular saint and is very much loved. I think his story is really quite fascinating and there is a lot of learn from his life. While he is the saint for lost things, people even pray to him for lost children in the sense of children who have left the Faith. You can interpret it in different ways.”
Fr James explains the origin of praying to St Anthony for lost things is quite interesting. “There was a novice who had joined the order but decided to leave and took with him a book that St Anthony used to use with different quotes and notes that he wrote in it. Anthony was upset he had taken book and also worried about the novice, so he prayed and the young man came back and brought the book back to him. So it was because he prayed for something that he lost, that was the origin for praying to him for lost things!”