NET Ministries Ireland

So it has been quite a while since my last blog post and boy has a lot changed since then. To put it in a nutshell, I am not currently in Dominican Formation but I am still in Ireland. How?
Well here's the story...
It was back in Easter week this year that I was so fed up of everything in the novitiate, people were heading off for a few days of easter vacation but I decided to stay behind since once the other novices weren't around, that'll be pretty much a vacation. The day before everyone left, Fr Maurice told me that there were some young people coming to stay in knockadoon for the week, and they were young missionaries, so he asked me if i could help him to look after them. I figured, why not.
When I met them, however, I was so inspired. I found out that they were the Road Team of an Organisation called NET Ministries of Ireland and they travelled all around ireland doing youth ministry mainly by putting on retreats in schools and parishes. The team truly touched and changed my life in so many ways over that week that as they were leaving on the Friday, I decided there and then that this was worth taking a year out of my Dominican formation to do.
Things of course were not as simple as that. Basically, the options I was left with was don't do NET and stay in the order or, do NET and leave the Dominicans. I figured that God put this in my path for a reason and after a lot of contemplation I decided to take another leap of faith and on August 17th I took off my habit and left the novitiate to head to Derry, where NET training was to take place.
I have to say that training was one of the best experiences of my life and was able to meet some of the nicest people I have ever encountered. The way NET is structured is that there is one road team which travels around Ireland putting on retreats, and so on, but there are also three local teams which run ministry from a certain local area. About two weeks into training, teams were announced and not only was I placed on the Road team which was the largest team but I was put as the team leader.

After six weeks of training, we hit the road. Ten of us in a Ford Transit van driving from place to place depending on the generosity of people to provide us with food and shelter. It was a challenging but rewarding couple months. I could write a lot about the months here but it would just be easier to just put a link to the road team blog

http://netirelandroadteam.blogspot.co.uk/

So that leads up to now where we are just about to wrap up this first part of the year ... so yeah it's been real, and I am totally enjoying it. I'll try to keep posting as best I can.

50th International Eucharistic Congress

So last week I went down to a few days of the Eucharistic Congress taking place in Dublin. The novitiate group had kind of taken shifts in going down and I got booked in for the Thursday but ended up staying for the Friday as well.
I have to admit that initially I did not expect much and didn't want to get too hyped up about it but when I go there, just the atmosphere in the RDS on the Thursday was truly Catholic to say the least. It was one time that being in a habit did prove to be an advantage (I got little special treatments here and there from ppl who thought I was a priest) .
More than that tho, I met up with two Trinis who were visiting for the Congress, namely Denise Scott who I hung out with for most of Thursday and Stephen Jones. It was truly a delight to see them and to see many of the friends and acquaintances I made in Ireland since I've been here.
Although I did not get into any of the talks I planned to go to I still got to some interesting things. There was quite a wide selection of booths in the Exhibition Hall (Dominicans unfortunately didn't have one) then there was the youth space which was jointly run by ppl from Youth 2000, NET Ministries and Elation Ministries. I was also lucky enough to get to go on a tour of a recreation of Capernaum as the Apostles would have seen it.
The high point, however, came on the Sunday when we went back for the Statio Orbis which essentially was the closing mass but with performances before and during the liturgy it was truly a most beautiful and memorable event.  

Trip to Croagh Patrick

Last Saturday I went with a group of pro-lifers on a hike for life up Croagh Patrick, a mountain in Mayo which is said to be one of the famous sites of St Patrick. It was really nice, the weather was great and the climb was much easier than most ppl said it would've been.
At the top we met another group that came up from Limerick with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and I hung out with them for like half hour before the rest of the group from cork got to the top.
When they finally did we celebrated mass and began the journey back down which of course was much easier. Then we made the 4hr journey back to Cork. All in all it was a really good day.

Tower adventure

So I got bored a few weeks ago and decided to take a trip into the priory's bell tower. It was pretty cool. Here are some clips from the adventure