Second Reading
Fr Kevin Hegarty

I knew John O’Donohue before he became a spiritual superstar. I am not referring to the Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann, now becalmed in the chair after a feisty career on the floor of the house. I am referring to the author of ‘Anam Cara’, which became a best-seller throughout the English-speaking world.

John and I went to Maynooth College in the same year. We studied together for seven years. Even then he was an impressive intellectual figure. Most of us as first years were daunted by the hallowed portals of the college, its long and high cloisters decorated by big oil paintings of grim-faced nineteenth century clerics.

John found his natural habitat in the lecture halls and the library. I must confess I did not always understand him. The range of his thought and the intricacy of its expression sometimes baffled me. Wryly I comforted myself with Oscar Wilde’s aphorism that ‘to be intelligible is to be found out’.

But John was no killjoy, wrapped in an ivory tower, looking askance at the preoccupations of ordinary mortals. He often touched down in our everyday world. He had a capacity for fun and the grace of being able to laugh at himself. He once took part with a group of friends in the Maynooth Song Contest. One of my abiding memories of my time in college is of John, already in thrall to the rigorous charms of the German philosopher Heidegger, belting out with gusto Dolly Parton’s hymn to cosy easy living, ‘Blanket on the Ground’.

I know that it sounds like a scene from ‘Fr Ted’. Many clerics think that the ‘Fr Ted’ series was outrageous, exaggerated and disrespectful. I don’t agree with them. I have met Fr Teds, Fr Jacks, Fr Dougals and Fr Stones. However, wild horses (and the laws of libel) will not drag their names from me in this column.

After ordination, John honed his intellect in the strict atmosphere of a German university. On his return to Ireland he combined lecturing with some parish work. For people jaded by the blandness of conventional Irish Catholicism, he opened up new vistas of exploration and experience.
His ecclesiastical superiors became suspicious of his growing reputation. They sought to clip his wings by imprisoning him in a busy curacy where they hoped he would have less time for flights of fancy. They may have hoped that his imagination would wilt somewhat under the sodden weight of careful clerical conversation in the presbytery. It was as if Crossmolina GAA confined the contribution of Ciarán McDonald to carrying the jerseys for their third string team.

John took the brave decision to leave the comfortable clerical zone and strike out on his own. From this decision has flowed a career of sparkling lectures and thought-provoking books. He has an audience that spans a huge range of human experience from ageing nuns to exuberant eco-warriors. His first book, ‘Anam Cara’ – his take on the spiritual wisdom of the Celtic world – burst on the tired religious publishing world like an array of daffodils on a dark end of winter landscape. All his books are distinguished by their philosophical underlay, his acute perception of the light and darkness of human nature, his awesome awareness of the power of landscape, his poetic intensity and his profound integrity. He has devoted himself to minting a new language for contemporary spiritual experience.