News from the Noviciate
Ronan McCoy, currently studying in the Jesuit Novitiate in Birmingham, has sent us the following update. “We would like to thank you all for your prayers during our Spiritual Exercises. The retreat was, for each of us, a wonderful experience, which will shape our futures in different ways, and we six novices who made it were privilaged to share it with each other, our novice-master Paul and the four other retreatants who took the 30 days from hectic lives to look to God for direction and motivation. So now to the world and our next experiments; the three second years have been on their long experiments for over a month now: Samuel Overloop (BSE) and Mick O’Connor (BRI) in Guyana and Shane Daly (HIB) in Lusaka, Zambia. They’ve been in touch and seem to be settling in to those other worlds and enjoying their work.
Shane is working in an orphanage in Lusaka and seems to have really taken to the vocation that that work needs.
As for us first years: Joe Keegan and Niall S. Leahy (both HIB) are being sent to Edinburgh- Joe with homeless services and Niall with a hospice for those with HIV/AIDS. Bart Baele (BSE) and Hennie Barnard (BRI-SA) are going to London – Bart with the chaplaincy of Enfield College and Hennie with St. Joseph’s hospice. Jos Moons (NER) and I (Ronan McCoy) are crossing the Irish Sea- Jos will work in Clongowes and I with Gardiner Street and Slí Eile.
Needless to say we’re enthusiastic about getting started, even if a bit apprehensive about particulars. So thank you all for your prayers, rest assured of ours and we look forward to seeing some of you soon.”
Ronan McCoy