Well-known priest, Fr Neal Carlin, will be signing copies of his new book, “They that wait on the Lord: An Uncharted Journey,” in Veritas Bookshop, 20 Shipquay Street, Derry, at 4.00pm today.
Fr Neal, the spiritual director of the Columba Community of Prayer and Reconciliation, celebrated 50 years of ordination to the priesthood earlier this year.
In the book, he reflects on an eventful journey travelled in faith that took him to America and Mexico to experience new communities and houses of prayer, and led to the foundation of the Columba Community in Derry in the midst of The Troubles.
The book was launched last month in An Grianan Hotel in Burt to a packed audience which included Bishop of Derry, Most Rev Dr Donal McKeown.
As the story of the Columba Community unfolds, the reader gets an insight into the person of Burnfoot-based Fr Carlin, from the formation of his faith in childhood to his ordination to the priesthood, and his ever developing openness thereafter to being led by the Holy Spirit.
Some reflections written by Fr. Neal over the years have been included in the work, and give an insight into his love of nature and the Celtic soul, which sees God in all things.
Born on 1 May 1940, Fr Neal was educated at St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny before entering St Peter’s Seminary in Wexford where he was ordained to the priesthood on 31 May, 1964.
He founded the Columba Community of Prayer and Reconciliation in 1981 and this lay community worked with victims of the conflict in the North of Ireland offering counselling, support, mediation and prayer.
The Community opened a house of prayer called Columba House in the heart of Derry city to facilitate this work as well as St Anthony’s Retreat Centre in Burnfoot.
Bishop Seamus Hegarty of the Derry Diocese designated the Community as a Private Association of the Faithful in 1995.
The Columba Community found their outreach expanding to addicts suffering from drug and alcohol related issues which stemmed from the Troubles and in 2001 they opened White Oaks Rehabilitation Centre on the Derry-Donegal border to treat and help such people.
In 2006, the Island of Saints And Scholars (IOSAS) Centre and Celtic Prayer Garden opened as a retreat centre and a place of serenity and peace and as a way to honour the men and women of Ireland’s “Golden Age” of 5th – 12th centuries.
To date, the community employs over 30 people across these centres and Fr Neal is still actively involved in each of them at various levels.
If you are unable to attend today’s booking signing but would like to purchase the book, it is available from Veritas Bookshop, telephone 028 71 266 888 or email [email protected].
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