Fr Ciaran McDonnell, who will be one of the main speakers at this year’s Irish national conference at Athlone in June, shares his faith journey and how God called him from a career in show business to serve him as a priest and gave him a healing ministry.

I was born in Strabane in Northern Ireland the third of thirteen children. My parents who are both very devout are still alive in their 90s. I knew I wanted to be a priest when I was II years old. I didn’t immediately do anything about it, however. We always enjoyed music in the family and I played the organ and piano and when I was 19 years old I joined a showband called the Drifters. We did well and one of our songs, “Make me an Island” got to number two in the Top of the Pops chart in 1969. All the time I was on the road with the band, however, I used to go to Mass. The more I prayed the more the desire to become a priest got stronger and stronger. I wondered how the band would take it, but Fr Jude, a priest that I got to know, just told me to tell them that I had got a better offer, and I was going to God’s band. One time we were playing at the Fiesta club in Stockton in the north of England, and I went to the 12 o’clock Mass in the town and got chatting to the old parish priest there, Fr O’Callaghan. I told him I was thinking of being a priest. He said there was a shortage of priests in the diocese and asked me if would I come there. I was only 21 and said yes without hesitation. Thus although I trained at St Patrick’s seminary at Thurles, I became a priest for the Hexham and Newcastle diocese in England.

I received the gift of healing

I got involved with the Charismatic Renewal in the seminary, which as far as I am concerned is one of the greatest graces in the life of the Church because of the way it leads to prayer and depth in relationship with God. It was one of my seminary professors, Fr Denis Talbot, who first took me to a prayer group which was meeting in the Ursuline Convent in Thurles. I took to it immediately and it was here I was prayed with and received the gift of healing when I was baptised in the Holy Spirit. I remember my hands were burning and I asked the Lord to show me if this was a gift he was giving me for the Church by sending someone to me who was in need of healing. He did the next day and I prayed with a man who was going to be operated on for hemorrhoids and he was healed. This healing gift was confirmed later by Fr George de Prizo, one of the early pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal from the United States, who gave me several prophetic words, which over the years have all come to pass.

Life in the Spirit Seminars

After I was ordained I was sent to a parish in Sunderland in the North East of England. I wanted to bring renewal to the parish and prayed for about two month’s non-stop that God would show me whom to approach to start a prayer group. He pointed out two people, whom I asked and the three of us began. It was incredible, starting with just the three of us, within two months we had 200 people coming, and we didn’t even advertise it. One of the keys to its growth was doing the Life in the Spirit seminars which were very new at the time. This really brought people into conversion and the new life in the Spirit. People came from all over, and many of them then went back to their own parishes and started prayer groups. I stayed there for 13 years and saw the Lord healing lots of people. Then I was appointed a hospital chaplain and later I was sent as parish priest to Bishop Auckland. I have always had a bit of missionary calling and I have been to Uganda a number of times to give priests’ retreats, and to Slovakia and Croatia, and in 2002 I lived in Medugorje for a year.

Call to Medugorje

The call to Medugorje came in a strange way. I was parish priest in Bishop Auckland at the time and had a dream. In it I saw Padre Pio looking at me. He told me “Get out and lay those healing hands on the people.” Later I was told that Fr Slavko had died and I was asked by the Franciscans to come to Medugorje for a year to help with the English speaking pilgrims. I prayed about it and decided if my Bishop would let me go, and if the Bishop of Mostar, who was not supportive of the visionaries at Medugorje accepted me, I would take it as God’s will to go. The doors all opened up in an amazing way and I even ended up staying in Fr Slavko’s old room. I loved it there, particularly the Way of the Cross and would go up the hill every morning. As a priest too, you hear very good confessions there, and it is certainly a place of great grace and prayer. I’ve been back in England and normal parish life about seven years now. It has been very busy but I have managed to get involved in renewal and serve on the team that organizes the Charismatic Conference for bishops and priests in the UK. For me the main work of the priest is to promote devotion and understanding of the Eucharist. I have always been drawn to the Eucharist and as far as I am concerned everything - all the graces - come from it.

Dramatic healing of woman in wheelchair

Over the years I’ve seen quite a few healings, some quite dramatic, some quite ordinary. I suppose one of the most amazing was back in 1979 at a Catholic Charismatic Renewal conference in Dublin. There was a lady with our group called Vera Johnson who was paralyzed from the waist down and sitting in a wheelchair. I prayed a couple of decades of the rosary with her and in the spirit. As I did this I sensed the presence of Our Lady above us and the anointing of the Holy Spirit on me and I gave her a prophetic word “As Peter stepped from the boat I ask you to step from the wheelchair. It is for the glory of my father that you should be healed and I have sent my mother to assist you.” With that she got up out the chair and walked. I couldn’t believe it myself. God is so much bigger than we can imagine, we just need to have faith to believe it.