‘I’ll miss the people of Navan and I ask them to remember me in their prayers as I will remember them’

After more than a decade serving as curate in the town, Fr Robert McCabe is departing to take up a new role as PP next door in Co Westmeath. The former Defence Forces chaplain tells Noelle Finegan he’s looking forward to his next opportunity but will miss the ‘great goodness in the people of Navan’

After more than a decade as curate in Navan Parish, Fr Robert McCabe is preparing to finish up on Friday to take on a new role as parish priest in Castletown Geoghegan in Co Westmeath.

Before coming to Navan, the Kinnegad native was chaplain to the Defence Forces based in Gormanston Camp, undertaking overseas missions every three years, so change is something he grew accustomed to.

Now he is set for another big change going from a big urban parish to a rural one in the midlands. As well as being parish priest in Castletown Geoghegan and Tyrellspass, he will also be assistant priest for the Mullingar Pastoral area in line with the new model where priests in neighbouring parishes work together and help each other out when needed.

Fr Robert was ordained in June 1994 and spent a month after his ordination in Navan so he had some familiarity with the town before he arrived as curate in November 2015. He recalled it was a very different type of ministry from what he had been used to but he did know quite a number of military families from his many years in Gormanston.

“In the Defence Forces, you knew there was a change very two and a half years between trips to Lebanon, Kosovo, Liberia, Chad and the Golan Heights. Every three years I did a mission, generally for six months. Thankfully, when I came to Navan there was a great military family community here already,” he recalled.

“You could distinguish military from civilian people. In the first few years, anybody that called me Fr Bob was from a military family and if they called me Fr Robert, they were from a civilian family.

“There are many military families in Navan and some of them are serving overseas and just home from Lebanon so I keep in contact and prayerful contact with them and their families. I always tried not just seeking vocations for priesthood and religious life but I've tried to encourage young people towards a career in the Defence Forces, as a very fulfilling opportunity.”

The schools Fr Robert looked after in Navan, included Scoil Bhríde Cannistown, St Anne's Loreto, St Ultan's, St Joseph's Mercy Secondary School and Beaufort College where he was also a member of the board of management and he said this meant you were meeting a good wide sector of Navan life. He enjoyed meeting the children, the teachers, staff and special education teams and has great admiration for the way they all nurtured the different skills their students had so they flourished.

Fr Robert said he learned so much from Fr Declan Hurley in the last almost 11 years and also from the staff in the house and the parish pastoral council.

“I worked for a month after ordination in July 1994 so I had an idea of the town but I had no idea of what being on duty in a town parish would be like. To go from a military community into an urban setting and now the change will be to move from an urban setting to a rural, middle of Ireland setting. That brings its changes as well and shows the variety of ministries that is there for us as priests and the satisfaction and joyful accompaniments that is there to be with people.

“The church is very much at the centre of the community here in Navan and I had always seen the job as to change the footfall through the parish grounds into a visit into the church, to encourage people to come in and light a candle.”

Another part of the role he found very fulfilling was his pastoral work in Our Lady's Hospital in Navan, dealing with patients and their families but also meeting with the wonderful staff.

“It has been a privilege to visit and meet people in hospital, to get to know the staff. The way our system works is the priest who is on duty in the hospital one week is on funerals the next so sometimes you have prayed with families on a particular week while they are keeping vigil at a bedside and then you are able to pray with them for the funeral and you are able to give the that extra accompaniment they need in finding the light of Christian faith that helps them through has been prayerful and fulfilling.”

Then there were baptisms and marriages, his work with Accord preparing couples for marriage, First Holy Communions and Confirmations, as well as the big events of Easter and Christmas in the liturgical calendar and the ceremonies that went with them.

Fr Robert recalls other highlights like the jubilee celebrations for the Mercy order where St Mary's was a pilgrimage church and the World Meetings of Families in 2018 and his joy to be able to tell people that Navan would be hosting families from Fatima.

There were other more low key highlights -speaking with someone at Our Lady's icon about who they were lighting a candle for, the Saturday morning anniversary masses where generations of families came together to remember a loved one, or to pray for someone they may only have known from their photograph.

There were challenges too, most notably the Covid-19 pandemic. Navigating a way to be there for parishioners while observing the restrictions and Fr Robert recalls that their slogan back then was “our churches are open, your priests are available” and they wanted people to know that we were available for them.

After the last Mass of the day, whether that was a funeral which had limited attendance, or a mass, they would open the church for anybody that would like to come to visit and for those four hours every afternoon one of the team was available to speak to.

Funerals were tough. “It was very difficult to tell families that only 25 people are allowed in the buildings, especially if this was a person who was the centre of the family, always surrounded by their grandchildren and everyone around them. I am sure there is some space for us to revisit how things were done during Covid as a society.”

However, Covid also provided some opportunities. Before pastoral areas had come in, priests in Navan were already working with priests in other parishes and supporting them when needed. They also looked at Mass times and saw there was a appetite for an evening mass during the week for those who may be away at work all day and this led to the introduction of the 7.30pm Mass in St Oliver's Church.

Not being able to pray together as a Christian community for that period was difficult and Fr Robert said the need to gather is the mark of the Christian community.

“We are a Christian community not because we watch things online in isolation. We are a Christian community who need to gather. That is the mark of the Christian community. We need to gather physically. We need to pray with each other around the altar and we need to be nourished not just by prayer but by the prayerful example of others.”

Fr Robert spoke of how “refreshingly beautiful” it is for them as priests to see the thirst in people for knowledge about the faith, between their youth group Síol, and the young adult scripture group which meets on Friday evening.

As well as his parish work, Fr Robert has also been central spiritual director with the Pioneers Association for the past five years, working with people who wear the pioneer pin and pray for people living with addiction.

He also spoke of his admiration for Sr Catherine Lillis and the team at Tabor House.

Last weekend marked Fr Robert's last Sunday masses in the parish and the community gathered after 11am Mass on Sunday in the church grounds to wish him well and thank him for his years of service to the parish. Fr Robert said there is great goodness in the people of Navan. “I will miss the people of Navan and ask to remember me in their prayers as I will remember them.”

While it will take some time to settle in and get to know the parish of Castletown Geoghegan and Tyrellspass, Fr Robert said he is looking forward to meeting parishioners there.

“Bishop Deenihan had said to me that there would be an opportunity for me to work as a priest in the Mullingar Pastoral area. You promise obedience on your ordination day and maybe from my military background being told this is where you are going, you know there will be people there with whom you can work.

I don't know too many people in Castletown Geoghean but I am looking forward to working with them because I know that they are just like the families of Navan who have their reasons for baptisms and marriages, and with whom I will be praying in times of joy and sorrow.”

His new parish has three churches - St Michael's in Castletown Geoghegan, St Stephen's in Tyrellspass and St Peter's in Raheenmore - as well as a nursing home and three schools.

“I'm used to telling soldiers over the years, you cannot step into the same river twice, a bit of wisdom from Heraclitus from the fourth century bc. All is in flux, Nothing remains the same. Opportunities arise and you accept them. You do your best in the situation. I don't believe the grass is greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it. If you're fully present to the people that you are called to pray with, they will help you along the way.

“The army got a priest and they turned me into their chaplain and Navan got an army chaplain and they turned me into their curate and now I am looking forward to working with the parishioners in Castletown Geoghegan and Tyrellspass and being their parish priest.”