Answering the call

Vocations to the religious order are few and far between these days but one man from D'Alton Park is actively trying to turn things around.Robert Nooney - or Brother Damien as he is known in religious life - who is celebrating ten years in the Franciscan Ministry in England, returned home last week to visit his family for the first time in four years.The eldest of six children, Robert knew ever since he was a young boy attending national school in the CBS that he wanted to join the religious order."Even in school I was always called "Padre", but I never got any stick for it: in fact it seemed to be the most logical path for me to follow and everybody just accepted it - especially in the Carmelite College in Moate where I boarded, the fellas seemed to admire it to a degree," recalls Robert.However, though this was the path Robert felt sure he was destined for, it didn't make the decision any easier:"I always knew that I wanted to join the order from a very young age, but I did actually for a long time tell myself that I wasn't going to do it because with vocation comes challenge, and one of the challenges you face is - will you be accepted by the people you go to school with, by your colleagues and so on; and secondly will you be tarred with the same brush as everyone else in light of the scandals that have gone on within the church," says Robert candidly."So I found challenges and difficulties there which, even now, I still find myself facing."Vocation is like marriage: you have to work at it every single day and you can't become complacent because as soon as you do, you hit all sorts of difficulties and strife. It is something that you have to work at it daily," he admits."In this day and age I would like to see more young people coming into the church. In England the vocations are there, it's just a matter of being visible, open and honest about the expectations of the young person coming in."OffendersAs part of his work with the Franciscan Ministry in England, Robert works closely with a charity called SENSE, which specialises in helping deaf and blind adults. He also works with young offenders in Ramsgate, near to where he is based in Margate."As far as facing the difficulties of religious orders in trying to get vocations, I try to be a positive aspect of that by being visible wearing the habit, by being open and non-judgemental when anyone comes to me," he says."Working with young offenders is brilliant because you are dealing with people who have committed the most unbelievable crimes in many cases."I work with them twice and week and we look at morals, philosophical and spiritual topics, and at reminding them that the actions they've taken have consequence, and that those consequences have a ripple effect. Because it doesn't just effect them, but in fact their families and their victim's families."Brother Robert, who is now thirty-six, joined the order in 1995.Leaving for London, Robert says that at first, he was like a fish out of water trying to find his way: "I left for London and as a Mullingar man I was completely naive about the Tube and so on. When I got into Heathrow Airport, I was on my own and I remember hopping on the Tube and I didn't realise how fast these things move. I actually had a couple of Americans help me to get to where I needed to go," he says."The first two years in London I spent helping the homeless. I would go out on a Friday and Saturday night and take them soup and sandwiches. We'd go through Westminster and Vauxhall and all those areas. I've always worked with the downtrodden."I also worked for a time with the gay community in London and Margate, and that just involved myself and couple of others being open-minded to their needs. If somebody wanted to come and chat to us they could without us being judgemental," he adds."To me that is Franciscan spirituality, that is the whole package, because St. Francis spent his whole life looking after the lepers, the poor and the downtrodden, people that no one else had anything to do with. In fact St. Francis of Assisi absolutely detested lepers, but through his own spiritual journey he realised that within those lepers Christ was present, so he felt that that's where he should be. So with young offenders, the disabled, gay people, these are people that Christ are within."Robert also worked for two years in the US, where he spent time in different ministries."I worked a lot with the Anglican Church in America, which is the Church of England in America. That's the other part of my work, I am very strongly ecumenically minded so where I am in Clifftonville, I'm very heavily involved with the Anglican Church, the Church of England and we all work together. We had remembrance services recently where I took part in service, so I'm always quite active."So when he has a day off, what does Robert like to do with his spare time?"I am a huge Star Trek fan, it is quite embarrassing really, but I've managed to amass 300 novels, so I spend a bit of time trying to get through all of them, but I only have 100 religious books! I don't tell too many people that," he admits."On my days off there are people I have to go visit and see, there is a good social network within the order, the only other thing that I kind of got hooked on was Facebook, and that's how I keep in touch with the Friars, some as far away as America.There are a few of us hooked on Farmville I'm afraid to admit!"It's absolutely addictive! Farmville is very competitive! People sometimes look at you, when you're wearing the habit, and they think you're not human, you don't have human interests, but we are just the same as everyone else."