Obituary of Columban Fr Colm McKeating

Fr Colmcille (‘Colm’) McKeating died in the Columban Nursing Home, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland, on 21 March 2015. Born in Belfast on 9 July 1940, he was educated at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers’ School, Donegall St, Belfast, and St Mary’s Christian Brothers’ School, Barrack St, Belfast. He came to St Columban’s, Navan, in September 1956 and was ordained priest on 21 December 1962. He was appointed to post-graduate studies in Science at Cambridge University and later at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Celtic Park, Belfast, where the young Colm often went in the 1940s with his father on Saturday afternoons to watch Belfast Celtic play. The club pulled out of the Irish League (soccer) in 1949 because of sectarian troubles.

Columban College school seal [Wikipedia]

 

Appointed to the Philippines in 1967, his first eight years were spent in the parishes of Iba and Botolan, Zambales, and he later combined pastoral work with full-time teaching mathematics and chemistry at Columban College, Olongapo City, Zambales. During his second term, from 1973 to 1978, he opened the new Parish of the Blessed Trinity in New Cabalan, Olongapo City, while he continued to teach part-time at Columban College.

 

Cathedral of St Augustine, Iba, Zambales [Wikipedia]

From 1978 to 1984, he was assigned to the Region of Ireland where he served initially as the Justice and Peace Officer,  then for three years on the Vocations Team, and later on the staff of the Columban Formation Programme at Maynooth. From 1984 to 1986 he studied Fundamental Theology at Rome’s Gregorian University.

The Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome [Wikipedia]

He returned to the Philippines in 1987 where he directed the Spiritual Year for the first group of Filipino students. In the years that followed he combined involvement in the Initial Formation Programme with the continuation of his doctoral studies in Rome. The fruits of this research later appeared in his first book, Eschatology in the Anglican Sermons of John Henry Newman (1992). In 1998 he was appointed superior of the Luzon District, and Director of the Region of the Philippines from 1999 to 2005. This was followed by a period of teaching at Maryhill School of Theology, New Manila, Quezon City.

Painting of Blessed John Henry Newman, by Jane Fortescue Seymour, circa 1876 [Wikipedia]

Father Colm was a man of many talents, a pastor, a teacher, a theologian, and an able administrator. A man of keen mind, he was also kind, compassionate, good-humoured and committed to the struggle of justice for the oppressed. Illness forced his return to Ireland in July 2013 and he showed great courage and patience as his strength gradually diminished. He worked on his last book Light Which Dims the Stars – A Theology of Creation until it was ready for publication.

 May he rest in peace.

 

Firmly I believe and truly

Word by Blessed John Henry Newman

Firmly I believe and truly

God is Three, and God is One;

And I next acknowledge duly

Manhood taken by the Son.

And I trust and hope most fully

In that Manhood crucified;

And each thought and deed unruly

Do to death, as He has died.

Simply to His grace and wholly

Light and life and strength belong,

And I love supremely, solely,

Him the holy, Him the strong.

[And I hold in veneration,

For the love of Him alone,

Holy Church as His creation,

And her teachings are His own.

And I take with joy whatever

Now besets me, pain or fear,

And with a strong will I sever

All the ties which bind me here.]

 Adoration aye be given,

With and through the angelic host,

To the God of earth and Heaven,

Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

 

Fr Colm with four newly-arrived Korean Columban Lay Missionaries in the Philippines, 2011

 

Father Colm once told your editor that he was the youngest ever Columban to be ordained, with a special dispensation because he was only 22 years and five months. The usual minimum age is 24. And he also told your editor that when appointed Regional Director in 1999 at the age of 59 he was the oldest to begin in that position.

Among Father Colm’s many gifts was a pleasant tenor voice. His ‘party piece’, which your editor often heard him sing, was the song below. Ruby Murray was also from Belfast.