Born and raised in Dublin, Abbot Columba McCann OSB served as a priest of the Dublin Archdiocese before entering the monastery more than two decades ago.
The seventh abbot of Glenstal Abbey was elected by the community of twenty eight Benedictine monks earlier this year.
The monastery was founded nearly a century ago and serves as a place of prayer, work, education and hospitality.
Held on the Solemnity of All Saints, the liturgy called for God’s blessing, strength and guidance upon the new abbot as he begins his role as father, teacher, and model for the monastic community.
Speaking as his eight year term of office gets underway, Abbot Columba commented: “the worst days of the pandemic brought home to us just how interconnected we are on our planet, even at a spiritual level.
Part of our task as monks today is to keep rediscovering what it is we bring to the Church and the world, and what God wishes to bring to others through us.”
The ceremony was attended by a congregation of more than two hundred guests, with the Mass concelebrated by Brendan Leahy, Bishop of Limerick, in the presence of ecumenical representatives including the Church of Ireland’s Bishop of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe Michael Burrows, Dean of Limerick and Ardfert Niall Sloane and the Methodist Church’s Gillian Kingston.