This week the monastic community remembers Father Columba Breen OSB on the 25th anniversary of his death.
Born in Dublin on 18th October 1917, Frederick Thomas McDonagh Breen attended the Christian Brothers School in Marino, Dublin, and St Flannan’s College in Ennis before entering the Dublin Archdiocesan Seminary in Clonliffe College.
While there, he read classics and philosophy in University College Dublin, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1938. Following a year of theology at the Lateran University in Rome, during which time he became familiar with Benedictines at Sant’Anselmo, he entered Glenstal on 22nd October 1939.
After a shortened postulancy, he entered the novitiate on 14th January 1940, receiving the name Columba. He made profession on 18th February 1941 and was ordained priest on 18th December 1945. Recovering from an illness, he spent the months of February to September of 1946 convalescing in our motherhouse of Maredsous Abbey in Belgium.
Father Columba taught French, Irish and religion in the school and, already devoted to the study of Scripture, taught this discipline in the monastery. In September 1948 he became Headmaster, a post he held until 1953. In 1957 he went to the École Biblique in Jerusalem, obtaining a Diploma in Biblical Studies in 1959. At that time, the Dominican-run institute was at the height of its influence and Father Columba made many friends and future contacts there, the most important for him being Père Pierre Benoit OP. It was from this time, too, that his interest in yoga stemmed, encouraged by Père Jean-Marie Déchanet OSB of the then Abbey of Saint-André in Bruges, now Sint-Andriesabdij. From that time, too, came his habit of singing the psalms in Hebrew while striding about a rain-soaked Glenstal Abbey!
Father Columba spent the years 1960 to 1961 in Ealing Abbey while pursuing an extra-mural diploma-course in English Literature at London University. Returned to Glenstal, Father Columba taught Scripture to novices and juniors, was frequently invited to lecture in seminaries and had an active ministry as lecturer and retreat-giver to religious sisters. He was acutely aware of the sisters’ need for proper theological formation and did what he could to promote this, often against opposition from bishops and/or from religious superiors.
He was Master of Novices for several years until 1972, when he fulfilled a long-held dream and went to the Cameroons to begin the long process of making a Benedictine foundation in Nigeria, which was recovering from civil war. During his time in the Cameroons, he taught Scripture in the Swiss Benedictine foundation on Mont Fébé, just outside the capital Yaoundé. Finally, in 1975, after tireless lobbying of a Nigerian Government very suspicious of Irish priests but not knowing what monks were, it was possible to open the foundation at Eke, near Enugu, in the former Biafra. Over the year 1978 to 1979 the foundation gradually moved further northwest out of Igbo territory, to Ewu-Isan, some distance from Benin City. Father Columba served as Superior in both Eke and Ewu from 1976 to 1982. In that year he was replaced as Superior by Abbot Augustine O’Sullivan, but continued his ministries in teaching, formation and retreat-giving until his final return to Glenstal in 1996.
Back in Ireland, Father Columba was able to pursue one of his first loves, the Irish language, attending summer-schools and even Irish-dancing classes. In addition, he wrote articles and book-reviews for Irish religious periodicals, especially for Doctrine and Life, and gave lectures on Scripture and spirituality to seminarians and religious. A major work, Feed from the Tree of Life: Homilies for the Weekday Masses, appeared eight months after his death.
Father Columba died suddenly while waiting in the statio for Mass on 6th February 2000. May he rest in peace.