Irish Dominican friar is honoured by the Order

 Fr Paul Murray OP

A friar of the Irish province is to be honoured by the Dominican Order with the conferring of the Master of Sacred Theology.

The international website of the Order in announcing the news states that "On September 20th, 2011, the Master of the Order, fr Bruno Cadore, with the unanimous agreement of the General Council, promoted Bro. Paul Brendan Murray OP to Master in Sacred Theology. Bro. Paul belongs to the Irish province.....and is president of the Institute of Spirituality and lecturer in Spritual Theology at the Angelicum in Rome. In his letter announcing the decision, the Master of the Order writes: 'The promotion to STM (Master in sacred Theology) is a simple, family way we have in the Order of saying to one of our brothers who has laboured hard in the theological field "well done good and faithful servant" and a way of encouraging him to continue to do so. Paul Murray is a model for the young generation of how we can make theology really responsive to the big questions arising from the spiritual searching of our contemporary world.'

Irish Dominican Vocations joins in the congratulations to fr Paul on this excellent news. The Irish Dominicans have benefited greatly from his wisdom, fraternity and good humour. In the realm of vocations, I regularly give to enquirers fr Paul's book on Dominican spirituality The New Wine of Dominican Spirituality - A Drink called Happiness (Continuum, 2006) because it is in my opinion one of the best expositions of Dominican spirituality that I have come across.