About

Fr. Seán ÓLaoire is a co-founder and the Spiritual Director of Companions on the Journey, a community of about 200 persons.

He was born in Ireland and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1972. He spent 14 years living and working among the Kalenjin people of East Africa and came to the U.S. in 1987. Fr. Seán speaks six languages and is the author of multiple books including Spirits in Spacesuits, Souls on Safari, A Sensible God, and Why?

Fr. Seán has a BSc degree in mathematics and a PhD in Transpersonal Psychology. He is a licensed Clinical Psychologist with a private practice in Los Altos, California.

Companions on the Journey is a spiritual community which seeks to recognize the God/divinity within each of us. We are all “bite size pieces of God.” We gather weekly as an independent, non-hierarchical Eucharistic community dedicated to aligning ourselves with God, awakening ourselves to our true nature, and healing the separations between us. Each individual’s spirituality is honored as derived from his/her experiences of God, immanent and transcendent, and is illuminated by the teachings of Christ and the wisdom of other spiritual traditions.

Founded in 1997, COJ strives to be an open, inclusive, participatory, hospitable and loving community. Seekers of all faiths are welcome to join our liturgical services, spiritual groups, community meetings, social events and charitable activities.

In 2007, our Spiritual Director Fr. Seán ÓLaoire composed a new liturgy for COJ entitled “A Liturgy Celebrating Christ Consciousness.”  The “Eucharistic Prayer of the Cosmos” within this liturgy is a beautiful, poetic hymn in recognition of the exquisitely choreographed dance between the ineffable transcendence of God and His/Her immanent creation. It acknowledges our oneness and unity with all that exists, has existed and will exist, with Love as the intent, focus, goal, and end point of all Creation.