The Missionary Society of St. Columban held its Centennial Mass of Thanksgiving on July 1, 2018, at St. Columbkille Church in Papillion, Neb. The Mass was presided by Archbishop George Lucas. Below is the homily given by Columban Fr. Timothy Mulroy, director of Columban missionaries in North America:
"Good afternoon. I’m Fr. Tim Mulroy, the Director of the Columban missionaries here in North America. Thank you for joining us here today to celebrate the centennial of our founding. Just one hundred years ago this weekend Columban missionaries received official approval from the Church, which enabled us to embark on our international missionary work. Today is a day to rejoice and give thanks to God for the blessings of this past century. It is also a day to give thanks to each of you, as well as so many others for the blessing that you have been – and continue to be – for Columban missionaries. As Columban missionaries look back on a century of mission, we are more deeply aware than ever that our lives and all of our ministries in seventeen different countries around the globe are possible thanks to your generous support and your partnership with us in mission.
"As a young Columban seminarian, many decades ago – in fact, sometime in the last millennium! – I found it exciting to live in the same house where there were many elderly Columban missionaries who had returned home after many decades spent in distant lands. There were also many other Columbans who came there on vacation from various mission countries. On any given day, I could enjoy breakfast listening to stories from a Columban priest who had ministered for many years in Peru; for lunch my companion might be a Columban who spent a decade in China; while over supper I could sense the enthusiasm of a Columban who talked about returning to his mission in Fiji the following week. Sensing their commitment and joy filled me with excitement about my own future. Listening to stories about their lives and ministries filled me with the hope that my life too would become a great adventure in the service of God in a far off land.
"However, at supper one evening, I happened to be sitting next to an elderly priest, Fr. Jim Kennedy, whom I had casually met during the previous few months. Since it was my first opportunity to have a conversation with him, I inquired as to where he had been on mission. “Right here” he responded calmly and confidently. Somewhat taken back by his response, I inquired again, “But before that, where were you on mission?” “Oh”, he responded, “before that, I was on mission here”. Now, I was confused! “I mean, which country did you go on mission to?” I ventured to ask, wondering why he was avoiding my question. “My mission country? Right here” he responded in the same calm and confident voice. Then, during the remainder of our evening meal together he told me his life story.
"At the time that the Missionary Society of St. Columban was being founded one hundred years ago, Fr. Jim was preparing to be ordained as a priest to minister in his home diocese. However, stories about this new missionary organization committed to spreading the Gospel in China awoke in him a strong desire to do something great for God. A year later, immediately after his ordination, he asked his bishop for permission to join the Columban missionaries, and his request was granted. It seemed that Fr. Jim’s dream of becoming a Columban missionary in China was about to become a reality. However, Fr. Jim was soon to discover that God and the leaders of the Columban missionaries had another plan for him.
"The new missionary organization had many needs. In particular, it needed people to do promotion: share stories about its mission, ask for support, as well as invite young people to join the mission. In order to do all of those things it had started a mission magazine, and it needed people to assist with its publication. Since the new mission organization had only a small pool of personnel from which to choose, Fr. Jim was assigned to the mission magazine office. For the next forty years – yes four, zero! – Fr. Jim ministered in that office, sharing the stories of Columban mission around the globe, requesting spiritual and material support, and inviting others to join the Columban missionaries. Fr. Jim died at the age of 96, having never set foot in any Columban mission country.
"Did Fr. Jim consider himself a Columban missionary? He did! Did Fr. Jim sacrifice himself to the same extent as other Columban missionaries who ministered in distant lands for the sake of God’s mission? He certainly did! Did Fr. Jim find fulfillment and contentment in his vocation as a Columban missionary? He most certainly did! As he journeyed through life, Fr. Jim came to the realization that that what matters most is not where one serves God, but how one serves God. He understood that the most important part of being a missionary is not living in some far off country, but rather having a heart that’s open to God and to all God’s children.
"Most of you gathered here today have not gone on mission to some distant land. However, like Fr. Jim, through your support for Columban mission right here in this place, you express your love for God and for all his children, especially those who are neglected or forgotten. The key to mission is love for Jesus, and for his people, his sheep and his lambs.
"Yes, the heart of mission is love, God’s love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which we then share with others. The Church proclaims this great truth through its veneration of the two patron saints of mission. One of them, St. Francis Xavier, spent his adult life traveling throughout Asia in order to proclaim the Gospel to those who had had never heard of Christ. The other patron saint of mission is St. Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite Sister in France, who spent her adult life in an enclosed convent close to her home – in an area smaller than the grounds here at St. Columbkille church. It is easy for most of us to understand why St. Francis Xavier became a patron saint of mission, but St. Therese of Lisieux? What did she do to share the Gospel with peoples around the globe? She understood that the heart of mission is love for Jesus and for all his people, and so she prayed unceasingly for missionaries, as well as for the people in distant lands, that they would open their hearts to Christ. St. Therese of Lisieux understood that through prayer she could unite herself in love with God and with all his children, everywhere on this planet. That is why the Church also venerates her as a patron saint of mission.
"St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Francis Xavier are reminders that there are different ways to participate in God’s mission, and that everyone has a part to play in it. Indeed, every baptized person has the privilege of sharing the Good News of God’s love for all his children, wherever we find ourselves, or wherever we are sent, whether it’s here in Papillion or in the Philippines. Every baptized person has the responsibility of sharing the Good News of God’s mercy in our day to day life, as a business manager or as an Uber driver, as a teacher or as a parent. What matters most is, not where we go, but rather how we allow ourselves to become instruments of God in the places where we find ourselves. All of us then are missionaries. In the second reading today, St. Paul reminds us of this when he says, “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”
"During these past hundred years, Columban missionaries have witnessed God at work in amazing ways among the local people in every one of our mission countries. Not only have many of them embraced with joy the Christian faith, but they have also responded enthusiastically to their own missionary calling. Whereas one hundred years ago, the majority of Columban missionaries were American, Australian or Irish priests, today the majority of young Columban missionaries are from Korea, the Philippines, Fiji, Chile or Peru. Moreover, this younger generation of Columban missionaries includes priests and lay people, women and men, married and single persons. To paraphrase St. Paul, “Just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts are one body, so it is with Columban missionaries and with the Church. We are all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body, whether we’re American or Chinese, ordained or lay, Korean or Filipino.”
"As the world becomes a global village, all of us wherever we live have opportunities to meet peoples from different countries and cultures. Our response to this challenge can be ignore them and retreat behind a wall of suspicion and hostility, or we can choose to become strong and courageous, go out to meet them, and develop a willingness to share and learn from one another. Encountering people from other countries who have different religious traditions and customs provides us with an opportunity to live out our baptismal calling as missionaries … because becoming a missionary means opening our hearts to God and to all of his children … and as Fr. Jim taught me many years ago as a Columban seminarian, it matters little where one serves God, what really matters is how we serve God in the places we find ourselves as we live out our day to day lives."