Below are stories from past issues of Columban Mission magazine. The Columban Fathers publish Columban Mission magazine eight times a year. Subscriptions are available for just $10 per year. Sign up to receive our next issue. Read more about Columban Mission magazine.
In mid-January 2018, I spent a few days with our Columban missionaries in the parish of Badin, Pakistan, before attending a meeting of our Columban missionaries living and working in Pakistan. Badin is in the interior Sindh Province and is served by Columban Frs. Tony Cavanagh and Dan O'Connor.
Pat Visanti was born and raised a Methodist on the island of Rotuma. Rotuma is both an island and a nation. It is about 400 miles north of Fiji and, even though ethnically and linguistically different from Fiji, was made part of Fiji during the colonial period.
Life begins at forty! That's what Fr. Tony Coney was about to discover as his plane touched down in Lima. As a newly ordained Columban priest he had said goodbye to his family and friends in Ireland and had traveled to Peru to begin his mission there on his fortieth birthday.
I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance. (John 10-10)
When I was growing up, I really didn't like reciting the Holy Rosary.
Why visit the prisoners? It seems that it would be a fearful activity to engage in. Columban Sister Joan Sawyer bravely looked that fear in the face and visited prisoners. Eventually, she lost her life in an uprising in a Peruvian prison.
In 2012, while I was working in a parish among the aboriginal people called Atayal in the mountains of Taiwan, we organized a pilgrimage to the northern Philippines (where I am originally from) as part of the celebration of the parish's 50th foundation anniversary.
What was the first thing you did when you entered the church today? I assume you dipped your finger in the holy water and made the sign of the cross. Making the sign of the cross affirms our faith in the Most Holy Trinity.
I live and work in a mountainous area of Taiwan with aboriginal people. The majority of them are pomegranate and orange farmers who also cultivate a variety vegetables which they sell.
In my new parish assignment, I am blessed to have met wonderful ladies who were named after our Blessed Mother. I would like to share my experience with them.
Nana Maria
The Columbans are a society of missionaries, including priests and lay people, who minister to people of various cultures as a way of witnessing to the universal love of God.