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 1986, when I was in the process of learning Cantonese, a Hong Kong friend took me to Mong Kok on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong where, for the first time, I saw sex workers waiting on the streets for clients.
The work of the Columbans over the last 65 years has been blessed by the presence of diocesan priests (associates) who contract with the Missionary Society of St. Columban for a period of six or more years.
I was born in a predominantly Christian city in the Philippines. Iligan City is about an hour’s drive from Marawi City, a city that was declared as the “Islamic City of the South Philippines.” Growing up, I had a few Muslim classmates, and we were good friends.
Four Columbans, John Casey, Patrick Ronan, Owen O’Kane and Patrick Reilly, all attached to the Huchow mission in the Chinese Province of Chekiang, were arrested by the Communist authorities on the same day in 1952. Transferred to Kashing jail, they spent the next sixteen months in solitary.
I came home for my highly anticipated home vacation in April 2018 after spending the last three years in Chile, feeling incredibly excited to be back among my family and friends. I must admit that I had mixed feelings about reintegrating myself back amongst my family.
“People think pleasing God is all God cares about, but any fool in the world can see he is always trying to please us back…always making little surprises and springing them on us when we least expect it.” (Alice Walker, The Color Purple.)
The easiest way for me to write about prayer is to speak of my own journey with God. I say this because prayer is a particular experience for each person. It is an experience of a conscious relationship with God that has all the ups and downs of any other relationship.
There used to be a kind of joke going around that said, “As long as there are algebra exams, there will be prayer in the public schools.” Algebra is important, but I think prayer is of even greater importance. Communicating with our Creator gives us dignity and nobility.
Recent Anzac Day commemorations in New Zealand made a special attempt to recognize that “not all wounds bleed.” There has always been great sympathy and understanding for those who suffer physical injuries, but the same recognition and understanding has not been there for those who suffer with me
I first met Mr. Ikehata when Rev. Tesshu, a Buddhist priest, took Columban Fr. Bede Cleary and me to meet him on a hot summer day. The four of us were sitting round a low table in the tatami room and in no time at all the conversation was about the Holy Spirit.
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.