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 $15 per year. Sign up to receive our next issue. Read more about Columban Mission magazine.
It was Christmas Eve night and Fr. Charlie O'Rourke was alone in the rectory in his parish in South Korea when he thought he heard a knock on the back door.
On May 23, 2017, I returned home after three years of being away. I arrived in our village around nine in the evening, and I was expecting people to be in their houses. But I was mistaken.
Fr. Sean, you came to Korea in 1969, almost 50 years ago. How has the nature of your work changed in that time?
Good morning! These are two words that made a big difference in my missionary journey in Taiwan. On the first day of my Mandarin class, I went out early that morning to my teacher's house. I walked slowly while praying the rosary. There were a lot of people I met on the streets.
After a happy six year break back in Australia as editor of The Far East magazine and working in Columban promotion in Adelaide, I have returned to Santiago, Chile, where I had previously worked for many years.
When did you arrive in Korea?
I came here on October 2, 1969.
What were the Columbans doing there at the time you arrived?
In mid-September 2017, a family of three, Aik Ket aged 30 years old, his wife San Bu, also 30 years old, and their only child Chit Oo Mya, just three years old arrived at our shelter at the Hope Center.
Genovia, How did you come to be a lay missionary in Japan?
The man had never walked. From birth, he was unable to put his two feet under him, but that didn't stop him from going out and joining the crowd that had gathered to hear what the newly arrived preachers had to say. They were the talk of the town, Lystra.
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.