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.
I had just came out of the church after celebrating Mass. An altar server came up to me and told me that one youth decided to leave home and wanted to speak with me. I saw a bag sitting in the guard house and I got nervous thinking, it must really be true.
When Dan O'Connor first arrived at the Columban House in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1983, he was greeted with "There's a Kiwi in the house!" And indeed he was a "Kiwi" hailing from Hokitika on New Zealand's South Island.
"I have to be in Myanmar. I have to go. I have to take a risk. I know there will be a lot of frustration, difficulties and struggles, yet inside my heart I hear the voice of God gently saying, 'Go! You must go, you have to go.'"
In his book, The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck's first sentence is the somber observation, "Life is difficult." Direct and honest, it is a reality worth mulling over because, though we all know and have experienced that life is indeed hard, nevertheless there is a widespread belief that we have
In February of this year Fr. Charlie Duster was admitted to the hospital where he was informed a short time later that he was terminally ill. During the following weeks, with the same zeal with which he had lived his missionary life, he prepared himself to meet God face to face.
Columban Fr. Frank Hoare shared this page from his missionary diary:
April 16, 1992
Word came into the church that a homeless man was sleeping rough under Sotohori Bridge, in Japan. The local Church group looking after the homeless went to visit him. Yes, he was there living in an exquisite homemade cardboard style of a home. He would slide in and out of it like a drawer.
In late January 2017, Columban Fr. Pat Colgan (General Councillor with responsibility for Myanmar) and Columban Fr. Jovito Dales (the Society's Bursar General) visited boarding houses and internally displaced persons' (IDP) camps which the Columbans support in Myanmar.
After every atrocity in the global city there are days of discussion and debate as to why such acts are happening. Blame is thrown around at the individuals who perpetrated the atrocity and the organizations with which they are associated.
Before sharing some memories of my experience as a lay missionary, I would like to thank the Columban Fathers for giving me the opportunity to live one of the greatest life experiences I have ever had.
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.