Walk By Faith
I have many aspirations in life. Some of them I have already achieved. I am happy every time I achieve a goal. But every time I achieved something, I felt there was still something missing. I was searching until I became a Columban lay missionary. Here, I recognized what I was missing – a sense of belonging.
What to Do When Your Mother Does Not Recognize You
Who is she? We asked our grandmother pointing to my mother. “My sister. You are the teacher.” My grandmother mumbled and whispered in her already weak voice.
The Lucky Owl Who Fell from the Sky
This spring a pair of great horned owls took over a large nest in a tree not too far from the Narragansett Bay shoreline. As one would expect before too long little owls could be seen safely peeking from the nest high in a tall evergreen.
With Love, from Lancashire Hill to Lima
Milly Hampson is eleven years old. She lives with her parents Darren and Beatriz in a tower block of flats overlooking the River Mersey in a rather unfashionable part of Stockport, Greater Manchester (UK) called Lancashire Hill.
My Life Journey in Korea
For more than a year I spent most of my time visiting the elderly. I would say that meeting the different types of elderly is interesting and enjoyable, but needs a lot of energy, and a peaceful mind and heart to be able to listen to them.
Due to their age and physical condition many can no longer walk far. Most of them just stay in their houses and spend time watching television. There was a time I caught an elderly person drinking makgeolli (rice wine) just to ease her loneliness. Some of them spend time sitting near the window waiting for the daylight to fade.
The Best Gift
When was the last time I said "I love you" to my dad? Have I thanked him lately? How long has it been since I prayed for him? I don't know about you, but I personally ask myself these questions and sometimes I can't even answer them myself.
Mission Appeals
The summer mission appeals starts in June and finish by the end of August. In 2016, I felt so blessed that everyone was so accommodating and flexible in terms of the parish visiting schedule.
Pages from a Missionary's Diary
St. Anthony is a favorite saint of South Indian Catholics. Today I celebrated his feast with the mainly Indo-Fijian congregation at Raviravi, a rural settlement on Fiji’s main island. A South Indian Catholic, known as Tambi, had built a small thatched church in his honor. Later in the 1960s Fr. John Mahoney, a Columban from the U.S., had the present church constructed. St. Anthony’s feast is the high point of the Church year in Raviravi.
Life Is for Living
Life is for living. It is to experience freedom to love and help others, to be free to grow and have family. To be human is to be free from fear and punishment and ill health, poverty and hunger. Living is to be free to think, to speak our thoughts and freely choose the good. To be alive is to have justice and dignity and the fullness of existence. To be able say I am alive and I know that I am is to be aware of life. But millions are deprived of these basic values of human life. The death penalty is just another way to deprive people of life itself.
The In-Between Time
To be human means to live from day to day,
Searching the way forward, Inching towards a clearer sense of identity and purpose. I wonder what it was like for Jesus? I imagine a growing sense of belonging in God, warmed, supported, strengthened by the Father’s love;
Respect for Life and Human Dignity
Bennie had a thin, hollow face, the picture of malnutrition at 22 years of age, and had never been to school for more than a few months, could not read or write and he was a one-meal man. He ate once a day. He was dressed in shorts and a dirty t-shirt. His flip-flops were worn thin.
The Day I Met Johnny Cash!
Columban Fr. Bobby Gilmore recalls the day he met Johnny and June Cash.One day when I was working in Montego Bay, I got a call from the bishop requesting that I go out and bless the foundation of a new hotel, the Ritz Carlton. He was invited to perform the ceremony but due to other engagements couldn’t make it. Reluctantly, I set off not realizing that it was a formal occasion attended by all the great and the good of Jamaican life.
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.