A Home for All

This year, as Columban missionaries look back on one hundred years of mission, we recall with gratitude our accomplishments in various distant lands. However, this centennial year also reminds us to recognize those who have who have played a major role in our mission story close to home. One of those dedicated missionaries here in the U.S. is Sr. Corona Colleary, a member of the Missionary Sisters of St. Columban.

Almost 50 years ago, Sr. Corona was a key person on a team that oversaw the transformation of a disused seminary in Silver Creek, New York, into a modern and beautiful retirement home, St. Columban's on the Lake. Since then she has dedicated her life to ensuring that this Home is indeed a home for all its residents, the majority of whom are elderly people from the surrounding district. They are grateful not only for the support and care that they receive there, but also for the blessing of being able to remain close to their family, neighbors and friends.

As well as being a home for seniors from the locality, throughout almost five decades, many elderly Columban priests have traveled a long distance in order to reside there. Some of them, tired and weary from their missionary journeys, have found rest and serenity there during the later stages of life. Other priests, sick and infi rm, have received professional care and family-like support from Sr. Corona and her care team, which allowed them to live out their final years with dignity.

However, providing quality care and personal attention to the residents of the retirement home on a daily basis is only one of Sr. Corona's many responsibilities. As leader of the Missionary Sisters of St. Columban in the U.S., she also oversees the well-being and ministries of the members of her own religious community. Furthermore, she facilitates mission education and fundraising in support of her colleagues who are actively engaged in ministries in various other countries.

Indeed, Sr. Corona's missionary heart embraces people near and far. She is deeply aware that how one serves God is much more important than where one serves God. Despite her various responsibilities and busy schedule, personal and communal prayer are central to her daily life. Through it, she has come to realize that, while some missionaries are called to shine the light of Christ's love in the shanty towns of far-off lands, others are called to shine it in rural areas close to home. However, wherever Columban missionaries minister, all of us are workers in the one vineyard for the same Lord.