Unanticipated Education
It started out like any other normal evening meal in the formation house in Fiji when we were informed we will be going to Peru for our FMA (First Mission Assignment). Two days after our arrival in Lima, Tex and I were called to a meeting with our FMA Director where he outlined the program.
Aminiasi Ruvawi
July 30, 2018
Patrick's Story
If you are from a very poor family living in a remote village with no electricity, no running water and poor transportation, you might feel depressed and feel the world is unfair. You would be right to think this way.
Fr. Neil Magill
July 23, 2018
Losana
Losana Ve'ehala of Tonga passed away unexpectedly at the Columban lay missionary house in Suva, Fiji, on Sunday, December 10, 2017. Tongan Fr. Taukei, in his homily at the house, asked us "Why did she die in Suva, why did she die with the Columbans?"
Fr. Donal McIlraith
July 16, 2018
Ordination in Fiji
It was a personal joy for me to attend the ordination of Pat Roland Visanti in Suva on St. Columban's Day 2017. It coincided with the opening of the Society's Centennial Year.
Fr. Donal McIlraith
July 10, 2018
Columban Martyrs in Korea
Sanjeong Dong in Mokpo was both a parish and also the headquarters of the Columban mission in the southwest province of Chollanamdo in Korea in the 1940s. The pastor was Columban Fr. Tom Cusack and his assistant Columban Fr. John O'Brien.
Fr. Donal O'Keefe
July 5, 2018
A Call to Serve
God calls us in unique and different ways. Before I became a Columban lay missionary, I was happy working in my diocese for nine years. But somehow, I had this feeling that God was calling me for something more.
Joan Yaps
July 3, 2018
A Columban Love Story
"When I left Peru to go to the Philippines, I wondered what I'd find there," observed Marisol Rojas, a former Columban Lay Missionary. Perhaps the last thing she expected to fi nd was a husband.
Fr. John Boles
June 26, 2018
Following the Footsteps
As we celebrate the Columban Mission Society's centennial, Columban lay missionary Haiti Muller refl ects on her journey in the prison ministry where she gets inspiration from the work of Columban Fr. Francis Chapman.
Columban Lay Missionary Haiti Muller
June 22, 2018
Beauty and Meaning
In mid-January 2018, I spent a few days with our Columban missionaries in the parish of Badin, Pakistan, before attending a meeting of our Columban missionaries living and working in Pakistan. Badin is in the interior Sindh Province and is served by Columban Frs. Tony Cavanagh and Dan O'Connor.
Fr Patrick Colgan
June 11, 2018
A New Rotuman Priest
Pat Visanti was born and raised a Methodist on the island of Rotuma. Rotuma is both an island and a nation. It is about 400 miles north of Fiji and, even though ethnically and linguistically different from Fiji, was made part of Fiji during the colonial period.
Fr. Donal McIlraith
June 4, 2018
A New Path
Life begins at forty! That's what Fr. Tony Coney was about to discover as his plane touched down in Lima. As a newly ordained Columban priest he had said goodbye to his family and friends in Ireland and had traveled to Peru to begin his mission there on his fortieth birthday.
As a dedicated altar boy, this was a way of life Tony might have imagined for himself when he was ten years old, but by the time he had turned twenty, it no longer seemed even a remote possibility. By then, he had given up all religious practice, had no regular employment due to his failure to complete his …
In So Many Words
I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance. (John 10-10)
Fr. Bobby Gilmore
June 1, 2018
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.