Receive, O most sweet Mother,
our humble supplications,
and above all obtain for us that,
one day, happy with you,
we may repeat before your throne that hymn
which today is sung on earth around your altars:
You are all-beautiful, O Mary!
You are the glory,
You are the joy,
You are the honor of our people!
Amen.
Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus
while before Your face I humbly kneel and,
with burning soul,
pray and beseech You
to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments
of faith, hope, and charity;
true contrition for my sins,
and a firm purpose of amendment.
“What are you doing in Taiwan?,” my friends would ask. “Oh, I work at the HIV/AIDS Center.” “What? What did you say?” My friends were confused by my answer and couldn’t understand what I said. After answering several times, they finally managed to understand. They didn’t ask again because they didn’t know anything about HIV or AIDS. It was just an unfamiliar word in their lives.
Dear Virgin and Martyr,
whom the Church recalls in her liturgy,
you heroically resisted the temptations
of a degenerate ruler.
Subjected to long and horrible tortures,
you remained faithful to your heavenly Spouse.
Saint Peter, we are told,
gave you some solace and so you are invoked by nurses.
Encourage them to see Christ in the sick
O my God, I don't want to go to hell.
I know that because of my many sins I deserve to go there.
Help me get rid of my sins.
I don't want to lose my soul in everlasting torment,
without all happiness, banished from You forever.
Help me realize that I shall have to make up for my venial sins,
too, and that some of the punishment due to all sin,
Creative and Nurturing God,
we weep in the face of dry land and bushfires,
dying crops and animals,
traumatized families and communities.
I visited Korea in February earlier this year after an absence of nineteen years. I’d been invited by old friends to return to this mysterious, yet very modern country, where I’d previously spent two years doing the Columban Overseas Training Program from 1980 to 1982 before being sent to Chile in 1985 after being ordained a priest.
I, a faithless sinner -
renew and ratify today in your hands,
O Immaculate Mother,
the vows of my Baptism;
I renounce forever Satan,
his pomps and works;
and I give myself entirely to Jesus Christ,
the Incarnate Wisdom,
to carry my cross after Him
all the days of my life,
and to be more faithful to Him
than I have ever been before.
At last, I am back in Korea, my home country. I returned in March 2019 and threw myself into the surging waves of work awaiting me as the new Columban Lay Missionary (CLM) Coordinator. To be honest, coming back to Kore, brought lots of questions to my mind. As a Korean, as a woman and as a Columban Lay Missionary, what can I do here?
Mani Ram told me today that he had just had a terrifying experience. He was in love with a girl in the settlement, but her parents rejected Mani Ram and arranged a marriage for her with another young man. Mani Ram said that he then began to have dreams every night of a female ghost coming to him and extracting his life source. He began to get thinner and thinner.
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.
We go in the name of the Church to announce, by deed and word, the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Missionary Society of St. Columban
1902 N. Calhoun
St. Columbans, NE 68056
Phone: 877-299-1920
Fax: 402-291-4984
email: mission@columban.org
