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.
Sometimes you come across a bond of love that makes you feel really humble. This is what happened to me when I met Josè and David.
I am Peter, and I am a third year student at Columban Fr. Neil Magill's Higher Education Center [HEC] in Mandalay, Myanmar (formerly Burma). We get two weeks holiday during the academic year, but most of the 90 students at the HEC cannot go home.
"The children, the young children, we have to do something about the children, they are at risk." Warmi Huasi is a small civil association (NGO) I set up with others twelve years ago to accompany families, and especially children at risk, who live in situations of poverty.
The story is told of a good and prayerful woman who claimed to have had a vision of Christ. She went to see the bishop. "Did you talk to him?" he asked.
When Fr. Sean McDonagh, who taught at the University of Mindanao in the Philippines, joined one of his students on a research project among the T'boli tribe during the summer of 1978, he could not have imagined what a life-changing experience lay ahead of him.
The last time I crossed a body of water on a boat at night was on my first mission assignment in the Fiji Islands. On one night I had to return to the mainland of Vanua Levu from Rabi Island. I told the priest maybe I could return to the mainland the next morning.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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.