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.
When we think of the missionary work of the Columbans in Japan, we must not forget the Trojan work done by the Japanese catechists. Very often they were the right hand Samurais of the trail blazing Columban missionaries. One such lady catechist is Miss Tsuneko Hinata.
Editor’s Note: In November 2015, Julia Corcoran spent a week with Columban lay missionaries from Chile and the Philippines who are working in Britain. The following is her account as told to Columban Fr. Denis Carter.
If I were to describe my twelve years ministering to prostitutes, I would have to say I felt truly powerless on the one hand and deeply aware of God’s presence on the other. God’s love and compassion seemed very much alive in that dark and painfilled world.
Noh Hyein, better known as Anna (pronounced En-na), a teacher by profession, came to the Philippines in April 2011 with three other Korean women. After a year of studies in Tagalog and English, she was assigned to St. Peter Parish in the Diocese of Novaliches.
Fiji for me will always be one of the most wonderful places in the world. I never expected to end up in Fiji, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean surrounded only by a vast expanse of water. It’s almost impossible to get further away from Ireland, my home country.
Editor’s Note: On Monday, November, 23, 2015, Columban Fr. YoungIn Kim celebrated the Feast Day of St. Columban in Cuzco, Peru. He described the experience in the article below.
In 2007 my father talked to me about the possibility of going overseas as a lay missionary. When I began to attend, with 20 others, the orientation program in Suva I had no idea what being a missionary might be about.
My name is Nilton Iman, and I am a priest of the Diocese of Chimbote, a land blessed with the blood of the first martyrs of my country, Peru.
Shusaku Endo, a Japanese novelist, died in 1996–almost 20 years ago. In Japan he is still featured regularly in television programs, magazine articles and exhibitions. Every bookstore still has an Endo section.
My name is Teakare Betero, age 28, and I have been with the Columbans for five years now. At the moment I am studying at the Pacific Regional Seminary. This seminary is the only place for theological study for the priesthood in Oceania (South Pacific).
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.