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.
On September 6, 2015, I celebrated Mass for the last time in prison. For the past 22 years I have been working as a prison chaplain in Western Australian jails.
The Thar Parkar Desert is situated in the southeast of Pakistan in Sindh province. It covers an area of 22,000 square kilometers with an estimated population of 1.5 million people and is one of the most densely populated deserts of the world.
I got off the minibus at the last stop on the hillside in Huaycan, on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. The road ended here so I walked on the unpaved sandy track up the hill, past the shacks that seemed to sprout on the bare slopes. Sand, dust, dirt. Not a blade of grass. Not a flower.
Fr. Thomas Nan was ordained in 2002 and spent eight years in Peru as a Columban missionary. “When I was young I never knew the Columbans. I was an altar server in my parish and always thought I would become a diocesan priest.
It’s hard to remind yourself to have faith every day. Especially when it comes to having patience or to being confident in God’s plan when it is unknown to you. I have found myself saying, “God has a plan,” a number of times over the last few years.
The Rainbow Community, a foundation offering services to peoples with intellectual disabilities in South Korea, founded by Irish-born Columban Fr. Noel O’Neill, received the Manhae Award in the field of social service.
“What is it that keeps you going?” is a question that I frequently ask other Columban missionaries who live and minister in very difficult circumstances.
The road from Lima to Samanco passes through a number of fast growing coastal towns but for the most part the traveler has no choice but to contemplate the bare rocky or sandy hills that fascinate by their ever varying forms and their multiple colors from shades of white, cream, brown and black.
Socializing rarely energizes me. In fact, it usually drains me. However, recently I was in Lima for two weeks meeting friends with whom I'd shared something of my life over a period of 40 years.
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.