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.
There is something about life on an island. The past number of years I’ve been blessed to spend three weeks on an island called Negros Oriental. Every year after the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, I pack up my bag and my books and head out.
Columban Fr. Donald Kill writes about the celebration of the Christmas season at the “Balay San Columbano” home in the Philippines. This home was founded by Fr. Donald to give the children of alcoholics and drug addicts better opportunities in life.
The tall elderly man leaning slightly on his cane, stands out among the people of the Andes. Most Andean folks reach only to his shoulders, and his white and ruddy skin, burned by the cold, contrasts with the coppery skin of the local residents.
There are times when God is near to us and helps us through the day
No matter what the obstacles, the worries, the cares on top of us
We bare the marks of his great Cross
Triumphantly all the way.
Like the majority of Columban missionaries, it is usual for me to spend the Christmas season far from my family.
I am not a writer, but I’m writing this reflection for myself and for others hopefully to be enlightened more about the Trinity’s love and God’s desire for each one of us to become a messenger of His love and the Holy Spirit, who is the Giver of Life.
How was it that Columban priest, Fr. Dick Ranaghan, spurred Bing Crosby into making his first record of Silent Night?
On the night of December 16, 2011, a sendong or typhoon struck the northern coast of Mindanao, the main southern island of the Philippines.
The snow outside is tapering off. There is a Christmas concert on public television. Surely it is time for me to reflect as Christmas approaches.
A few years ago my priest companion in the Columban international seminary in Chicago, Fr. Leo Distor, and I were invited to join a pilgrimage in the footsteps of St. Columban.
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.