This article – The Second Pandemic – by Conn Fyfe of St Louis Grammar School Ballymena, came second in the 2021 Columban Schools Media competition. It is illustrated by the image which was awarded second place in the competition and was created by Caoimhe Collins...
Fr John Boles speaks to a young Columban who shares words of hope from an unexpected place. Wuhan! A name now notorious as the probable source of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. But, for Catholics and especially Columbans, Wuhan means GOOD NEWS. It is where the...
In his reflection on Palm Sunday, otherwise known as Passion Sunday, which commemorates Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Fr Jim Fleming explains how the drama of what it means to be a Christian begins to unfold. With Palm Sunday the real drama of what it...
Columban missionary, Fr Noel O’Neill, who founded the Rainbow Community in Korea to assist people with intellectual disabilities, writes about the mountains conquered by Kim Youn Cheong. I took the call. An over-excited voice told me: “Sinbunim (Father), I have...
Fr Dan Troy recalls a fascinating article in the Far East magazine in 1934 by Syrian-born Fr Peter Gabriel, a Columban missionary who lived in China in the 1930s. As the spring rain poured down on Wuhan during the first week of February I was quite happy to delay...
As I walked up the steps to St Columban's Church yesterday afternoon in the Hanyang area of Wuhan, I noticed that a white sheet of paper still formed a seal on the main door as it has done since early January. The printed details on this sheet of paper indicate...
“You have the wrong number. This is the North Korean embassy.” It was sometime in 1999 when I did my First Missionary Assignment (FMA) in Peru, recalls Fr Thomas Seungwon Nam, a South Korean Columban missionary. I had to renew my passport. For the first time in my...
Fr Frank Hoare writes about an Indo-Fijian marriage ceremony he celebrated near the town of Savusavu in Vanua Levu, the second main island of Fiji. The marriage ceremony was almost finished. It was time for the civil wedding. The groom’s younger brother had...
Lockdown changed life in the Philippines for Columban seminarian Jerry Lohera and spurred him to get planting fruit and vegetables to ease the stress. From September 2019 up to the first week of March 2020, I and four other Columban seminarians (one from Fiji, two...
From my youth I developed a strong friendship with the Columban missionaries that ministered in Jeju (Korea). Fr Patrick Murphy was in Mosulpo and I became a long-time friend, writes Kang Kyung-Sue [Andrew]. One afternoon at the beginning of summer the two of us...