Proverbs are the ancient wisdom of a country’s culture expressed in pithy sentences – and often with humour. Proverbs provide missionaries with an insight into how their adopted people think and act, writes Columban missionary Fr Barry Cairns. To an aged person (I...
Easter is suffering as Jesus did and making Him alive, resurrected in your actions, and bringing goodness so as to overcome evil, writes Columban missionary Fr Shay Cullen. What is it all about, we may ask. For those true friends of Jesus of Nazareth who believe...
Some months ago, a migrant friend here in Hong Kong texted me with the request that the Columbans hold her husband’s ashes in our chapel until she could bring them back to his home country for burial in the family plot. I was surprised that she did not want to keep...
During Lent last year, Fr Jason Antiquera was able to recommence his art ministry after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Those who participated in his Lenten Recollection were invited to pray and reflect on the Stations of the Cross through...
To mark the beginning of Ramadan, Fr Sean McDonagh recalls how the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate impacted on the relationship between the Catholic Church and the other great religions of world, including Islam. Columbans, he suggests, learned how to be...
This is the winning entry in the Columban Schools Media Competition 2023 (Ireland) by Katie Bonnes of St Louis Grammar School in Ballymena. It is illustrated by the winning image by Gabriela García Velarde of Christ the King Secondary School, Douglas, County Cork....
Are rising levels of inequality, exclusion and the denial of participation a reason to protest asks Columban Fr Bobby Gilmore. History is made by successive shocks, of confronting and overcoming successive challenges. Societies progress, and in the end, having...
Fr Tim Mulroy recalls a difficult conversation with a Columban in the USA which provided some insightful Lenten lessons. During the months leading up to his eighty-seventh birthday, on several occasions, Fr Paul White had gone from the hospital to a rehabilitation...
St Valentine’s Day will see millions of love letters dispatched around the world. Fr Tim Mulroy recounts the heart-warming tale of one priest’s love letters. “I won’t be buying green bananas again!” was Fr Bernard’s greeting as I approached his hospital bed. He had...
We are who we are because of migration. Migration has created the world we are part of today, writes Columban Missionary Fr Bobby Gilmore. The immigrant has become a contemporary passion in Europe, the vacant point around which ideals clash. Easily available as a...