MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST COLUMBAN
General Council
Hong Kong
Feast of St Columban, 23 November 2018
Dear Confreres, LMs & Co-Workers,
Greetings for the Feast of St Columban and the closing celebrations for our Centenary Year.
During this past year, all of us, in various Regions and Mission Units, have felt privileged to have participated in different ways in the joyful celebration of the first hundred years of Columban mission. These celebrations have given us a deeper appreciation of our history, our charism, and the impact of our missionary endeavours on the lives of so many people around the world.
On behalf of the General Council, I wish to thank all those who assisted with the various celebrations of our Centenary Year, in particular the Society Centenary Committee and the various RMU centenary committees. I am especially grateful to those individual co-workers, lay missionaries and members who made a great effort to convey our gratitude to our friends and benefactors for their faithful and generous support, which has enabled us to reach this significant milestone and look to our future with confidence and hope.
Throughout this past year, several RMUs prepared online materials and published history books about Columban mission. These resources not only deepen our understanding of our past, but also provide ourselves and others with encouragement and inspiration to engage a new century of Columban mission. The Society is grateful to the last General Council for its persistent efforts to mark this Centenary Year with the launch of an internet portal for the purpose of promoting Columban mission into the next century.
During this Centenary Year we already started the transition into our second century. The 2018 General Assembly invites us to actively engage this transition, both individually and communally, for the sake of our mission priorities. It calls on us to remain faithful to our missionary vocation by moving beyond our familiar world in order to continue ‘Sharing Gospel Joy’ to the ends of the earth during the next century.
May you be blessed in your celebration of the Feast of St Columban.
Tim Mulroy
Society Leader
Missionary Society of St Columban
3, Ma Yau Tong Village, PO Lam Road, Tseung Kwan O, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
Website: www.columbanmission.org
