Former Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady has paid tribute to the Missionary Society of St Columban, describing its one hundred year history as “a glorious story that deserves to be told and told again and again until its grandeur and heroism sink in.”
The Cardinal made his comments following a special liturgy in St Mary’s Oratory in St Patrick’s College Maynooth to mark the anniversary of the departure of Fr Edward Galvin and Fr John Blowick’s from the College for China, marking the beginning of the Maynooth Mission to China.
Introducing sung Vespers, Maynooth College President, Dr Michael Mullaney recalled, with pride and joy, that all except three of the first batch of Columbans that set out for China, were from Maynooth.
A copy of a photograph of that historic group, including the co-founders – Fr John Blowick and Fr Edward Galvin – was presented to everyone who attended the ceremony. A photograph of a 2016 Under 50s gathering in Manila was juxtaposed with a picture of the first batch of Columbans to go to China, highlighting the changing nature of the Columban call over the past 100 years.
Included were Columban Fathers and Lay Missionaries from Ireland, Britain, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Philippines, Fiji, Chile and Peru.
Dr Mullaney recalled that Fr John Blowick, a priest of the Archdiocese of Tuam, had been a Professor in Maynooth. Fr Galvin, a priest of the diocese of Cork had been working in Brooklyn, USA when the idea of founding such a society was suggested to him by a Canadian priest, Fr John Fraser.
Cardinal Brady told Columbans.ie, “I was very pleased to be present in St Mary’s Oratory on Tuesday 14th November when the seminary community marked a very special occasion. It was a moving and powerful moment when, a large contingent of Columban Fathers, celebrated the 100th anniversary of Fr Edward Galvin and Fr John Blowick’s departing the College for China. The Scripture reading – from the Prophet Isaiah – was most appropriate and evocative: ‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of one who bring good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation and tells Zion: Your God is King, Listen’.”
“We all listened attentively as the Columban History Co-ordinator, Fr Neil Collins described how the fledgling missionary society got up and running – from the approval of the Irish Bishops, fundraising everywhere but especially in the United States, to the opening of the Seminary in January 1918 in Dalgan Park, Shrule, Co Galway.”
“There were the set-backs, inevitably, of course; robberies, flooding, famine, civil war, death threats, imprisonment, missionaries becoming sick and having to return to Ireland. And there were those who paid the ultimate price with their lives such as the much revered martyrs Fr Cornelius Tierney and Fr Timothy Leonard.”
“As I listened to Fr Collins I begin to realise that this is a glorious story that deserves to be told and told again and again until its grandeur and heroism sink in.”
Vespers ended with the great traditional missionary hymn of the Holy Ghost Fathers:
Go ye afar, go teach all nations
Bear witness unto me
On earth in every climate
Eleven Columban Fathers in memory of the original eleven who followed Frs Blowick and Galvin out of Maynooth to China took part in the Recessional Procession.
“It was a destination which, to their families and friends, must surely have seemed the ends of the Earth,” Cardinal Brady commented.
“As those valiant missionary disciples, now in their autumn years, all filed out, I thought of the late Bishop Quinlan and his surviving the notorious Korean ‘death march’. I thought also of the amazing progress of the Society from Ireland to China, Philippines, Korea, Burma, Japan, Fiji, Chile, Peru, Pakistan, Brazil, Jamaica and Belize. I also thought of the other Columban martyrs.”
“Five others have followed in the footsteps of Fathers Tierney and Leonard already mentioned.”
They are:
Father Francis Douglas (1943)
Father Peter Fallon (1945)
Father John Heneghan (1945)
Father Thomas Flynn (1950)
Father Rufus Halley (2001)
“I am thrilled that these heroes of the faith are being honoured in this way. Perhaps during the preparation for the World Meeting of the Family their families could be contacted and their stories heard and told also.”
“It is good to be reminded that one hundred years ago there was this band of missionary disciples who were so energised by the Resurrection that they went fearlessly to the ends of the earth and sometimes to their death, with the message of Jesus.”
“One of the most beautiful lines in the Latin language – and one of the most famous – is from Virgil’s Aeneid – Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. It translates: ‘And maybe some day it will please us to remember all this’. It is about loss and overcoming the worst. Maybe some day it will please us to remember all this and Tuesday 14 November 2017 in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth was one such day. Well done to all concerned.”
The staff and seminarians of St Patrick’s College hosted a special meal for the Columbans who attended the liturgy.
Afterwards, they viewed the new centenary documentary ‘The Dream and the Journey – A century of the Columban Missionaries’ produced by Paul Harney of ThatsThat Productions and Fr Malachy Smyth.
At the close of the day, the President of St Patrick’s College, Dr Michael Mullaney said it had given “a deeper and richer appreciation of the Columbans and of our (Maynooth) connection – we are very proud of that”.
Recalling Fr Neil Collins’ talk about the Society, he said what stood out for him was Fr Edward Galvin’s words in the first years in China when he underlined that they were not there to convert China but to do the will of God and that they did not know from one 24 hours to the next what that was.
“Notwithstanding all the achievements of the Columban missionaries in the past 100 years, and all the priests ordained from Maynooth over 252 years, we don’t know the future. But whatever the future holds for any of us – we are called to do the will of God.”
Fr Mullaney concluded by saying, “This evening is an evening to be proud of what the Columbans have achieved. I congratulate you and wish you a great centenary year.”
He expressed the hope that the seminary community might make a day trip to Dalgan Park during 2018.
Homily of Fr Michael Mullaney, President of St Patrick’s College Maynooth,
St Mary’s Oratory 14 November 2017
A warm welcome to all our guests especially Cardinal Sean Brady who has honoured this occasion with his presence; Fr Pat Raleigh – Regional Director, Fr Sean Dwan – Chair of the Centenary Committee, Fr Neil Collins (historian), and the thirty or so members of the Colomban Fathers (Dalgan Park) and Sr Jacinta Prunty.
While our evening prayer and supper this evening echoes a very moving evening of farewell of a meal and benediction to the first eleven volunteers who left the College Chapel to the strains of our final hymn – Go Ye Forth – tonight on their way to China. Maynooth as we know has been a cradle of vocations to the priesthood for much of its history. Hard for us to imagine now that during the nineteenth century – up to relatively recently – the country produced priests beyond its needs.
The Irish were latecomers to missionary activity that was not Christian. The reason for this is well know that when the new world was opening up, the Church in Ireland was suffering persecution and the penal laws. After the famine, the missionary energies of the Irish were focused on following our emigrants. Even at that, only exceptionally, these priests came from Maynooth. They came from the regional seminaries (All Hallows, Carlow, Thurles, Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford).
The first real missionary movement in Maynooth was inspired by a Canadian born priest Fr John Fraser who was working as a missionary in China and came to Ireland in 1911 seeking money and volunteers. He got a lot of money but the volunteers were slower. On his way back to China in 1912 he met in a Brooklyn presbytery a Fr Edward Galvin – recently ordained from Cork diocese.
Fraser fired Galvin with the vision of founding a seminary in Ireland to supply priests and he wrote untiringly to priests and seminarians, and this gave rise to a lot of interest – especially in Maynooth. His big desire was that one of the Maynooth professors would surrender his chair and go to China. He heard that a newly appointed professor of theology might be interested – Fr John Blowick and he convinced him. Galvin, Blowick and Edward McCarthy of Cork, James Conway of Kildare and John Heneghan of Tuam set out around Ireland to find volunteers. This idealism and courage is what we commemorate this evening.
The new Ratio – the Gift of the Priestly Formation calls us all to be missionary in spirit to form missionary disciples as mission is the goal and horizon of formation for the ministerial priesthood.
In the Joy of the Gospel (48): If the whole Church takes up this missionary impulse, she has to go forth to everyone without exception. But to whom should she go first? When we read the Gospel we find a clear indication: not so much our friends and wealthy neighbours, but above all the poor and the sick, those who are usually despised and overlooked, “those who cannot repay you” (Lk 14:14). There can be no room for doubt or for explanations which weaken so clear a message. Today and always, “the poor are the privileged recipients of the Gospel”,[52] and the fact that it is freely preached to them is a sign of the kingdom that Jesus came to establish. We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.
Pope Francis has established next Sunday is the first World Day of the Poor. In instituting this day Pope Francis to turn their gaze on this day to all those who stretch out their hands and plead for our help and solidarity. They are our brothers and sisters, created and loved by the one Heavenly Father. … everyone, independent of religious affiliation, is invited to openness and sharing with the poor through concrete signs of solidarity and fraternity. God created the heavens and the earth for all; yet sadly some have erected barriers, walls and fences, betraying the original gift meant for all humanity, with none excluded.
In his letter (13 June 2017) establishing this day, Pope Francis challenges all of us priests, deacons and seminarians who by their vocation have the mission of supporting the poor, together with all consecrated persons and all associations, movements and volunteers everywhere, to help make this World Day of the Poor a tradition that concretely contributes to evangelization in today’s world.
In remembering the Maynooth Mission to China let us reflect on the new challenge of a new evanglisation to all us here in Maynooth of our new mission to the poor and in the face of the many forms of poverty to offer a new vision of life and society.