7 RP-based Columbans join European pilgrimage
Submitted by joy on Fri, 06/25/2010 - 14:04.
Featured in the CBCP News
7 RP-based Columbans join European pilgrimage
MANILA, June 23, 2010—Aiming to strengthen
bonds of support, zeal and commitment in their ministry, seven Columban
priests from the Philippines have joined other confreres on pilgrimage
in Europe.
Filipino Columbans Frs. Rolly Aniscal, Darwin Bayaca, Jude Genovia,
Andrei Paz and Hector Suano and two Irish Columbans ministering here in
the Philippines, Frs. Paul Glynn and Brendan Kelly joined with almost 30
other Columban priests from all over the world on a pilgrimage to the
places associated with their Patron, St. Columban.
Fr. Patrick O’Donoghue, regional director of Missionary Society of
St. Columban in the Philippines, said their founder St. Columban was an
Irish monk who left his monastery with several other monks in the late
sixth century to re-evangelize Europe.
St. Columban founded many monasteries including those in Luxeuil,
Annegrey (both in France), Bregenz (Austria), and Bobbio (Italy).
It is estimated that there are around 1,500 places all around Europe
that bear his name.
The pilgrimage “In the footsteps of St. Columban” has been a yearly
event for many years now.
“But this year the Superior General, Fr. Tommy Murphy, invited all
Columban priests ordained since 1993 to join him in visiting the more
important places associated with St. Columban culminating at the
Basilica of St. Columban in Bobbio where he is buried,” O’Donoghue told
CBCPNews.
The pilgrims will then go to Rome to pray at the Chapel of St.
Columban in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Fr. Tommy, as called by his confreres, did his dissertation on the
life and writings of St. Columban. In his letter of invitation for the
pilgrimage, he said [St. Columban] was “a great evangelizer … (who) had
an exceptional ability to move into new cultures and attract young
people from different languages and ethnic backgrounds to join him in
his mission…… His example can be a good encouragement to us all as we
try to live out the demands of being a truly multicultural missionary
Society”.
O’Donoghue hopes that through the experience of being “pilgrims
together”, the young missionary priests will not only build bonds of
friendship and mutual support but be strengthened in their missionary
zeal and commitment.
“May they all be filled with the zeal and commitment of St.
Columban,” he further said.
The pilgrimage began last Saturday, June 12 and will end on Sunday,
July 4, 2010. (Melo M. Acuna)
St Columban is the PATRON, not the founder, of the Columbans
One correction: St Columban is the patron of the Missionary Society of St Columban, as noted in the second paragraph above. However, he is not the founder. The founders were Father, later Bishop, Edward Galvin and Father John Blowick, two young Irish diocesan priests. Their original idea of a mission of the Irish Church to China was given the blessing of the Irish bishops on 10 October 1916 and became known as the Maynooth Mission to China. Maynooth is the town west of Dublin where the national seminary, St Patrick's, is located and where Fathers Galvin and Blowick studied for the priesthood. Immediately after his ordination Father Blowick was appointed a professor at Maynooth.
The Maynooth Mission to China was formally established as the Missionary Society of St Columban on the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, 29 June, in 1918.