By Fr Ray Scanlon

Until I did the pilgrimage I did not know much about St Columban. To me he was a mythical figure of ages long ago, one who was not so human and who had extraordinary powers, superhuman ideals and expectations.

As we travelled in St Columban’s footsteps we heard a number of accounts about his life. I began to understand and admire him. He became alive and real rather than a distant historical figure.

At the beginning of the pilgrimage our leader, Fr Derry Healy, said, ‘We are a group of lay people, sisters and priests hoping to be touched by the people, places and cultures where St Columban traveled, setting up schools and monastic communities at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh centuries’.

The highlight of the pilgrimage was offering Mass with my classmate, Fr Brian Gore, on the occasion of our 40th anniversary of ordination. We celebrated beside St Columban’s tomb in the crypt of the basilica in Bobbio, Italy. I felt feelings of gratitude to God, to my family, Columbans, the people of Korea, the benefactors of our mission Society and to St Columban himself.

Through the pilgrimage I have come to know St Columban as someone I could pray to in a personal way.

Basilica of St Columban, Bobbio, Italy. The basilica was built between 1462 and 1522.

By Sr Rhea Lei Y. Tolibas TC

The author is a Capuchin Tertiary Sister of the Holy Family. She is majoring in Social Work at the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos (UNO-R), Bacolod City. Sister Rhea Lei is assigned to Mater Dolorosa Formation House in Talisay City, Negros Occidental.

The stars were marching in a stately manner in the midnight clear sky as I looked beyond the darkness of the world. This was during my teenage years as I came to ask myself what I would be when I grew up. I dreamed of so many ideals and goals, but the questions still remained: ‘What is my life for? Why do I exist? What is my mission in this world? Why did God create me? What is His will for my life?’

‘It is my hope that in a small way I have been able to contribute to peace through compassion and also to the recognition, as George Fox has said . . . “That there is that of God in everyone,” a conception of the sanctity of human life which precludes all wars and violence.’

Fritz Eichenberg, Quaker Illustrator (1901-1990)

A Letter to a Friend

The author is a former Columban seminarian from Bacolod City.

Dearest Friend,

It is both in profound gratitude and in slight weariness that I am writing you this letter.

You
see, our world has greatly changed. Every single day, my values are
being challenged by television and other media. I can sometimes
see myself caving in, wanting to have a bite of the morsel offered by
the bohemian society. What we have right now is good. I admit, there is
nothing wrong in change. What I am concerned about, though, is when we
change our established core values to accommodate the fleeting and
dictated trends of false self-imaging.