By Gee-Gee O. Torres

Three and a half hours after the plane left Manila, I was already at Kimpo International Airport in Seoul, capital city of South Korea. Juliet Bacamante, one of our Filipino Columban lay missionaries, met me at the airport. Juliet said we would take the subway from the airport going to the Columban Central House where I would be staying. I was excited. This was my first time to take an underground train. We walked down several flights of stairs. I wondered where we were heading. We seemed to be getting down and down below the ground. Finally we came to a halt in a tunnel with rail tracks. Juliet said, “We’ll wait for...” and before she could finish her sentence a train charged into the station and stopped breathlessly. She dragged me along and we rushed among the many passengers waiting fro the train. I was like back in Manila at the LRT Station, inching my way to get into one of the carriages before the doors snapped closed.

A glimpse of Korea on the subway

The subway trip from Kimpo Airport to the Columban House took almost one hour and a half. But I enjoyed the ride so much that I didn’t notice the time, I was preoccupied watching the people in the train listening to Juliet as she briefed me with eh dos and don’ts in Korea. Unlike in my previous trips, whir I felt at home with the people right away, the Korean people seemed to be indifferent. They all looked seriously, so quiet that it seemed and Juliet and I were the only ones talking in the train. And the far end of the train I saw an old man dozing off, but the young man sitting beside him looked as if unaware of the old man. He was engrossed listening to his walkman. Then another passenger caught my attention. She was dressed in mini-skirt & body-fit shirt, with heavy make up and her hair was rainbow colors. And I noticed a young student giving her seat to an old woman. I could see the new generation caught between tradition and modernization. I wondered how do the old people cope with the fast-changing society in Korea?

By Fr. Jools Amamangpang, msp

Recently Fr. Jools Amamangpang, msp had several scrapes with death. It got him to reflecting and he shares his reflection here.

By Fr. John Keenan mssc

As a new century and a new millennium begins, Pope John Paul II is anxious that the lives and deaths of those who suffered and died heroically in the service of others be recorded and documented. The sufferings and death of Fr. Francis Vernon Douglas at the hands of the Japanese Military Police in the Philippines during World War II is one story that must not be forgotten. Fr. John Keenan, a Columban missionary from Ireland, tells us about it.

Fr. Douglas was tortured and is thought to have died near Paete, Laguna, in July 1943. Paete is a quiet country town nestled between the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains and Laguna de Bay, about 115 kms from Manila. Founded as a Christian settlement around 1580, its inhabitants are famous for their woodcarving skills.

By Fr. Dave Cribbin mssc

They could not believe my decision and in fact they even found it amazing. Because especially during my high school years I was never what you might call a religious person. In fact, each Sunday morning my parents had to pull me out of bed to attend Mass. I went but it was against my will. So you might ask why this sudden interest in becoming a missionary priest. What happened to me?