By Fr Seán Coyle
Co-founders Fr Edward Galvin and Fr John Blowick (seated) with Fr Owen McPolin, China 1920
On Sunday 9 October this year 31 priests and 16 lay missionaries went to Tagaytay City for a two-week meeting of Columbans under the age of 50. Among them was our Superior General, Fr Kevin O’Neill, who in a recent letter wrote: On 9 October 1916, in a ground-floor room of the main college building at Maynooth [St Patrick's College, the National Seminary of Ireland], the 28-year-old Fr John Blowick had the nerve to face the Standing Committee of the Irish Bishops and to present his and Fr Edward Galvin’s scheme for a new mission. After about half an hour’s talk with the bishops, [Michael] Cardinal Logue [Archbishop of Armagh] said that they were prepared to grant their approval for the two things Blowick requested, namely, the making of a collection in the country and the foundation of a Mission College in Ireland.
The stirring within my soul began shortly after praying at the post, more so when I witnessed others praying solemly there as well. ‘Do you feel something within you?’, I had to ask, Verne, one of the New Zealanders, as my emotions were welling up. Had I been foolish in asking her? But she quickly replied, ‘I’m his niece’...
Let us imagine the scene in this very church: ‘ECCE HOMO’, ‘BEHOLD THE MAN’, put before all the frightened prisoners as to what might happen to them also. Then he was dragged to the baptistery and tied to the font and further tortured...
Heavenly Father we join together with the people of New Zealand and of the Philippines
who are praying for the promotion of the Cause of Fr Francis Vernon Douglas SSC.
We are inspired by his example of heroic faith, courage and commitment to the Gospel...
The thought of his excruciating pain evoked in us deep sorrow, wishing to console him, yet we also recognized that sense of gratitude and awe for his courage in facing such a death. Holding the pillar as if reaching out to Fr Vernon felt like we were united with him... 
The experience was surreal. I felt sad yet honored, privileged, and blessed to have walked the floors that Fr Francis Vernon Douglas walked, touched the pillar where he was tied up and tortured, entered through the doors where he welcomed my fellow Filipinos...
KRAKÓW (SE): ‘I asked Jesus for the grace to forgive every time I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet. But instead of praying “For the sake of his sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world,” I prayed “have mercy on the Islamic State and on the whole world”,’ Christina Shabo, who was born under a tree in a refugee camp after her family fled the bombing in Iraq in 1991, said in a testimony on 29 July at World Youth Day in Kraków, Poland. 
