On 23 November last year a bust of Robert Schuman was unveiled at the Documentation Centre named after him at University College Cork (UCC), part of the National University of Ireland, The press release didn’t mention that it was St Columban’s Day.

Robert Schuman, one of the founders of what has become the European Union, considered St Columban to be ‘the patron saint of all those who now seek to build a United Europe’. Schuman, born in Luxembourg with German citizenship, became prime minister of France and was the first President the European Parliamentary Assembly which, by acclamation, gave him the title ‘Father of Europe’. Schuman had no links with Ireland, yet he had a far greater appreciation of St Columban than most Irish people have. ‘The most famous Irishman of the early Middle Ages’, as Pope Benedict called him on 11 June in his Wednesday audience talk, which we publish in full in this issue, is a secondary patron of his native country, where the Missionary Society of St Columban was founded 90 years ago, yet is hardly known there.

The Holy Father went on to say in his talk, ‘With good reason he can be called a “European” saint, because as monk, missionary and writer, he worked in several countries of Western Europe. Along with the Irishmen of his time, he was aware of the cultural unity of Europe.’

One of the major themes of the pontificate of Pope Benedict is his great desire for a renewal of the Catholic Christian faith in Europe. He ends his talk by describing St Columban in terms of his impact on that continent: ‘A man of great culture - he also wrote poetry in Latin and a grammar book - he proved himself to be rich in gifts of grace. He was a tireless builder of monasteries as well as an intransigent penitential preacher, spending all his energy to nourish the Christian roots of Europe, which was being born. With his spiritual energy, with his faith, with his love for God and for his neighbor, he truly became one of the fathers of Europe: He shows us even today the roots from which our Europe can be reborn.’

St Columban and his companions respected God’s creation and cultivated the land wherever they founded a monastery. The Pope compares him to St John the Baptist. He was fearless in confronting kings and bishops who didn’t follow God’s law and was prepared to suffer for that. His life and that of the monks he led was focused on God, particularly through the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass and through the singing of the psalms with Bible readings at appointed times every day and night that we call the liturgy of the hours. Confession as we know it was largely influenced by him, as the Holy Father points out.
Pope Benedict emphasizes that St Columban was an evangelizer, that is, a preacher of the Gospel, the reason the then 36-year-old co-founder of the 

Columbans, Fr Edward Galvin, born on the saint’s feast day, chose him as our patron. Modern-day Columbans see caring for the earth as an aspect of living the Gospel. The Pope notes: ‘In particular, many young men asked to be accepted by the monastic community in order to live, like them, this exemplary life which was renewing the cultivation of the land and of souls’. 

St Columban in a sense anticipated by 15 centuries a response to Pope Benedict’s inaugural homily on 24 April 2005, ‘The pastor must be inspired by Christ’s holy zeal: for him it is not a matter of indifference that so many people are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction. The Church as a whole and all her pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance’.

Ireland is becoming a spiritual desert, which much of Western Europe is already. Some of those bringing Christian life back to it are Filipinos whose faith was nourished by Columban priests and Sisters, many of them Irish. May they, with the help of the prayers of St Columban, show ‘us even today the roots from which our Europe can be reborn’.

By Fr Seán Coyle

Fr Gerardo A. Alminaza of the Diocese of Bacolod was ordained bishop in San Sebastian Cathedral there on 4 August. The following day he was installed as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Jaro in St Elizabeth Metropolitan Cathedral there. Bacolod is a suffragan diocese of Jaro, located in Iloilo City, an hour to the west by fast sea-craft. The main consecrating bishop was Papal Nuncio Edward Joseph Adams, with Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo of Jaro, current president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, and Bishop Vicente M. Navarra of Bacolod as principal co-consecrators.

The new bishop is a ‘product’ of the Columbans, having grown up in San Jose, Sipalay City, now part of the Diocese of Kabankalan, separated from Bacolod in 1987, and consisting of what was the main territory in the southern part of the province of Negros Occidental entrusted to the Columbans in 1950. Bishop Alminaza’s parish priest during his high school years in Cabarrus Catholic College, San Jose, was Fr Patrick Hurley, one of the Columban pioneers in Negros and still, at the age of 84, serving in the Chaplaincy of Our Lady of Peace, Biscom Sugar Central, Binalbagan. The late Fr Augustine Rowe was the priest in San Jose when Bishop Gerry was ordained in 1986. The new priest’s only parish assignment was in Kabankalan, working there with Columbans for a year or so after his ordination. He has spent the rest of his priesthood in formation work and studying. He was on the staff of the major seminary in Jaro for some years and so is no stranger to his new diocese, where he will be based at the cathedral.

In his thanksgiving remarks in San Sebastian Cathedral before giving his first blessing as bishop to the people, Monsignor Alminaza singled out the Columbans because of the enormous influence they have had on his life. He also acknowledged the presence of the Columbans at the ceremony: Fr Patrick O’Donoghue, Regional Director, Fr Terence Bennett, Fr Brian Gore and myself.

Gerardo Alminaza was born on 4 August 1959, the centennial of the death of St John Vianney, and was ordained priest on 29 April 1986, nine days before the bicentennial of the birth of the saint who is patron of diocesan clergy, and ordained bishop on his own 49th birthday. It used to be very common for parents in the Philippines to name a child after the saint celebrated on the birthday. However, Felix and Antonia Alimane chose ‘Gerard’, after St Gerard Majella CSsR, the patron of expectant mothers to whom they had prayed that God would give them a child. The new bishop, born after eight years of marriage, was their only child.

Antonia died about five years ago but Felix, now 79, was present in his wheelchair and it was very touching how his son spoke so lovingly of his Tatay who has been staying at Sacred Heart Seminary, Bacolod, where Bishop Gerry has been rector for the last three years. Felix will now live in Iloilo, near his son.

Bishop Alminaza also spoke of his involvement with Focolare. Indeed, his episcopal motto, Sicut Christus Vivit, inspired by 1 John 2:6, was given him some years ago as a personal motto by Chiara Lubich, who founded the Focolare movement and who died earlier this year.

In his last year as rector of Sacred Heart Seminary Monsignor Alminaza was one of the driving forces behind the production of Ribok Gikan sa Tagipusoon, based on parts of Fr Niall O’Brien’s Revolution From the Heart. Most of the actors in the play, written in Hiligaynon (Ilonggo) by Jovy Miroy, were students at the seminary. The play was shown in a number of places, including the Diocese of Kabankalan. The ‘Negros Nine’ had been falsely accused of the murder of Mayor Pablo Sola of Kabankalan, a friend of Father Niall, on 10 March 1982.

In the early years of his priesthood, Bishop Alminaza was inspired by the involvement with the Deaf of Columban Father Joe Coyle who died in 1991. He learned Sign Language and frequently celebrated Mass in Sign Language both in Bacolod and in Iloilo. He invited Fr Luke Moortgat CICM, Executive Secretary of the Episcopal Commission on Health Care, to come from Manila to interpret the ordination ceremony for the Deaf so that those present could fully participate. He was assisted by Ms Helen Villavicencio of Welcome Home Foundation, Inc, who had worked with Father Joseph Coyle. One of the new bishop’s first Masses in Jaro was with the Deaf community.

The evening before the episcopal ordination the nuncio blessed Bacolod City’s new Government Center before a dinner for bishops, priests and others hosted by Mayor Evelio R. Leonardia and the city government, a typically Filipino touch in a country where officially there is separation between Church and State.

Another typically Filipino touch, at the end of the ordination Mass, was the singing of ‘Happy Birthday’ for the new bishop.

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Websites
Blog of Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo: http://abplagdameo.blogspot.com/ .
Information on Archdiocese of Jaro: http://www.cbcponline.net/jurisdictions/jaro.html and 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archdiocese_of_Jaro .
Website of Diocese of Bacolod: http://dioceseofbacolod.org.ph/ 
Information on Diocese of Bacolod: http://home.catholicweb.com/bacoloddiocese/ and 
http://www.cbcponline.net/jurisdictions/bacolod.html .
Focolare: http://www.focolare.org/ ; Focolare, Philippines: http://www.newcityph.com/ 
The ‘Negros Nine’: http://www.columban.com/negros_ninerevisited.htm

By Fr Shay Cullen

Columban Father Shay Cullen of PREDA, www.preda.org, ordained in 1969, has been working in Olongapo for many years now with children and women who have been sexually abused. His weekly Reflections are published in newspapers and magazines in a number of countries and appear each week in www.misyononline.com/misyonforum under Father Cullen’s Corner. Your comments there will be most welcome. On 13 September he received the International Irish Person of the Year Award in Dublin in a nationally televised ceremony which each year since 1975 celebrates ‘Irish talent, bravery and fortitude’.

There was no comfort in the Philippine report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last April for 14-year-old Felix Avila, emaciated, half-starved, brutalized, shocked and dazed as he was helped walk from behind the bars of a police detention center in Metro Manila. Like a skeletal survivor of Auschwitz, he was helped walk on weak, unsteady legs to a rescue van and away to freedom. Rescue, because it was as if he was released from the pains of hell to the joys of heaven. Heaven was when they stopped at the first restaurant and he devoured his first proper meal in months. 

At that very time in Geneva, Philippine Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was enthusiastically reporting to the world and specifically to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that the Philippine government had an exemplary human rights record with a few failings that were being corrected. This, despite the hundreds of unexplained summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture and violations of children’s rights and non-implementation of the laws protecting human rights. 

In the mind of some officials, compliance with the international obligations to protect human rights is satisfied and fulfilled by having constitutional safeguards, implementing laws, declarations, executive orders and Supreme Court decisions. According to them, it seems, actual implementation is not necessarily required because that is for the security forces to do, they claim. The officials say they don’t know who the violators are, they are not investigators, just reporters. When cross-examined they were amazed that anyone would question the veracity of the report. 

The cases of child abuse like that of Felix in police stations or detention centers are frequently explained by officials by saying everything is changing for the better, that the detention centers are transformed into happy rehabilitation centers (change of signboards). Such sparse economy with the truth, it, being in excessively short supply here, makes eyebrows touch the ceiling. 

Besides, the Philippine delegates were eager to announce that they recommended to President Macapagal-Arroyo that the government join the United Nations Operational Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). This will be too late and since the United Nations can do nothing anyway to enforce compliance, except listen to fanciful tales and self-glorifying reports, the protocol is useless. The government panel did eagerly report there was an 83 percent drop in summary executions of pastors, priests and political persons in the past year. Very good news if true. But the cutback in the number being executed came about under intense international pressure. So if government officials take credit for reducing the numbers assassinated by death squads by 83 percent, they must know who is behind the death squads and ordered them to stop. Responsibility for the killings and violations of human rights now rests on the government. 

Felix is just 14. His hair is starting to fall out. His skin has the white, sickly pallor of a TB patient. His human and civil rights were violated so frequently, so casually, so ‘normally’, in such a manner as to tell the world that this is just a normal routine treatment for suspects and is nothing out of the ordinary. Officials are always amazed when we express our strong protests at the conditions and hardships of the minors behind bars. They deny and lie about the obvious, they ignore the photographic evidence and testimony of witnesses. 

Now we are barred from visiting these detention jails, like the Manila Youth Reception Center, where conditions of the minors are awful. The photographic evidence can be viewed on www.preda.org . I requested an official of another detention center for minors to give me the names and photos of the guards so that their victims, now rescued, could identify their abusers, torturers and file charges. However I got no answer and no names. 

Some think that we who are working for human rights are anti-government, when in fact we are pro-people and against abuse. There are many good, dedicated people in government who detest the violations of rights and want a better Philippines. We work with them. The one-sided human rights report could be well balanced by the testimony of Felix and thousands like him.

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You may contact Fr Shay Cullen at the Preda Center, Upper Kalaklan, 2200 Olongapo City, Philippines.

Email: preda@info.com.ph

www.preda.org

Fr Patrick McInerney

‘Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure’ (2 Cor 11:25-27).

Since I joined the Columbans in 1972 I have visited 32 countries, even if some of them only very briefly. For 22 years from 1978 to 2000 I was assigned to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. 

Living in and visiting other countries, I have known the helplessness of not having a clue what is going on around me, of not knowing what someone was saying to me, or how to ask even the most basic (and necessary) directions! 

In my life I have learned (and mostly forgotten) eight languages – each time reduced to being like a baby, yet as an adult feeling the utter frustration of not being able to form even the simplest of sentences. 

Dangers Faced
I have been robbed eight times on three continents. I have been bound hand and foot. I have been blindfolded. A revolver was shoved into my face and I was shown the bullet that would kill me if I resisted – I felt the cold press of the barrel against my left temple while the assassin’s finger indicated on my right temple the spot where the bullet would explode outwards ending my life. I have been stood against a wall for execution. 

I felt publicly humiliated when a Church/Community Hall building project I was overseeing was halted following an unexpected outcry from a local minority opposition; all my efforts over the next year and a half to bring about a settlement proved fruitless. I feared the skeletal shell of the unfinished building would forever remain a public monument mocking my presumption. I had even named it in my own mind as ‘Pat’s Folly’! 

I left for a course overseas. Within days, against all the odds, and without any further appeal, the opposition accepted the compromise I had first proposed when the crisis first erupted. In that moment my successor in the parish inherited, not the ‘mess’ I had started and had to leave behind, but a clear path to resume construction and to oversee the work through to completion. 

Some months later I had the immense joy of celebrating the first Eucharist in the still unfinished building, but I was not able to be present for the official blessing and opening of the completed Community Hall. 

It’s still God’s work
I had begun that work with great expectations. In the events that unfolded all my personal ambitions were crushed. But despite the sense of personal failure, and contrary to all expectations, the project was achieved in ways that I can only call ‘miraculous’ – God was at work! 

I worked in three parishes in the Archdiocese of Lahore, starting as Parish Priest at the tender age of 26 (I look back now with horror on how naïve I was!) and ending nearly twenty years later as Assistant Pastor (to colleagues ordained and arriving in Pakistan many years after me!). Besides the Community Hall mentioned above, I have overseen the construction of four extensions to three different schools in these three parishes. 

After seven years of primary school, five years of secondary school, seven years at the Columban seminary, two years in language school in Pakistan, and three years of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome . . . my real education took place in the villages and neighborhoods of the Punjab. From the dusty highways and byways of Lahore I returned to the more pristine hallways of Australian academia in 2000 and completed a two-year Masters in Theology. Now in mid-life I am again a student (I must be a very slow learner!), this time working on a PhD in theology. 

Adventures in the Academe
I have also crossed around to the other side of the desk. I lecture at the Catholic Institute of Sydney. I am a Catholic priest teaching Islam, and Interreligious Dialogue . . . but I am still a learner when it comes to the academic bureaucracy! 

Besides the classroom, I have also addressed schools, parishes, justice groups, catechists, activists, teachers, religious, conferences, and pub audiences. I speak to Christian groups, Muslim groups, Christian-Muslim groups, Jewish-Christian-Muslim groups, interfaith groups, multi-faith groups, and once to a Hindu group. In one particularly hectic week last year I attended a Jewish Passover, led the Easter Triduum at a Catholic University, and was guest at a Muslim celebration of the Birth of the Prophet Muhammad. 

I have given testimony for Muslims who felt their faith was vilified by Christians, including the grueling experience of being cross-examined on the witness stand for more than two days – so I am the first Catholic priest in Australia (and possibly in the world) to have defended Islam in a court of law. I have been verbally abused for my stance, accused of betraying Christianity, and assured of a place in hell! To keep the balance, I have also challenged Muslims when I felt my Christian faith was misrepresented. 

I have been Columban Bursar, Pakistan Mission Unit Coordinator, member of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of Pakistan, of its Men’s Branch, and of its Executive. I have been Hospital Chaplain. I represented the Archdiocese of Lahore on the National Rabita Commission (Commission for Christian-Muslim Relations) in Pakistan, and am currently a member of the Bishops’ Commission for Ecumenism and Interreligious Relations in Australia. I am the Columban Vocations Coordinator, calling young men to an adventurous life of faith like my own. 

Life Extreme
I have known tears and laughter, joy and grief, ecstasy and despair, love and hate, community and loneliness, success and failure – all to their extremes, or at least that is how it seemed to me at the time. 

All this happened in my first years as Columban Missionary Priest. I wonder what the coming years will hold? If the first stage is anything to go by, it certainly won’t be boring!!! 

(Besides, while the restlessness still moves me, there are many more countries in the world that I hope to visit before I reach my eternal rest!) 
One of the 32 countries the author, an Australian Columban, has visited is the Philippines. Your editor interviewed him on DXDD, the radio station of the Archdiocese of Ozamiz, early in 1979 when Father Pat was on his way to Pakistan. You may email him atpatrickmcinerney@columban.org.au or write him at St Columban’s, PO Box 752, NIDDRIE, VIC 3042, AUSTRALIA.

By Fr Seán McDonagh SSC

Care for creation has become a central theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate. In July 2008, he told the dignitaries gathered to welcome him at Government House in Sydney that ‘the need to protect the environment’ was of paramount importance. The following day, addressing a crowd of more than 250,000 young people who had gathered for World Youth Day 2008, he spoke about the feeling of awe for God’s creation which he experienced during his long plane journey from Rome to Sydney. ‘The views afforded of our planet from the air were truly wondrous. The sparkle of the Mediterranean, the grandeur of the north African desert, the lushness of Asia’s forests, the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the horizon upon which the sun rose and set, and the majestic splendor of Australia’s natural beauty . . . It is as though one catches glimpses of the Genesis creation story – light and darkness, the sun and the moon, the waters, the earth, and living creatures; all of which are “good” in God’s eyes, Immersed in such beauty, who could not echo the words of the Psalmist in praise of the Creator, “how majestic is your name in all the earth”’. 

It was against this background that he delivered his message about environmental destruction. ‘Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of the earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption’. He went on to challenge the young pilgrims: ‘the concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity’.

One year earlier, in response to a question from a priest, he told an audience in northern Italy to link religious teaching to the concerns young people have about the environment. Against the background of beautiful Alpine peaks and colorful meadows, he told his audience that ‘nature itself tells us that some things are naturally right and some are naturally wrong’.

The pope insisted that, in the Christian view, the natural moral code is not an arbitrary list of do’s and don’ts thought up by religious leaders or resulting from a majority vote, but is part of human nature and the result of being created by God. Humans are special creatures precisely because they have the ability ‘to listen to the voice of the Creator and, in this way, know what is good and what is bad’. ‘I would propose a combination between a secular way and a religious way, the way of faith. Everyone today can see that man could destroy the foundation of his existence – his earth - and, therefore, we can no longer simply use this earth, this reality entrusted to us, to do what we want or what appears useful and promising at the moment, but we must respect the inherent laws of creation’. 
The pope explained that the first thing young people can learn is that ‘our earth speaks to us, and we must listen if we want to survive . . . The destruction of the environment is a stark example of how future survival requires that people obey the laws of nature, especially when everyone else is taking shortcuts that may increase their pleasure at the moment, but are obviously damaging in the long term’. Pope Benedict continued, ‘It might not be that great of a reach to help young people understand that the same natural voice telling them littering is bad, clear-cutting a forest is a shame, and that water and clean air are precious resources, is really saying that life is precious. We must not only care for the earth, but we must respect one another. Only with absolute respect for this creature of God, this image of God which is man, only with respect for living together on this earth can we move forward’.

The pope concluded that priests and other religious teachers should try to use ‘the obvious paths’ opened up by secular moral concerns, such as ecology, to lead Christian young people to ‘the true voice of conscience,’ which is communicated in Catholic moral teaching. ‘Through a journey of patient education, I think we can all learn to live and to find true life’.

Pope Benedict’s approach to the environment is summed up in his message to the 92nd Social Week in France in November 2007. He wrote, that ‘a moral awakening in favor of the environment is needed, and rich countries should not abuse the resources of developing countries’.

This article was published in Sunday Examiner, the newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong. 

By Fr Keith Gorman

Father Gorman, an Australian ordained in 1943, worked for many years in Japan. Here he tells us how old age is a special, gifted time from God. Gardening, an activity going back to Adam and Eve, and his computer, a very recent invention, both help him to pray.

When I was coordinator of our Columban committee on ageing, we conducted a questionnaire. I echo the sentiments of the respondent who wrote, ‘Old age is a special, gifted time from God.’

I thank God for old age. I feel blessed in my old age, more blessed than in other stages of my life. In some ways I am more peaceful; I have always worried. Now I am not asked to do so many things, I haven’t much cause to worry. Thanks to medical attention I am free from pain and I can eat, drink, sleep and walk. 

My Columban Society takes care of my needs. I am at least as busy as I have ever been but there is no pressure, no deadlines. I love reflecting on ageing and I have plenty of time for this; I have a computer to help me. I pray more than before. 

I am supported by what is expressed in a Columban document called Becoming More Missionary. 

‘There are Columbans who for reasons of age or illness are no longer as active as previously . . . As missionaries active in the field, we tend to put the weight of our identity on the active side of the scale. A more gospel-inspired vision would tell us that being missionary hinges more on who one is than on what one does .. .’

This document gives an example, ‘Late in the journey a missionary who has witnessed to the life-affirming values of Jesus’ life, also witnesses to the life-redeeming value of “self-emptying, suffering and death.” Inevitably a certain grief accompanies the lessening of vitality, but for those who “work through” the grief, a freedom to respond to God’s further invitation will emerge.’ 

I am grateful to God. Many passages in the Bible help me express my thanks and praise. St Paul thanks God for the zeal of the Philippians, ‘I thank my God every time I think of you; whenever I pray for you all, my prayers are always joyful because of the part you have taken in the work of the Gospel from the first day until now’ (Phil 1:3-5). 

During his public life Jesus gave thanks to his Father, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and wise and revealing them to the simple’ (Matt 11:25). He expected gratitude from others. He was disappointed when He cured ten lepers and only one returned to thank Him. I’m sure I’ve often disappointed Jesus but I am glad that as I grow older I am becoming a little more thankful. 

Numerous psalms help me give thanks and praise to God. One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 107. I had read this psalm many times but it did not mean much to me until I read it one day when I was on a retreat. Then I noticed it spoke of God rescuing people from their predicament, ‘Some lost their way in desert wastelands; they found no path to a city to live in . . . (Ps 107:4). In each case . . . ‘they cried to the lord in their trouble and He brought them out of their distress’ (Ps 107: 28). 

I have not experienced these trials but I have experienced others that distressed me. As I become older I thank God for my family, my Catholic faith, that I am a member of St Columban’s Mission Society, for my health, my community and my friends. I am grateful that I have time to reflect on ageing, to spend time on my computer and work in my garden.

BENEDICT XVI
General Audience, Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today I would like to speak about the holy Abbot Columban, the best known Irishman of the early Middle Ages. Since he worked as a monk, missionary and writer in various countries of Western Europe with good reason he can be called a ‘European’ Saint. With the Irish of his time, he had a sense of Europe’s cultural unity. The expression ‘totius Europae - of all Europe’, with reference to the Church’s presence on the Continent, is found for the first time in one of his letters, written around the year 600, addressed to Pope Gregory the Great.

Columban was born c. 543 in the Province of Leinster in southeast Ireland. He was educated at home by excellent tutors who introduced him to the study of liberal arts. He was then entrusted to the guidance of Abbot Sinell of the community of Cleenish in the north of Ireland, where he was able to deepen his study of Sacred Scripture. At the age of about 20 he entered the monastery of Bangor, in the northeast of the island, whose abbot, Comgall, was a monk well known for his virtue and ascetic rigor. In full agreement with his abbot, Columban zealously practiced the severe discipline of the monastery, leading a life of prayer, ascesis and study. While there, he was also ordained a priest. His life at Bangor and the Abbot’s example influenced the conception of monasticism that developed in Columban over time and that he subsequently spread in the course of his life. 

When he was approximately 50 years old, following the characteristically Irish ascetic ideal of the ‘peregrinatio pro Christo’, namely, making oneself a pilgrim for the sake of Christ, Columban left his island with 12 companions to engage in missionary work on the European Continent. We should in fact bear in mind that the migration of people from the North and the East had caused whole areas, previously Christianized, to revert to paganism. Around the year 590, the small group of missionaries landed on the Breton coast. Welcomed kindly by the King of the Franks of Austrasia (present-day France), they asked only for a small piece of uncultivated land. They were given the ancient Roman fortress of Annegray, totally ruined and abandoned and covered by forest. Accustomed to a life of extreme hardship, in the span of a few months the monks managed to build the first hermitage on the ruins. Thus their re-evangelization began, in the first place, through the witness of their lives. With the new cultivation of the land, they also began a new cultivation of souls. The fame of those foreign religious who, living on prayer and in great austerity, built houses and worked the land spread rapidly, attracting pilgrims and penitents. In particular, many young men asked to be accepted by the monastic community in order to live, like them, this exemplary life which was renewing the cultivation of the land and of souls. It was not long before the foundation of a second monastery was required. It was built a few kilometers away on the ruins of an ancient spa, Luxeuil. This monastery was to become the centre of the traditional Irish monastic and missionary outreach on the European Continent. A third monastery was erected at Fontaine, an hour’s walk further north. 

Columban lived at Luxeuil for almost 20 years. Here the Saint wrote for his followers the Regula monachorum (Rule for monks) - for a while more widespread in Europe than Benedict’s Rule - which portrayed the ideal image of the monk. It is the only ancient Irish monastic rule in our possession today. Columban integrated it with the Regula coenobialis, a sort of penal code for the offences committed by monks, with punishments that are somewhat surprising to our modern sensibility and can only be explained by the mentality and environment of that time. With another famous work entitled: De poenitentiarum misura taxanda, also written at Luxeuil, Columban introduced Confession and private and frequent penance on the Continent. It was known as ‘tariffed’ penance because of the proportion established between the gravity of the sin and the type of penance imposed by the confessor. These innovations roused the suspicion of local Bishops, a suspicion that became hostile when Columban had the courage to rebuke them openly for the practices of some of them. The controversy over the date of Easter was an opportunity to demonstrate their opposition: Ireland, in fact, followed the Eastern rather than the Roman tradition. The Irish monk was convoked in 603 to account to a Synod at Chalon-sur-Saône for his practices regarding penance and Easter. Instead of presenting himself before the Synod, he sent a letter in which he minimized the issue, inviting the Synod Fathers not only to discuss the problem of the date of Easter, in his opinion a negligible problem, ‘but also all the necessary canonical norms that - something more serious - are disregarded by many’. At the same time he wrote to Pope Boniface IV - just as several years earlier he had turned to Pope Gregory the Great - asking him to defend the Irish tradition. 

Intransigent as he was in every moral matter, Columban then came into conflict with the royal house for having harshly reprimanded King Theuderic for his adulterous relations. This created a whole network of personal, religious and political intrigues and maneuvers which, in 610, culminated in a decree of expulsion banishing Columban and all the monks of Irish origin from Luxeuil and condemning them to definitive exile. They were escorted to the sea and, at the expense of the court, boarded a ship bound for Ireland. However, not far from shore the ship ran aground and the captain, who saw this as a sign from Heaven, abandoned the voyage and, for fear of being cursed by God, brought the monks back to dry land. Instead of returning to Luxeuil, they decided to begin a new work of evangelization. Thus, they embarked on a Rhine boat and travelled up the river. After a first stop in Tuggen near Lake Zurich they went to the region of Bregenz, near Lake Constance, to evangelize the Alemanni. 

However, soon afterwards, because of political events unfavorable to his work, Columban decided to cross the Alps with the majority of his disciples. Only one monk whose name was Gallus stayed behind; it was from his hermitage that the famous Abbey of St Gall in Switzerland subsequently developed. Having arrived in Italy, Columban met with a warm welcome at the Lombard Royal Court but was immediately faced with considerable difficulties: the life of the Church was torn apart by the Arian heresy, still prevalent among the Lombards, and by a schism which had detached most of the Church in Northern Italy from communion with the Bishop of Rome. Columban entered authoritatively into this context, writing a satirical pamphlet against Arianism and a letter to Boniface IV to convince him to take some decisive steps with a view to re-establishing unity. When, in 612 or 613, the King of the Lombards allocated to him a plot of land in Bobbio, in the Trebbia Valley, Columban founded a new monastery there which was later to become a cultural centre on a par with the famous monastery of Monte Cassino. Here he came to the end of his days: he died on 23 November 615 and to this day is commemorated on this date in the Roman rite. 

St Columban’s message is concentrated in a firm appeal to conversion and detachment from earthly goods, with a view to the eternal inheritance. With his ascetic life and conduct free from compromises when he faced the corruption of the powerful, he is reminiscent of the severe figure of St John the Baptist. His austerity, however, was never an end in itself but merely the means with which to open himself freely to God’s love and to correspond with his whole being to the gifts received from him, thereby restoring in himself the image of God, while at the same time cultivating the earth and renewing human society. I quote from his Instructiones: ‘If man makes a correct use of those faculties that God has conceded to his soul, he will be likened to God. Let us remember that we must restore to him all those gifts which he deposited in us when we were in our original condition. He has taught us the way with his Commandments. The first of them tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, because he loved us first, from the beginning of time, even before we came into the light of this world’. The Irish Saint truly incarnated these words in his own life. A man of great culture - he also wrote poetry in Latin and a grammar book - he proved rich in gifts of grace. He was a tireless builder of monasteries as well as an intransigent penitential preacher who spent every ounce of his energy on nurturing the Christian roots of Europe which was coming into existence. With his spiritual energy, with his faith, with his love for God and neighbor, he truly became one of the Fathers of Europe. He shows us even today the roots from which our Europe can be reborn.

By Father John Ryan

This is a slightly edited version of the homily given on 9 October 2005 by Fr John Ryan, pastor of St Brendan the Navigator, Ormond Beach, Florida, on the fifth anniversary of the death of Columban Father Eamonn Gill, killed in an accident while working temporarily in the parish. Father Gill was one of the pioneering Columbans who came to Negros in 1950. He spent almost 50 years there, often in very difficult situations, but never losing his sense of humor.

This weekend, we remember the anniversary of the tragic death of Fr Eamonn Gill. I’m sure many of you remember Father Eamonn . . . So, what I thought I’d do was look over my homily from his funeral Mass and see what my thoughts were then. We keep memories sacred by telling stories about those who have left this life . . . today we remember with great affection the story of Fr Eamonn Gill.

It is perfectly obvious to everyone who knew Father Eamonn that he was deeply in love with God. He had a tremendously deep love for the Blessed Sacrament. Many of you know that early in the morning and at various times during the day you could find him sitting quietly here in Church praying before the Blessed Sacrament. He would spend nearly an hour before his morning Mass in silent prayer right there in the back of the church . . . and when he didn’t have Mass here in church, he would celebrate a private Mass in the rectory. So in love was he with his God.

When anyone is in love, nothing asked can be too much. And so, Father Eamonn responded to the love he knew, and took it to the Philippines for 47 years! Yes, he lived under the martial law of the Marcos regime and labored in primitive circumstances . . . for 47 years he said every day, ‘Lord, I love you so much that I offer this to you . . .’

Columbans in Negros, 1965. 
Seated: Fr Eamonn Gill, Fr John Blowick (3rd from left), Columban Co-founder.

So in love was Father Eamonn with his God.

I’ll bet that he never dreamed that in his retirement he would end up in Ormond Beach, Florida! But, even in retirement, he wanted to serve God and God’s people. So Father Eamonn came to St Brendan’s. Here, he endeared himself with his gentleness, his quick, dry humor and his evident holiness. He endeared himself to everyone. I know of absolutely no one who ever had an unkind word to say about Eamonn Gill. He dazzled us with his stories of ‘When I was in the Philippines . . .’ and his quips - and his lavish praise nestled in his ‘thank yous’ at the end of Sunday Mass are legendary! Father Eamonn loved the People of God . . . he had to . . . so in love was he with his God.

You see, Father Eamonn didn’t see any of what he did as ‘work’ or as the ‘stuff of priestly ministry’ . . . No, he saw everything he did as a loving response to the God he loved so very much. He was able to go past the ordinariness of daily routine and see God’s presence in every moment . . . whether that was enjoying a good meal, a conversation with a lonely shut-in, to whom his heart went out especially; whether enjoying a good Irish whiskey . . . or walking the shore as he did each and every evening.

I think Father Eamonn knew where he could find God . . . surely in the Eucharist . . . and in people and in prayer and Scripture . . . but he also know that God was somehow majestically and silently present perfectly in the beautiful beach and in the ocean that he loved.

And so, on Monday evening, 9 October 2000, after sharing a meal with Fr Harry Wallace, Sister Joyce Rohlik, Pat Murray and Stan Zerkowski . . . Father Eamonn went for his walk with God along the beach as he did each evening. It was a particularly cold October evening.

Colder than any October evening I can ever remember - it was 53 F (12 C) degrees that evening with a strong northeast wind. And we know that Father Eamonn was tragically killed - hit by a van during the course of that walk on A1A. If that were the end of the story, we would have tremendous reason for grief. But it isn’t the end of the story…

Let me tell you how I see it… Father Eamonn left the rectory at about 6:30 that evening. And as on every other evening, he walked with the Lord along the shore . . . and he enjoyed these walks! I firmly believe that during the walk, as Eamonn walked with God and talked with God . . . God looked into Eamonn’s eyes and said, ‘Eamonn we’ve been walking for 74 years . . . I think we’re closer to my home than yours . . . why don’t you just come home with me.’ 
And, of course, Father Eamonn said ‘Sure!’ And the rest is history.

Father Eamonn walked with God from the day of his baptism when God in 1923 promised him eternal life. And on Monday 9 October 2000, God kept his promise to Eamonn. And, if you think about it, it could have been no other way . . . it was at the shore that Jesus called his disciples . . . and isn’t God’s plan beautiful that at the end of Eamonn’s life God would call him, at the shore, to follow Him home into eternity?!

In a short time, Father Eamonn Gill preached a mighty powerful sermon to us here at St Brendan’s . . . and he rarely did it by talking.

Jesus told us that He is the Light of the World. Sometimes there are people who, just by their living, bring light to our lives. They don’t even have to say anything . . . I think mother Teresa was one of those kind people. And you know what? Father Eamonn was one of those people. He brought light - God’s light - to this parish.

If you look over there in the back of the church, on the wall near the sacristy, you’ll see a candle that flickers every time Mass is celebrated here. That candle burns in memory of Father Eamonn. It silently burns among us to remind us that even death can’t diminish light once it is shared. Father Eamonn’s light still burns here at St Brendan’s. It burns in the hearts of the children whom he would greet every day after school and to whom he’d pass out candy or a medal or a holy card. It burns in the hearts of each of us who remember him - each of us who remembers his holiness - his practical holiness . . . the kind of holiness that knows how to laugh and how to pray. And now, even if you never met Eamonn, his light burns in you because you’ve heard the story . . . the story of a slight little man who loved God and people so much that he was considered a giant among us.
. . . Truly, a giant among us. Amen.