Misyon Online - January-February 2015
PULONG NG EDITOR
Pulong ng Editor
For the Beauty of the Earth, arranged by John Rutter.
Your editor is not the most organized person in the world. But often enough, from the ‘disorder’ that this causes, things come together in an unexpected but orderly way. The editorial staff suggested a photo by Benjo Rullena for our January-February cover and your editor found an appropriate verse from Psalm 103: As for man, his days are like the grass; he blossoms like a flower in the field.
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A JOURNEY ‘UP’ MEMORY LANE
By Fr Patrick Colgan
Fr Pat Colgan, from Northern Ireland, was based in Fiji before being elected to the General Council of the Missionary Society of St Columban. The Council members live in Hong Kong.
Fr Jehoon Lee, Bishop Francis Daw Tang, Fr Carlo Jung at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Church, Tanghpre
As part of the first visit to Myanmar (Burma) by two newly-ordained Korean Columban priests in November 2014, Frs Carlo Jung and Jehoon Lee, who will be assigned there this year, the Bishop Francis Daw Tang of Myitkyina was anxious to take us, accompanied by some Columban Sisters and a lay associate from Hong Kong, to one of the sites of the original Columban mission among the Kachin people. We drove about 45 kms north to Tanghpre, a scenic spot where the Mali and Nmai rivers form the ‘Confluence’ of the famous Irrawaddy River.
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BECAUSE WE ARE STUDENTS FOR LIFE
by Richelle H. Verdeprado
Teakare Betero, from Raba, Fiji, is undergoing his Spiritual Formation Year in Quezon City. Richelle H. Verdeprado is the Editorial Assistant of MISYONonline.com.
Teakare (far right) with Fr Taaremon Matauea on
the latter’s ordination day, 11 August 2013.
Every time he attended Mass during his teenage years, Teakare Betero or ‘Tex’ would recite with the priest instead of responding to him. For reasons he could not really tell at the time, he just got used to doing that. He grew up that way and his friends would even jokingly say to him that he might become a priest someday. Never did he think too that he would decide to take a journey towards priesthood and that a day would come when he would feel so hungry to learn more about God.
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THE JUBILEE YEAR OF ST COLUMBAN BEGINS IN ROME
Filipina Columban Lay Missionary Rose Basada shares with us her participation in the three-day celebration in Rome marking the opening of the Jubilee Year of St Columban, which runs from 10 October 2014 to 23 November 2015. This year makes the 1400th anniversary of the death of St Columban in the year 615 in the northern Italian town of Bobbio. Rose is based in Birmingham, England.
It was a blessing and privilege for me to participate in the celebrations in Rome to open the Jubilee Year of St Columban, the patron of the Missionary Society of St Columban with whose members we Columban Lay Missionaries work on mission.
Rose, center, waving to Pope Francis
The Jubilee Year began with four major events. They started on 10 October with Ecumenical Vespers at 5:00pm in the Basilica of San Clemente. The church was full of pilgrims from different places in Europe. It was a very moving celebration as people of many cultures and Christian denominations gathered. I was able to meet pilgrims from various churches – Catholic, Anglican and Methodist. The Parish Priest of Bobbio held relics of St Columban during the procession. They are normally kept at the Museum in Bobbio where Columban died in AD 615.
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OUR HIDEAWAY
How This Year is Going to be Depends On You
By Jessan M. Cabunsol
Jessan is a third year BS Civil Engineering student at the University of Negros Occidental -Recoletos. Presently, he is also the editor-in-chief of the Tolentine Star, the official student publication of the university. Jessan is an active Kwaderno volunteer too.
It is one of the most awaited holidays around the globe. This is the time for change – new hope, new life, new styles, new look, and everything that needs to be renewed. This holiday is New Year’s Day.
Aside from Christmas, New Year is one of the most celebrated holidays all over the world. For thousands of years people have been celebrating the good life, hope, and everything about goodness at the beginning of every year.
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I’m Ready for You, 2015
Marla Grace Halili, 23 years old, works as a Customer Service Representative in Bacolod City. Here, she shares the essential lessons she learned last year and how she is facing 2015.
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PEACE BY PEACE
Pope Francis in Brazil during World Youth Day 2013 [Wikipedia]
‘I think also of the living conditions of many migrants who, in their dramatic odyssey, experience hunger, are deprived of freedom, robbed of their possessions, or undergo physical and sexual abuse. In a particular way, I think of those among them who, upon arriving at their destination after a gruelling journey marked by fear and insecurity, are detained in at times inhumane conditions. I think of those among them, who for different social, political and economic reasons, are forced to live clandestinely. My thoughts also turn to those who, in order to remain within the law, agree to disgraceful living and working conditions, especially in those cases where the laws of a nation create or permit a structural dependency of migrant workers on their employers, as, for example, when the legality of their residency is made dependent on their labour contract. Yes, I am thinking of “slave labour”.’
- Pope Francis, Message for World Day of Peace, 1 January 2015.
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