By Fr. John Griffin, ssc

One day in 1942 the whole school assembly at St. Kevin’s College in Oamaru, New Zealand sat riveted as two priests told of their lives as missionaries in Korea. More exciting for us young lads, their years in faraway Asia had recently included being held as prisoners of war by the Japanese who had finally released then for repatriation.

They were New Zealand Francis Herlihy and Hubert Hayward and this was the first I had ever heard of the Columban missionary society to which they belonged.

The following year was to be my last year at high school and the serious question of “Where next?” echoed in my mind. The answer came when the Columban missionary, Fr. Jim McGlynn, visited St. Kevin’s and said that the Columbans were opening a seminary for first year students in Lower Hutt near Wellington. The rest of their studies they would join the seminarians in Melbourne, Australia.

A few weeks later I wrote to them, expressing my aspirations. As well as encouraging me, Fr. McGlynn had a few questions, chiefly about my studies and my parents’ reaction to my plans.
Later in 1943 when I successfully passed my matriculation exam he invited me to present myself the following March, I moved north, expecting that I would be one of a small army of keen aspirant to missionary priesthood. There was just one other student!

I was ordained in Dunedin on July 25, 1950. When I returned to Corpus Christi to complete my studies I received word of my first mission assignment along with my classmate, John Walsh, I was to go to the Philippines.

We arrived in Manila by ship in May 1950 and were sent to join the team that had gone only two weeks earlier to a new Columban mission in province of Zambales, north west of Manila. A toss of a coin decided our placements. John Walsh went to Subic to study Tagalog while I was sent to San Antonio to grapple with the intricacies of Ilokano (a language brought to Zambales by earlier migrants from the two Ilokos provinces in Northern Luzon).

I stayed in Ilokano parishes in Zambales until 1970 when a medical emergency sent me back to New Zealand for the amputees of my right leg due to cancer. People still ask me how I felt when the doctor gave me his fateful decision. I can honestly say that when it comes to ‘Your leg or your life’ you waste no time in telling the doctor your preference!

My parents where there living in Auckland so I spent my recovery time at home with them. With an artificial limb plus a car adapted to my needs, I went to Lower Hutt in mid 1971 to join the Columban team there.

In 1974, I was seconded to head New Zealand’s National Missions Office When I completed that task in 1984 I volunteered for our mission in Chile. Following Spanish studies in Bolivia I moved down to my new assignment where I happily spent my next 10 years.

I am now back ‘on the road’ in Auckland doing the same work as I did in the South Island in the early 70’s. As I approach my 70th birthday and the 47th anniversary of my ordination, there is only joy I my heart as I as I review my life and thank God for so much.

I am particularly grateful that mine was a call to missionary priesthood which brought me close to other cultures and gave me the opportunity to be of service to people with lifestyle and values different from what I knew in New Zealand.

I’ve learned the truth of what we were told in the seminary: “You will receive much more than you will give; you will learn much more that you’ll teach.” I have no doubt that learning that truth and humbly accepting it has been my greatest experience as a missionary.