By Fr. Cathal Coulter MSSC

The Columban Missionaries were founded nearly one hundred years ago.  Well, not quite.  The co-founder, John Blowick, later recalled the first night the young students – offering their life for the mission to China – gathered together for prayer and how they read a passage from the Gospel which would be the guiding light of all missionaries.

Eighty-four winters have passed since the first group of young Columbans gathered for evening prayer in the old Dalgan, the first Columban home. There was no electricity, no heat. Seven priests and eighteen students sat a few chairs, some packing cases and boxes in a room lit by candles and oil lamps. In later years, John Blowick, the founder, would recall how he looked around and could see the whole Society, all twenty-five of them, all young men, all under fifty.

John Blowick himself, ordained in 1903, described January 29, 1918 as a “cold, bleak sort of day”. There were many questions and lots of uncertainties and the wind blowing across Lough Corrib may have been cold. But the enthusiasm and the fire in the hearts of those young men launched the Society of St. Columban.

By the light of flickering candles, passages from the gospel of John were read.

During the supper, Jesus – fully aware that he had come from God and was going to God, the Father who had handed everything over to him – rose from the meal and took off his cloak.  He picked up a towel and tied it around himself.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel he had around him.

After he had washed their feet, he put his cloak back on and reclined at the table once more.  He said to them “Do you understand what I just did for you?  You address me as “Teacher” and “Lord”, and fittingly enough, for that is what I am.  But if I washed your feet – I who am Teacher and Lord – then you must wash each other’s feet.  What I just did was to give you an example.  As I have done, so you must do.

I solemnly assure you, he who accepts anyone I send accepts me, and in accepting me accepts Him who sent me. (John XIII 2-5; 12-15; 20)

These words of Our Lord read at the first night prayer of the young Columban Society still speak to us and tell us the spirit in which all missionaries, priests, sisters or lay must serve.