Answering the needs

03.03.2010

As one looks back over the 90-year history of the St Columban’s Missionary Society, one characteristic becomes clear: the Columbans’ flexibility in responding to the changing circumstances and realities of Catholic missionary work.

This willingness to change the Society to meet current needs was never more evident than in 1978 when it created the Columban Lay Missionary Program.

Today, Columban lay missionaries are an intercultural group of women and men; single, also married with families, they are following their missionary calling. As living witnesses of Jesus, they continue to offer themselves as God’s instruments fulfilling Jesus’ words: “I came that you may have life, life to the full” (Jn 10:10).

Like other Columbans, lay missionaries are flexible as ministries evolve to meet the changing needs of God’s children.

The decision to send a team of lay missionaries to the Diocese of Banmaw in northwest Myanmar (Burma) is an example. The challenge will be great as the diocese is so new - it was created in August 2006 by splitting off the southern part of the Diocese of Myitkyina, where Columbans were instrumental in developing the Catholic Church.

This mission will be challenging because of the stark poverty and political and social-economic instability. Despite these daunting issues, we have witnessed a strong sense of life in the Burmese people that needs to be sustained and strengthened.

The diocese in Banmaw has expressed great interest in receiving Columban lay missionaries as partners who will help build up participation in the Church by local lay people.

This partnership between a diocese and the Lay Missionary Program is a first for the Columban Society: the usual formal structure between the lay missionaries and the Society will be replaced with an evolving partnership structure between the lay missionary and the local Church.

Today, there are 69 Columban lay missionaries representing eight different nationalities (Chileans, Americans, Fijians, Koreans, Tongans, British, Filipinos and Peruvians) who work in 10 countries (Britain, Chile, Fiji, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines and Taiwan). They strive to be catalysts of transformation in building God’s reign.

We use our international structure, wide range of language skills, wealth of experience in cross-cultural mission and multicultural composition, as blessings and bridges to serve God and His people in a new era of Catholic missionary work.

The words of St Columban, written more than 1300 years ago, call us to what is important and where God must  be served in our mission work: “Let us eat with the poor, drink with the poor,  share with the poor, that we might deserve to have a part with the poor, in that place where they shall be satisfied, who here for Christ’s sake, hunger and thirst for justice.”
Columban lay missionaries continue to seek out the poor and share with them the Good News.

Filipina Aurora C. Luceno became a Columban lay missionary in 1993 and served in Pakistan. At present she is doing further studies.

Read more stories from the The Far East, March