On April 10, 2024, I travelled to Suva for Fr Iowane Naio’s ordination at the Sacred Heart Cathedral. The night before, the Columban priests gathered with Iowane’s relatives at our Columban Mission Office for the traditional kava ceremony. Kava, also known as yaqona, is the national drink of Fiji, made from the crushed root of the yaqona plant strained with water.
In the centre of the room was the tanao, a wooden kava/yaqona bowl on six legs. Iowane’s relatives sat behind it while the Columban priests sat in front. An uncle, acting as family spokesperson, welcomed us in Fijian and the Columban spokesperson, a local catechist, replied. We exchanged gifts of a tabua (whale’s tooth) and a kava root. A groom gives a tabua to the bride’s family when asking permission to marry.
Iowane then entered the room, wearing a Fijian cape, and sat with his relatives. After his uncle’s inspiring speech, he stood up, removed the cape and moved across the room to sit with us Columban priests: Iowane’s family was gifting him to the Columban family. I then said a few words in response in what was a solemn and emotional ceremony.
The Suva cathedral was packed the next day for Iowane’s ordination ceremony presided over by Archbishop Peter Loy Chong. Many of Iowane’s family had travelled six hours by bus from their mountain village in Ba on the west coast of the southern island of Viti Levu, and over 100 parishioners from the Columban-staffed parish in Labasa on the northern island of Vanua Levu had travelled overnight by bus and boat. There was also a large contingent of parishioners from our Columban-staffed parish in Raiwaqa, Suva, and many local religious sisters, priests, former Columban students and lay missionaries attended. The amazing choir led the congregation in prayerful song.
After Communion, I thanked Fr Iowane’s father, Isake, and his mother, Mariana (looking down from heaven) for nurturing their son in the faith and supporting him in his missionary journey. The congregation spontaneously erupted in loud clapping, a sign of their appreciation for Isake and Mariana. I reminded thosegathered that Columban missionaries from Ireland, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand arrived in Fiji over seventy years ago. Now, Fiji was sending Iowane to our Columban mission in Pakistan.
The following Sunday, over 2,000 people gathered at Christ the King Parish in Ba to celebrate Fr Iowane’s Mass of Thanksgiving. The parish priest, Fr Pio, and his parishioners welcomed us. One could feel God’s presence and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the vibrancy of the local church.
On May 1, 2024, at St Luke’s Church, Edin, Myitkyina, Kachin State, in war-torn Myanmar, Columban Fr Nbwi la Aung Francis Xavier was ordained as the first Burmese Columban missionary priest. As a seminarian, Fr la Aung spent two years in Fiji on his first mission assignment, so we are delighted he has been assigned to serve in Fiji once again.
The history of Columban missionaries working in Myanmar began when Fr Bernard Way from Melbourne and Fr Patrick Usher from Ireland arrived by boat in Yangon on October 21, 1936. They travelled eighteen hours by train north to Mandalay, from where they took a four-day riverboat trip up the Irrawaddy to Banmaw, the mountainous area where the Columbans would work.
Fr Bernard worked for 42 years in Banmaw and was interned in Mandalay along with other Columbans captured by the Japanese in 1945. A coup in 1962 led to the military government ordering all missionaries who had arrived after 1948 to leave, the last three Columbans leaving in 1979.
In 2008, a small group of Columban lay missionaries returned to Myanmar, and a new Columban mission team, comprising priests and lay, began to serve the Kachin people again in June 2015. With the ordination of Fr Nbwi la Aung, the Columban presence in Myanmar begins a new and exciting chapter in responding to God’s mission.
Fr Peter O'Neill
Regional Director of Oceania
directoroceania@columban.org.au
Listen to "From the Director - From the Director - Newly ordained Columbans"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - June 2024
