What work do we do?
The Columbans at Work in The World
How the Columbans
go about their task is to a large extent determined by the life-style
of the people to whom they are sent. The Japanese, for example, live
very different lives from the people of Peru.
The task of the
Columbans is to make relevant and real the Gospel of love in the
context of each individual country in which they work. The Gospel must
also be made relevant in the global context.
Through their
life-style and their work, in dialogue with the people, Columbans are
trying to meet, as well as they can, Christ’s mission mandate to bring:
- the good news to the poor;
- liberty to captives;
- sight to the blind; and
- freedom to the downtrodden.
Spiritual formation as a basis of the freedom to live without fear
In
today’s world, liberty for so many may mean being given a fair trial
and not held prisoner for years without hearings; it may be the freedom
to speak or to form associations.
Sight to the blind may mean
being helped to an awareness of the misery in which they are forced to
live by others who hold power so that people can begin to change it
themselves through living the Gospel.
To set the downtrodden
free means many things in our world. Exploitation, injustice,
illiteracy, the crippling debt burden of the developing world, poverty,
disempowerment - all these things make people downtrodden. To be set
free, people must come to realise their own human dignity and their
rights as children of God.
Because of their work, Columbans understand what the 1971 Synod of Bishops’ document on ‘Justice in the World’ has to say:
"Action
on behalf of Justice and participation in the transformation of the
world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension for preaching the
Gospel."
This means that to act for justice is at the core and
base of the demand of the Gospel. It is impossible to preach the Gospel
without acting for justice. However, to take up the cause of social
justice as central to the work of Christian mission is not without its
risks. Many Columbans have suffered because they took seriously this
imperative to work for justice.
Some early Columbans were killed
in China. Many were imprisoned or expelled in Korea and Burma during
the years of World War II and six were killed by Japanese troops in the
Philippines. During the Korean war, seven Columbans died and others
were imprisoned.
In more recent years, Frs Brian Gore and Niall
O’Brien were jailed and brought to trial, as two of the ‘Negros nine’,
for a variety of ‘crimes’ in the Philippines. Their real ‘crime’ was in
working with the people and challenging the unjust structures and
corrupt government of the 1980’s under Ferdinand Marcos. During the
latter years of the Pinochet regime, American Columban, Dennis O’Mara,
was arrested and deported from Chile for protesting about police use of
torture. Others have been arrested and deported from Taiwan and Fiji
and a Columban sister was killed in Peru in a jail riot when she was
taken hostage by escaping prisoners. The demand of the Gospel is not
always easy.
Columban Education Kit;
