Columban Mission Perspective – Aotearoa New Zealand

The Columban focus on the world is through the lens of mission. Participation in global mission fashions our engagement with peoples across the world. I am pleased to say that my personal perspective remains positive and vital, colored by experience with church communities and social projects in Korea, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand.

For more than eighty years, the mission magazine, The Far East, along with The Columban Calendar, have been distributed in Australia and New Zealand. They have made a significant contribution to awareness of church needs, and to fundraising for overseas mission personnel and projects.

The internet has now become a fresh helpful platform for ongoing mission awareness. A Columban Website  www.columban.org.au  has been launched to create networks in service of the mission tradition, especially to keep Catholics in touch with the Church across the world. From our offices Melbourne and Wellington, our priority is a hope-filled presentation, linking religion and spirituality to real peoples, living cultures and pressing problems.

My contributions are reflections on mission from a New Zealand perspective. They spring from my pondering, listening and discussions focused on Gospel, Church, culture, spirituality and mission practice. The idea is to interpret the way things are, and to make sense of what is happening at home and across the planet. As I see it, mission places an alternative, credible and attractive message in focus.

Fr Michael Gormly is the co-ordinator of St Columban's, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

Read more of Fr Michael Gormly's reflection articles