“Why did you choose to join the Columban missionaries and not some other missionary organisation?” is a question that I’m often asked. My simple response is “A letter from God” which generally leads to the other person becoming even more inquisitive.
Columban Fr Tim Mulroy. Photo: Missionary Society of St Columban
After graduating from college, I moved to a mid-sized town in order to be close to my new job. My apartment was situated in a three-story building, one floor up from street level. Another tenant lived on the floor above me, while below me was the office of a real estate agent. A year later, the real estate agent closed his office, resulting in the ground floor being left vacant. However, I gave the matter no thought, since I could not imagine that this development would have any impact on my life.
The following year, I decided to pursue my plans to become a missionary priest. Since it was long before the days of the internet, I wrote letters requesting information from two missionary organisations with which I was somewhat familiar thanks to their monthly magazines.
A few weeks later I received a response from one of those organisations, the Columban Missionaries, inviting me to come and spend a weekend with their community. Thanks to that weekend, I developed a clearer picture of the missionary way of life, which strengthened my resolve to pursue it. However, I was not yet ready to make a decision.
For several weeks I waited for a response from the other missionary organisation, hoping that I would be invited to have a similar weekend experience with that community. Back then, I had found their mission magazine even more attractive than the Columban Mission magazine! Besides, I thought that it would be helpful in my decision-making process to be able to compare and contrast my experience of two communities. However, even though I checked my letterbox upon returning from work each evening, there was no response. I grew disappointed.
During the weeks that followed, I continued to learn more about Columban Missionaries, and then finally made up my mind to make a formal application to enter their seminary. After I was accepted, I notified my employer that I was moving on, and informed the landlady that I would be leaving my apartment. However, as I attended various matters during that period of transition, I found myself wondering from time to time why I had not received a response from the other missionary organisation.
It seemed that one piece of the jigsaw puzzle was still missing.
The day that I was due to leave my apartment, when I returned from work, the landlady was waiting to say goodbye to me. After we exchanged pleasantries, she handed me a letter, explaining that she had found it in the letterbox of the vacant office of the real estate agent. It was from the other missionary organisation and had been left lying in the wrong letterbox for five months. I was astonished: it was the only letter that had gone into the wrong letterbox during the entire year that the office had been vacant.
At that moment, I sensed that a mysterious hand had guided my decision to join the Columbans rather than another missionary organisation. Since then, over the course of many years, I have come to a deeper appreciation of having been led by God into the Columban Missionary way of life thanks to the letter that had gone astray.
Columban Fr Tim Mulroy is the Superior General of the Missionary Society of St Columban and resides in Hong Kong.
Listen to "A letter from God"
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- Read more from The Far East, August 2020
