Columban lay missionary Vida Hequilan (center) and Fr Tim Mulroy (right), with parishioners, on their way to a small island in the Holy Family Parish, Labasa, Fiji. - Photo: Fr Tim Mulroy
Ten days before I said goodbye to Hong Kong, a few friends asked me to join them for lunch. Towards the end of a delicious meal, they presented me with a gift box and invited me to open it.
Inside, I found two small porcelain peaches, one of which was inscribed with the Chinese character for “longevity” and the other with the character for “blessing”. My friends then proceeded to explain to me that this gift was their way of honouring my upcoming sixtieth birthday, since in traditional Chinese culture this meant that I was about to complete one life cycle - and at the same time embark on a new one. Moreover, it seemed providential to them that my sixtieth birthday coincided with the completion of my six-year term as the international leader of the Columban missionaries - and the beginning of a new stage of my missionary journey. Therefore, as I pause at this major juncture, sometimes I find myself looking back and savouring significant experiences from these past six years in leadership, while at other times I wonder what the coming decade might hold for me.
As the international leader, it has been a privilege to visit all our missions, to accompany my Columban colleagues in their day-to-day lives for a brief period in a multitude of places, to see first-hand their ministry sites, and to listen to stories about their mission experiences over many decades. Moreover, thanks to the close bonds that have developed between my Columban colleagues and the local people in every country, I have had the opportunity to visit families in their own homes in various places, to converse with them about their struggles and hopes, and to learn about how their faith sustains them. These encounters and experiences have renewed my faith in humanity as I realise over and over again that the vast majority of people of every nationality and religion strive after the same dreams - a caring and supportive family and community, stable employment, and a peaceful world. I find it helpful to recall this great truth regularly to counterbalance the tendency in many sectors of our modern media and in some political circles to vilify and demonise anyone who differs from one’s own family and friends.
Visiting my Columban colleagues in various countries has strengthened my belief that living an ordinary life well is, in fact, something extraordinary. While some of my colleagues oversee big projects or manage major programmes that provide a range of valuable services such as education or healthcare to the local people, many other Columbans live quiet and unassuming lives providing pastoral care to poor and neglected communities. Their daily dedication does not merit newspaper headlines nor win them public awards. Their fidelity to their missionary vocation cannot be demonstrated in graphs, nor can their impact on the world be measured in statistics. Yet those among whom they live see them as salt to the earth, and those to whom they minister recognise them as light to the world.
While visiting my Columban colleagues in various places, I have been reminded often of the Japanese proverb: If you live there, it will become your hometown. Even those Columbans who live in trying circumstances find a purpose that brings them fulfilment and contentment. Sometimes the local people have commented with amazement that if they were given a choice, they would move to another country - and yet Columban missionaries have chosen to leave the comfort of their home country to live alongside them and embrace their struggles. While this is true, it is also a fact that the longer Columban missionaries live among the local people, the more they embrace their way of life, admire their resilience, and enjoy their friendship. As Jesus reminds us, it is this friendship that makes it possible to willingly lay down one’s life for others, to give of oneself daily over many decades so that others may enjoy a more abundant life.
However, one of the most difficult aspects of our Columban missionary life is accepting that, due to age and declining health, we can no longer live in that place where we have formed many deep friendships, that we can no longer remain in that country we have learned to call our second home. Yet rather than making the transition back to one’s home country on one’s own terms while still reasonably healthy and active, many Columbans prefer to wait until a health crisis forces them to move, resulting in a great deal of stress and unhappiness not only for them but also for those around them. The result is that, in addition to having to deal with deep feelings of loss and sadness at saying goodbyes, they also have to manage anxiety about their future and the fear of being unable to adapt to life back home.
Therefore, helping an elderly or sick missionary colleague to transition from his mission country back to his home country for better medical services and nursing care is one of the most demanding tasks of leadership.
Receiving the gift of two porcelain peaches on my sixtieth birthday serves as a reminder that I have already completed one life cycle and am now undergoing a transition into the next life cycle. For the Chinese people, this is the law of the world. So rather than deny or fight it, it is preferable to accept and celebrate it.
Moreover, in Chinese culture, peaches symbolise divinity and the longing in every human heart for immortality. Therefore, it is through dealing constructively with transitions along the road of life that we prepare ourselves to face that final major transition when we leave this transient world and enter into eternal life.
Columban Fr Tim Mulroy, former Society Leader.
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Related links
- Read more from The Far East - September/October 2024
