Most weekends, I find myself on the road visiting different parishes throughout the length and breadth of the country, promoting the Columban Mission and raising funds for our work.
Every journey is an adventure. You pass wonderful countryside and fascinating sights. You meet lovely people, and each parish has a tale to tell. The best part is you never know what to expect. There is a surprise around every corner. Let me give you an example ... This year, we’ve been covering parishes in the Diocese of Wrexham, and I often find myself heading into the gorgeous valleys of North Wales. One such trip took me to a former mining town called Coedpoeth. I was advised it was an isolated Welsh-speaking community with few Catholics, and, in all probability, even fewer of them would have heard of the Columbans.
Not a bit of it! As I was greeting the people before Mass, up comes a man to say his uncle had been a former two-term Superior General of the Columbans, Fr Nick Murray. Almost immediately, another parishioner eagerly informed me that his great-uncle was one of the first Columban priests to go to China. A lady then tells me she’d heard on a BBC Radio Remembrance Day programme the story of Columban Fr Frank McEnnis, the first Catholic chaplain to go ashore in Normandy with Allied forces on D-Day.
Not to be outdone, someone else remembered how the former Columban Regional Director in Britain, Fr Bernie McDermott, had once come to do supply in the church while based in a parish in nearby Chester. (Although it had been years ago, Bernie had left “a lasting impression!”)
So much for the Columbans not being known! It was like one of those Shakespearean historical plays where heralds dash in from stage left and stage right to give the king glad tidings. To put the top hat on it, a delightful elderly gentleman presented me with a photograph of me, taken during my days on mission in Peru, that he’d cut out of the Far East magazine. Moreover, it transpired that many in the congregation had been unobtrusively supporting the Columbans for years with small but regular donations.
Bang on cue came the gospel of the day- the famous “Widow’s Mite” from Mark (12:42-44). Never was a reading timelier and more fitting to the occasion. In a single paragraph, it summed up the history of Columban support - loyal, gentle people like these in a hidden Welsh valley, quietly putting in their “two copper coins” over the years, thus enabling the Society of St Columban to work miracles in the mission fields.
This year, I’ll be enjoying more Welsh hospitality as the Columbans undertake mission appeals in the Diocese of Cardiff. Only the Lord knows what fun and graces await me on the way to those valleys!
Columban Fr John Boles, Regional Director in Britain.
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - March/April 2025
