Estefanio Argall Luceño RIP, the father of a Columban missionary

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Estefanio Luceño with his wife Teresita, 60 years married, taken in Dahilayan, Bukidnon, last year

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Estefanio A Luceño who died in Pagadian City on Holy Saturday, 7 April, and will be buried there on Easter Saturday, 14 April. He was 85 and the father of Aurora Luceño, a long-term Columban lay missionary who has spent much of her time in Pakistan.

Many of us have read stories, including vocation stories, about and by missionaries and been inspired by them. We don't hear quite as often from the parents of missionaries, about their part in the vocation stories of their sons and daughters or of what it costs them. Below is an article we published in Misyon, the Columban magazine I edit here in the Philippines, in January-February 2004 by the late Estefanio: We had to let her go. Now God has asked his wife and family to let him go. As the Irish prayer for the dead goes, 'May the light of heaven shine upon him'.
Aurora Luceño, known to her friends as 'Auring' or 'Au'.

To be the father of the Columban lay missionary is indeed a rare privilege. I consider it precious gift from God. My daughter, Aurora C. Luceño, a civil engineer by profession, was enjoying a well-paying job and a promising career in the Department of Interior and Local Government before being sent to the Columban Lay Mission Program (CLMP) she took part in the Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program, which gave her a chance to visit different Asian countries, including Japan, as a goodwill ambassador of youth.
Full article here.

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