Columban Fr Tony Collier: the first foreigner to die in the Korean War. Sunday Reflections, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel Matthew 21:28:32 (English Standard Version Anglicised, India)
Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people:
“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’, but afterwards he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir’, but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterwards change your minds and believe him.
Columban Fr Ray Collier recalls that when he was eight or nine the parish priest of Clogherhead, County Louth, Ireland, came to the school in October 1950 and announced to the assembled pupils and teachers the death in Korea of Fr Anthony Collier. Earlier that year the young Ray had been serving his uncle’s Mass daily. Father Tony was a Columban priest who went to Korea in 1939 and spent the World War II years in Korea under house arrest by the Japanese who had occupied that country since 1910. Father Ray remembered his uncle as easy-going and who delighted in making films of his family, unknown to them, with his cine-camera, something rare at the time. He recalled too that before he returned to Korea in the early summer of 1950 Father Tony told the family that North Korea would probably invade the South.
Continue at Bangor to Bobbio.
Comments
Post a Comment