Visiting Fr. Columbano, OSB in Bukidnon

he prays for the day when he can concentrate on monastery work and not receive any visitor.  There is just so much work in the benedictine monastery in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, he says.  He has a huge coffee plantation to take care of where the famous monks' blend is harvested from.   But once he starts talking with you there is no stopping his stories of how the Benedictine community grew in Bukidnon.  He obviously enjoy entertaining visitors as well.  He is as animated as i remember him to be in elementary and high school when he would mingle with us every morning as we stood in rows at the quadrangle and at the covered courts before the start of classes. 

He also tells me that he visited the USA recently and met up with some Bedan alumni, my former classmates, who kept him up all night trying to relive the heydays of elementary and high school.   For he was always there cheering us up for the demands of life in the classroom as we stood for the early morning flag ceremony at the quadrangle of our Mendiola campus.  My classmates brought him home at 4 AM only to be reminded that he had an appointment at 6 AM.  But he says he had a nice time.

Fr. Columbano has a roar of a laughter that makes you wonder if he is indeed 71 years old already. his dreaded hand grip can still crush your hand to a pulp if he wants to. But he won't because he is a holy man. Well, just cringe and surrender and he will let go.  And, he did just that, again, for the umpteenth time.  I am thankful. 

fr. columbano still cheering on a forever student on power handgrips.

the church of transfiguration, malaybalay, bukidnon