It is a new year that has already reached its halfway point, with many hopes we begin with joy this new stage in the CLM, trying that all of us in the community participate with our abilities and willing to learn more every day.
In the eagerness to simply share our experiences as a community, some of us have taken the time to share our joys, meditations and experiences about BEING CLM.
“On Sunday, the monthly CLM gathering was held at Casa Comboni in the small hall. Not all the Laity were present for different reasons. There were changes in the calendar for this month. The missionary animation was moved to May 28 and on April 30 we will arrive to make improvements in the Chispuditos program. The Mena couple had the task of making the altar and explained to us the meaning of what they placed.
In the formation we took the CLM group autonomy form, a very good reflection that led us to make decisions as a community. It was also said that each of us look for a donor for the mission, fight for the projects to buy a vehicle and build a mission house, also talk to the parish priest where we live to make more missionary animations.”
Mercedes
“On Thursday when I went to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, I met a friend and I told him about the mission, about everything we were doing, about the Chispuditos program. He got excited and said it was a pity that he had already committed himself to a church group.
Another day a lady came to have an injection and we started to talk. She told me that she did not pray the rosary, but one day when she came with me I told her that I prayed it every day and made my petitions. That day she decided to pray it every day and that she thanked God for all the advice I gave her.
One day when I was coming back from church I met an old neighbor and she was very happy to see me, she hugged me and hugged me saying that she missed me, because just seeing me walking down the street she felt that I transmitted tranquility or security, she did not know how to explain it.”
Mirta
We share from the simplicity of heart and let you know that we are walking, getting to know each other more as a community, meeting our neighbors and placing ourselves at their service.
May God bless the mission, the CLM and may St. Daniel Comboni intercede for each one of us.
Hello! I am Sylvia Durán Jovel from Costa Rica and I took the decision and my desire to be a Comboni Lay Missionary after listening to one of the most beautiful testimonies on Radio Maria, a Catholic non-profit radio station where I am also a volunteer and where I have witnessed many acts of love, faith, perseverance in prayer in every sense, but especially with the prayer of the missionary rosary from its oracles.
Being part of the formation to be CLM involves gathering on the second and fourth Sundays of each month at the seminary located in Sagrada Familia, a marginal urban neighborhood where the parish priest is Father Fabio Loaísiga, who by the way is also the director of Radio Maria.
On June 25 we would have our meeting which coincided with the retreat “A New Pentecost”, organized by the radio in the Curridabat area with a priest who came with his ministry Dei Verbum from El Salvador and a proposal full of love to praise our Lord that would definitely burn more hearts for the love of GOD as Comboni is passionate about and it is really his exquisite madness. My mind and heart were struggling between which of the two activities to attend, and well one is that an activity to know the deep love that God has for us and the other is a commitment with the LOVE of COMBONI to change hearts mainly in Africa, but we also have a small Africa where we are and where we go. God makes everything perfect, our CLM formation meeting was cancelled and it opens the opportunity for the 2 CLM aspirants and our leader to attend together for the first time as a CLM group to support this extraordinary retreat MISSIONARY opportunity during our formation. Giving that small but great bit of sand filled my heart with joy, and I did not care about my spleen pain (which still bothers me writing these lines), I was happy. In this retreat where almost 2000 hearts attended and we also saw how the LOVE FOR MISSIONARITY gave us the opportunity to see and be the missionary who seeks to know Christ and his faith more and more each day.
To have responded urgently to the call for help from the brothers and sisters of Radio Maria and to be a testimony of the joy that convinces and increases it in our own life for knowing Christ in that place. We arrived in Curridabat ready to serve, each one in different activities, and little by little we saw the transformation of moments, having put our gifts at the service. Little by little the activity progressed and the time of the Holy Eucharist was approaching where, to our pleasant surprise, the Comboni Priest Guerlain Joachim Biseka (a native of Congo and who works hard in the Comboni Parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal located in Barrio Cuba, another urban slum and for whom I pray a lot and for whom I have special admiration and affection), had also been called to give support in confessions. And how could I not jump with happiness because COMBONI wanted us to be where we were most needed, with our gifts and charisms, and also where we could confirm and reaffirm our vocation and love for Him and also shout it with crazy love. It was a time of grace in my life and even more so knowing that Comboni knew that women were the key to carry out the mission by creating the first women’s missionary institute in Italy. Thank you Comboni.
Last June 16 we celebrated the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a very special day for all of us Catholics, and for the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, also from now on for this humble servant, who, with a heart full of great joy, under the protection of the Virgin Mary of Nazareth and the intercession of St. Daniel Comboni, makes his Commitment as a Comboni Lay Missionary.
It has been a dream since this whole journey began, knowing that it is a commitment with much meaning, being the first Lay Committed under the intercession of St. Daniel Comboni in Costa Rica, knowing all that this represents in all aspects, but with great joy and hope knowing that God will not abandon me and always ready to listen to the voice of our Lord.
It was a very special day, to be able to celebrate this feast together with the whole Comboni Family, Priests, Brothers, Sisters and Seculars, also part of my family, my father, brother, aunts, some friends including 5 people who are making their first contacts to make the decision to join the CLM, let us pray to God that they can sharpen their hearing and listen to the voice of God, to realize what he wants for their lives too, full of signs that will help me always keep in mind this step, the covenant with God, the cross; As St. Daniel Comboni would say, “The works of God are born and grow at the foot of the cross”, the Rosary to keep in mind my prayer.
In this same Eucharist we were accompanied by 12 sisters and brothers who took their commitment as Coordinators of the Comboni Cenacles, who also begin to be part of the Comboni Family in Costa Rica.
In total we were more than 50 people who celebrated this Solemnity in the Comboni Seminary Martyrs of Uganda, as a family and we were witnesses of the mercy of God, personally with much joy and hope to respond as the Creator wants and putting myself at the disposal of the entire Comboni Family for wherever it is necessary and to be able to serve.
I thank God for taking notice of this servant, who, although he is very full of weaknesses, knows that Mother Mary, St. Daniel Comboni and the prayers of all, will struggle to bring the word of God in the best way to wherever God wants it.
On May 23, 2023, the Community of the CLM in Guatemala, shared with Sister Lidia, a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; who with a masterful talk exposes us her experiences lived in Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation. Her experiences in a marginal area of the Garbage Dump of Zone 3 in Guatemala City and her words so full of the Love of God makes us reflect that as CLM we are immersed in this journey and that we are part of this society so disadvantaged and that day by day there are more and few who are called to this service.
She invites us: “not to see anyone as a stranger, but as a true child of God; to see trafficking in persons where, as CLM, I can contribute from my context, to change our vocabulary, since it is not the same “A woman prostitute” to “A woman in prostitution”, to think that “They are families in transit” and that we must welcome them for what they are, always thinking that they bring many burdens and that for organized crime, it is easier to sell a person than a weapon and that the money from the weapon is over, but the person can be sold several times“.
This meeting marks the commitment that we as CLM Guatemala have and we can be a grain of sand in the change that we want to see the world from our realities.
I begin these humble lines first of all thanking God for having fixed his gaze on this servant.
The previous January, the Assembly of the CLM of the Province of Central America was held, where Brother Jesús Pérez, Advisor for Costa Rica of the CLM, talked with the Parish Priest of San Luis Petén, Father Aubert Gamende, about the possibility of receiving some members of our group for the Major Week in the Parish, and it was there where all this dream and illusion began.
For different circumstances, I left for Guatemala on March 29, with a suitcase full of fear, illusion, hope, but above all with the desire to be able to offer a little of all the love that God has had for me, the same love with which I was received in Casa Comboni.
I had the opportunity to share with the CLM of Guatemala, accompanying them in their project Chispuditos, knowing some Departments of the country, eating the delicious gastronomy (beef soup, plantain rellenitos, atoles, etc, etc, etc and etc ha ha ha ha), living the spectacular experience of their culture and great Faith, Palm Sunday in Antigua with the emblematic Processions, Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
On Holy Monday I start my trip to San Luis Petén, it is worth mentioning that the Parish is administered by the MCCJ, is made up of more than 140 villages (populations), some of them speak Spanish, others only speak the Q’eqchi dialect and others are mixed, all this territory comprises approx. 3000 square km and is served by 4 priests, that after 8 hours of travel, Father Fabrice receives me to take me to Casa Parroquial where as in Casa Comboni, I was received as another member of the house.
After resting for a while, Billy came to pick me up; to take me to know the Parish Clinic, where primary care services are provided to the parish population, not only of the Center, but also through the Health Campaigns they go to more distant populations, where the group of the CLM of Petén sometimes participate, we also visited the Nursing Home with many needs and that the Brothers of CLM Petén carry out a work of accompaniment and assistance, and have several projects to do in this house of permanent residence.
On Holy Wednesday, I was able to meet and share with the CLM of Petén, who were born on the same day and date as us here in Costa Rica, we shared, hesitated, talked about the realities of our group, they are a very dynamic group, and eager to do things well, as I mentioned to them I congratulate them and they know that humbly in what we can help there we will be there …..
On behalf of the Fathers, I was assigned and given the opportunity to collaborate in one of the villages, La Tortuga, who for this purpose came for me Alma, a woman dedicated in soul, life and heart to the service of her community, she is the Coordinator of the Village, together with her we organized the different celebrations for the days to come, Starting on Holy Thursday with the celebration of the Washing of the feet and the prayer in the Garden, on Friday morning all the Spanish-speaking villages were summoned to the Parish Center to live as a community the Way of the Cross and the Adoration of the Cross, we gathered almost 1500 people to the same prayer and feeling. Then in La Tortuga we had our celebration for those people who were unable to go to the parish in the morning because of their duties.
On Saturday morning we visited with community servants several families, some because they are just arriving to live in La Tortuga, others already had their time, and we took the opportunity to invite them to come at night to the Great Feast of the Easter Vigil, to the joy of most of them accepted the invitation, we also visited some sick people including Don Diego, I ask you to raise a prayer for him, he has cancer in his bones and suffers a lot of pain, Don Juan, we took communion to them, to see the joy they expressed to receive Jesus the Eucharist in their home and become one with Him, personally it was one of the many things that helped me to make the decision that I will tell you below.
In the night with great hope we celebrated the Great Easter Vigil, where children, acolytes, readers, choir and all of us as a community lived the great joy of the resurrection, the same joy that personally overwhelms me to this day.
On Sunday morning we were summoned again to the Parish Center to live the feast of the Resurrection, we started with a beautiful procession through different roads of the community and arrived at a space in front of the church where more than 150 children made their first communion, a way to end our Holy Week full of great joy.
Truly, from the moment I was received by Brother Humberto at the airport until my return to Costa Rica, I was welcomed as one more, the words are too short to thank everyone and all the people who showed me their affection and empathy, for letting me see their culture and although we are from different countries, customs and culture, we have the same love that unites us and is greater than any ethnic difference.
Hearing …Here comes the missionary… echoes in my head with much humility, but constantly….
For some time now I have been praying to God to show me the way, I say to Him like Samuel “Speak, your servant listens…”, this trip was very useful to reaffirm the desire of my heart, to serve Him, as and where it is His will, so I entrust myself to your prayers, this coming June 16, the day we celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by the grace of God I will be assuming my commitment as a Comboni Lay Missionary, with the hope of being able to put myself at the service of the Comboni family.
Thank you Guatemala, thank you San Luis, THANK YOU LA TORTUGA, CLM Guatemala, CLM San Luis Petén, MCCJ, I do not name them because I am afraid that I am leaving someone out, but I carry them all in my heart….
God bless you abundantly…
José David Rojas Q
CLM Costa Rica
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