That in a world that is increasingly a “global village” due to the migrations of peoples, our multicultural communities may be examples of understanding, hope and interior richness Let us pray.
Alberto de la Portilla
Elan Missionary in Benin
Elan Missionary in Benin After participating in the diaconal ordination of certain MCCJs in Aného in the diocese of Aného this Saturday, July 27, the chaplain Fr. Ephrem, MCCJ and Justin, LMC took the road to Cotonou, the capital of the Republic of Benin. The fundamental goal is to visit our candidates and also do vocational promotion. We were welcomed to the MCCJ Novitiate in Cotonou where we stayed together with certain novices and scholastics, the father master and his assistant being in Rome for training. On Sunday morning, we were at the parish of St. Joan of Arc of Sedegbe (Parish where we celebrated the international day of CLM on December 15, 2022 at the end of the African Assembly in Cotonou). The mass was in honour of Grandparents, fourth Edition of the Archdiocese of Cotonou to have a special look for the elderly. This is in line with Pope Francis’ message titled ‘In my old age, forget me not’. A collection was made in this line. Towards the end of the celebration, the chaplain was able to briefly speak about the CLM and introduced the provincial coordinator. At the end, some people expressed their desire to know more about CLM. The coordinator told them a little about CLM and took their contacts to maintain communication with them.
In the evening, we met our candidates Lucien, his wife and Ulrich thanks to the effort of Brother Pascal, MCCJ who accompanies the group in Benin. We had to share about the history, mission, training and challenges of CLM in the world and in the province and reflect on the best strategy to adopt for the consolidation of the CLM Association in the province.
We were also able to meet certain members of the ’Friends of Comboni’ Association to inspire in them the desire to journey like CLM.
Monday July 29, around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, we headed back to Ghana.
Justin Nougnui, CLM Coordinator.
Comboni Sisters Assembly single European province
Challenges is a television program that chronicles human and sporting feats accomplished with will and determination. For the bold path taken, an episode could be dedicated to the Comboni Sisters European Province Assembly: the process of transformation and renewal that led to a single European province is a real challenge.
“Enlarging the space of the tent” title of the assembly that defines this historic moment.
Manu and I were invited as representatives of the European LMC. Immediately we were struck by the title, widening the tent is the title we gave last November to a path of accompaniment to a laywoman who had expressed her desire to leave for a long mission and had 5 couples of CLM from Verona involved in the path.
Great harmony right away!
In the new tent, open on the 4 cardinal points, we were comfortable, we felt welcomed and it was an opportunity to stay with many sisters: with some there is a long-standing friendship but with all of them we felt in tune.
We not only listened to the proposed topics with interest but felt touched as a couple and as a CLM group on the way.
We were struck by the attitude and involvement of all participants from the youngest to the most experienced, as if everyone was a key player in this change.
Presentations, remarks, and discussions were animated by a common tension of a community that looks to the future with courage and is not held back by worries about stability and hard-won securities.
“Dare the new together” the initial invitation seemed to us to be taken up and fully put into practice.
The dynamics proposed to gather input from the assembly made the proceedings stimulating and enjoyable and involved everyone present, even those who were connected online.
It was a rich and stimulating journey in terms of content where the presence of all branches of the Comboni Family recalled again the theme, so dear to us, of Unity so alive even in the Assembly.
The methodology of “Conversation in the Spirit” in small groups was very effective in bringing out a phrase-objective-bead, embodied in the assembly journey lived so far but fruit of the Spirit’s action on more than one person.
Everyone present was able to speak, confirming this style of doing things together, and bring back what had emerged in the group discernment.
In the journey made in the intense three-day Assembly some points resonated deeply in the hearts of both of us (mine and Pol’s):
- adopting an openness to the new: a tent open on four sides;
- the beauty of being together as a gift of the Spirit;
- the attitude of caring for sick sisters seen as wealth to be cherished;
- not changing the mindset but moving to a mindset of change, “ which then becomes a way of life;
- respect and careful consideration for the special and solitary choices of some sisters, in order to be able to grasp their prophetic significance.
Thank you for this beautiful engaging experience and for the journey made together as the Comboni Family; thank you for the friendly faces met again from so many different countries, thank you for the new encounters, thank you to Comboni who inspires our steps and teaches us to dare new steps!
Our wish is good journey and let us widen our tent!
Manupol
Our journey in Carapira
Dear all, it has been a while since we have talked and we are here to give you some news as so many of you keep requesting and we apologize for the delay. The days here are very dense and we do not hide the fact that they go by so fast, with such depth and fullness, that we do not even realize that July has begun and it has been a while since we have written :). We start by apologizing for this time, but towards the end of May, to our chagrin, we had problems with the phone plans…the company brutally cut the connection data, so that also did not allow us to give you much news, but thank God, a week ago, they changed everything again, putting a little more data, so we will be more operational and consistent. We hope in the future there won’t be any more cuts, in fact we hope there will be some increases in data, although a little bit we doubt it since there will be new elections in a few months. We have a lot of ideas in our heads, and if the phone plan does not change, we will unveil some ideas soon. This past month, we also received our “first African baptism,” or rather both of us were stricken with malaria. We were very surprised by this, but it allowed us to reflect a lot on what every day, each of them live with this disease, those who can afford to get treatment, and those who lose their lives because they don’t have the money to access to get tested and start treatment and the struggle to recover energy to start again. Because of this, with much sorrow, at the beginning of June, we had to say goodbye to the parish priest of Carapira parish, who had to return urgently, to his homeland, precisely because of continuous malaria. His suffering was so great both because of what he was experiencing because of malaria and because he had to leave this land that he loved so much. For us it was like a bolt out of the blue, because before being a good parish priest, he was a humble brother who was always at the service of everyone, he was just a beautiful witness to see and touch. Anyway, we are also very happy with the Comboni Fathers who are here with us, we are just living and breathing at this moment so much fullness and deep living with them. Every day, we find on both sides, like “a little excuse” to always find each other and build piece by piece a communion of fraternity and true witness. Here close to home, there are also nuns who are part of another religious institute than the Combonians, but even with them we have created just a beautiful relationship of harmony and complicity. This is certainly very important because it allows us to get to know each other and to feel like an extended family, but above all it makes us feel that we are in cordiality with our more lonely and abandoned brothers and sisters, and it allows us to help carry each other’s burdens.
We also received the grace in this time to experience the vigil and patronal feast, just of the parish of Carapira … we were more or less 200 people and it was exciting to live and breathe it together with them. Just think, the vigil lasted a good 4 hours, but it went by in the blink of an eye…there were many communities present who came from far and wide, with even a good number of young people present. Well what can we say about the Macua people…they amaze us more and more and we really feel at home among them and with them…I think this is the most appropriate and correct expression to use to make you understand what they make us experience in the true depth and essentiality of the human person. Every day we feel that we are smaller and smaller in their midst, precisely because we see that their presence is a great enrichment for us in our lives….in reality it is more they who form us than what we try to help them. You should see for yourselves with your own eyes and touch concretely with your own hands, how much beauty that is hidden here in their sores and suffering. Of course, all of this, makes us question a lot about various aspects of our lives, our relationships and how we unnecessarily waste energy and time on futile things. Here the beauty and essentiality is just the famous “being there” as we are and nothing more, which is always what we continue to understand and be stronger and more aware of within ourselves and along our path. In the end, what matters, is not what we do, the service in which we spend ourselves, or the accomplishment of something or ourselves, but the love with which we love these brothers and sisters. We know for a fact, that we will not be the ones to save anyone; on the contrary, they are the real protagonists who are saving us “Westerners.” How much joy it gives us to be among them, to try to say four words in their language, to hug them, to joke with them, to make them smile and to let God do the communion meeting with them. The other day we were reading this little phrase from Don Tonino Bello, which continues to resonate within us in this time: “I invite you to let yourselves be evangelized by the poor. So many times we think that we are the ones who bring the good news to the poor. But they live certain values better than others, such as trusting abandonment to Providence, solidarity in suffering.” Here we think this sentence can represent for good, what is written above! How many things we would like to tell you and try to make you more and more participants… how much we would like the love that touches our hearts, to reach you as well. How much we would like this grace to expand for them. But of one thing we are certain… that the Lord will know how to make our lives flourish along with yours with them. We are certain that the Lord of Life is already working in this. We will never cease to thank you for all the love you send our way, for the union and fellowship of this universal church that continues to expand and that each of us feels a part of. Thank you because your presence makes us feel like an extended family that home is not a place, but it is the people who live there and make you feel… and we feel this home is so big that it embraces our land, with this new land. For many of you, it will be a time of rest, we wish you from the bottom of our hearts that this time, makes you rediscover the essentiality of values and relationships. As we do every day, we remember you in our prayers before Jesus in the Eucharist and ask for your continued prayers for this people and a prayer for Father Jaider as well, that he may soon return to health and continue his ministry wherever the Lord will lead him. And as they say here….
Koxukhuru vanjene (thank you very much) With much gratitude and closeness Ilaria and Federica
“KENYA SHINING: When you have VIP visitors and you’re humble enough to… brag about it!”
Kenya, Kenya, Kenya… a lot is happening in Kenya. People leaving, people coming, visitors of excellence to strengthen our ties with the movement, to grow and shine. Last month it was Hani from Egypt, our African coordinator, accompanied by another Egyptian CLM, Mira, talking to us in our monthly meeting, accompanying the CLM of Kitelakapel in their activities and particularly with the Mental Health Workshops. These days, instead, the house is full of “Have you read that document?” “This is in the conclusions of Maia!” “Elwangen 2006” “Formation guide!”… And I’m sure, unless you are still unfamiliar with the Comboni Lay Missionaries, only that one name must have surfaced to your mind: Alberto de la Portilla!!!
Indeed, our guest of honour this month is our general coordinator, invited by the CLM community of Kitelakapel and the CLM of Kenya to spend some time with us, with the specific aim of guiding our Kitelakapel team as they keep laying the foundations for their young mission.
Our Alberto arrived well, and immediately delved into CLM matters, as he was taken to Kariobangi, in Nairobi, to attend our monthly formation meeting. For the occasion, all CLM and candidates gathered, so it was indeed a unique event! We got the chance to hire a house belonging to the Comboni sisters, not far from the parish, where we had all the space, peace and quiet we needed, to focus eagerly on the history of our movement, its most important documents, our identity as CLM, and a personal testimony of Alberto on his own mission experience, with his family and within a community, in Mozambique, a few years ago.
It was surely a wonderful opportunity we had to grow as a group, as we expand our awareness and knowledge of our origins and our identity.
On Sunday, while the candidates were doing mission animation in another parish in Nairobi, the commissioned CLM had their own special moment with our general coordinator, reflecting on how they can keep living, experiencing, practising their vocation as Comboni Lay Missionaries, whether serving in the country or abroad.
All this was obviously accompanied by moments of prayer and sharing.
We are deeply grateful that Alberto’s visit was made possible, as it has given us a chance to reflect again and in depth on who we are and who we want to be, and we hope he will enjoy his time in Kenya, until we meet again before he returns to Spain!
Linda, CLM Kitelakapel
