Blog – Page 149 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Visit to the CLM group in Portugal

30 December, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Before Christmas, I was invited by the CLM from Portugal to share with them their Christmas meeting.

This is an important meeting for the CLM group, where candidates and CLM meet to get formation, pray and celebrate Christmas together.

We met in the house of the MCCJ in Viseu. It was a weekend full of many important moments.

On arrival at Lisbon, they were waiting for me and we could dine in Pedro´s home before travel by car to Viseu. There we went slowly reaching the different participants from all places in Portugal. A moment of gathering with the CLM and meet all those who are preparing and discerning their missionary vocation.

We began with Mass in the morning where we also find Comboni fathers, brothers and sisters. During the morning, we talked with the group about the history and organization of CLM internationally. From the group’s questions we were entering in part of our history, of the decisions we have been taking to grow as a family and especially of how we have been doing reality, through the commitment and dedication of many, this missionary vocation.

The second part of the morning we used to enter into the commitments of Maia, see how we are trying to carry out and explain the support that from the Central Committee we tried to give to all groups to enable the challenges agreed.

The afternoon was spent touring the city of Viseu, giving hugs, thinking and praying about the year of mercy, doing missionary animation and talking to people about the challenge of mercy throw us this year by Pope Francisco. All this in an entertaining Gymkhana. All these experiences were able to share in the evening prayer.

We spent the night sharing the testimony of my beautiful years of Mozambique. A time to talk about vocation and missionary service.

On Sunday, we worked on practical aspects of the next CLM European assembly of this summer to be held in Portugal. A nice welcome challenge for the group of Portuguese candidates and CLM that will host the 5 European countries that give us appointment in August. Also a time to speak of missionary animation and finding the funds needed to carry out the mission.

At the end, the Eucharist served as conclusion and thanksgiving for this beautiful time.

I said nothing of the many Christmas sweets who joined us for the weekend, and the numerous conversations we were able to keep, a great part of the meeting. Of course, I encourage those who have doubts, touches off the couch and find which path to which the Lord calls us. In Portuguese CLM Group, you will find a good place to reflect, discern and be accompanied on this missionary service.

Christmas Greetings

Our journey forward

18 March, 201627 December, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

With joy, we received the message of the Provincial Rev. Fr Miante appointing Rev. Fr Philip Zema to continue the journey with our group. As soon as we received the message, we announced it to other members and planned with the chaplain to have our first encounter at Mafi-Kumase on the 12^th December.

The meeting started at 10 o’clock a.m. The chaplain gave us some thoughts to prepare us for the Christmas. He emphasized on the development of our prayer life. As lay people, we have to witness the Good News through our daily life. He compared our CLM service to the ministry of the brothers which is social. It will be so sensitive to people with whom we are living to see us occupied in praying in our families and at our work place. He said that the Muslims in this aspect are model for us. “The secularization takes us far away from God, the prayer brings us back” he quoted. He said Jesus recommends us to pray, St Comboni recommends to his missionaries to be prayerful and as we are aspiring to be Comboni Missionaries, the recommendation is then for us too.

After this, we proceeded to self-introduction. We then briefed Fr about our journey till now. He was very happy and eager to continue the formation process with us. He demonstrated in his plan a very great interest to render the service demanded from him by the Provincial and his Counsel also very interested in seeing us grown. In this joy, we did not hesitate to agree on the coming meeting at the same place on the 9^th January, 2016. After the concluding prayer with the blessing, we shared with our chaplain and one of his confreres a familial meal.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Justin Nougnui.

Merry Christmas

25 December, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Missionary retreat in Mozambique

23 December, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

The Missionary laity of the diocese of Nacala met on December 7 to celebrate Advent retreat.

Attended 16 lay people from the various missions of the diocese. Fr. Damasceno, Spiritan present in the mission of Itoculo, led the retreat.

In the morning after our arrival, we made an initial prayer reflecting on the transforming power of love and Fr Damasceno invited us to use it to change what closes us on ourselves, remembering that Advent is a favorable time for this.

Then p. Damascus helped us to reflect on the Gospel of the second Sunday of Advent, and to see that, after describing the “powers” of the world, political and religious, he concludes with the assertion that the Word came to John in the desert. God reveals His word to the little, in the forgotten places. So we are invited to retreat to the desert to hear God! The desert is the privileged place of God’s relationship with his people. It also proposes some questions to reflect on our missionary experience, challenging us to review some attitudes and commitments.

After lunch, to continue the reflection, we chose the beach, a quiet and peaceful place, which gave us the contact with nature, a magnificent work of God. This environment well-lit reflection in the afternoon, bringing the second reading of the 3rd Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of joy. “Rejoice in the Lord always!” A relationship with some of the paragraphs of the encyclical “Laudato Si” and also some excerpts from the life of St. Francis of Assisi.

In the afternoon, returning from the beach, as we celebrate the closing Mass of the day, where also, at the time of Thanksgiving, there was the farewell of 5 laity who returned to their home-lands: 3 Spanish Vincentian lay, Cristina, Nina and Virginia, a Comboni lay Portuguese Márcia and a Brazilian Comboni lay Flávio.

The meeting ended with a dinner and fellowship, in the joy of waiting for the Lord’s coming!

Good experience of Advent to all!

Flavio Schmidt, CLM

Land Grab and Just Governance in África

26 November, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Land grabbing and just governance discussed in a unique pan-African conference starting today ahead of Pope’s visit to Africa.

The conference will highlight the state of land grabbing in Africa, cases of resistance across the continent, as well as Church responses and its increasing engagement on issues of land grabbing.

tierra — Land of Gassol community that have been allocated to Dominion Farms in Nigeria. Photo by CEED

Land grabbing is a serious problem across Africa, requiring urgent attention since it threatens livelihoods and food security. It has already dislocated hundreds of thousands of people from their lands, deprived them of natural sources, and threatened their livelihoods.

Land grabbing and just governance, issues that constitute a significant threat to food sovereignty, will be discussed at the conference “Land Grab and Just governance in Africa”, opening today in Nairobi, Kenya, and organized by SECAM (Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) with the collaboration of AEFJN (Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network), AFJN (Africa Faith & Justice Network) and CIDSE (network of Catholic development agencies). The event will gather about 150 participants from the African continent and beyond, including many people directly involved in land grabbing struggles.

Land grabbing is most often described as the acquisition of large areas of land in developing countries by international firms, governments, or individuals. In recent years land grabs have increased following the worldwide spike in food prices in 2008, prompting investors to look toward the Global South, particularly Africa, for potential land investment to produce food and biofuel for export and international markets. Large tracts of land are also being acquired for speculative purposes, known as “land banking”, where the buyer holds the land and sells it later.

Among the cases that will be presented during the conference is the one involving the Italian project Senhuile SA, which has leased 20.000 hectares of land in the Ndiaël Reserve in Senegal, land used for decades by residents of some 40 villages in the area. This resulted in an ongoing conflict with the villagers, who want the project stopped. The case of farmers in Nigeria’s Taraba State and in Kenya, who are being forced off lands that they have farmed for generations to make way for US company Dominion Farms to establish a rice plantation, will also be a subject of discussion. Cases involving Bollore land deal in Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Liberia as well as in Sierra Leone and cases from Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali will also be showcased.

This conference takes place ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Kenya, Uganda and Central African Republic. The Pope has previously voiced great concern about the issue of land grabbing. In a speech delivered at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome in June 2015, Pope Francis warned against the “monopolising of lands of cultivation by trans-national enterprises and states, which not only deprives farmers of an essential good, but which directly affects the sovereignty of countries”. The Holy Father also pointed out that: “There are already many regions in which the foods produced go to foreign countries and the local population is doubly impoverished, because it does not have food or land”.

Further guidance and indications in relation to the dangers of land grabbing were expressed in the Pope’s Encyclical letter Laudato Si’, in which he denounces an exploitative approach towards land while recalling: “For them (indigenous communities), land is not a commodity, but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values. When they remain on their land, they themselves care for it best. Nevertheless, in various parts of the world, pressure is being put on them to abandon their homelands to make room for [industrial] agricultural or mining projects which are undertaken without regard for the degradation of nature and culture.” (146). In support of Laudato Si and ahead of the climate conference COP 21 in Paris, the bishops’ conferences across the world signed on the 22^nd of October an appeal which called for COP 21 “to ensure people’s access to water and to land for climate resilient and sustainable food systems, which give priority to people driven solutions rather than profits.”

The conference aims at developing strategies to support and strengthen local communities in their struggles to stop this menace and to build resilience.

Send by Flávio Schmidt (CLM Mozambique participant)