Comboni Lay Missionaries

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Aspirants CLM meeting in Ghana

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Ghana

We held our meeting this 14th Feb. We first have a talk on Comboni Spirituality which was presented by our Spiritual Director Fr Godwin Kornu. First of all, he showed us the books that can help us in our journey: The Writings of Comboni, The passion of a life of Don Lozano, We the Heirs of Francesco Pierli. He then explained the word Spirituality by the way a person experiences God, him or herself and the world he/she is part of. The spirituality must be shaped by Christ but it is influenced by the time and our environment. And talking about the spirituality of a person demands to pass through the life, the history of the person, the way he experiences God. And this experience of an individual is unique. Father led us to discover that the “loving heart is a suffering heart” and “what is good is not relative” which means what is good cannot be determined by a tradition or a culture. What is good is good by itself. The relativism is one of the points that the Pope Emeritus Benedict condemned lots. (The theme is very broad so for now it is just an introduction).

GhanaAfter the presentation, we moved on for some discussions. The minutes of the last meeting was read and few corrections made. From the matters arisen, we agreed to levy ourselves with an amount which can be paid from now up to the next second meeting. At last, we decided to have a recollection on the 14th March to redo ourselves in the Lenten Season. The meeting was then moved to closure with prayer and benediction. After this, we had an agape.

Justin Nougnui, coordinator.

“I was in prison and you came to visit me”

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Emma

Among the various pastoral activities of the parish of Santo Domingo, led by the Comboni Missionaries in Nova Contagem, it is also the prison ministry, in charge of 15 volunteers, including the Comboni Lay Missionaries, which are part of the parish.

Every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the group meets to visit the pavilions of the maximum-security prison of Nelson Hungria, located in Nova Contagem, with about 2,000 inmates. The meeting is at 08:00 in the square next to the prison.

The prison situation in Brazil, as in other parts of the world, suffers from high overcrowding due to prison system with little attention to the recovery of prisoners.

Prisons in Minas Gerais, for example, can receive 32,000 prisoners, divided into 144 prisons; actually, there are 54,000 inmates in the different units. This situation only gets worse the living conditions of prisoners, with a further object of punishing instead of re-educate and re-socialize, with serious violations of human rights.

EmmaThe action and commitment of the group of Prison Ministry, composed mainly of women, is to believe in a work of promoting human dignity, respect for human rights, and the overcoming of the limits of the current prison system in favor of a model that allows effective recovery and reintegration of the individual.

The most important of our pastoral activity is the testimony of a God who does not discriminate anyone, in a place marked by contempt, prejudice and violence, making ours the words of the Gospel: “I was in prison, and you came to visit me “. It is the pedagogy of Jesus, method, model, who heads the way of this pastoral, recognizing the face of God in every person, including the prisoners.

There are many challenges and difficulties in our pastoral activities, such as excessive bureaucracy that often delays and complicates our work, controls, restrictions on visits, limited permissions; but with courage, this small group of volunteers are facing difficulties. This has allowed in 2014, to create two groups of catechesis in prison. And it was possible that some inmates, who had requested, receive the sacraments.

EmmaFor this are fundamental the moments of ongoing formation that we make at the end of the month, to have a dedicated space of programming and training, allowing prison pastoral agents learn the actions that will help to improve prison visits and the relationship with the inmates. In this also helps the training conducted by the diocese.

In short, this would be the work of the prison ministry. A simple action, giving hand, encountering real faces, listening to the life stories of those who are on the other side of the bars, to bear witness to the dignity of every human being, because as the Gospel says “by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13, 35.).

Emma Chiolini, Comboni Lay Missionary

Improvements on the web

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Web LMC

Today we want to share with you the improvements we are making in our web. We have restructured the section “Audiovisual resources” of the website.

We have placed more than 5000 images about our history and service that we carry out as CLM; almost 200 CLM and Comboni´s videos (in the 7 languages we have) as well as over 50 songs about Comboni in different languages so that they are accessible to everybody. You will find the songs and videos differentiated in the various languages.

We hope you like this new enhancement. You can visit it by following this link.

Greetings

Wilderness, an opportunity to make a change

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A commentary on Mc 1, 12-15: Firs Sunday of Lent, February 22nd 2015

The continuous reading of Mark’s first chapter, that we have been doing during the last four Sundays, has now been interrupted due to the beginning of Lent time, which in the Roman liturgy is a special time with its own readings’ system. Anyhow, in this first Sunday of Lent we remain still with this same first chapter of Mark, reading four verses of a great intensity. For my part, I Just recall here three brief reflections:

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1) Wilderness: “talking is not the same as actually doing”
After being baptized by John and receiving the Father’s great declaration – “This is my beloved son”– Jesus goes to the wilderness “driven” by the Spirit. Why? Because between the word (vocation/declaration) “you are my beloved Son” and the fact (real, concrete life), there is a way to follow with faith and perseverance, discipline and work, clearness of mind and strength of will; a hard battle against the spirit of evil that surrounds us everywhere, pacifying the “wild beasts”, overcoming difficulties, doubts and temptations. Wilderness, as we know, represents in Jew history a place where to learn how to leave behind slavery times and attitudes, how to purify from infidelity, how to grow up as a people free and faithful.
Surely, we have also our own wilderness experiences. Which are the difficulties and tests we are going through in this time in our life? Which are our temptations? It is quite probable that we, as Israel and Jesus himself, see that our dream of living a truly Son’s life is still far away from reality; we are far from living a live that corresponds to the teachings of Jesus and our deep desire to live in truth and love, justice and generosity, peace and service. All of us have the experience that between our “word” (meaning good wishes) and our “facts” (good works) there’s still so much way to follow. Lent time is a good opportunity to re-affirm ourselves in this fight to make facts correspond to desires, to renew our hope and our decision to go own in the way of discipleship, that is proposed to us by Jesus.

2) Take the opportunity
Jesus comes out of the wilderness as a winner, confirmed in his vocation as a Son and sure that He is living a special moment in history, for himself and for the world. Jesus has experienced the loving nearness of the Father, not only in times of happiness and blessing, but also in times of difficulty, testing, temptation and spiritual fight. With that experience he comes out to mingle with people and convey a clear message: “The kingdom of God is near”, take the opportunity.
When we say that the Kingdom of God, what do we understand? Where’s the kingdom of God? Is it in the temple, in the working place, in the street, where? Certainly, It’s not a geographical place. The Kingdom of God –that is, his loving presence- is in us and around us, in the temple, in the family, in hospital, in the playing ground… Everywhere. Have you seen it? Look well. If y you have not seen it, it means that you have to wash your eyes, to clean your ears, to open your heart… Alas in this the Len time can help: a time for reading the Bible, to put order in our lives, to be generous in helping other… a time to open our spiritual eyes and see what maybe we are not seeing at this moment, due to the dust of fatigue, routine, repeated failures, wounded pride…

3) To change direction
Jesus invites the people of Palestine to believe in the presence of God among them and, as consequence, to change life, to abandon their condition of “slaves”, to assume their being children of the Father and to live up to that reality.
As a matter of fact, what is preventing us from seeing-hearing-touching the Kingdom of God in us and among us is our the attitude of Eve and Adam, when, having fallen in the trap of Satan, they dreamt that they could be “equals to God”, hiding behind “the fig leave” themselves and their naked arrogance, instead of acknowledging their error, to ask for forgiveness and to renew their friendship with the Creator. To believe is to come out of oneself and open our reality to the Other, the source of our life.
Len time is a good time, an opportunity to change our way, to leave behind our stupid wounded pride, that keeps us apart from our neighbour and the best part of our inner selves; an occasion to renew our faith that the Father’s Love is greater than our sins and errors and that in that Love we can renew ourselves, start again our journey toward the goal of a more serene and pacified life, transparent, generous, humble but confident… a life of God’s children on the way to a goal that is awaiting us besides the wilderness.
This is what we celebrate in the Eucharist, remembering the One that came out of the wilderness as winner and announcing that God wins also in each one of us and in our world, if only we believe and change our life to live accordingly.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome

From Santa Teresita de Alto Anapati

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PeruKatagueta from Santa Teresita de Alto Anapati after many days of rain, sun and sometimes cold, believe it or not. Three weeks we’re here in this missionary lands and we still have three more. Today, thankfully, we have light even a few hours because all the previous time we did not. I can write with keys and leave the notebook and pen. The days go slow, the serenity of the location invites you to live calmly and appreciate the presence of God in this place so far from the city surrounded by nature in the middle of somewhere in the central jungle of our country.

PeruOur job is to sensitize the native community. Especially children and, through them, the parents about the presence of God in everyday life, strengthen faith in them and prepare some possible pastoral agents who can assist in the Eucharistic celebrations that regularly held once or twice a month by the remoteness of the city. The extension of the parish is large and covers many native communities and settlers approximately more than 200, so that priests available cannot keep up.

PeruThe natives welcome us with joy and greet us as if we were longtime friends. We come to them through the program of “useful holidays”. In the morning we attend approximately 70 children, in the afternoon quickie prepare our lunch, and then meet another group of children who need special attention. Contact with small enables us to understand life here in the community because everyone here speak in nomatshiguenga language and is a bit difficult to reach smaller by the dialect but the universal language of affection and good treatment allows us to understand.

We are the CLM Nelson and Fisher. Thank God, we live this experience amidst nature with refreshing rain that relieves the earth after the heat that brightens our days. Sometimes there is too much rain, because it is very strong and extends for days.

Nelson y Fisher (CLM-Peru)