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Vocation promotion and together with MCCJ and CMS
Taking advantage of Alberto’s visit in the province, we moved across Ghana-Togo-Benin to share our vocation with Friends of Comboni/ Amicale and also to some communities.
On the 26th November 2022, after a meeting with the CLM group in Ghana, Alberto, Justin and Frank started the tour. The first interaction was with Friends of Comboni in St. Paul Catholic Church of Nkanfoa, Cape Coast (Rep. of Ghana). It was a motivating exchange between us. In the presence of Father Boris and two Scholastics we shared with our friends our reality as CLM encouraging them to take a step ahead and start the CLM journey.
On the 27th November, first Sunday of Advent, with a proposal of Father Antoine, a formator in the Scholasticate and Vice Provincial, we divided ourselves to accompany the fathers for the Eucharistic Celebration. Alberto stayed at the main station with Fr. Joseph, Frank followed Fr. Boris to Akonomah (where we had two years ago a missionary experience) and Justin with Fr. Antoine at Edukrom. We were given the opportunity to do CLM vocation promotion.
Back to Togo, on the 30th November, Alberto and Justin met another group at Adidogome, a group followed by Rev. Sister Elisabeth, CMS and Fr. Augustine, MCCJ. The group was very dynamic with the zeal of all its members ready to embrace Comboni charism as CLM.
From 30th November to 3rd December, we stayed at the Postulancy living together with the fathers Anicet, Maurice and Tenías all MCCJ and the 20 postulants. We prayed, participated to the Eucharistic Celebrations and shared meal together.
On the 1st December, morning, Alberto and I went to visit the Comboni Sisters. We stayed together and shared some ideas especially about the group of Friends of Comboni which Sister Elisabeth was accompanying.
In the evening, we went to Cacaveli to share with another group of Friends of Comboni. Scholastic Joseph Atsou, responsible of CAM (Missionary Animation Center) was present at the meeting and promised to accompany the group.
Before the meeting, Alberto and Justin went to greet Fr. Timothy, the Superior Provincial.
In Benin, after the CLM Assembly, Alberto, Justin and Brother Pascal visited another group of “Amicale” in Cotonou a group accompanied by Brother Pascal, MCCJ. Out of the bigger group, some members were very committed.
We took contacts from all the groups from Ghana to Benin and promised to continue interacting with them. We hope with divine grace, that soon, some will join the CLM group.
Justin Nougnui, CLM.
Piquiá da Conquista: work on the new neighborhood continues at a good pace
We leave you a video published by Justiça nos Trilhos where we can see the progress of the struggle of a simple community against a large extractive company.
A struggle that the Comboni family has been accompanying for years.
You can also read and watch a video subtitled in Spanish in “El País”.
MCCJ General Council: “Our best wishes of peace and hope for the feast of Christmas 2022”
«Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy to be shared by all the people. Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. (Lk 2. 10,11)
Dear confreres,
We wish to send all of you and your communities our best wishes of peace and hope for the approaching feast of Christmas.
We invite each of you to make the angel’s announcement to the shepherds resound once more in our lives and in those of our communities (“Peace on earth to people whom God loves” – Lk 2:14b), certain that the announcement, as it was for the shepherds, should also be such for us as to make us “contempo-raries of the event”. An event that makes us «find the crux of our redeemed existence, the celebration of living, the taste for the essential, the flavour of simple things, the fountain of peace, the joy of dialogue, the pleasure of collaboration, the desire for historic commitment, the wonder of true freedom and the ten-derness of prayer» (Don Tonino Bello).
The angel’s ′′do not be afraid′′ encourages us too, today not to back away from the challenges we encounter in our daily lives. Daily life is often afflicted by worries, discouragement and violence – caused by various factors – which corrode our trust in life and hope for the future. However, “the believer has something in his heart that urges him, moves him, mobilizes all his energies: it is the «” joy of the gospel”, its incomparable newness. Anyone who believes, even in relationships with those who are very far away, cannot give up wanting to communicate the formidable difference and excess, the “more” and the “beyond”, which are constitutive of the Gospel» (Card. Carlo Maria Martini). For this reason, the angel’s announcement of joy becomes pardon, a halt to pessimism, a truce in the sufferings and disap-pointments that harden our hearts and is transformed into a rampant force of trust in the future which is regenerated in the “patience of the present”, a patience capable of revitalizing the most authentic gaze on history and of interpreting events, grasping their true meaning or, at least, the possible horizon.
This patience drives us to decline the three essential dimensions of Christmas: listening and dia-logue, grasping the groans of the territories and the people who live in them, and committing ourselves to promote safe relationships and environments in the present and in the future; acceptance, as the result of closeness, service and care, touching the multiple wounds of suffering people (young people, mi-grants, the disabled, families, war victims); and prophecy, to initiate processes and anticipate, with sig-nificant and incisive proposals, the transformation of our life and that of the people we serve, as the result of the courage to give our lives for others and, above all, because we ourselves are in love with the life.
In a few days’ time, the mandate of the new Provincial Councils will begin in all the circum-scriptions. We send our sincere best wishes to all of them, entrusting their service to Mary, Mother of the Prince of Peace and Mother of all the peoples of the earth, to accompany them, supporting their ability to interpret the trust they have received with availability and gratuity by the confreres of the circumscriptions.
We wish all of you and all the members of the entire Comboni Family, a Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2023, so that the rediscovery may continue of our Family as the “cradle of life and faith”, a place of welcome, and a source of hope and of peace for all humanity.
Finally, we urge everyone to fervently implore the Prince of Peace to bring consolation to all wounded hearts, as well as to the nations tried by wars and crises of all kinds, so that every man and woman may enjoy a dignified and peaceful life.
Happy Christmas everyone!
The General Council
