Comboni Family – Page 9 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Sharing… so that life and dignity will not be denied to anyone.

27 July, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

Hello everyone,

We are Ilaria and Federica, two Comboni lay missionaries belonging to the local group of Verona (Italy). We are here to tell about ourselves, not so much because of what we do, but to share the joy and beauty of participating in the life of this world despite its contradictions and difficulties. We live to express how much humanity in the everyday can be found wherever we go, embracing every brother in the Living God: He allows Himself to be encountered precisely in the most marginalized, the loneliest.

After a missionary experience in Uganda, we felt a deeper call that made us want to orient and dedicate our whole existence in a missionary life.

By chance, or rather through various God-coincidences, we met Fr. Eliseo, a Comboni priest and superior of the Motherhouse in Verona. From this meeting began a new Combonian journey in which so many questions and so many previous pieces, began to take life, form and answer precisely in this Family with which we rediscover the values in which we strongly believe, of an outgoing and universal Church that welcomes everyone but especially the last.

In this journey of knowledge, of life, we are also very grateful to the brothers/sisters of the local group of Verona; with them the journey in the Comboni charism becomes concrete in many initiatives of sharing, of participation in the local missionary life, of growth on a human, spiritual, social and faith level.

All this led us to mature the decision to train for an upcoming departure in an international Combonian lay mission, and for this reason we now find ourselves completing our formation by sharing a few months in a Comboni lay missionary community called “La Zattera,” Migrantes Second Reception Center, in Palermo.

The community is made up of a married couple Tony Scardamaglia and Dorotea Passantino and a woman Maria Montana, who 15 years ago had the intuition to create and personally experience welcoming migrants. Our daily life in addition to being enriched by sharing with their presence is also shared with 8 immigrants who live here. Daily life, which for them is a continuous conquest in the field of recognition of rights, becomes for us a school of formation to different cultures, to many “sacred” stories that enrich our daily life and make it special.

Our service then for a few days a week is dedicated to Centro Astalli, a voluntary association for the defense of rights, integration and inclusion of non-EU immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers where all services offered to users are first and second reception. For both of these realities, words are really little compared to fully experiencing all aspects of them. It is difficult to explain in a few lines the beauty that we experience and share with them every day; surely we understand that it is a great gift that we are receiving.

We have been here since mid-April and every day we try to live and grasp the Lord who passes through the daily gestures, in their faces and in the stories of their history. We have to say that Palermo is really amazing us, it is incredibly beautiful but not only the city, especially the people who represent it. From the first day we arrived, the welcome, passion and desire to help sets them apart. There is still very much a sense of helping each other here, a sense of belonging to a family, a sense of always living with an open heart for everyone. The local people really do their best to make you love this land of a thousand flavors.

In addition to this, we also met and shared a few moments with the Comboni fathers who are in the parish located in the Santa Lucia area and with the Comboni sisters who instead live in the parish of Nicola di Bari in the heart of the Ballarò neighborhood.

Our days are never the same, they are always open to a thousand changes, to the encounter with the Other by living in the here and now what the day offers you in complete gratuity and fullness.

We would also like to share a reflection that struck us a lot and that we believe can accompany us on whatever we do in our lives. It is a phrase by Don Tonino Bello: “Give others the true image of the Church: that is, people who welcome one another, who sympathize with one another, who are not liars, who have the language of transparency, who do not disguise things or disguise their person.”

We experience more and more that in order to change this hostile time, it is necessary for each person, in his or her own small way, to always take a step toward each other even when it costs so much, but it is indispensable to always take a step forward. We always believe that sharing with others leads to achieve unthinkable things in everyone’s life, that is why our dream of going out on mission and sharing we want it to be everyone’s, and everyone in his or her own small way to feel a part of that Church that is Everyone’s in its simplicity, transparency and in welcoming everyone.

We believe in it so much and we will never stop witnessing and trying to live it so that life and dignity will not be denied to anyone.

Thank you to those who gave us the opportunity to be able to share what we believe in and live.

If you want you can follow us on social where you will find all the ways to contact us and also become part of the future mission, goodness and this beautiful extended Combonian family.

Until next time, with many unexpected news and let us always be led by the Spirit!!!!!! Peace and joy.

Ilaria and Federica

Memory of Africa Project: María del Prado Fernández Martín

14 July, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

We continue this series of testimonies with the Comboni Sister María del Prado Fernández Martín.

Sister Prado Fernández, a Comboni Missionary, arrived in Africa in 1986 and lived for 30 years in different countries of the continent such as the Central African Republic, Chad or Congo until 2016.

In this interview, Prado tells us about her work as a missionary in areas such as health, education and pastoral care, making her work known through her journey. Above all, participating in the realities of the communities and what it has meant to her to share with the people.

(video in Spanish)

Taking care of our health

10 July, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

Health Care Formation Course for the CLM of Mexico.

The Comboni Lay Missionaries of Mexico are grateful for the course of Formation for Health Care through Biomagnetism that took place from June 24 to 30 at the Oasis House of the Comboni Missionaries in Guadalajara. Elías Arroyo Román, Comboni Missionary and a medical doctor, and Claudia Araujo Facilitator, who shared their knowledge and experience with us.

To fix our gaze only on a transcendent God far from human reality, or to look at man only from science as an organic and material being, are two reductionist visions that threaten the integral wellbeing of man. Health care brings, from the data of divine revelation to the medical mission, the essential values and criteria of valuation that bring health professionals closer to an authentic humanization of health services.

The formation of CLM in health care, together with the practices of love for the neighbor, is to transcend the community work in health services to be able to recognize God in the other, especially in those who suffer and need comfort through each of the spaces of medical care in the mission to which we are sent as simple as it may seem; it is necessary and of utmost importance; having humanization as the fundamental axis of being and doing in the health care of our needy brothers and sisters.

Rocío Adelina Quintero Hernández

Prayer Intentions of the Comboni Family July 2023

1 July, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

That the first anniversary of the memorial of Blessed Joseph Ambrosoli (on 28th July) may help all Comboni missionaries in the service of the most fragile to renew their commitment to a journey of holiness in faithfulness to the circumstances of daily humble service to the sick, the suffering and the fragile. Let us pray.

Speak, for your servant listens…

27 June, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

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.

Jose David, CLM Costa Rica