Comboni Lay Missionaries

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Formation

Taking care of our health

by
LMC México

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

A collaboration from fraternal LOVE…

by
LMC Costa Rica

Hello! I am Sylvia Durán Jovel from Costa Rica and I took the decision and my desire to be a Comboni Lay Missionary after listening to one of the most beautiful testimonies on Radio Maria, a Catholic non-profit radio station where I am also a volunteer and where I have witnessed many acts of love, faith, perseverance in prayer in every sense, but especially with the prayer of the missionary rosary from its oracles.

Being part of the formation to be CLM involves gathering on the second and fourth Sundays of each month at the seminary located in Sagrada Familia, a marginal urban neighborhood where the parish priest is Father Fabio Loaísiga, who by the way is also the director of Radio Maria.

On June 25 we would have our meeting which coincided with the retreat “A New Pentecost”, organized by the radio in the Curridabat area with a priest who came with his ministry Dei Verbum from El Salvador and a proposal full of love to praise our Lord that would definitely burn more hearts for the love of GOD as Comboni is passionate about and it is really his exquisite madness. My mind and heart were struggling between which of the two activities to attend, and well one is that an activity to know the deep love that God has for us and the other is a commitment with the LOVE of COMBONI to change hearts mainly in Africa, but we also have a small Africa where we are and where we go. God makes everything perfect, our CLM formation meeting was cancelled and it opens the opportunity for the 2 CLM aspirants and our leader to attend together for the first time as a CLM group to support this extraordinary retreat MISSIONARY opportunity during our formation. Giving that small but great bit of sand filled my heart with joy, and I did not care about my spleen pain (which still bothers me writing these lines), I was happy. In this retreat where almost 2000 hearts attended and we also saw how the LOVE FOR MISSIONARITY gave us the opportunity to see and be the missionary who seeks to know Christ and his faith more and more each day.

To have responded urgently to the call for help from the brothers and sisters of Radio Maria and to be a testimony of the joy that convinces and increases it in our own life for knowing Christ in that place. We arrived in Curridabat ready to serve, each one in different activities, and little by little we saw the transformation of moments, having put our gifts at the service. Little by little the activity progressed and the time of the Holy Eucharist was approaching where, to our pleasant surprise, the Comboni Priest Guerlain Joachim Biseka (a native of Congo and who works hard in the Comboni Parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal located in Barrio Cuba, another urban slum and for whom I pray a lot and for whom I have special admiration and affection), had also been called to give support in confessions. And how could I not jump with happiness because COMBONI wanted us to be where we were most needed, with our gifts and charisms, and also where we could confirm and reaffirm our vocation and love for Him and also shout it with crazy love. It was a time of grace in my life and even more so knowing that Comboni knew that women were the key to carry out the mission by creating the first women’s missionary institute in Italy. Thank you Comboni.

Sylvia Durán Jovel, candidate of Costa Rica

Speak, for your servant listens…

by
LMC Costa Rica

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

A world unknown to many

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LMC Guatemala

Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation.

On May 23, 2023, the Community of the CLM in Guatemala, shared with Sister Lidia, a Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; who with a masterful talk exposes us her experiences lived in Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation. Her experiences in a marginal area of the Garbage Dump of Zone 3 in Guatemala City and her words so full of the Love of God makes us reflect that as CLM we are immersed in this journey and that we are part of this society so disadvantaged and that day by day there are more and few who are called to this service.

She invites us: “not to see anyone as a stranger, but as a true child of God; to see trafficking in persons where, as CLM, I can contribute from my context, to change our vocabulary, since it is not the same “A woman prostitute” to “A woman in prostitution”, to think that “They are families in transit” and that we must welcome them for what they are, always thinking that they bring many burdens and that for organized crime, it is easier to sell a person than a weapon and that the money from the weapon is over, but the person can be sold several times“.

This meeting marks the commitment that we as CLM Guatemala have and we can be a grain of sand in the change that we want to see the world from our realities.

Miriam Herrador de Orrego

CLM Guatemala

Entrepreneurship and sharing CLM projects

by
emprender

Good morning and good week.

This past Saturday we had a new training at the level of the CLM of America. In this case, the theme was about economic sustainability and entrepreneurship.

It is clear that the economic funds are a fundamental tool to carry out a good missionary service.

We have to properly prepare our CLM to be able to send them to our missionary communities and from there to accompany the many needs of the people and to propose together with them projects that make possible a more dignified life.

To maintain these projects and our missionary communities that accompany them is something we do through prayer, formation and covering the basic needs. And for the latter and to be able to undertake, resources are needed.

This training is about all of this and about how to unite all people of good will to form a broad network to support the needs of the many peoples we try to accompany. The mission is not only the responsibility of the one who departs but also of the rest of the Christian community who are called to collaborate within their possibilities. To make this close collaboration grow is part of the keys that we discussed this past Saturday.

We leave you with the video (in Spanish) of this talk. We hope it will be very useful.

Best regards

Alberto de la Portilla. Coordinator of the CLM Central Committee.