Comboni Lay Missionaries

Third Formation Unit – Lay and missionary spirituality

LMC Portugal

LMC Portugal

On November 17-18 we gathered once again at the Comboni Missionaries’ house in Viseu for our formation meeting, moderated by the CLM Carlos Barrios, on the theme of “lay and missionary spirituality.”

What is spirituality? Spirituality or spiritualities within a larger spirituality? What does it mean to be a lay person in the Church today? What is the place and what are the concrete ways of spiritual life of the lay vocation? What are the aspects that distinguish being and living as Comboni Lay Missionaries, in the light of the CLM directory and the recently approved Statutes?

Through the moments of formation directed by Carlos, group sharing, personal reflection and prayer, we tried to answer these questions and – above all – to understand what is for each one of us the concrete meaning of all that we listen to and reflect upon in this meeting, and, from here, to find concrete resolutions to move towards an ever deeper and more intimate relationship with Christ and a greater communion with others.

Above all, we gathered from this meeting that we were all made, created, and dreamed of for the same reason: to understand the presence of God, to embrace it and to shape our lives in such a way that this presence will be always deeper and lived. Each one on our own path; and the concreteness of each one’s life. Gaining in our intimacy with Christ we give better witness and move towards holiness.

The Sunday was different: in groups, we shared and reflected on concrete proposals in the context of the preparation work for the General Assembly of the CLM to be held in Rome on December 11-16. It was a great opportunity for each one of us to share ideas, to learn more about the Movement of the CLM giving each one the power to contribute individual thoughts and reflections, in any way, on the development of this Movement.

LMC Portugal

CLM, Portugal

A Part of me is called Peru

LMC Peru

LMC Peru

I often think of the meaning of the lives that crisscross my journey. I often think of the conditions where we meet and how simplicity brings us closer.

I could list a countless number of situations I have already experienced here. Some were mastered, while others will keep on ripening until I will understand them.

Many lives are already part of me, and many are the smiles that belong to me, the hugs I do not avoid and renew my strength. With the intention of just dropping in, I spend hours to no end conversing on the doorsteps. For me, mission is timeless.

The doors of our house are open, doors that open to receive the greatest joys of passersby and welcome the sufferings of those who seek refuge from us. They ask of you the only thing you have to give, yourself.

LMC Peru

When night falls, that is when I like revisit my day and, even though often I fall into tears, they are tears of contemplation of the marvels God is working in me and, through me, it’s impossible to ignore it, and not thank God for it all. Many a times I see, countless times, the little miracles and signs that have reached me through these people who are now part of me.

Mission is hard, and you would lie if you said otherwise. Mission is arid, here, where the landscape is covered with the roofs of what is left of homes close to be disintegrated by the strong wind.

In August, part of a year’s work falls apart, when nature blows so strongly that it is impossible to resist. Without fear, they roll up their sleeves, without giving up, and even though what they have is little, nothing is stronger than the will to move onward.

I am not lying, mission is hard. At time it becomes cruel, it hurts. You see the suffering in the eyes of these brothers of mine and the helplessness in the face of what they have to bear with.

LMC Peru

Many are the times when I simply listen, give a hand, my shoulder. Many are the times when we smile together, as we share this love of God so concrete and free. Many are the hugs, the hands shaken. Many are the moments of silence and mutual commitment, in the simplicity of sitting on the ground and be one with them.

Yes, mission is hard. It is in this hardship that I met the deepest meaning of my presence on Peruvian land. It was in this arid land that I placed my dreams and my hopes. In this little corner of the world that I pray daily for the integrity and the rights of people similar to me, created by God. It is a constant state of being fragile and be integrated in the simplicity and humility of those who have nothing. Without expecting anything in return.

Mission is hard, but this is the mission I always dreamed of, this constant discovery of who
I am and of what I am doing here. It is to know that I am nothing and often see how miracles just happen, naturally. It is trust that makes us flesh of the same flesh.

A little at the time everything falls into place, a little at the time everything happens simply, not in human but in heavenly times.

With love and gratitude

LMC Peru

CLM, Neuza Francisco in Peru

The beauty of the Imperfect Mission

LMC Peru

LMC Peru

“The greatness of the mission does not belong to us, but rather to the One who sends us,” Fr. Ivo.

A year in mission. How much time fits in this lapse? How many lives have been held in our own? How many arms were linked with our arms? How many lives have we given? And how many have we received?

We stopped planning our lives to allow life to direct us, to allow God to touch us and the people to meet us. We allowed ourselves to be met just as we are, with our wounds, scars and imperfections.

This is who we are, and this is how we embraced our mission, together and imperfect. We walked in the certainty that “we are all wounded and through these wounds light comes in.” We never wanted to be perfect. Instead we allowed God to touch our imperfections and through them lead us to our brothers, who are now our friends and neighbors. Today they are our family.

The beauty of an imperfect mission is in us, resides within us. Beauty is not in the moment you realize that you and your life are the mission, but rather in the ability to walk on your own little by little without fear letting your wounds, scars and frailties be part of what makes you who you are, an essential part.

Then mission become a solitary journey, with yourself, a journey of two, because you know that you were chosen for a greater love, a journey of three, you, God, your neighbor, in the certainty that the other exists to walk with you.

It allows you to be, to know yourself a little better to let yourself be discovered a little at the time, and join to your neighbor always ready to proceed together. And together, hand in hand with God, we reach the other and the other deliver you in an imperfect, complete fashion.

It is this journey of three that we meet our neighbors, our brothers. They become our home and journey together. They are the people who, in imperfect ways, complete us, make us grow. It is in being imperfect that we keep on meeting others, moving on and growing with each person we meet. This way, mission is not only teaching or learning, but rather growing together, knowing that the union of our imperfections results in the perfection of the whole.

This is the logic of God who made us in such a way that we need others in order to love, be, live and be happy.

LMC Peru
Paula y Neuza. CLM Peru

 

Celebrating the memory of the birth of St. Daniel Comboni

Comboni

TO GIVE LIFE SO THAT ALL MAY HAVE LIFE

Solemnity of St. Daniel Comboni

10 October 2018

“I am the Good Shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. And there are other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and these I have to lead as well. They too will listen to my voice and there will be only one flock and one shepherd.”

(Jn 10:14-16)

 

Comboni

Dear Confreres
Celebrating the memory of the birth of St. Daniel Comboni introduces us into the great mystery of the life of the Good Shepherd with a pierced heart who gave his life so that all may have life and life in abundance, especially those who do not yet belong to the table of Christ’s body, the poorest and most abandoned, so that all may become one flock under one shepherd.

We Comboni Missionaries, faithful to this tradition, to the charism and pastoral practice of our Founder, are invited to renew ourselves in this missionary commitment every day to be “at the margins of society as witnesses and prophets of fraternal relationships, based on forgiveness, mercy and the joy of the Gospel” (CA ’15 No. 1).

The mission at the margins of society required from Comboni the ability to remain firm in difficult times and fidelity to the price of life itself, because he had his gaze fixed on the pierced heart of the Crucified One, a vision of faith of the events and the embrace of Africa with a heart marked by divine love. An incarnate holiness that runs through the paths of poverty and human marginalisation, welcoming the other, the different, the poor, in an embrace of communion and dialogue; a holiness that is the divine passion present in a human heart.

This is what we have tried to express in the reflection and prayer of the Intercapitular that we have just concluded. We have been constantly attentive to the voice of the victims, the marginalised, and the great multitudes of human beings whose life is threatened by a heartless system that causes the predictable and violent death of the weakest.

This reality continues to prophetically question our presence and the quality of our missionary service, as it has questioned Comboni in his time. To respond, however, to these challenges, we need to approach each day, to the mystery of God’s love, revealed in Jesus Christ, with the spirit, gaze and heart of Comboni, with an open heart overflowing with love and the mercy of the Pierced One and, like Him, let us also be pierced by so many situations of poverty and neglect.

For St. Daniel Comboni it was clear that the contemplation of the mystery of God, crucified for love, had as its purpose to lead his missionaries to a definite way of doing mission: to witness a life lived in ‘spirit and truth’, fruit of a vivid and convincing prayer, to practice humility and obedience, as signs of a deeply Comboni spirituality. That is, to irradiate with one’s life the mystery of God Crucified in order to bring to Christ, the source of Life, all those who are hungry and thirsty for justice.

It is with these feelings that we wish to celebrate this solemnity of St. Daniel Comboni as a Comboni Family. Enter into this mystery of the Good Shepherd with a pierced heart and drink the lifeblood that renews us, that makes us look at reality through the eyes of faith, hope and charity, that heals and humanises us, that makes us become mission, “cenacle of apostles”, gift for others. “I make common cause with each of you, and the happiest day in my life will be the one on which I will be able to give my life for you” (W 3159).

May St. Daniel Comboni intercede with the Father for each one of us, for the whole Comboni Family and for the missions that are presently going through difficult situations: Eritrea, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic.

Happy Feast day to all.
Fr. Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie; Fr. Jeremias dos Santos Martins; Fr. Pietro Ciuciulla; Fr. Alcides Costa; Bro. Alberto Lamana.

“I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13)

LMC

LMC

How beautiful is the wood sculpture of Africa at the feet of Christ. I allow the gaze of Comboni to penetrate me, to contemplate me. And how much of me fits into that gaze. I remember someone who once told me “it is impossible that it will not penetrate you, and question you.” And I agree every time I see this image of our tireless San Daniel Comboni.

This is the image I contemplate above the altar in the chapel of the MCCJ house in Madrid, where today I will wait until 4:00 PM, when the CLM David will come to get me to go together for the weekend at Arenas de San Pedro, about 100 miles from here. I can’t resist to enter and spend a moment with the Lord. I pray to him for the mission. Not only for my own, but for everyone’s. The mission of those who are about to go. The one of those who stay. Also in separation there is love. It means to leave what we have and earn something better: the freedom of giving ourselves to Christ. Separation is not something simply physical. It means to go out of ourselves on a daily basis. At each moment. It is what I continue to look for today, but that today is becoming more “doable.” LMC

I leave my country looking for the wisdom and the grace I need so that, in the future, I will deposit my gifts in total surrender. So during the next few months I will be in Madrid, with the family I chose, the Comboni Family, for a missiology course. From the beginning, this program inflamed my heart and brightened my eyes, I must confess, just like it is with the anxious waiting of children the day before returning to school. This is what I am grateful for even today before this Africa at the feet of Christ: the opportunity to grow in wisdom and grace.

I know that I am fragile, but in a community that lives of and for love, I feel strong. Because “all I can in Him who comforts me” (Phil 4:13). “All I can in Him who comforts me,” I repeat. It resonates in me. Only in Him and through Him I could be able to go beyond myself, to go to meet love, to be free inasmuch as I trust in Him and in his hands, loving without measure. “God does not choose the able ones, but enables those he chooses.” Today I am understanding this quite well… and I pray to God that he may make me capable in the mission to which I have been assigned. This is for me and for those who are with me. Family. Boyfriend. Friends. People in general. Each in their own right, are part of this mission and I feel the need to bring them along.

LMC“You become responsible forever, for those you have tamed.”

(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

And so it is… I pray for each of them, and for their mission. Pray for me as well, please. From the bottom of my heart, thanks for your trust… Not so much in me, but in God. Everything, including me, we are only possible in Him.

Take, Lord and receive

my freedom,

my memory,

my understanding

and my will,

all that I have and possess;

You gave it to me;

I return it to you, Lord.

Everything is yours,

dispose of it as you wish.

Give me your love and your grace,

and it will be sufficient.

(St. Ignatius of Loyola)

 

Keep in touch,

CLM Carolina Fiúza