On March 8 of this year, we had the joy of receiving the international coordinator of the CLM, Alberto de la Portilla, on a visit to the Group of Comboni Spirituality of Balsas-MA.
Opportunity that has allowed us to deepen our knowledge of the work carried out by the CLM worldwide.
It was a beautiful sharing that contributed a lot to the strengthening of our group.
Our gratitude and may God bless everyone.
Peace and good
Ortegal
Group of Combonian Spirituality of Balsas
“Praying you understand people” was the theme of the eighth formation unit that took place on the April 13-15 weekend. As usual, the Comboni Missionaries made available to us their house of Viseu, where we always feel welcome and at home. We thank God for the hospitality. The formation program was moderated by Carlos Barros and Susana Vilas Boas.
This formation unit was of particular importance compared to the others. Without prayer, mission becomes sterile and meaningless, it weakens in difficult times; without prayer, we may be volunteers, but not truly missionaries.
Our St. Daniel Comboni insists on the need for prayer, both individual and in community. His intimate relation with the Sacred Heart of Jesus impregnates his entire evangelizing activity, mission “is born at the foot of the cross” and takes shape in the sending out of his apostles for the Risen Christ.
The core of this formation was the Liturgy of the Hours, the foundation of community prayer that lay people must know how to handle so as to profit from it. The instructions of the Church are found in the “General Instructions on the Liturgy of the Hours,” redacted by Vatican II. The most significant parts are found at the beginning of the breviary. Reading them is a necessity, in order to summarize or underline the most relevant aspects.
The bell of my childhood in Vacarica used to mark the various times. The sacristan (or a relative) never forgot to ring the bell each day at dawn, “matins” (and we would wake up), at noon (and people would stop working in the fields to to go eat) and at sundown, the “trinities” (and work ended and we would go home). At each one of these times people would recite a short, silent prayer. In those days people were called, loudly and with a pleasant sound, to pray at the rhythm of the hours. . These are memories of the past that contemporary society is losing.
May this formation be again a bell that wakes us up and calls us to prayer, an intimate dialogue with the Father as the living force of our vocation and missionary activity.
Mário Breda
Another activity of mission promotion was held on the weekend of April 20-22, this time in the parish of Vergada to which Sofía Coelho, who is going through her formation with us, belongs.
It was a very joyous weekend, as we were very much welcomed by the community and by the pastor, Fr. Antonio Machado.
We started our activities on Friday with the youth groups and the altar servers, then on Saturday we moved on with the catechesis of Saturday and the Eucharist on Saturday and Sunday where we had the participation of Fr. Francisco Medeiros, a Comboni Missionary in charge of the CLM in Portugal.
The weekends of mission promotion are always times of great enrichment, we enter into the life of the parish community where we speak of our experiences and try to share a little about mission, namely what we lived and felt in the places where we served.
They are times of sharing, that enrich us incredibly and make us feel that the love of Christ, the Good Shepherd, always lives in us and in those around us (even when we do not believe it is there).
We had the chance to perceive how this is a missionary parish open to others, to those who need it most, and it is not a closed in parish at all. And this is a great gift! These moments remind me that I, too, am a missionary in Portugal and, even though in a different way, this mission is as valid as the foreign mission.
During this weekend we also celebrated a vocation day and I am happy to be able to share my vocation as a CLM with the people I meet!
I also want to share with you how we were spoiled! Mrs. Rosa and Mrs. Sofía together with the pastor made sure we did not lack anything, we had good accommodations and the meals were luscious. I cannot forget the “crazy for Jesus (a youth group) and the catechists, who always supported us in everything we needed. Thanks from our hearts!
Sandra Fagundes, CLM
March 12, 2018
Day 388 Remaining 712
Greetings to all, how are you? I hope well… this Christmas and New Year 2018 were a little strange, spent in the heat of the Central African Republic, wearing a summer T-shirt and eating Portuguese cod… 🙂
THE NIGHT OF DESIRES
It is NIGHT here! A deep NIGHT that envelops everything! A NIGHT that is not like all the other NIGHTS, because it is a perennial NIGHT! It is NIGHT even during the day! We live in this NIGHT, in an infinite present, we live as if there was not tomorrow!
Our schools would need to be restructured because the bricks are literally eaten up by the termites and, when it rains, they get flooded, and during the NIGHT they are inhabited by bats that make your stomach turn…
Our hospital have no medical supplies, there is no food for the patients, and those who need surgery must provide everything down to the last penny…
Our roads have potholes that look like craters because of the big trucks and the rain, and the average speed on the Bangui-Mongoumba road is around 30 km/h and the trip lasts 7/8 hours…
We would need a bridge on the River Lobaye or a new ferry because the big and heavy trucks of the foreign multinationals that transport our lumber from the forest have damaged it… We would need doctors, pediatricians, teachers, instructors, university professors to take care of the new generations, instead…
…more soldiers will come!
Perhaps I am the only one who does not understand how more soldiers may help us come out of this dark and deep NIGHT in which we live!!
The new year has brought us as a gift a new military base in our diocese of Mbaiki… the bulldozer arrived, it flattened an enormous area, it quickly dug a trench, it raised great dirt barriers and behold… a beautiful, new, secure UN military base… to protect us from whom? The Lobaye is the only peaceful area in the CAR!!!
Perhaps I am the only one who does not understand how more soldiers, more arms, more armored vehicles, more resources to keep them going, can help us get out of this dark and paralyzing NIGHT in which we live! Adding the risk that our NIGHT may become even more NIGHT. We are all like acrobats walking on the wire, risking to fall again in our fears, instead of finding the courage to get out of this NIGHT that seems to be eternal!
There is no money for the schools, for health care for salaries for our teachers, for the hospitals, for repairing our roads…
…but there is money for building a new military base and pay 900 soldiers…
Perhaps I do not understand!
Someone asked me what we would have DESIRED on Christmas NIGHT… and for 2018…
…a little bit of LIGHT…
The people who walked in DARKNESS have seen a great LIGHT…
…for those who lived in the shadow of death a LIGHT has shone… (Mt 4:16)
Greetings, a hug, a kiss, a prayer and THANK YOU…
Simone, CLM
