Comboni Lay Missionaries

Logo LMC
LMCCentroafrica2
MisionenGuerrero2
Natal20162

Spirituality

Do you still not understand?

by

loaves-of-bread

Abundance – this is what God always offers us.   Scarcity – this is how we usually view the world.

On Tuesday, the Gospel reading in Mark 8:14-21 told of a boat trip of Jesus and his disciples across the lake.  Here’s the context: Jesus had just performed one of his most awe-inspiring miracles of feeding four thousand with a few loaves of bread.  The Pharisees then ask him for a “sign from heaven to test him” (Mk 8:11) as if all his previous healings and feeding the four thousand a few hours earlier was not sign enough.  Jumping into the boat, Jesus makes a comment to his disciples to beware of the philosophies and mentalities of the Pharisees, their “leaven” as he describes it.  The disciples, having forgotten to bring bread for the journey (they only had one loaf among them), assumed that Jesus made this comment because they had no bread. How superficial the disciples’ and our thoughts can sometimes be.  Jesus knows exactly what they are thinking and essentially cries out: This has nothing to do with bread! Jesus goes on to say it is like you have eyes but do not see, have ears but do not hear.  He then reminds them of his miraculous multiplication of loaves to feed the five thousand some time before and the four thousand just hours before.  He asks them how many baskets of fragments were left over, the pieces of bread these very same disciples had gathered up. Probably with the disciples’ eyes sheepishly staring at the bottom of the boat, they answer “twelve” and “seven”.  Jesus then brings to a climax the whole moment with the simplest of questions: “Do you still not understand?”

It is like Jesus is saying: I give you everything, I offer you the most plentiful of lives basking in my love.  I will fill all your worries, depressions, limitations and failures. All you need to do is believe in me and trust in my proposal of abundance.  All you need to do is have faith in my faithfulness.  We can become so closed in on ourselves, foolishly relying on our own tiny resources – counting the inventory of our few loaves of bread – when God is willing to dump a mountain of bread onto our laps. Do you still not understand? I will not only give you what you need according to your limited horizons (feeding the four thousand men), but I will give you even more than you can possibly dream of (seven baskets left over).

During these last months I have been struggling with sickness and how easily I have found myself dejected.  I have caught myself feeling as if I am battling this all alone. But hearing and wrestling over that potent question at the end of Tuesday’s reading knocked me forcefully out of my doubt.

Sometimes we can be like the disciples, where we have a sincere intention to love God, but out of fear, we are not willing to make the leap of faith to truly abandon ourselves into God’s hands trusting that he will bring all things to good for those who love him.  Sometimes we can also be like the Pharisees, where we observe the workings of God’s love first hand, yet still remain unmoved, continuing down our own self-centered paths, isolated and lost.  In both cases, we remain in a mindset of scarcity, with the anxiety that goes with it.   Jesus’ message is clear: My kingdom is one of abundance, where your life is full to the degree that you have faith in my Love.  If you ask for one loaf with child-like faith, I will give it to you…and thousands more.

– Mark & Maggie Banga

Comboni Lay Missionaries serving in Awassa, Ethiopia

The synonymous of “today” is “present”

by

hoje

What is the force that sustains us? Where comes the hope to continue dreaming?, to resist and seek a more human and happy society, fraternal for all? What moves us are the dreams of the reality we want, a reality that does not include situations of injustice imposed by social and economic inequalities. A reality that becomes what we want if we transform it, through our efforts, with our senses, with our choices. We can and must be builders of our personal and collective destiny, our creative freedom. Our passion and our faith gain strength when they are in direct contact with the victims of violence and injustice against the sacred and fundamental rights called human rights. Signs and resurrections are born from ourselves, from the union and strength of social movements that come from below, from civil and organized society… us! We can rain Justice, fertilize the soil and get the fruits to be born. It is possible, because we want to, we believe, we fight, we build. Fatigue, disappointment, discouragement, fear becomes a giant shadow if we allow it, but becomes small and insignificant if we stick together, if one fight is the fight of all. Among the strongest evils is the absolute indifference, is the one that dominates our daily life, a kind of blindness in the world that causes people to live in a bubble, blind and sterile, unable to hear the heartbeat of the world, forgetting in this beating is also ours. We are the world, history is ours, no one feels excluded, in the words of a song by De Gregori, We are writing history! We are part of an alphabet that is able to write wonderful things, if we choose it. Courage, dreams, hopes, dignity, freedom, justice, respect, imagination, fraternity … so many feathers with which to start writing, where we are the blank paper where start doing it.

Emma. CLM

Love is a rope that leads you to the top…

by

CuerdaBeautiful, is truly beautiful the catechesis I am doing with the prisoners. It has just started, but it is doing well and every time I go deeply in love, in fact, we are all passionate. It is a time of sharing, searching the depths of the soul.

This desire to be on the way to understand … to understand each other … to meet God.

We walked with stones in the heart, hard, heavy; we gradually try to scratch them, to make them small as pebbles, which can be removed from the shoe. Up to now, there are six prisoners who are part of the group and that is good, because the smaller group the easiest is to speak because of the intimacy that is created to say the important and difficult things in life. I am also very happy to have the opportunity to be among them without iron bars or divisions, sitting in a circle, in a space that helps to have proximity. It is important to be close, eye contact, listen carefully, take their hand to pray and finally embrace to say THANK YOU. It takes an hour and a half or so. I forget being in a prison, I don´t remember the red uniform they wear. I forget the noise of the other prisoners. We are so immersed in the depth of what is shared which could apparently be the title of a book by Virginia Woolf: “our own room” and it is in fact a space just for them, a space for us. I like a path that works human recovery and self-discovery, leading to a personal growth inside and this applies not only for them but also to me. It is an exchange, a give and take as the dear old but still relevant Paulo Freire said: “no one teaches anyone, everyone learns from everybody”. We can learn from every person, also from prisoners and their stories, and I am grateful.

Emma, ​​CLM.

Message of the MCCJ General Council for the feast of the Sacred Heart

by

Comboni

Dear confreres
On the vigil of the feast of the Sacred Heart, we feel invited and attracted to contemplate in a special way this Heart, fruitful expression of the entire life of Jesus. We invite you especially to reflect on that historical moment of Jesus’ death on the Cross. An event that changes the course of history. A historical and at the same time symbolic event, which keeps happening in the lives of all who are crucified with Christ in today’s world.

That year the Passover of the Jews was different. On Friday, the day of preparation, as all were getting ready for the important feast, outside the walls of the city, at the place of the Skull, three men were ingloriously ending their young life on a cross. One of them was called Jesus. Most of his life had been quietly spent in a small, unknown village of Galilee. Then, during his last three years, he had become a pilgrim on the roads of Galilee, Samaria and Judea.

He was doing good to all, healing the sick, letting himself be moved by the crowds especially when he saw them weary and without direction. His words full of authority were listened to with pleasure and warmed everyone’s heart. An influential group, however, looked at him with suspicion, considered him a danger to the status quo and its privileges. And one day, on the Friday before Easter, lead him to the cross. The day was rapidly setting like many others. Jesus was hanging on the Cross, already dead: “Seeing that he was already dead, instead of breaking his legs, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately came out blood and water” (Jn 19:33-34).

Near the cross of Jesus was Mary, his mother, and the disciple Jesus loved. They saw the heart, pierced by the lance, meekly opening up and were seized by the contemplation of that miracle. Other people came close, looked at it and believed. They saw water and blood come out of it as the fountain of new life for the world. Thus the words that Jesus himself had spoken shortly before in Jerusalem, on the Feast of Tabernacles, were fulfilled: “If any man is thirsty let him come to me! Let he come and drink who believes in me. As Scripture says: From his breast shall flow fountains of living water.”

As an inexhaustible fountain, this heart does not tire of quenching the thirst of all who approach him. Following Mary and the disciple whom Jesus loved, Mary Magdalene and Thomas, Margaret Mary Alacoque and Daniel Comboni and many others have found in this humble and merciful heart a new vision of the world and of life. They rediscovered joy and courage when their heart was embittered, strength and passion to throw themselves fully into the mission work when their hope was failing: “Now with the Cross which is a sublime outpouring of love from the Heart of Jesus, we become powerful” (W 1735).

The Feast of the Heart of Jesus, in this Year of Mercy, invites us to rediscover the supreme act of God’s love, right to the end. It is a call to learn from Comboni to contemplate the Heart of the Good Shepherd and to set it at the centre of our lives. When the confreres, the people or the difficult work of the mission wear us out and make us lose the enthusiasm and the joy of serving, we are invited to contemplate this Heart: “From the contemplation of the pierced Heart of Jesus may it always be possible to renew in you a passion for the people of our time, which is expressed through a gratuitous love in the commitment of solidarity, especially towards the weakest and most disadvantaged people. So that you may continue to promote justice and peace, the respect and dignity of every person” (Pope Francis to the Comboni missionaries, 1.10.2015).
The MCCJ General Council