Comboni Lay Missionaries

Two lives restored

A commentary on Mk 5, 21-43 (XIII Sunday OT: June 28th 2015)

DSC00728We read today Mark’s chapter five, in which we continue watching Jesus on both sides of Galilee lake with a clear message of God’s nearness to the poor and those with a “broken heart”; a message that is conveyed, not only in inspiring words, buts also in concrete gestures that confirm the words and give them a kind of “physical” consistency. Jesus performs what we can call “messianic signs”, that is, concrete actions that reveal God’s presence among his people from both “sides” of the lake: Gerasa and Capharnaum

From “impure” to God’s children
In today’s Reading we are told about the story of two women (a twelve year old girl and a grown up woman who has been sick for twelve years). In spite of being impure (as a dead body or as someone loosing blood), both are touched by Jesus and they are restored, not only to live, but also to their dignity as God’s children, able to rise up (“Get up”), to believe (“Your faith has saved you”), and to share in the banquet of life (“Give her something to eat”).
Some people may look at this episode as if Jesus were a magician, with special powers, able to produce magic effects… Certainly I have no doubts about Jesus’ power. But I do not think that this is the right perspective to understand what happened in the river of Galilee Lake or what it continues to happen with many believers today. The right perspective is to consider this and other episodes as “messianic signs”, that is, actions and gestures that flow out of two fundamental elements:
The extraordinary capacity that Jesus has to love and be in communion with people in their concrete situations, beyond and in spite of traditional taboos; to be in deep and close relationship with people, taking very seriously the reality of each person; to communicate to others his own experience of the Father’s loving nearness. As Benedict XVI says, only love redeems. When somebody is loved, he or she recovers the dignity and becomes able to rise up and have full live.
The faith of humble people, who, threatened by sickness and death, raise their hearts and their hopes to God as their last refuge. In my missionary live in Africa, Europe and America, I have met quite often people like the dad of that twelve years old girl o that woman in despair because of a humiliating sickness.
Before such situation of distress, people look for any kind of possible help: medicine, prayer, advice… anything that can be a ray of hope. Many people rebuke them, scoff them, pity them… But they need to be taken seriously and respected in their anguish and hope. This is precisely what Jesus does: from his deep experience of communion with the Father he is able to be in communion with those God’s children who are crossing a sea of difficulties and despair and having doubts about their own value and dignity.

DSC00226Word and action
All human beings, included those who appear most self-assured, are feeble creatures exposed to sicknesses, suffering, despise, dangers and, after all, death, even if a miracle expands our limited time of existence. That’s why I do not think that the objective of Jesus’ miracles was to extend for a while our live, but an altogether different live, marked by the confidence in a real, dignifying and fruitful God’s love. After Jesus “sign” to them, the two women we see in today’s reading could say truly: “I am important for Jesus, I am important for God, I am important for the community of Jesus’ friends. What is important for me is not that I am sick, but that I am a GOD’s CHILD.
This is the central message given by Jesus. And to pass it out to people, He uses words and “messianic signs” that appear in a double quality:
They are quite concrete and practical, related to the real life of people; they are a concrete help to solve a concrete problem of people’s life.
They go beyond their concrete effect: even if they are quite material, they are more than that: they communicate something very especial about the person, empowering her to get up, enjoy life and become a helper to others
That is why the Christian mission, following the steps of Jesus, walks always on this double principle: word and action, faith and charity, material and spiritual. Both dimensions are essential and recall each other: word without action degenerates in lie; action without word misses its saving meaning.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Roma

Retreat of the Comboni Lay Missionaries of Bologna and Florence

LMC Italia

Accompanied by Fr. Giorgio Padovan (standing in the photo), Comboni Missionary recently arrived from Brazil, about twenty Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM) of Bologna and Florence met on 13 and 14 of June, in the house of Pax Christi in Florence, to pray and reflect together on the theme “Disciples, missionaries and Combonis in the path”. These days, according to some lay people, “encouraged some of us to share, to continue the missionary journey with more enthusiasm and joy, and to renew our heart, sometimes tired and wounded.”

The joy and beauty of being Christians and missionaries is the phrase that can summarize what has been lived in this two-day retreat in Florence. Guided by the motto “Disciples, missionaries and Combonis in the path”, the image of the path accompanied the laity in the reflections, sharing and prayer. A path that is not easy, they said, because sometimes it is uphill and very tired, but gives “sense and taste to our life and vocation.”

LMC ItaliaFr. Giorgio Padovan, who returned a few months ago from the mission in Brazil, helped the group with simplicity, to deepen from the standpoint of the missionary, the path of laity, the baptismal vocation, personal decisions, the love to the mission and the Comboni charism.

“The thoughts and shared experiences – comment the laity – encouraged some of us to go forward, to continue the missionary journey with more enthusiasm and joy, and to renew our heart, sometimes tired and wounded. The seeds were sown for each CLM group to program with renewed creativity, the way to follow in the next year”.

How to be CLM where we live and work? How to be Christians and missionaries in the world of migration, among the excluded, through our commitment in the activities of justice and peace? in parishes and some missionary churches closed and afraid to go out? These are some of the questions that the Bologna and Florence CLM tried to answer, so they can return home enlightened and willing to make a “good missionary journey”.

LMC Italia Bologna and Florence CLM

CLM aspirants in Ghana reflect upon the faith of Comboni

Ghana

As agreed at our last meeting in Abor, this 13th June, we met at Dadome, an outstation of Mafi-Kumase. This time, the theme of reflection is “the Faith of Comboni”.

Comboni is said to be of multifaiths. He has faith in God, in his vocation, in the Church, in his Institution. But at the top of all is his faith in God in which the rest come out. He has a doubt at the beginning about leaving his parents. But when confirmed by his spiritual director about the truthfulness and clarity of his vocation, he went straight forward. In his zeal to evangelize Africa, he went to the Pope Pius the IXth and even rectified a wrong conception on Africans. His faith in the Church pushed him to say: “Whatever displeases the Church displeases me.” He went forth declaring:” I have sold my will…I am totally obedient to the Church.” Though he was so engaged in the mission in Africa, he was ready to leave it if the Church ordered it. Comboni received his strength in prayer. He said: “Without prayer, we die.” His time of prayer was also spent for mortification. Comboni has a pragmatic understanding of faith because he thought that “faith is an antidote against slavery.”

After this discussion, we went on to think about few issues. The first is about our presence in the Board of Trustees of In My Father’s House, a Combonian Institution witnessing the Good News to the poor and vulnerable. The second one is the creation of a Vocational Center in the same Institution. We postponed any decision making on these two issues for our coming meeting on the 11th July at Abor.

Justin Nougnui, coordinator.

“Let us cross to the other side”

A Commentary on Mk 4, 35-41 (¡2th Sunday of O.T., June 21first 2015)

DSC00962To cross boundaries
Last Sunday we saw Jesus by the Sea of Galilee teaching to a large crowd about the Kingdom of God in an inspiring language. Today we read how Jesus, on the eve of the same day, invited his disciples to get into a boat and cross to “the other side”. It is quite evident for me that this expression –“the other side”- has in the gospel a deeper meaning than just a geographical one. We know that the other side of the lake was populated by people of different culture and religious practices. As a matter of fact, several times in the gospels Jesus appears pushing his disciples to walk to other villages and towns and to go and meet Samaritans, sinners, pagans an other kinds of “different people”.
This missionary attitude of Jesus was assumed by the Church from the very beginning, after Resurrection, till our times. Paul, for example, was “forced” by the Spirit to cross the border from Asia into Europe (Macedonia); Francois Xavier expanded the Gospel to the Far East Asia; Daniel Comboni, with others, opened the borders of Africa to the Church… And son many other missionaries.
In our days, the Church cannot remain locked in a glorious missionary past. Also today the Church is invited by the Spirit to cross new geographical, cultural and religious boundaries to share the treasure of the Gospel with XXI century humanity: with refugees and migrants, with young people who look for a new future and old people who feel abandoned, people who move around as seep with no shepherd… We all should ask ourselves: To which side does Jesus invites us to cross today? Where are the boundaries to which that my family, my parish, my community should move now?

To get into the sea and resist the squalls
We know that in the Bible the sea is an image of the evil that we can meet in the world, with its dangerous waves and violent storms, that can destroy the small boat of our personal life or even the fragile community we belong to.
In fact, when we leave the small “protected world” of our routine, where we have everything under control, surely we face obstacles and problems that we are not sure how to overcome. When we leave behind the “existential walls” of our parish, family or community, most surely we will have to confront a hostile world, opposed to our way of life. The outside world can become a formidable threat to our weak faith and fragile community.
A moment like this is what Mark describes in todays’ reading, reminding us of the disciples lesson: they did not act as super-heroes; they acknowledged their fear and prayed very sincerely from their anguish. That was the moment to shout out to the Lord with great sincerity and conviction: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

galilea…And the Lord was with them
Mark’s story brings to us the experience of those first members of the Church. They experienced persecution and strong oppositions; in those circumstances they doubted and were afraid, thinking that the Lord was sleeping and absent, but at the end they experienced that the Lord was very much alive and full or power over evil, in spite of their little faith.
For us, as for the first disciples, it’s very important that, in any missionary initiative, we carry the Lord in “our boat”. We should not go on mission only with our enthusiasm, strength and creativity. If the mission is just our own initiative, when the wind blows, most probably we are going to sink. But if we take the Lord with us (in his Word, his sacraments, his community, his Spirit…), when the difficult time comes, surely we are going to feel his presence, we will be able to shout out to him, He will answer and we shall reach the other side ready to spread the Good News

Fr. Antonio Villarino
Roma

Seed grows of itself

A commeImagen 027ntary on Mark 4, 26-34, Eleventh Sunday, Ordinary Time, June 14th

We have already left behind the Paschal Liturgical time (Lent, Passover, and Pentecost) and the solemnities of the Holy Trinity and the Body of Christ. We are now again in the Ordinary time reassuming the reading of Mark. This Eleventh Sunday we read a few verses from Mark’s chapter four. As a matter of fact, I invite you to read the whole chapter so that you can have a better idea of Jesus’ message for today. From that reading, I share with you two reflections:

lago de galilea (jerez)1) A crowd near the lake of Galilee
As you know, Jesus stablished his operational centre at Capharnaum, a small town by the side of Lake Galilee. His presence in that town and surroundings caused a great impact and people rushed in hundreds to get near him and listen to him, because his words were so especially clear, simple, and relevant that their hearts were “burning”. Jesus, farmer among farmers, fisher among fishers, worker among workers, felt quite at easy with that simple people, exposed to the sufferings and hardships of life, hungry for truth and sense, who found no answers in rigid and sclerotic traditions little related to real life. On the contrary, from an affective nearness to their worries an everyday fights and from his contemplative experience in the desert, Jesus was able to express himself in touching parabolic narrations, explaining the mystery of God and his kingdom in a language related to every day’s life in the fields, de fishing ports and the ordinary life.
The gospel of Jesus is made to be understood and preached from the every one’s ordinary life. Or spiritual life must be measured, not so much by the fine words we can say, but by or concrete life and actions.
And all those of us who have a responsibility in passing on to others the Gospel of Jesus (parents, teachers, catechists, priests…) have to look at this Teacher who is able to explain the presence of God in a language related to the concrete life of people.

afiche en colombia2) Seed does not need to be pulled up
Forgive me this obvious reflection, but I think that it can help us to grasp Jesus’ message in today’s gospel:
Discúlpenme esta obviedad, pero me parece que sirve para entender bien lo que nos dice Jesús en el evangelio de hoy: “seed would sprout and grow…. On its accord the land will yield fruit”. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like a seed that God sows in our heart, our community, our family… and it grows of itself, as far as it’s welcomed in a well-kept land. For the wheat to produce fruit it does not help that somebody goes and pulls it up; it’s of not use to try hard and pull it up. No. Wheat must grow by itself, from its inner energy that God has planted in it.
Don’t you think that quite often some parents look like they try to force their children to grow from outside and impose on them fruits that God has not meant for them? Don’t you think that sometimes in our communities or families we try to force people to be what they are not? Do no happen to ourselves that we try to force ourselves to appear before others as powerful and immaculate, with the result that we become bitter, hypercritical, and negative?
I think that Jesus, with this parable of the seed that grows of itself is inviting us, not to be lazy or passive, but serene and trustful; He wants his disciple to trust the Truth and Love, the kingdom that the Father has sown on all o sous, in our communities and families. What we have to do is to cultivate our piece of land, freeing it from stones and rubbish. All the rest will be done in us by the Spirit.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome