From 9th to 11th October 2026, the Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM) of Togo-Ghana-Benin Province gathered at the Leo XIII Spirituality Centre of the Canossian Sisters in Lomé for their first Provincial Assembly.
The gathering brought together CLM members from Togo, Ghana and Benin for prayer, fellowship, formation, discernment and mission. It provided an opportunity to review the life and activities of the national groups and establish common directions for the future.
One of the highlights of the Assembly was a presentation by Sr. Elizabeth Corte Imperial (SMC) on “The Laity in Comboni’s Plan.” Drawing on St. Daniel Comboni’s Plan for the Regeneration of Africa, she recalled that Africans are called to be the protagonists of their own history, evangelisation and liberation. The Assembly thus invited CLM members to reflect more deeply on the question: “What is our role today in St. Daniel Comboni’s Plan?” Comboni’s famous call, “Save Africa through Africa,” remains a source of inspiration for mission today.
One of the most significant moments was the celebration of the definitive commitment of five new CLM members: Lucien Aboe from Benin, Ernest Botri, Jean Akitibi, Benjamin Adjogble and Jean Baptiste Gbêssi Gnimassoun from Togo. The commitment ceremony took place during a Mass on 10th October 2026, commemorating the Solemnity of St. Daniel Comboni. Through this commitment, they chose to live out the Comboni charism and dedicate themselves to serving the poorest and most abandoned, wherever the mission may call them.
Participants also reflected on the CLM formation process, pastoral experience, ad gentes mission, language learning, administration, project management and fundraising. These discussions highlighted the need to prepare CLM members who can respond to contemporary missionary challenges with competence, faith and availability.
The Assembly established a new Provincial Coordination:
Coordinator: Justin Nougnui (Ghana)
Secretary: Ernest Segno Botri (Togo)
Treasurer: Lucien Aboe (Benin)
Counselor: Christian Wotormenyo (Ghana)
The national coordinations in Togo, Ghana and Benin were also updated.
The Assembly decided that the next Provincial Assembly would be held in Benin in 2028. It also emphasised the need to strengthen the financial autonomy of the national groups, facilitate French-English interpretation during meetings, and prepare the province’s participation in the Fifth African Assembly in 2027.
The gathering concluded on 11th October with Sunday Mass at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in Adidogomé, followed by a fraternal meal.
This first Provincial Assembly was a significant moment of communion, discernment, renewal and commitment.
On October 10, we will celebrate the feast of St. Daniel Comboni.
It is a special occasion to return to the roots of our missionary vocation, renew our commitment, and continue to make Comboni’s dream a reality.
As Comboni Lay Missionaries, we wish to join in this celebration by inviting our groups, communities, and all those who share the missionary spirit to set aside a moment for prayer.
To that end, we have prepared a brief prayer to be said in our missionary groups—a simple prayer designed to help us come together, give thanks for the journey we have made, and allow ourselves to be challenged anew by Comboni’s missionary dream.
We invite you to celebrate this together, wherever you may be, feeling part of the same family and the same mission.
May Saint Daniel Comboni help us keep our hearts open and our eyes fixed on the mission.
Happy Feast of Saint Daniel Comboni!
Saint Daniel Comboni, pray for us and accompany us on our mission.
Hello to all of you—friends, family, and benefactors.
We’ve been back for almost two months now, after a very brief stop in Italy, and the mission has kept us busy with our usual activities as well as with an extraordinary event: the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Comboni Missionaries’ presence here in Mozambique. We put a lot of effort into making this day happen and sharing it with so many people.
We’re continuing to contribute our efforts and your support in various pastoral and social areas, always striving to heed the promptings of the Holy Spirit so we can walk among the Macua people with purpose and love.
In the meantime, we send you a warm hug, and as soon as we can, we’ll send more detailed information. Have a blessed start to the Missionary Month, and thank you for continuing to remember us in your prayers. With respect and gratitude, a huge hug
We pray that all members of the Comboni Family, sustained by the Holy Spirit and inspired by Saint Daniel Comboni, may proclaim the Gospel with joy and be signs of light, hope, and tenderness among the peoples to whom they are sent. Let us pray.
Sixteen of the 23 Comboni bishops serving the local Churches in Africa and Latin America met in Rome from September 16 to 21 for a meeting of formation and sharing, also leaving a message for the Comboni Family at this time of reconfiguration.
MESSAGE OF THE COMBONIAN BISHOPS TO THE COMBONIAN FAMILY
“When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them” Mt 9:36
Dear brothers and sisters,
we, the Comboni bishops, met at the General House of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus for a moment of ongoing formation and sharing. With this letter, we wish first of all to express our deep gratitude for this opportunity to meet and for the welcome we received at the General House. Being here, in the house that preserves the memory and journey of the Institute, allows us to share not only an institutional moment, but above all a Comboni fraternity that springs from the same missionary calling.
We wish to give thanks for the gift of missionary vocation in our Institutes, for the service that so many brothers and sisters offer to the Church on the different continents and, above all, for the witness of so many missionaries who, often in silence and in difficult situations, continue to live the charisma of Comboni faithfully, participating in the mission of Christ wherever the Church is called to be a presence, listening, reconciliation and hope.
We would like to share with you a word that seems particularly important to us at this moment in the life of our Institutes and the mission: the heart. Pope Francis, in Dilexit nos, invited us to return to the heart. Not as an inward-looking refuge, but as the place where the person rediscovers his or her unity, recognizes what truly matters and opens himself or herself to the encounter with God and with others. Pope Leo, with Dilexi te, has deepened this theme by speaking of the need to love the poor. Today, as always, the world needs a Church that sets no limits to love, that knows no enemies to fight but only men and women to love (DT 120). Love for the poor is the evangelical hallmark of a Church faithful to the heart of God (DT 103).
It is from the heart that mission is born. And perhaps precisely here lies one of the deepest challenges we face today: renewing mission means, first of all, allowing our hearts to be renewed. In a time of epochal change, our Institutes too are undergoing profound transformations and feel the need to rethink structures and ways of operating. Mission calls us to make courageous choices. But every reorganization acquires its true meaning when it arises from listening to God’s call and remains oriented towards the good of the mission, without ever losing sight of the good of each person.
For this reason, we must not simply ask ourselves: how can we continue to do what we have always done with fewer people and fewer resources? The deeper question is: what is the Holy Spirit asking of the Comboni charism today? What new form of mission? What renewed understanding of our way of being Church? Which structures are truly at the service of the Gospel and which, instead, risk becoming ends in themselves? The reorganization of our Institutes is therefore a necessary journey to be undertaken without fear and can also become a grace: an opportunity to return to what is essential and to allow the charism received from Comboni to find new forms, suited to the realities in which we are called to live today. We hope that this journey will take place in a spirit of synodality, through a renewed relationship between the local Churches and the Institutes of consecrated life, between priests and lay people, women and men, the elderly and the young.
Mission is participation in the mission of Christ. And a missionary Church is a Church that does not live for itself, but for others. For this reason, we need a renewed understanding of our way of being Church. We cannot proclaim reconciliation if our communities do not become places of reconciliation. We cannot speak of peace if we do not learn to preserve peace in our relationships. We cannot proclaim fraternity to a divided world if we ourselves do not become brothers capable of listening to one another, forgiving one another and supporting one another.
For this reason, we would also like to renew together an appeal for peace, disarmament and reconciliation. We live in a world marked by wars, violence, rearmament, polarisation and fear. In many of the places where missionaries are present, populations carry in their bodies and memories the wounds of conflicts. As a Church, we cannot resign ourselves to the logic of violence. And we missionaries are called to be artisans of peace. Disarmament concerns not only political and international decisions: it also calls for conversion of the heart and fosters a non-violent and peaceful disposition in relationships. It means disarming our hands, but also our words, judgments, fears and mistrust. A reconciled mission can become a seed of reconciliation.
During our meeting, we encountered another word that seems decisive to us: care. Care for ourselves, for our brother, for the ecclesial communities to which we are sent, together with care for our common home. Care is neither weakness nor withdrawal into ourselves, but loving attention to life. We are aware that care is an essential part of the ministry of a bishop; therefore, we ask the Lord for the wisdom and sensitivity necessary to be welcoming fathers and companions on the journey of our communities. The Church also needs missionaries who know how to care for their spiritual life, their humanity, their formation, the deepening of Comboni spirituality, their health, their relationships and their vocation. A missionary who does not care for himself risks, over time, losing the ability to care for others. We need to build communities in which everyone can feel welcomed, listened to and accompanied. We need to learn once again that our brother is not an obstacle to mission: he is part of the mission itself. And we need to care for creation, because in the beauty of the earth we can still recognise something of the beauty of God’s love.
Dear brothers and sisters, looking at the world with the heart of Christ, we no longer see merely problems to be solved, but people to love, communities to accompany in faith, wounds to bind up, and beauty to preserve. The times in which we live are not easy, but if our heart remains aflame with the love of Christ, then, even in our poverty, we will be hope for the world. Let us therefore ask the Lord to renew in us the missionary heart of Comboni. A heart capable of seeing, listening, making common cause with those who suffer and with those who rejoice, sharing their wounds and their hopes.
We assure you of our prayers and ask you to pray for us too, so that together we may serve the People of God with humility and courage.
The Comboni Bishops
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