Africa
CLM Group Meeting in Ghana
On the 21st October 2014, I met the Father Provincial about the journey of the CLM Aspirants. A chaplain was given to us and a new strategy was defined by the Province about us. Our chaplain is Rev. Fr Godwin Kornu. Since then, we were planning to meet and this 5th December, we held our 17th meeting at Mafi-Kumase the Quasi Parish where our chaplain is. We were in all 8 lays with our chaplain. After the opening prayer, we proceeded with the Spiritual Reading from He lived only for Africa by B. Ward and A. Mondini. The passage read was the Experience of the Cross. For the first meeting with our chaplain, we introduced ourselves. From our previous meeting’s minutes, we heard about the work of two Committees, Formation and Fund Raising. The two Committees reflected upon the formation process and the various ways of generating income. Their suggestions need now critical analysis and for that matter, any decision was not taken, for us to go and reflect more about the issues with the help of our chaplain. The report about our activities since the beginning was then given. Our chaplain took then the speech to tell us the journey he has to make with us. His service is to form us, a spiritual formation which involves”lay, Christian, missionary and Combonian formation”. He explained how he intended to proceed with us: themes to present, recollections, retreats… The place, time and date were at once decided for the coming meeting and the topic to talk about. After this, few matters were discussed and the meeting came to its end with the concluding prayer (Prayer of the Comboni Family) with blessing. We took our family picture and the lunch before departing from the place.
We are very happy of the attention and zeal of the Province towards us and we thank, of all our heart, for all the decision taken for our spiritual and vocational growth. We saw how serious and dedicated our chaplain is. The experience he had with CLM when he was at Chicago and also some years in formation predisposed him for this service assigned to him by the Fr Provincial and His Counsel. May the Lord strengthen him spiritually to strengthen us and lead us on Comboni’s steps. We are so blessed because we are surrounded by so dedicated persons and zealous priests who believe in the CLM reality. May we too be inspired and ceased by their missionary and combonian zeal.
Justin Nougnui, coordinator.
[Mozambique] CLM Mozambique Annual Meeting 2014
The Comboni Lay Missionaries in Mozambique met from 21 to 23 November at the Catechetical Center of Carapira for our ninth annual meeting, the topic we work: “150 years of the plan of Comboni and the challenges for the CLM in Mozambique”.
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We started with a small moment of reflection, based on the Biblical text of Lc 16:24. highlighting the proposal of Christ, renounce to yourself, inviting us to think about what are the things that we must resign to live fully the missionary vocation to which we have been call as CML inside the reality where we are present, becoming aware of our preconceptions, ideas, points of view, practices, behavior, expectations, etc.
To continue, we identified those realities that test us challenging our presence, putting them in the hands of God, presenting them as prayers, through the Traditional Macua ritual of “Makeya” asking the intercession of our ancestors, saints of the church and also the Missioners who have passed through this land of Mozambique and gave their lives for this people.
Then the work began with the reading of the previous minutes, evaluating the proposed activities, personal activities reports and reviewing the issues of formation of candidates to CLM. We closed the evening celebrating Mass with the missionary team in the house of the Comboni Sisters. After dinner, we established what would be the topics to follow for the ongoing formation of the CLM next year. This closed the 1st workday of our annual meeting, asking the intercession of Mary, on the day the Church celebrates its presentation.
On the morning of the second day, we worked on the economics affairs, presenting accounts and defining the activities to achieve self-sustenance of CLM movement in Mozambique. Taking in consideration the agreements reached at international meetings. We evaluate the activities of missionary animation during the year and think about the future activities.
We ended the day with the election of the coordinator and the division of the responsibilities established as follows: Flávio, coordinator; Marcia and Ancha, Secretariat and Communication; Margarida, Treasurer; Beatriz, Martinho and Flávio, Training and Missionary Animation. We conclude the second day with Mass and after dinner we invited the Mission Team to a moment of celebration, first sharing broadly what we worked in the assembly and then with some music, cake, popcorn, rice freshwater…
On Sunday morning, we participate in the celebration with the community of Carapira, where at the end we present the CLM group through a video of the community and missionary testimony. Then we met to define the activities of our Missionary work for the month of December and made the official photo. We conclude with a prayer of thanks for a job well done.
In communion with the whole movement, we ask God that the example of St. Daniel Comboni continues to inspire our way!
We are together! United in prayer and mission!
CLM Mozambique
A poor Church for the poor and the Pact of the Catacombs
On November 16, 1965, forty bishops participating in the Second Vatican Council met in the Domitilla Catacombs outside Rome for a celebration of the Eucharist. On that occasion they drew up and signed a document called the “Pact of the Catacombs”, which expressed their personal commitments as bishops to live a poor lifestyle and to relaunch a “servant and poor” Church. Today Pope Francis again called everyone to the centrality of a “Church that is poor for the poor.” In fact, only a poor Church can walk with the poor, becoming the voice of their denied rights. Fifty years after the Pact of the Catacombs, a large number of religious and lay people met yesterday, Sunday 16 November, in the Catacombs, to celebrate and to commemorate this great ecclesial event.
As the Second Vatican Council drew to a close, on November 16, 1965, forty council bishops met in the Domitilla Catacombs outside Rome for a celebration of the Eucharist and gave birth to a document which marked an important stage in the life of the Church.
In the text, called the “Pact of the Domitilla Catacombs,” the bishops undertook to live a poor lifestyle and to relaunch a “servant and poor” Church. The document, with an uncommon clarity, touched the most pressing issues of the moment that are still actual today, though they are lacking the more recent approaches such as the ecology and the globalization of war and terrorism.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the event and the document, on the invitation of the heads of the Justice and Peace department of the religious Institutes, dozens of religious and committed Christians met in the Domitilla Catacombs to a two hour-long liturgical celebration. In an atmosphere of prayer and reflection, the Pact was read in front of everyone and then taken up in small groups which, in their own different languages, deepened it and presented a few concrete suggestions to be implemented in the religious communities of those present.
The organizers expressed their satisfaction and recognized that the response and the turnout was much larger than they had expected.
