Africa – Page 68 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

The story of Aman

30 October, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

A few months ago, 12-years old Aman, after falling from a tree injured his spinal cord. His family brought him to us as the last place where they could receive some help. Unfortunately the damage was so serious that we were medically unable to do anything. Only we could try to get a wheelchair for him so he can become more independent. There is one organization in Awassa that distributes orthopedic equipment, so together with Aman we went there, full of hope. Unfortunately they could not help us. I was so disappointed… So the boy went home without anything … After a few weeks I visited this organization again and found out they have a new delivery of wheelchairs! However, I had no contact to Aman (most of our patients do not have a permanent address, phone number, or any other means of finding them). I felt really bad with it, that the chance to help the boy appeared too late, and now I probably never will meet him again… But God is reliable! I recently visited another child in hospital and how great was my surprise and disbelief when I saw Aman’s smiling face on the bed next to me! It turned out that he was getting discharged from the hospital the same day, so his mom willingly accepted the offer to come to our center (where we would continue to treat bedsores for which he was hospitalized) and at the same time try to get equipment for him. The next day Aman was with us, so we went to ask about the wheelchair. And we heard – “We are very sorry, but unfortunately we have no more …”. And such a cry in my soul – “Lord, this boy has already been disappointed once, now you put him again on my way, so please help!” And a moment later – “Although we have one wheelchair, which for a few weeks no one picked up, so if it fits can you get” And of course it fitted perfectly! How great was Aman’s joy when he started to go around the center 🙂 And how great was my joy and gratitude to God for this miracle! For the fact that I met this boy again, for having arranged a wheelchair for him and it’s so immediate, because normal waiting process lasts 2 months 🙂 And also a lesson of trust for me that God never let us down and that He also knows better when it is good time to have something happen.

Madzia, CLM in Ethiopia

(Re) Living a Dream

27 October, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

“We are moved by a dream,” wrote Sebastián da Gama. Many times, a dream rules the soul of a person. It can take us to places we deeply desire, but we not always manage to reach in reality. Since 2015, Carapira had been a dream to me. To return to a place where I had been so happy, to see once more well-known faces, people who had touched me deeply, was something I did not think that could happen again.

But, by God’s grace, the dream became reality and the joy of living the mission God had entrusted to me on Mozambique’s soil filled again my heart with deep gratitude to God and to all those who prayed and worked to turn the dream into reality and make me live it again.

Unlike 2015, my first time in Mozambique, this year the task God entrusted to me consisted in being responsible for seven young people of the group Faith and Mission: Ana, Felipe, Inés, Jorge, Monica, Ruben and Sophia. My main mission was to ensure that these young people would spend a month filled with rich and deep experiences of God, with the people God had us know, within themselves and with the missionaries who, by their example, would teach us about mission.

This year, my greatest joy was to experience the fullness of these young people’s hearts, to see them happily giving of themselves without reserve to all the people who crossed our paths and to all the tasks entrusted to us. Once more, I am grateful to God for the young people he sent to Carapira, for their generosity and goodness, for their cheerfulness and enthusiasm, for all that I learned with them and for all they gave in such a short time.

Despite te fact that we only reached Carapira on August 19, I believe that the long journey was very important, because it allowed us to create greater empathy among ourselves and reflect a bit on mission. So, during the trip we held a catechesis on volunteering and mission, the sacred ground that Mozambique was for us, the other as “sacred” and “a mystery,” and the joy of meeting.

Many thanks to all the missionaries who with open hearts welcomed and accepted us into their homes, who took precious time out in their mission to to stop and be with us, to share marvelous personal stories and took us to see marvelous places.

For me, the best places were the village of Carapira, the communities we visited and all the other places where we were able to be with people. It is for the sake of people that God invites to move. Mission is made of faces: First of all, the face of Christ, filled of love for all and, in a special way, for the most abandoned; then, the face of each person we met and shared of our own selves. At times we only shared our presence, our being there, as it was the case with the sick. Truthfully, this simple sharing brought some people to say to the young people that they had been a blessing from God for the sick. And the young folks allowed themselves to be moved by that. I had the grace to be with some who were attempting to describe what was going on in their soul, on the interior journey they were on, and I can tell you that at times my heart was full of what had been shared, with the marvelous deeds God was working in each one’s heart. Only a loving God can bring about the marvels that our God worked in these young people of “Faith and Mission.”

At the end I said my good-bye to Carapira. Parting was serene, because in my heart I felt the joy of one who does not really say “Good-bye,” but rather “until we meet again.” It could very well be “good-bye” to Carapira, but a “see you again” to mission well beyond our borders. May God make it so!

I end with a little personal Magnificat which I wrote between Carapira and the airport of Nampula:

My soul magnifies the Lord,

I praise and bless God for all the marvels I relived in Mozambique.

The little I had and gave, the Lord multiplied in graces and gifts

transformed in simple gestures of giving and sharing.

Praise be to God!

For our entire group of “Faith and Mission,” the Lord filled our hearts with wonders

translated into a simple “ehali,” into a smile or just a look.

Praise be to God!

Contemplating the natural beauty of this beautiful garden which is Mozambique,

I give glory to God for all of Creation,

for so much love!

Faced with the many signs of God’s presence that we experienced and contemplated

I can only say: God is great!

And God’s greatness shows in all and in everything,

Including myself and my frailty!

Praise be to God!

Pedro Nacimiento, Portugal

Thanks, St. Daniel Comboni, for having founded the Institute

10 October, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

Thanks, St. Daniel Comboni,
for having founded the Institute

“Sing to the Lord, all the earth… Enter the temple gates with thanksgiving… Bless his name. The Lord is good, his love is eternal and his faithfulness lasts for ever.” (Psalm 100).

Dear confreres, Happy St. Daniel Comboni’s Feast Day!

In this year, when we celebrate the 150^th anniversary of our Institute, one of the great things that we contemplate is the celebration of the holiness of Comboni in the Christian communities of the local Churches in which we live and of which we are part.

“Comboni bendito é Deus em teu nome”, “Comboni, God is blessed in your name”: so were our dear brothers and sisters, our parishioners in Curitiba, whom I met during my visit to the province and to the confreres of Brazil. Yes, a local Church in Brazil, far from Africa, blessed be God and praised be St. Daniel Comboni. How beautiful that Daniel Comboni, our Father and Founder, became such an attractive figure, thanks to the sharing made by the Comboni Missionaries, the Comboni Sisters, The Secular Comboni Missionaries and the Comboni Lay Missionaries. Yes, our saints men and women speak to everyone and everywhere. In Mozambique, where the 150 years of life of the Institute were celebrated together with the 70 years of presence and the generous service of the Comboni Missionaries in the parish of Benfica-Maputo, the good young people of the choir were singing “Continente Africano alegremo-nos e cantemos, o mundo inteiro alegre-se e cante dando graças ao Senhor. Foi um profeta no seu tempo. Denunciou a escravidão. Ouviu o grito dos Africanos”, “African continent, let’s rejoice and sing, may the whole world rejoice and sing, giving thanks to the Lord, for Comboni was a prophet in his time. He denounced slavery and listened to the African people’s cry”.

Thank you, Comboni. Thanks Africa, because you have moulded Comboni and made of him a holy and generous man of God.

Dear Brothers, in this year when we celebrate the 150^th anniversary of our missionary Institute, we want to thank God for the gift of St. Daniele Comboni and the gift of the confreres who have spent and donated themselves totally for the people of God in the mission. We thank our confreres who were killed while they were engaged in the service of the Gospel and the mission. We want to say thank you: they have become “holy and capable”: “Holy and capable. Saintliness without capability or capability without saintliness are of very little value to a person who wants to undertake a missionary career. The missionary man or woman cannot go to heaven alone. They must go to heaven in the company of the souls they have helped to save. So in the first place holiness, completely free from sin and offence against God, and humble. But this is not enough: love too is necessary to make these men and women do good work.” (Writing 6655)

In the context of the 150^th anniversary of our Institute, it would be very nice to dedicate an amount of thanksgiving prayers to our “holy and capable” confreres, who have been consumed for the Kingdom of God among the peoples they had been sent to. Contemplating our holy and capable confreres causes us to ask: and I, am I willing to make a journey of constant conversion? Do I aspire to missionary holiness and to the evangelical ability that contributes to the lives of my brothers and sisters, with whom we build the Kingdom of God, and to our world so desperate and wounded?

Thinking of our “holy and capable” confreres, we realize that we have a deep and rich well of missionary and Comboni spirituality from which to draw. We have many confreres of all ages, cultures and races who yesterday and today have lived and live filled with this great spirituality and have become exemplary. “There are many well-identified Comboni Missionaries, generous and ready to give up their lives for Christ and the Mission; they spend their lives quietly, day after day, in the various services entrust to them” (AC 2015, No. 14).

In this year when we celebrate the 150^th anniversary of our Institute, I would like to mention four confreres and one sister whose process of beatification and canonisation, within the Christian communities and the Church, has already begun.

“Holy and capable” in evangelization: “From me depends the salvation of so many souls; the holier I am, the more people I will save… One who much loves, will do a lot and one who much suffers will achieve a lot. In front of Our Lady of Lourdes, I have asked for the grace of martyrdom,”: “O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I lock myself in the wound of your sweetest side. I have handed over the keys to my dear Mother Mary and besieged her not to open it unless it is for coming to enjoy you for all eternity” (Mgr. Antonio Maria Roveggio, from his personal diary).

“Holy and capable” in community life: “Between me and my confreres I remember to have insisted twice, and even with some passion, in my opinion, for perhaps about two minutes, so that the harmony, perhaps, was not of the most pleasant, but bless be God both times, immediately, I begged them to forgive my passionate words, and they said: yes, yes, okay. If rarely it happens to succeed in splashing water on other people’s fire, one does it willingly, especially as it costs little” (Bro. Giosuè dei Cas, 13.1.1927, Letter to Sup. Gen., office letter).

“Holy and capable” in charity: “Holiness is the tree and love is its fruit. The more we strive to love, know, serve God, the more we feel attracted, as to a magnet, to serve Him in the person of all the needy, especially the most distant and suffering.” (Fr. Bernardo Sartori, Letter from Otumbari, 19.01.1979).

“Holy and capable” in the desire to live the Gospel: “I’ll have just to continue in the effort to live the presence of Jesus in my heart and to ask myself frequently what He would do in my place. I was struck by the thought of listening to the word of God without raising barriers, and to converse with Jesus in the tabernacle without raising barriers. That is, not to defend myself with so many excuses if my life is different from the Word of God, and not to talk about Jesus and impose my petty human point of view. Unfortunately I have to repeat more or less the same resolutions as in the past” (Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli, Extract from the Spiritual Exercises, 9-15.1.1981).

“Holy and capable” in prophecy: “I love you all and love justice, and for justice it’s enough the willingness of every person, it’s enough the willingness of the Church and the community, before the revolt may cause unforeseeable brutality in our social environment. We do not approve of violence, even though we receive violence. The priest who is speaking to you has received death threats. Dear brother of mine, if my life belongs to you, also my death will belong to you” (Fr. Ezechiele Ramin, Homily at Cacoal, 17.02.1985).

“Holy and capable” in our collaboration: Sr. Maria Giuseppa Scandola, quite ill, sends a message to the sick young missionary, Fr. Giuseppe Beduschi, saying “The Scilluk need you…, you will not die. I will I die in your place…” She offers her life in his place and dies after a few days (1.9.1903), while Fr. Giuseppe will survive and still live for many more years († 10.11.1924).

Here are the sons and daughters of St. Daniel Comboni.
St. Daniel Comboni, happy feast day.
Fr. Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie, mccj

on behalf of the General Council

First Days of Marisa in Mozambique

5 October, 20174 October, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

Thursday, August 10, 2017

It’s 5:00 in the morning and the movement inside the plane suggests that the landing in Mozambique is near. Some people, however, are still sleeping. It’s turning out to be a quiet trip with time for everything: resting, watching movies, getting bored, wishing you could stretch your legs… It’s all happening! The gentleman in the window seat at my left opens the curtain. Wow! It is dawn, a real blessing: the first miracle I am witnessing in this new land is the dawn. Magnificent. I can only see a framed painting in vivid colors. It is impossible to remain indifferent to so much beauty, and the colors fill me with joy and warmth. I would love to be landing already.

———————

I am in Mozambique! I reached Maputo. It is hot and the smells are more noticeable due to the heat. The colors clash, while the blue of the bay seems to blend with the sky. There is a new soul here and life seems to run at a singular speed. People are smiling and inquisitive. Fr. Pabro, a Comboni Missionary was waiting for me at the airport. He was holding a copy of Audacia, and laughed readily at how I recognized this “code of localization/identification.” “less is more” and “for a good observer, few words are needed.” He took me to the provincial residence and showed me a few things along the way. I stayed the morning in that community of Maputo. After lunch I went to the airport and, God willing, by late afternoon I will be in Nampula with Kasia.

—————–

We were about half way to Nampula when six-year old Samuel started running back and forth from one end of the plane to the other. The cushion he was playing with fell near my seat. I picked it up and stretched my arm to give it back to him.

English? He turned his head to the left. Portuguese? He tuned his head to the right.
Portuguese it was, as I nodded in agreement. We laughed and exchanged a High Five.

We played and talked for a while about a lot of things. Then he volunteered: “I am going to see my brothers and my family. And you?”

“So am I,” I answered without thinking.

I realized later that I had answered, “so am I…” May God will it and help me to make it so.

I landed in Nampula in the late afternoon and it was already dark. I was still waiting for my luggage when Kasia entered the hall… How nice to be welcomed and received with such enthusiasm that made her “invade” this area to come meet me!

From there we went to the Sisters’ house. We ate, talked and rested. On the way to my room I fully realized the novelty of what was happening: there was a mosquito net over my bed. No doubt, it was really happening!

I dropped in bed happy and grateful to God for all the graces he has granted me so far, at least until today. For the rest, let it be as he wants.

Friday, August 11, 2017

This afternoon Kasia and I resumed our journey to Carapira, our mission and our home. During the trip I enjoyed the scenery. My first, or ‘major’, impression of Africa, of Mozambique, is space – space as far as the eye can see, where all the journeys are long, where there is a silence that enters into you. It is a scenery without end which requires patience and gives time for contemplation. I think it is impossible not to be lifted up by this poetry pervading the world with its immensity, God’s horizon.

In the evening, after supper, we welcomed into our home a couple of local lay people, the teachers Martinho and Margarita, the Comboni Sisters Clarinda, Eleonora, María José and Teresinha, Brother Luigi and Fr. Firmino. It was a joyous and beautiful time of getting together that affirmed, once more and above all, the meaning of the hospitality we practice here.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

I woke up last night thinking that it was almost time to get up. The lack of light, both outside and inside was telling me otherwise. I took the lamp, shone it on the clock next to my bed and the hands confirmed that it was night time, deep night time. There were still three hours before the first signs of day. I couldn’t sleep. I sat up in bed with my back to the wall and rested in the special stillness that we experience in those hours. “What peace!” I though, while I remembered that beautiful thought of St. John of the Cross – “the night is the time of the silent house.”

Thursday, August 17, 2017

This morning for the first time I walked through the neighborhood, visiting the community. On the way back, my heart was full of joy. I played with the children. I could not understand those who were talking to me in Makua and they could not understand me. But we laughed and played, and with this childish joy we were able to establish some non-verbal communication in spirit. So far it has worked with the children… As I was walking by the door of the school there was a woman talking with Sergio. We exchanged greetings:

Salama! Ihàli?
Salama! Khinyuwo?

Nothing more. If it had not been for Sergio’s help, I would not have understood what she wanted to tell me. On the one hand, I was grateful: for the woman who, while she understood that I needed a word-by-word translation, did not desist from talking to me and ask me about my health and my family; for the person who stuck by me and patiently translated the conversation. On the other hand, I was embarrassed because I could not understand what she was saying (this happened not only in this case, but during the entire morning and at other times during the week like, for example, during Sunday Mass celebrated in Makua).

“To depend on translations requires patience and humility… kneel down, Marisa, become little and grateful,” I consoled myself.

—————–

I returned home. I was putting some things in order when I heard a young voice:

Hoti? (Hello?)
Hotìni (Please) I answered.

I opened the door and a young woman was waiting for me with a smile. Darn it! I am alone in the house… if she is asking for my help for anything, I do not know how I will answer because I know nothing…” I was thinking while walking outside…

I am Ancha. Have you heard about me? I have come to introduce myself and welcome you…

Then we talked for a while. “Time…” Here people converse and “spend” time with each other – without worrying. This introduction was another lesson. Marisa, learn. As she left she said something in Makua. I did not understand and I could not answer. “I must learn something in Makua… I feel it is the least I can do for the time being, to show my gratitude for the hospitality of the people,” I told myself as I reentered the house.

And so it is… despite the discomfort we feel when we do not know something, knowing “nothing” also involves some inner health and creativity.

Marisa Almeida, CLM in Mozambique

Message of Pope Francis for World Mission Day 2017

1 October, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

Mission at the heart of the Christian faith

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Once again this year, World Mission Day gathers us around the person of Jesus, “the very first and greatest evangelizer” (Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 7), who continually sends us forth to proclaim the Gospel of the love of God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. This Day invites us to reflect anew on the mission at the heart of the Christian faith. The Church is missionary by nature; otherwise, she would no longer be the Church of Christ, but one group among many others that soon end up serving their purpose and passing away. So it is important to ask ourselves certain questions about our Christian identity and our responsibility as believers in a world marked by confusion, disappointment and frustration, and torn by numerous fratricidal wars that unjustly target the innocent. What is the basis of our mission? What is the heart of our mission? What are the essential approaches we need to take in carrying out our mission?

Mission and the transformative power of the Gospel of Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life

1. The Church’s mission, directed to all men and women of good will, is based on the transformative power of the Gospel. The Gospel is Good News filled with contagious joy, for it contains and offers new life: the life of the Risen Christ who, by bestowing his life-giving Spirit, becomes for us the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf. Jn 14:6). He is the Way who invites us to follow him with confidence and courage. In following Jesus as our Way, we experience Truth and receive his Life, which is fullness of communion with God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. That life sets us free from every kind of selfishness, and is a source of creativity in love.

2. God the Father desires this existential transformation of his sons and daughters, a transformation that finds expression in worship in spirit and truth (cf. Jn 4:23-24), through a life guided by the Holy Spirit in imitation of Jesus the Son to the glory of God the Father. “The glory of God is the living man” (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses IV, 20, 7). The preaching of the Gospel thus becomes a vital and effective word that accomplishes what it proclaims (cf. Is 55:10-11): Jesus Christ, who constantly takes flesh in every human situation (cf. Jn 1:14).

Mission and the kairos of Christ

3. The Church’s mission, then, is not to spread a religious ideology, much less to propose a lofty ethical teaching. Many movements throughout the world inspire high ideals or ways to live a meaningful life. Through the mission of the Church, Jesus Christ himself continues to evangelize and act; her mission thus makes present in history the kairos, the favourable time of salvation. Through the proclamation of the Gospel, the risen Jesus becomes our contemporary, so that those who welcome him with faith and love can experience the transforming power of his Spirit, who makes humanity and creation fruitful, even as the rain does with the earth. “His resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force” (Evangelii Gaudium, 276).

4. Let us never forget that “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a Person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 1). The Gospel is a Person who continually offers himself and constantly invites those who receive him with humble and religious faith to share his life by an effective participation in the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection. Through Baptism, the Gospel becomes a source of new life, freed of the dominion of sin, enlightened and transformed by the Holy Spirit. Through Confirmation, it becomes a fortifying anointing that, through the same Spirit, points out new ways and strategies for witness and accompaniment. Through the Eucharist, it becomes food for new life, a “medicine of immortality” (Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Ephesios, 20, 2).

5. The world vitally needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Through the Church, Christ continues his mission as the Good Samaritan, caring for the bleeding wounds of humanity, and as Good Shepherd, constantly seeking out those who wander along winding paths that lead nowhere. Thank God, many significant experiences continue to testify to the transformative power of the Gospel. I think of the gesture of the Dinka student who, at the cost of his own life, protected a student from the enemy Nuer tribe who was about to be killed. I think of that Eucharistic celebration in Kitgum, in northern Uganda, where, after brutal massacres by a rebel group, a missionary made the people repeat the words of Jesus on the cross: “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” as an expression of the desperate cry of the brothers and sisters of the crucified Lord. For the people, that celebration was an immense source of consolation and courage. We can think too of countless testimonies to how the Gospel helps to overcome narrowness, conflict, racism, tribalism, and to promote everywhere, and among all, reconciliation, fraternity, and sharing.

Mission inspires a spirituality of constant exodus, pilgrimage, and exile

6. The Church’s mission is enlivened by a spirituality of constant exodus. We are challenged “to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium, 20). The Church’s mission impels us to undertake a constant pilgrimage across the various deserts of life, through the different experiences of hunger and thirst for truth and justice. The Church’s mission inspires a sense of constant exile, to make us aware, in our thirst for the infinite, that we are exiles journeying towards our final home, poised between the “already” and “not yet” of the Kingdom of Heaven.

7. Mission reminds the Church that she is not an end unto herself, but a humble instrument and mediation of the Kingdom. A self-referential Church, one content with earthly success, is not the Church of Christ, his crucified and glorious Body. That is why we should prefer “a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” (ibid., 49).

Young people, the hope of mission

8. Young people are the hope of mission. The person of Jesus Christ and the Good News he proclaimed continue to attract many young people. They seek ways to put themselves with courage and enthusiasm at the service of humanity. “There are many young people who offer their solidarity in the face of the evils of the world and engage in various forms of militancy and volunteering… How beautiful it is to see that young people are ‘street preachers’, joyfully bringing Jesus to every street, every town square and every corner of the earth!” (ibid., 106). The next Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held in 2018 on the theme Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment, represents a providential opportunity to involve young people in the shared missionary responsibility that needs their rich imagination and creativity.

The service of the Pontifical Mission Societies

9. The Pontifical Mission Societies are a precious means of awakening in every Christian community a desire to reach beyond its own confines and security in order to proclaim the Gospel to all. In them, thanks to a profound missionary spirituality, nurtured daily, and a constant commitment to raising missionary awareness and enthusiasm, young people, adults, families, priests, bishops and men and women religious work to develop a missionary heart in everyone. World Mission Day, promoted by the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, is a good opportunity for enabling the missionary heart of Christian communities to join in prayer, testimony of life and communion of goods, in responding to the vast and pressing needs of evangelization.

Carrying out our mission with Mary, Mother of Evangelization

10. Dear brothers and sisters, in carrying out our mission, let us draw inspiration from Mary, Mother of Evangelization. Moved by the Spirit, she welcomed the Word of life in the depths of her humble faith. May the Virgin Mother help us to say our own “yes”, conscious of the urgent need to make the Good News of Jesus resound in our time. May she obtain for us renewed zeal in bringing to everyone the Good News of the life that is victorious over death. May she intercede for us so that we can acquire the holy audacity needed to discover new ways to bring the gift of salvation to every man and woman.

From the Vatican, 4 June 2017
Solemnity of Pentecost

FRANCIS