Africa – Page 81 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Fruits

30 July, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

Our meeting has brought forth the realities of our missionary vocation to the group.

We have discussed topics like communication, vocation, economics, formation and much more. Through these discussions we have found where we have met our goals, areas that we need to improve and the challenges we face in doing so.

Much like St. Daniel Comboni we have all found some difficulties in expanding the Kingdom of God. With the charism of our founder and intercessor, we find the strength to carry on in our mission and find the path to do so.

Like the palm tree bearing the coconuts fruit, it is not easy to share the sweet taste of salvation but we find the strength to climb, through our faith and our community.

African CLM

Unity

27 July, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

Our theme for the day was unity.

As the Lord has brought us all from different lands, languages and different cultures, we come together in the Holy Spirit.

We ourselves, our work and our communities are like a puzzle. One piece alone has little meaning, but together we can create something beautiful.

African CLM

III African Meeting Anchilo 2017

26 July, 201725 July, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

Greetings from Mozambique.

The 24th of July we have started the 3rd African Continental Meeting of CLM in Anchilo, Mozambique.

We have come from all over the continent to meet as one Comboni Family to discuss and collaborate on our missionary vocation, our experiences, and our struggles following in the footsteps of our founder St. Daniel Comboni.

We ask for your prayers to the Holy Spirit to guide us through this time of community and reflection.

African CLM

Announcement of the Comboni Family at the general level

4 July, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

On June 2, 2017, the annual meeting of the Central Committee of the Comboni Lay Missionary and the General Councils of the Comboni Missionaries, the Comboni Secular Missionaries and the Comboni Missionary Sisters was held in Rome at the General House of the Comboni Missionaries Sisters. A full day lived with moments of prayer, exchange, reflection, programming, meals together and Holy Mass. The MCCJs had just finished their Symposium on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its founding, and therefore shared with us all the fruits and provocations gathered during the symposium.
Fifteen years after the letter written together by the three General Councils on “Collaboration for the Mission” we now wanted to return to our intuitions, recognizing the path cover, reinforcing certain aspects and exploring new proposals for cooperation. The Comboni Lay Missionary are an integral part of the Comboni family that now also wants to open to new forms of Combonian laity that arise in the different realities.
The publication of two letters, one for all members of the Institutes and movement and another for those in charge of formation will collect the work and guidelines that emerged during this day.

General Counsels of MCCJ, SMC, MSC and the Central Committee of the CLM

Happy Feast Day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

23 June, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

The solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated next Friday, June 23. “Let us therefore live this Feast so dear to all of us with our gaze fixed on the Heart of Jesus, allowing ourselves to be enriched by the testimony of those who have gone before us in the history of our Institute and devoting ourselves ever more deeply in daily fidelity to the values of the Gospel. Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart! In the Year of the 150^th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Institute.” (The General Council).

“Yes, God so loved”

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved”
(Jn 3, 16)

Most Dear confreres,
Greetings and Prayers: Happy Feast Day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

God our Father sent his only Son as a sign of his love for needy and suffering humanity and consoled us all through the Holy Spirit, the gift of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord Crucified and Risen. We believe that every disciple is called and sent to announce, give testimony of and serve this love of God. Let us all thank the Lord for he has made of Saint Daniel Comboni, and of us, his children, Comboni Missionaries, messengers, witnesses and servants of his love.

All that our Father and Founder, Saint Daniel Comboni, understood of the great love of God, he brought to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, symbol of God’s love for humanity.

“Since I have an extreme need of the help of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Sovereign of Central Africa, the very joy, hope fortune and the all of her poor Missionaries, I write to you my friend…to commend and entrust to the Sacred Heart the most precious interests of my trying and difficult Mission to which I have vowed my whole soul, my body, my blood and my life!! (Writings, 5255-5256).

Most Dear Confreres, in this year in which we are celebrating 150 years of our Missionary Institute, we wish to continue to contemplate and thank God for the love that was lived in the life of Saint Daniel Comboni and that of many of our confreres and for the great generosity shown to the people of God despite our fragility, our limits and our sins.

“I make common cause with each one of you, and the happiest day of my life will be the one on which I may be able to give my life for you” (Writings, 3159).

Indeed, Comboni and our confreres allowed their hearts to open so that they might more resemble that of Jesus, in such a way as to make common cause and share generously in the mission of God among the peoples where we are and especially among those who suffer, are marginalised and impoverished.

“I am always with my dear lepers; I speak to them of the goodness of God and I teach them the Word of God. He chapel is attached to my little house so Jesus is close to Giosuè: who can be happier than me? Is this not a little Paradise? As to the evil which is upon me, O, I kiss the hand of the Lord that gave me leprosy; is it not a grace to be able to suffer so for these souls? I have but one desire: to die a leper among my lepers!” (Bro. Giosuè Dei Cas, 1880-1932).

Yes, we continue to thank the Lord for each of our confreres who makes common cause and proclaims Jesus Christ and his Gospel to build up the Kingdom of God, remembering that some have paid the price of their testimony with their lives.

“The Cross is the solidarity of God that takes up the human journey and human sorrow, not to make it eternal but to put an end to it. The manner in which he wishes to end it is not through force or domination but by the way of love. Christ preached and lived this new dimension. Fear of death did not make him desist from his project of love. Love is stronger than death” (Fr. Ezechiele Ramin, Homily to the Faithful, Good Friday, Cacoal, 05-04-1985).

Let us therefore live this Feast so dear to all of us with our gaze fixed on the Heart of Jesus, allowing ourselves to be enriched by the testimony of those who have gone before us in the history of our Institute and devoting ourselves ever more deeply in daily fidelity to the values of the Gospel.
Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart!

In the Year of the 150^th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Institute

The MCCJ General Counsil