Africa – Page 82 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Reflection upon the new encyclical « Laudato Si » of the Pope

15 August, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Having meditated upon the relevance of the Social Teaching of the Church at our last meeting, we thought to start realizing the suggestions of the Scholastic Pierre Ngayo. One of his suggestions for us was to be fond with the Social Teaching of the Church. It’s for that matter that, this 8^th August, we invited him to share with us about the concern of the Church about the Care for our Common Home which the Pope has shown through the Encyclical “Laudato si”. The Scholastic presented the topic into three parts.

Overview of the problem of the environment.

In the Encyclical, he started, the Pope is calling the earth our common home, our mother (from the Canticle of Francis of Assisi). The name should arouse in us a relationship of love towards it. Instead, our mother, the earth is crying. We are destroying the earth, over-exploiting the resources. Everybody agrees that the earth is facing a serious degradation which has never occurred. This suffering of the earth is correlated to the suffering of the poor.

Relation of the environmental degradation and poverty

The current situation of the earth is compared to the poor state of the vulnerable. We do not care for the earth likewise we do not care for the poor. And again, the degradation of the earth is also the degradation of the vulnerable. They are the ones suffering first of all of the overexploitation of the resources. The development, said the Pope, should consider the effect on the earth. It should arouse from a new ecological spirituality.

The moral implication of the exploitation of resources

The Pope affirmed that the degradation of the earth is not at random. Human beings have then a role to play. A new ecological spirituality is necessary. Creatures are gift from God, and so by, have a certain purpose. They speak about the love of God and we should not prevent them of this. “For human beings,… to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation, … for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life -these are sins.”(L.S. 8) The Pope is calling us to think about the future generation. “The world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us… What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generation is first and foremost, up to us. Leaving debris, desolation and filth… “

The Scholastic left with us again three questions for our meditation.

How does the issue of environmental degradation affect you and your family?
How do you know about the relation between the environmental degradation and the issue of poverty?
How can you contribute, as a Christian, to the improvement of the environment where you leave?

After this briefing about the Encyclical, he presented on a Power Point a concrete example of the negative effect of the plastic rubbers on our health, the farming lands, the danger the plastic rubbers cause to aquatic life and the threaten on birds.

After this theoretical aspect, we resolved to:

Form local groups: Due to the distance between the members, we feel that forming local groups will be advantageous. They will have time for community prayer and their involvement in the life of the Christian Community close to them.
JPIC Committee: At the local level again, members should collaborate with the Committee Justice and Peace if it exists. If not, they should try to create it. In some of the parishes, the apparent activity of this Committee is to resolve conflict. We, as CLM aspirants, will arouse the concern for the care of our Common Home and let people know about the Social teaching of the Church.
Mission Animation: We have decided also to be engaged in the ventilation of the Magazine New People for the awareness upon Mission.
We have planned few things for the month of October which we will unearth later.
We formed a Committee of six (6) members to reflect on the creation of An Advanced Vocational School at Abor (IMFH).
All the members should account of how far they have gone at the coming meeting as far as those decisions are concerned.

After all, we agreed to meet on the 12^th September at 9 o’clock at Abor. We prayed and Rev. Fr Rabbiosi blessed us. We had our community meal before we departed from the place.

Justin Nougnui, coordinator.

[Mozambique] Arrival of the youth group “Faith and mission”

1 August, 2015 by Flavio Schmidt

Chegada01 Today arrived at the mission of Carapira a group of 5 young portuguese to stay 1 month of missionary experience in this reality. They are part of the vocational group called “Faith and Mission”, and since October of last year they have come through a process of reflexion and discernment of their missionary vocation. This vocational path culminates with this moment of sharing in a factual mission.
They arrived animated. Three boys, Germano, Leonardo and Pedro, and two girls, Sofia and Mariana, followed by father Jorge, combonian, and the secular Paula Clara, that are members from the training team of them.

Thereby, at this night we had a brief moment of welcome and sharing as missionary team.
Let us pray that this will be a “time of grace” in each of their lives.
We are together!
CLM Mozambique

The true Bread of life: beyond the outward appearance

31 July, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on John 6, 24-35: XVIII Sunday OT: August Second 2015

We go on Reading John’s chapter sixth, which we began to read last Sunday about the sign of abundant bread. Well, from one Sunday to another we jump over a part that speaks about Jesus who disappears from the view of the satisfied crowd, crossing over to the other side of the Lake, and people looking from Him feverishly. What we read today is precisely the answer Jesus gives to people’s search. And in that answer John explains to us the faith of those first disciples in Jesus as the true living Bread.

To understand this answer, I propose a few brief reflections on the various and inter-connected meanings of bread the biblical tradition:

1.- Bread (nourishment) sustains our physical life

There’s an experience among the first ones to mark the history of Israel: that they were able to feed themselves in an extraordinary way and in one of the most difficult moments of their march towards the Promised Land, when in the desert there was no food around. We all know the story of the “mana”; we do not know what exactly happened, though scholars have their theories about its physical feasibility. But the important thing is that whatever happened allowed the people to survive physically and that Israel always saw in that extraordinary experience the presence of the providing God.

I think that something similar happens to us many a time, even if not so extraordinary: When in despair, we find a job that allows to keep up the family, our business starts to go well, we receive an unexpected help, overcame a serious sickness… On those cases we may think that fortune has smiled to us or that we were smart enough to merit that positive outcome… Or we may think that God is guiding history in our favour, using even fortune and our own hard work. This is what the Hebrews thought and what many simple people continue thinking today, with a faith that takes them beyond superficialities and appearances.

2.- From Bread to the Word-Law

When Moses brought the Law to the people in the Sinai, then Israel made the experience that the Law was as big a gift as the physical nourishment in the desert. With the Law the people could organize themselves, make progress, find a way forward in the many moments of doubt, and find harmony, happiness and sense. So little by little Israel began to apply to the Law the same meaning of salvation that had given to the bread in the desert: “not only on bread do human beings live, buy also on any word that comes out of God’s mouth”.

I think that we make an equal experience, individually and as communities. Sometimes we seem to despise the value of laws, but we know that a good Law makes a nation better. Without laws, a nation falls down on anarchy and usually that situation favours the powerful and violent against the poor and peaceful. So to have a good law (or a personal project of life) is as important as to have nourishment.

3.- From the Law to the Word-Wisdom

But Law is not the unique manifestation of that divine wisdom that was guiding the people. There were also the prophets, psalmists, and poets, philosophers from other cultures, religious and political, leaders, wise old men and women… Every manifestation of wisdom was considered, together with the Law, as BREAD for the spirit.

We too need to be nourished by every type of wisdom that humanity produces through science and philosophy, religions and arts…Every positive thinking, every luminous word can help us to live better.

4.- From the Word-Wisdom to Jesus Christ

The disciples’ experience with Jesus is wat is explained in today’s gospel: The bread that nourishes in the desert is no more than an image of Jesus as the true Bread that nourishes our spiritual life. His words, his nearness to sick people and sinners, his entire person is like the Bread in the desert, the Law of Moses, the highest Wisdom of humanity. In Him we find the fullness of that Life that God wants for all his children.

Certainly, we all want our basic need (bread, dress, and roof) covered and Jesus –as the Church today- worries and cares about these basic needs, but He does not remain there; He invite sus to eat the true Bread of Word-Wisdom-Love of God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.

To accept this, to “eat” it and make it be part of our life, it’s to open ourselves to a deeper life, able to overcome whatever desert we’ll have to cross.

Fr. Antonio Villarino

Roma

Bread to cross the dessert: the impossible becomes possible

24 July, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on John 6, 1-15 (XVII Sunday of O.T.: July 26^th 2015)

Let us remember that in the Sundays of this liturgical year we are reading the gospel of Mark and that we have reached chapter six. Last Sunday we saw Jesus deeply moved before a crowd of people that were like “sheep with no shepherd”. Today we should go on reading from the same chapter of Mark what is known as “the multiplication of bread”.

But, for this episode, the Liturgy has preferred to offer, for this and the next four Sundays, the reading of John chapter six, that is quite rich in theological references. This Sunday we start off with the first fifteen verses. We can read them personally and try to get its meaning for each one of us today. On my part, I put forward make two points of meditation:

1.- Jesus as the new Moses

John begins his story in quite a solemn way. It’s evident that he means that what he is going to say is very important. There are at least three elements that mark this “solemnity”:

– Jesus from the lake climbs up to the mountain. We all know that the mountain, in biblical language, is much more than just a geographical incident. To go up the mountain reminds us, among other stories, of Moses going up the Sinai, where he had that extraordinary revelation of God as liberator and “chief” of his people.

-When He is on the top of the mountain Jesus “sits down” with his disciples. The gesture speaks of Jesus as the Master with an authority that nobody else ever had. As Moses received on the Sinai Mountain the Law for his people, Jesus teaches on the mountain the new Law, the Word received from the Father.

-The Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near. We know that the Passover, Easter, was the feast in which the memory of the liberation was made, the identity of the people was strengthened and hope was renewed for a new and definitive liberation.

What John is going to tell us in this chapter six of his gospel has to be placed in this solemn set of theological references.

For he disciples, and for us now, Jesus is not an ordinary “rabbi”, nor one of many prophets or somebody who wanted to purify and renew the ethical levels of society… He is the Eternal Word of God that enlightens like a lamp in the night; He is the bread that nourishes us in the dessert of life; He is the new Moses, who, coming down from the mountain, leads the people and sustains it on the way to freedom and full life. He is the centre of the new Passover, the new alliance with the Father for the life of all.

2.- The impossible made possible

John says that Jesus asked Philip how to do to nourish so many people in an isolated place. And Philip gave him the only possible answer: it’s no possible. All of us would have given the same answer, as we really do in front of so many difficulties and problems with no apparent solution.

Philip was right, but it seems that he has forgotten the history of his own people: to nourish a crowd in an isolated place is impossible, as it was impossible that a tiny people could have been liberated from the power of the Pharaoh; or that this same people would be able to cross the dessert and not die on the intent… But the experience of Israel is that God made all this possible, so that indeed it was liberated, it did cross the dessert, and it did reach the Promised Land.

But we should not think that God acted as a kind of “magician”. It is something more simple and deep: When we allow God to go with us and we do our own part, the powerful give way, waters divide themselves, bread is enough, injustice is overcome, conflicts give way to reconciliation and new levels of brotherhood are possible, till the will of God is fulfilled “on earth as it’s on heaven”.

When we confront problems with faith, hope and charity, the impossible becomes possible, as it has happened so many times in universal history and in our own personal life. When we take part in the Eucharist all this is celebrated and made actual.

Fr. Antonio Villarino

Roma

To make common cause

18 July, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on Mk 6, 30-34 (XVI Sunday, O.T. July 19^th 2015)

We read today five verses from Mark’s chapter six, verses that are a transition between two big stories: the martyrdom of John the Baptist (a painful experience for the disciples and for Jesus himself) and the multiplication of bread (a clear sign of a God that sustains his humble people in the desert).

Theses verses are a transition text, but not for that less meaningful. In fact, the text is full up with deep and clear feelings in two directions: the community of disciples and the crowd looking for a better life quality. In Jesus we can contemplate a double movement, similar to the double movement of the physical heart, from the community to the crowd and back. As it happens with the physical heart, the same happens with community and mission: one movement cannot be without the other, community and mission go together. Let us meditate for a while on those two concrete movements of love:

Tenderness towards the members of the community

Mark tells us about the way Jesus receives the disciples returning from the mission: he welcomes them, listens to their stories and invites them to rest, as he used to do in Bethany.

Maybe you remember a fil by Pier Paolo Pasolini, some time ago, on the gospel according to Matthew. It was a very interesting and moving film, but –if I remember it properly- in it Jesus was a prophet quite severe, with a long face and severe words… Certainly, Jesus was quite clear in his denouncing a false religiosity. But what we read today shows us another Jesus: tender, welcoming, giving attention to the needs of his disciples. This is a human attitude that I feel we need so much in our everyday life: in the family, in the Christian community, in the apostolic group. Quite often we wish so much to do well, we try to be so perfect, we wish the best for our family or our Church. So much so that we risk becoming hypercritical, intolerant, angry, negative… Let us pray that we imitate Jesus and learn from him this tenderness that makes us able to be welcoming to people near us and to care for one another.

2.- Sensible to the needs of the crowd

The attention to the small group of people near him does not make Jesus indifferent to the need of the crowd; rather it’s the opposite: together with the community he becomes more sensible to the needs of the crowd of people that are like sheep with no shepherd; they are hungry of bread, understanding, love… The attitude of Jesus has been imitated by so many disciples, among which Daniel Comboni, who arriving at Khartoum (Africa) said to the people: “I want to make common cause with each one of you”.

Before so many people that today, as in the times of Jesus, are looking for a better health, a better and more just food, a real dignity, a sense of life, real love, the answer of the disciple missionary it’s not indifference, it’s not look away, but to “make common cause”, to share the problems ,expectation and possible solutions. This making common cause will give way to many initiatives of solidarity, but the first thing is not to be indifferent, to allow the situation touch our heart, to move our feelings, to share with the people; from that sharing will come out our concrete help, knowing that if everyone does its best, the miracle of brotherhood will take place.

Fr. Antonio Villarino

Roma