America – Page 11 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Taking care of our health

10 July, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

Health Care Formation Course for the CLM of Mexico.

The Comboni Lay Missionaries of Mexico are grateful for the course of Formation for Health Care through Biomagnetism that took place from June 24 to 30 at the Oasis House of the Comboni Missionaries in Guadalajara. Elías Arroyo Román, Comboni Missionary and a medical doctor, and Claudia Araujo Facilitator, who shared their knowledge and experience with us.

To fix our gaze only on a transcendent God far from human reality, or to look at man only from science as an organic and material being, are two reductionist visions that threaten the integral wellbeing of man. Health care brings, from the data of divine revelation to the medical mission, the essential values and criteria of valuation that bring health professionals closer to an authentic humanization of health services.

The formation of CLM in health care, together with the practices of love for the neighbor, is to transcend the community work in health services to be able to recognize God in the other, especially in those who suffer and need comfort through each of the spaces of medical care in the mission to which we are sent as simple as it may seem; it is necessary and of utmost importance; having humanization as the fundamental axis of being and doing in the health care of our needy brothers and sisters.

Rocío Adelina Quintero Hernández

A collaboration from fraternal LOVE…

3 July, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

Hello! I am Sylvia Durán Jovel from Costa Rica and I took the decision and my desire to be a Comboni Lay Missionary after listening to one of the most beautiful testimonies on Radio Maria, a Catholic non-profit radio station where I am also a volunteer and where I have witnessed many acts of love, faith, perseverance in prayer in every sense, but especially with the prayer of the missionary rosary from its oracles.

Being part of the formation to be CLM involves gathering on the second and fourth Sundays of each month at the seminary located in Sagrada Familia, a marginal urban neighborhood where the parish priest is Father Fabio Loaísiga, who by the way is also the director of Radio Maria.

On June 25 we would have our meeting which coincided with the retreat “A New Pentecost”, organized by the radio in the Curridabat area with a priest who came with his ministry Dei Verbum from El Salvador and a proposal full of love to praise our Lord that would definitely burn more hearts for the love of GOD as Comboni is passionate about and it is really his exquisite madness. My mind and heart were struggling between which of the two activities to attend, and well one is that an activity to know the deep love that God has for us and the other is a commitment with the LOVE of COMBONI to change hearts mainly in Africa, but we also have a small Africa where we are and where we go. God makes everything perfect, our CLM formation meeting was cancelled and it opens the opportunity for the 2 CLM aspirants and our leader to attend together for the first time as a CLM group to support this extraordinary retreat MISSIONARY opportunity during our formation. Giving that small but great bit of sand filled my heart with joy, and I did not care about my spleen pain (which still bothers me writing these lines), I was happy. In this retreat where almost 2000 hearts attended and we also saw how the LOVE FOR MISSIONARITY gave us the opportunity to see and be the missionary who seeks to know Christ and his faith more and more each day.

To have responded urgently to the call for help from the brothers and sisters of Radio Maria and to be a testimony of the joy that convinces and increases it in our own life for knowing Christ in that place. We arrived in Curridabat ready to serve, each one in different activities, and little by little we saw the transformation of moments, having put our gifts at the service. Little by little the activity progressed and the time of the Holy Eucharist was approaching where, to our pleasant surprise, the Comboni Priest Guerlain Joachim Biseka (a native of Congo and who works hard in the Comboni Parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal located in Barrio Cuba, another urban slum and for whom I pray a lot and for whom I have special admiration and affection), had also been called to give support in confessions. And how could I not jump with happiness because COMBONI wanted us to be where we were most needed, with our gifts and charisms, and also where we could confirm and reaffirm our vocation and love for Him and also shout it with crazy love. It was a time of grace in my life and even more so knowing that Comboni knew that women were the key to carry out the mission by creating the first women’s missionary institute in Italy. Thank you Comboni.

Sylvia Durán Jovel, candidate of Costa Rica

Prayer Intentions of the Comboni Family July 2023

1 July, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

That the first anniversary of the memorial of Blessed Joseph Ambrosoli (on 28th July) may help all Comboni missionaries in the service of the most fragile to renew their commitment to a journey of holiness in faithfulness to the circumstances of daily humble service to the sick, the suffering and the fragile. Let us pray.

Speak, for your servant listens…

27 June, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

Last June 16 we celebrated the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a very special day for all of us Catholics, and for the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, also from now on for this humble servant, who, with a heart full of great joy, under the protection of the Virgin Mary of Nazareth and the intercession of St. Daniel Comboni, makes his Commitment as a Comboni Lay Missionary.

It has been a dream since this whole journey began, knowing that it is a commitment with much meaning, being the first Lay Committed under the intercession of St. Daniel Comboni in Costa Rica, knowing all that this represents in all aspects, but with great joy and hope knowing that God will not abandon me and always ready to listen to the voice of our Lord.

It was a very special day, to be able to celebrate this feast together with the whole Comboni Family, Priests, Brothers, Sisters and Seculars, also part of my family, my father, brother, aunts, some friends including 5 people who are making their first contacts to make the decision to join the CLM, let us pray to God that they can sharpen their hearing and listen to the voice of God, to realize what he wants for their lives too, full of signs that will help me always keep in mind this step, the covenant with God, the cross; As St. Daniel Comboni would say, “The works of God are born and grow at the foot of the cross”, the Rosary to keep in mind my prayer.

In this same Eucharist we were accompanied by 12 sisters and brothers who took their commitment as Coordinators of the Comboni Cenacles, who also begin to be part of the Comboni Family in Costa Rica.

In total we were more than 50 people who celebrated this Solemnity in the Comboni Seminary Martyrs of Uganda, as a family and we were witnesses of the mercy of God, personally with much joy and hope to respond as the Creator wants and putting myself at the disposal of the entire Comboni Family for wherever it is necessary and to be able to serve.

I thank God for taking notice of this servant, who, although he is very full of weaknesses, knows that Mother Mary, St. Daniel Comboni and the prayers of all, will struggle to bring the word of God in the best way to wherever God wants it.

Jose David, CLM Costa Rica

Comboni Family present at World Youth Day in Portugal

20 June, 2023 by Alberto de la Portilla

This summer Pope Francis has an appointment with the young Catholics of the world in Lisbon on the occasion of World Youth Day (WYD). Youth groups in every corner of the planet have been preparing for months in training sessions on the themes proposed for WYD around Mary: “Mary arose and left without delay” and also looking for the necessary funding to pay for the trip to the Portuguese capital.

The Comboni Family will be present at WYD through the World Youth Comboni Gathering (WYCG), an initiative that will bring together in Portugal young people who follow Jesus in the style of St. Daniel Comboni. 120 young people from Europe, Africa and America between 14 and 30 years of age have signed up and from July 26 to 31 they will be in the Portuguese city of Maia to listen to missionary testimonies and participate in activities and dynamics around interculturality and universal fraternity. In some activities they will join other young people from the dioceses of Porto and Braga.

On July 31, before arriving in Lisbon to participate in WYD, they will visit the Sanctuary of Fatima and on August 7 they will meet in the city of Santarém to evaluate the “strong” experience lived in Lisbon and to envision how to give it continuity throughout the year so that it does not remain “just another experience”, but will help them to a greater commitment.

Through the intercession of St. Daniel Comboni we pray for all the young people who are preparing to participate in the WYD in Lisbon, especially for the young Comboni Missionaries of the World Youth Comboni Gathering initiative, so that this international meeting may encourage them to follow Jesus in a missionary style.

[Hozana]