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Gathering in Trujillo 2015 (CLM-Peru national meeting)

2 March, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

On 20, 21 and 22 in the city of Trujillo (northern Peru) was conducted the national 2105 CLM meeting. This meeting is held once a year and is nationwide.

It is a time where all CLM in Peru, including foreigners, share experiences on our missionary work: ad-gentes, mission fields, pastoral and missionary animation.

Thanks to the host’s MCCJ Community in Trujillo, the CLM could happily share part of our lives with our CLM brothers of Trujillo and his advisor Fr. José Chinguel. We have no lack of opportunities for prayer, reflection, discussion and sharing on the daily work of the missionary lay life.

On this occasion, we work under the framework of “the conclusions of Guatemala” from which we could make our proposals integrating them within our priorities for this year and the next one. We went to the meeting CLM from Lay Lima 8 and 7 from Trujillo. Unfortunately, some brothers could not attend due to various circumstances. We also have the presence of Anna, a young German missionary who serves in Arequipa. At this meeting we reach specific conclusions for this year aimed to achieve our objectives and goals together as one community of Comboni Lay Missionaries of Peru.

Why this gathering?

It is my third national meeting as CLM and once again reaffirms my missionary vocation. It is a joy to know I am not alone but with me there are others who feel the same call to serve in the periphery. Each testimony has been for me a conviction that we are on track. And the best is that the Lord was present, inspiring and directing our work.

This experience, in which we have gathered to share our life, our joys and why not also our difficulties, is the experience with the Brother, hear and be pleasant host, but with Jesus who calls us to share as a community that has one heart.

This space where everyone comes as he (she) is, with dreams, encouragement, but also weak and with fears, have made us been able to see ourselves reflected in the other. It was an appropriate time to deepen and reflect our missionary being.

Rocio Gamarra CLM – Lima

No glory without the cross

27 February, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on Mc 9, 2-8: Second Sunday of Lent, March 1st 2015

In this second Sunday of Lent, we continue reading Mark, but jumping from chapter one to chapter nine, in which Jesus appears nearing Jerusalem, where he is going to have a deadly conflict with the authorities. As always, this texts offers us many point of meditation. I take just three of them:
1) To assume the cross: How difficult it is!
A few verses before this text we read today, Jesus, whom Peter has recognized as “the Christ”, begins to tell the disciples that he is going “to suffer a lot”. The disciples refuse to enter into this perspective: It cannot be that the Messiah has to be killed, and furthermore they are not ready for that; rather, they are thinking of becoming the “chiefs” of the new kingdom Jesus is proclaiming.
Jesus’s reaction is straight: he calls Peter “Satan”, because he represents the temptation of disobedience to the Father, the same temptation Adam had, as well as Israel in the wilderness. Bearing that in mind, we can understand better the scene that Mark is narrating in today’s gospel: Jesus takes by hand his intimate ones and goes with them to the mountain.
I think that we, as the disciples, have great difficulty in accepting the way of the cross, the suffering that goes with our faith-vocation, de failure…That of Jesus, in first place, but specially our own. None of us wishes to suffer, even for a good cause. We think that suffering is “a punishment form God” and we react against it. But it is in those moments, when we do not understand what is happening to us and do not feel like going to church, that we most need to be taken by hand and pray that God reveals to us his nearness and the meaning of what we are experiencing.

2) The Mountain: Divine perspective
Jesus takes his intimate ones to the mountain, they alone. There the disciples have a very especial experience, in which I would like to underline these elements:
-The mountain: Place of God’s revelation in almost all religions. It implies going away from every day’s routine, to get in touch with a non-manipulated nature; a place that helps human beings to go beyond themselves and a self-controlled society; a place where it is possible to open oneself to new realities, including the divine mystery…
-Intimacy: Jesus tries to share with his disciples the most intimate side of his personality, his life and mission. On the mountain he goes beyond the topics and superficialities… Jesus gives out the deepest side of himself: “You are my friends… Whatever I hear from my Father, I tell you”.
-No publicity: Jesus does not want any publicity or communication outside the group. Even, later, he will command them not to tell anybody what they have experienced. There are experiences that one has to keep for himself or, at the most, for the very friends. Those experiences are not to be exposed on TV or even in churches. “Go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who sees you in the secret of your heart”. Certainly: there are moments for witnessing and communicating, but there are also moments to be completely alone in the face of God “alone”.

3) “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him”
The evangelist narrates a marvellous scene, difficult to understand in its details from our today’s culture, but the global sense is quite clear:
-The disciples come to see Jesus in a new dimension, beyond their experience of him as a man from Nazareth and a wonderful preacher. It is the same experience that Sat Paul narrates in the letter to the Galatians: “The Father has revealed his Son in me”. It is the paschal experience that helped the disciples to understand the way of the cross and the real meaning of Jesus’ personality and mission. It is the experience we have when we “feel” Jesus alive and present in our lives.
-Moses and Elijah talk to Jesus: New and Old Testaments are part of the same story, the same salvation plan. To understand Jesus you have to read the Old Testament and to fully understand the Old Testament you have to listen to Jesus.
-“How good to remain here”: Once and again, the disciples of Jesus, of all ages, experience that the nearness of Jesus warms their hearts. This happened to the ones going to Emmaus, happened to Paul, to many saints and also to us in many occasions. To meet the Lord, on “the mountain”, produces in us a sense of fulfilment and direction, of having somebody always on our side.
-“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him”. The disciples understood that in his friend and Teacher, God was revealing himself in a clear and unique way. We all search for God and for meaning (for a definitive love) blindly and among doubts. Some search in the teaching of, let’s say, Buda; others in new theories (New Age); others still in pleasure, or pride, or success… The disciples had the experience that in Jesus they could see the face of the Father and the best guide for his own life. We are on the steps of those disciples and pray that the Spirit is renewing in us that experience, for our own sake and for the sake of others to whom we are called to be witnesses and missionaries.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome

“I was in prison and you came to visit me”

23 February, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Among the various pastoral activities of the parish of Santo Domingo, led by the Comboni Missionaries in Nova Contagem, it is also the prison ministry, in charge of 15 volunteers, including the Comboni Lay Missionaries, which are part of the parish.

Every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the group meets to visit the pavilions of the maximum-security prison of Nelson Hungria, located in Nova Contagem, with about 2,000 inmates. The meeting is at 08:00 in the square next to the prison.

The prison situation in Brazil, as in other parts of the world, suffers from high overcrowding due to prison system with little attention to the recovery of prisoners.

Prisons in Minas Gerais, for example, can receive 32,000 prisoners, divided into 144 prisons; actually, there are 54,000 inmates in the different units. This situation only gets worse the living conditions of prisoners, with a further object of punishing instead of re-educate and re-socialize, with serious violations of human rights.

The action and commitment of the group of Prison Ministry, composed mainly of women, is to believe in a work of promoting human dignity, respect for human rights, and the overcoming of the limits of the current prison system in favor of a model that allows effective recovery and reintegration of the individual.

The most important of our pastoral activity is the testimony of a God who does not discriminate anyone, in a place marked by contempt, prejudice and violence, making ours the words of the Gospel: “I was in prison, and you came to visit me “. It is the pedagogy of Jesus, method, model, who heads the way of this pastoral, recognizing the face of God in every person, including the prisoners.

There are many challenges and difficulties in our pastoral activities, such as excessive bureaucracy that often delays and complicates our work, controls, restrictions on visits, limited permissions; but with courage, this small group of volunteers are facing difficulties. This has allowed in 2014, to create two groups of catechesis in prison. And it was possible that some inmates, who had requested, receive the sacraments.

For this are fundamental the moments of ongoing formation that we make at the end of the month, to have a dedicated space of programming and training, allowing prison pastoral agents learn the actions that will help to improve prison visits and the relationship with the inmates. In this also helps the training conducted by the diocese.

In short, this would be the work of the prison ministry. A simple action, giving hand, encountering real faces, listening to the life stories of those who are on the other side of the bars, to bear witness to the dignity of every human being, because as the Gospel says “by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13, 35.).

Emma Chiolini, Comboni Lay Missionary

Improvements on the web

21 February, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Today we want to share with you the improvements we are making in our web. We have restructured the section “Audiovisual resources” of the website.

We have placed more than 5000 images about our history and service that we carry out as CLM; almost 200 CLM and Comboni´s videos (in the 7 languages we have) as well as over 50 songs about Comboni in different languages so that they are accessible to everybody. You will find the songs and videos differentiated in the various languages.

We hope you like this new enhancement. You can visit it by following this link.

Greetings

Wilderness, an opportunity to make a change

20 February, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on Mc 1, 12-15: Firs Sunday of Lent, February 22nd 2015

The continuous reading of Mark’s first chapter, that we have been doing during the last four Sundays, has now been interrupted due to the beginning of Lent time, which in the Roman liturgy is a special time with its own readings’ system. Anyhow, in this first Sunday of Lent we remain still with this same first chapter of Mark, reading four verses of a great intensity. For my part, I Just recall here three brief reflections:

1) Wilderness: “talking is not the same as actually doing”
After being baptized by John and receiving the Father’s great declaration – “This is my beloved son”– Jesus goes to the wilderness “driven” by the Spirit. Why? Because between the word (vocation/declaration) “you are my beloved Son” and the fact (real, concrete life), there is a way to follow with faith and perseverance, discipline and work, clearness of mind and strength of will; a hard battle against the spirit of evil that surrounds us everywhere, pacifying the “wild beasts”, overcoming difficulties, doubts and temptations. Wilderness, as we know, represents in Jew history a place where to learn how to leave behind slavery times and attitudes, how to purify from infidelity, how to grow up as a people free and faithful.
Surely, we have also our own wilderness experiences. Which are the difficulties and tests we are going through in this time in our life? Which are our temptations? It is quite probable that we, as Israel and Jesus himself, see that our dream of living a truly Son’s life is still far away from reality; we are far from living a live that corresponds to the teachings of Jesus and our deep desire to live in truth and love, justice and generosity, peace and service. All of us have the experience that between our “word” (meaning good wishes) and our “facts” (good works) there’s still so much way to follow. Lent time is a good opportunity to re-affirm ourselves in this fight to make facts correspond to desires, to renew our hope and our decision to go own in the way of discipleship, that is proposed to us by Jesus.

2) Take the opportunity
Jesus comes out of the wilderness as a winner, confirmed in his vocation as a Son and sure that He is living a special moment in history, for himself and for the world. Jesus has experienced the loving nearness of the Father, not only in times of happiness and blessing, but also in times of difficulty, testing, temptation and spiritual fight. With that experience he comes out to mingle with people and convey a clear message: “The kingdom of God is near”, take the opportunity.
When we say that the Kingdom of God, what do we understand? Where’s the kingdom of God? Is it in the temple, in the working place, in the street, where? Certainly, It’s not a geographical place. The Kingdom of God –that is, his loving presence- is in us and around us, in the temple, in the family, in hospital, in the playing ground… Everywhere. Have you seen it? Look well. If y you have not seen it, it means that you have to wash your eyes, to clean your ears, to open your heart… Alas in this the Len time can help: a time for reading the Bible, to put order in our lives, to be generous in helping other… a time to open our spiritual eyes and see what maybe we are not seeing at this moment, due to the dust of fatigue, routine, repeated failures, wounded pride…

3) To change direction
Jesus invites the people of Palestine to believe in the presence of God among them and, as consequence, to change life, to abandon their condition of “slaves”, to assume their being children of the Father and to live up to that reality.
As a matter of fact, what is preventing us from seeing-hearing-touching the Kingdom of God in us and among us is our the attitude of Eve and Adam, when, having fallen in the trap of Satan, they dreamt that they could be “equals to God”, hiding behind “the fig leave” themselves and their naked arrogance, instead of acknowledging their error, to ask for forgiveness and to renew their friendship with the Creator. To believe is to come out of oneself and open our reality to the Other, the source of our life.
Len time is a good time, an opportunity to change our way, to leave behind our stupid wounded pride, that keeps us apart from our neighbour and the best part of our inner selves; an occasion to renew our faith that the Father’s Love is greater than our sins and errors and that in that Love we can renew ourselves, start again our journey toward the goal of a more serene and pacified life, transparent, generous, humble but confident… a life of God’s children on the way to a goal that is awaiting us besides the wilderness.
This is what we celebrate in the Eucharist, remembering the One that came out of the wilderness as winner and announcing that God wins also in each one of us and in our world, if only we believe and change our life to live accordingly.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome