Brazil – Page 19 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Yearly Assembly of CLM in Brazil

6 July, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

On June 21-22 we held our Yearly Assembly of the CLM of Brazil at the Comboni Minor Seminary Bro. Alfredo Fiorini of Curitiba, PR.

The theme, “To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the ACLM with daring and missionary commitment,” helped us to review our history and to have a privileged time of exchange, sharing, community living and celebration during this year when we complete 20 years since the creation of the Association of Comboni Lay Missionaries – ACLM.

In the context of the 150^th anniversary of the foundation of the Comboni Institute, we were graced by having with us the MCCJ provincial, Fr. Dario, who helped us reflect, by way of a comparative diagram, on some of the fundamental intuitions of Comboni and of Pope Francis. We also the enjoyed the presence Sr. Nilma de Jesús, provincial of the Comboni Missionary Sisters of Brazil, who shared some of the essential moments of the missionary journey. As a united Comboni Family, Mission takes shape in our being as relationship, nearness, reaching planned goals in the world of our peripheries, of the prisons, of those who have no land, of the indigenous people, of those who have no voice and no chances: all those who live at the margins. We lived through a great fraternal meeting because, due to the distances and the realities around us, we cannot meet as often as we would like. It was a privileged moment to nourish what is mystical, replenish the strength, reinforce the ties and reflect on our faith and on our missionary identity.

Each day the invitation is renewed to be open to others, to widen the horizons, to be on the move, to share faith and life, and be signs. Our missionary vocation impels us to move out of our reality, to break through borders, to go to meet God with the least, to celebrate hope and to become family with humankind.

We had the opportunity to talk about the present situation of the ACLM, its progress and difficulties. It is a journey that is taking shape, despite its frailties. Thus we recognize this treasure we carry with us and our responsibility to continue to promote mission in the Church and to awaken all to our common commitment as people who have been baptized.

The highlight of our meeting was the Thanksgiving Mass for the 20^th anniversary of the ACLM celebrated in the parish of Santa Amelia, which has been a great source of support in the CLM journey since the beginning in 1995. The welcoming of the CLM couple, Liliana and Flávio, who are traveling to Maranhão, in the region of Piquía, and their missionary sharing, touched all present in a special way and very fraternally we celebrated and shared our new projects in a mix of joy, as well as tears, dreams and desires.

We left with some stated objectives and the desire to work more united as Comboni Family, both in mission and in mission promotion, strengthening the groups of Comboni spirituality found in Curitiba and Balsas as well as other places where the Spirit blows. We also felt united to the journey of the International CLM and with our brothers and sisters spread over more than 20 countries across the globe with whom we will hold the International Assembly of the CLM in 2018.

With the grace of celebrating the 300^th anniversary of Our Mother Aparecida, inspired by St. Daniel Comboni in the following of Jesus and united to the missionary journey of the Church in Brazil and in the world, may we be ready to guard and to help flourish every day more the missionary call of the Comboni vocation. Let us stay in touch!

CLM of Brazil

Sharing life and knowledge

28 June, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

What is there in common between an over 70 Russian woman with a university education and an uneducated woman of about 50 from Guinea-Bissau? Perhaps the fact that both live in Portugal, in a low class neighborhood of the great city of Lisbon and that they both want to learn Portuguese.

And so it is that in the Quinta de Mós, in a space given by City Council for the use of the parish of Camarate, based on the concrete need of these two people, a literacy program for adults came into being. Based on the method of Paulo Freire, suited to this specific reality, we start classes in the afternoon. The learning levels and the individual needs vary greatly. But with this method, that fosters learning starting from the concrete reality, and allows the person to look critically at herself, interaction is possible and, even more, it creates solidarity between the people involved.

A little bit at a time, people are joining the group and we open a new class in the morning, because some of the women work in the afternoon. The flow is constant. There are desertions due to work, health, domestic problems.

The two classes are made up of women. A group ends and three continue. The two original women are still there and another girl, much younger who only has a second grade education.

Classes involve more than alphabet and words. They consist in conversations, in sharing of difficulties, of support, help in filling out documents, finding apartments for rental, translating conversations, clearing doubts from day to day, improving pronunciation… One has to leave her home, but another has a house to rent; One wants to learn sewing, and another knows how and is willing to teach; One finds food and shares it with another who draws no salary… And so we move on, sharing life and knowledge, promoting learning and the appreciation of the person, the sharing and the solidarity! “Saving Africa with Africa!”

CLM Flávio Schmidt

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for the catch” – Missioning of The CLM Liliana Ferreira and Flávio Schmidt

4 September, 201716 June, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for the catch” (Lk 5:4)

On Sunday, June 4, we celebrated with joy the missioning of our CLM Liliana Ferreira and Flávio Schmidt in the parish of Lamas, Miranda do Corvo to which Liliana herself belongs. United in faith and in the love of Christ they are leaving for the mission of Piquiá, Maranhão, in Brazil, having accepted the Lord’s invitation to leave, give of themselves and to be a thousand lives for mission.

And we go with them. We follow them in prayer, in thought and in the wish (belief) that God will give them light in their vocation of and for love, and in their path of dedication to share their brothers journey.

We are grateful for these two lives who generate so much life around themselves and for the gift of life they will multiply in the lands assigned to them by God.

United in Mission

Carolina Fiúza

20th Anniversary of the CLM in Brazil

5 June, 2017 by Alberto de la Portilla

It is with great joy that we, the CLM of Brazil, celebrate this year the 20 years of the CLM – the Association of the Comboni Lay Missionaries, a juridical not for profit organization founded on May 31, 1997.

In 1995, a group of people from all over Brazil began to dream of the project of the CLM in São José dos Campos, SP. Those were the days of the great event that took place in Brazil, the COMLA 5, that pushed the Church much beyond its borders. After that, other meetings took place and finally 1997 saw the beginning of the first missionary community of CLM involved in formation and in the sharing of missionary life in the city of Contagem, MG.

After 20 years of existence the Association of Comboni Lay Missionaries has reasons to celebrate, in the light of a history of challenges, a lot of dedication, daring and perseverance, its existence as lay missionaries in the style of St. Daniel Comboni.

We continue in the call to follow Jesus Christ and we are inserted in challenging missionary areas at the side of the poorest and most abandoned of our society, both here and much beyond our borders.

In June we will hold the Yearly Assembly of the ACLM in Curitiba, PR. It will be a privileged time of communion and of sharing our vocation. On the 22^nd, we will celebrate a Thanksgiving Mass for the 20 years of the ACLM in the parish of Santa Amelia. We wish to meet, reflect, evaluate, pray, make new plans and continue the “dream-challenge” of the Brazilian Church, totally missionary and open to the world.

Recently we have been living through some beautiful moments in our journey as CLM in Brazil, such as: the formation of groups of Comboni Spirituality and discernment in Curitiba and more recently in Balsas; our participation in the team of Coordination of the Comboni Family, with the various activities planned in common in missionary and vocation promotion; the strengthening in a short time of the CLM in Acailândia-Piquiá together with the Justice project of Raíles; the weddings and births that took place in this CLM Family; the special witness of some members at difficult times for the loss of dear ones and in the struggle to regain their health. In total, it is the commitment of each one on different fronts, persevering in the pro-life option.

There are also challenges and questions over how we must answer our vocation in these new times. What are the specific aspects of our identity? What do we need to change? How can we be more efficient in mission promotion and in promoting new vocations? Keeping in mind that mission is renewed by new missionaries, men and women willing to enter into the dynamics of a Church on the move.

We count on everyone’s prayers and wish to remain united to the great Comboni family spread around the world.

In the light of our reality, in the grace of the celebration of the 300^th anniversary of the Aparecida, inspired by St. Daniel Comboni in the sequel of Jesus and united in our missionary journey to the Church in Brazil and in the world, we are ready to protect and foster each day the missionary call of the Comboni vocation.

With every best wish and friendship,

The CLM of Brazil

The Trindade Community

9 November, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

I am close to the end of my three year missionary commitment in this beautiful Brazilian land that has given and taught me a lot.

I already feel a sad void for what will happen, a feeling that will call to mind faces, situations, stories, important moments that left a mark on my missionary experience and have changed me, since I allowed them to change me and make me grow a little more.

It is good to change when Life shows you paths that can only be healthy for your heart, for better or for worse.

Mission also means growth, meeting the Other, the meeting between you and Them, with God who makes us Us, and a You.

You end up meeting an itinerant God, who never stops moving and amazing you. A God who walks barefoot with you: “take your sandals off your feet, for the place you are stepping on is holy grounds!”

And this is what I did, walking barefoot in the marvel of discovery and self-discovery, knowing that God was walking with me.

I chose to end my three years of missionary commitment in Salvador de Bahia in a community that welcomes street people. The community is called Trindade.

It has been a totally different experience from my previous ones. I left prison work, which I hope to continue in Italy, in order to get to know another very hard and hurtful social reality, the life of street people.

The Community of Trindade is ten years old and it is located in a neighborhood close to the harbor and to a viaduct where many street people meet. The house is an inactive church building which has become a temporary home for those who are seeking to change their lives or at least try to.

Everything happens gradually. They keep on sleeping on the floor inside the church and begin a recovery coming from within, through self-esteem and a search for one’s identity.

When you live on the street you lose everything, not only material things, but you lower yourself to the point where you no longer recognize yourself, lost in an emptiness that devour you, where alcohol and drugs consume you on a daily basis. You no longer know who you are and have no dreams to build on.

Hunger, cold, the search for a safe sleeping place become the day to day priorities.

Dependence on alcohol and drugs lead you to taking chances, through stealing or prostitution until you lose your dignity.

This community was born of the meeting of Bro. Henrique, a Frenchman, and a street person who, looking for a safe place to sleep, came across this abandoned church.

Bro. Henrique is an itinerant monk who, years ago, chose to live on the street in order to know first-hand the dramatic situation of street people, by becoming neighbor to them and live with them.

He picked this church as a nightly refuge and in time it developed into a community, a home for those who have no home and a beacon of hope.

Today it gathers 35 men and women.

The Trindade Community is not an end, but rather a place of passage, of transition.

It is a place where one can get away from dependency on alcohol and drugs, find a job, be able to stand on your own two feet after years spent on the street.

It is like trying to glue back together parts of you that have been disconnected, in order to see again the original shape that was lost.

It is a simple community where everyone helps and cooperates to its upkeep and wellbeing of all.

They all cooperate and make themselves useful from the kitchen to the cleaning, the garden and some artisan activities, each one according to his/her talents and limitations.

I, too, have my cardboard where I sleep on the floor and I help out in everything.

I am learning what it means to do this: carefully store away my cardboard which is my mattress, roll it up in order to spread it again the following night. When I walk down the street now and see a piece of cardboard I feel like saying: “Look, that’s a bed!” because for a number of people that is exactly what it is, a home on the street.

Mission helps you see things from different points of view, especially from points where people do not like to dwell or look from.

You learn that you can live with little, what it means to sleep on the floor, to be hungry, not to be able to wash, what it means to be at the periphery of existence.

A little at the time, with kindness and by being available, I am beginning to learn the stories of the people who live in the community: they are stories from the street, of drugs, alcohol, losses and violence.

The words used are harsh and full of hurt and of scars.

In this experience, just like in my prison pastoral, I learn the most beautiful and interesting lesson: you need to learn to listen without judging and to make yourself neighbor.

In the community we also have a small newspaper, Aurora de Rua (Dawn of the street), written by the street people themselves. It deals with their situation, their lives, and their stories and with the importance of recycling. Yes, because many of their handcrafted products are made of discarded material and junk.

Behind all this there is great pedagogy: to be able to construct beautiful and useful things out of what other people consider useless junk.

This is how street people or prisoners, referring back to prison ministry, think of themselves as the rejects of society.

But everything is reborn to life, a new Life.

The paper helps to spread news and the realities of the street people, who are often discriminated against, excluded, abandoned and judged. There are stories that touch your heart and help you understand the depths of some human situations, so harsh and hurt.

On Thursday night the community opens its doors to the street people of the project “Get up and Walk,” created by the community itself in cooperation with the diocese of Salvador.

Unfortunately the Church cannot hold too many people and the street problem is vast.
The project is a place where street people can find psychological help and assistance in filling out forms for ID cards, work papers, or also for recreational activities, a place where to shower, find clothing.

For those who so wish, Thursday nights are a way to get to know the community, have a moment of prayer, a common meal and a place to sleep. These are small steps that help to create awareness, socialization, to share a meal, to be in a quiet place and to pray together…

Thursday nights are open to all, even to visitors, people from the outside who want to share this experience.

It is a very emotional time, as we live through concrete means the Gospel of Jesus who invites all to the same table, to share the bread with everyone, no one excluded.

It is a Gospel that takes flesh in Life and for Life, the Gospel in which I believe, where I meet God and God’s face. This Face of God has many stories, many wounds and lots of beauty. This is why I like the idea of a pilgrim God always walking, within each one of us, living in our stories. I am grateful for this choice and for this last month and a half I will spend in this beautiful and important Community of Life.

I will not say good-bye to Brazil, but simply “until we meet again,” because I will never forsake the relationships I created, the people who walked with me and who taught me to walk. For all of them it will always be, “arrivederci!”

God breathes through our hearts.

Emma, CLM