The video shows the reality of our group of Comboni Lay Missionaries in Colombia.
Colombia
Manizales 2025, first CLM Colombia face-to-face meeting.
In the city of Manizales, department of Caldas in Colombia, between January 25 and 26 of this year, in the facilities of the Parish Nuestra Señora del Pilar, the first face-to-face meeting of the CLM of Colombia was held, in this meeting the planning for the year 2025 was done.
Among the topics discussed, the dates and places for the Holy Week and Christmas Mission Camps were defined, for which it is the responsibility of the new coordination to socialize the places with the MCCJ of the country, in order to work hand in hand with them, as always.
Regarding the formation, both for the discernment group and for the deepening group, the programs, topics, responsibles and frequency were established; virtual meetings every 15 days were defined. The discernment program for those who want to be part of the CLM begins on February 5 and ends on December 3 and for the CLM that will enter into the deepening module, the formation begins on February 12 and will end on December 10.
In addition, two other face-to-face meetings of the CLM were proposed for this year; the first one will be held in the city of Cali between June 20 and 23; this will have as its objective a deeper knowledge of the group the persons who are in discernment and who want to commit themselves to the Comboni Charism; the second meeting will be our annual spiritual retreat that will begin on October 31 and end on November 3 in the Municipality of Suaza in the department of Huila.
The economic budget for the present year was calculated and a projection was made, a priori, for 2026, in view of the creation and support of the first national permanent mission that two of the CLM will do, in the municipality of Tumaco, department of Nariño, as a support to the work developed in the community by the MCCJ.
There was a feedback of some of the agreements that were worked in the international assembly of Maia 2024, some of the minutes that were worked during the working days were reviewed and the processes that are being developed to make the recognition of the CLM by the dicastery were explained.
At the end of the meeting a new conformation of the CLM committee in Colombia was proposed, with Janeth Escobar as national coordinator, Jenny Trujillo Marulanda as treasurer and Felipe Mora as secretary of the group.
Written by: Jenny Trujillo Marulanda.
A meeting to discern on the way to the mission.
Last October 13, 14 and 15 in the Parish of Our Lady Mother of the Good Shepherd, belonging to the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus (MCCJ), in the city of Cali, Valle del Cauca, the Comboni Lay Missionaries of Colombia (CLM), lived a very special meeting with the community; in this meeting we had planned important events; The first was to meet personally the members of the community who are in the process of formation, in the stage of discernment (because all our formation meetings have been virtual), this meeting in person this year lent us to share the feelings, meet the personalities and discover the desires of each of the members who are part of this lay process. The second moment was so that through the experiences of three kinds of missionaries in the world, we could get a better idea of what it was to discern in the life of each one of these persons. And last, but the greatest moment, was the great step taken by three CLM, who have been formed for more than 3 years in the service of the mission, choosing the last and the abandoned as our first option; Father Franco Naschinbene, spiritual advisor appointed by the MCCJ to accompany the CLM of Colombia, consecrated Yaneth Rocío Escobar, Felipe Eugenio Mora Parra and Patricia Rodríguez Cerquera, consecrated us as Comboni Lay Missionaries, so that from our lay life we would commit ourselves to focus our efforts and to give reason of the eternal love, in which we believe, through the liberating service to our poorest and abandoned brothers and sisters.
Our meeting began on Saturday, after prayer, with the support of Marco Farias, a MCCJ religious brother about to take his permanent vows. He shared with us from his life story, his moment of discernment and showed us how through daily life, God makes the call and sows the seed necessary to follow Him; Brother Marco, at this time, is in his period of preparation for his final vows, that after living two years of mission in South Africa, this fact revealed to us that formation and preparation should always accompany our journey to and from the mission. At the end of Saturday morning, we complemented our reflection with a time of meditation; we were in a beautiful park in the middle of the city of Cali, there we “eclipsed” trying to guide our discernment, helped by a navigation instrument, which was a compass, which symbolized our constant effort to seek God through the mission among the last ones.
Saturday afternoon was completed with two wonderful testimonies, which in spite of being different, complemented each other perfectly; Tito and Regimar, a CLM married couple of Brazilian origin who are in Mozambique, in one of the international missions of the CLM, shared with us their daily life and their joy of serving among the people, they showed us how to survive the “hurricane” (literal and symbolic) that is the change of life in a mission, how, day by day God is showing us the way and that even though we have estimated and planned our destiny, it is He who is giving us the guidelines to follow it; This married couple shared with us their joy of the option they have taken and that after two years in mission, they plan to renew for another two years.
Finally, at the end of Saturday afternoon, we received the testimony of Xoan Carlos, a Spanish CLM who has been living for 24 years in Brazil accompanying the indigenous communities of the Amazon and the peasant people of the State of Maranhão in the northeast of Brazil; here he is doing a mission from another point of “combat”, that of justice and peace, defending the rights of marginalized peoples, especially in the mining area of Açailândia and rebuilding the rural sector from the people themselves, through peasant homes. This testimony made us see the importance of the integrality of the mission and that although he arrived in Brazil for a three-year mission, God, in his infinite wisdom, extended it a little more, extending it to his whole life.
Marco’s testimony focused on the ability to decide for a life option in the midst of so many possibilities offered by the world and the testimony of Vladimir and Regimar and Xoan Carlos focused on two of the different services that as CLM we have for the missions around the world. To close the day Father Franco, gave us a retrospective of the process of discernment of Jesus, that from the biblical context, where he clearly identified the humanity of Jesus, the son of God in the midst of the world and the option he took to do the will of the father in the service of the poor and forgotten.
On Sunday morning during the main Eucharist, we made the act of consecration as CLM in Colombia, a consecration that has generated in us a serious and responsible commitment that also “stoked the fire and the ardor” of the longing for a missionary outing. Through the act of consecration, we were officially recognized as part of the great Comboni family and became Comboni Lay Missionaries of Colombia consecrated to the service of the last and abandoned.
At the end of the Eucharist we went out in groups of two to make some visits to families of the community, in these tours we found wonderful stories of the community, that trying to summarize them here would be a challenge almost impossible to meet; in these visits the community transmitted us mainly the joy of the personal encounter, but also gave us to know their own and different realities and how, despite so many difficult situations, they live the experience of the community serving their neighbors, their family, the parish or simply whoever requires it.
On Sunday evening we lived a moment for recreation, thanks to the animation of a trio of Andean music, offered as a detail of the host laity of Cali and the community; this moment was for the encounter with ourselves, a moment of evaluation and sharing the feelings of the whole experience.
This type of meeting and the fact of sharing personally with all the Comboni Lay Missionaries, help us to continue on our way, to continue preparing ourselves for the moment that will lead us to live our mission experience, whether here in the country, in Africa or wherever God has prepared our missionary journey.
Photo. Consecration Eucharist.
Photos. Moment of consecration as CLM.
CLMs consecrated in 2023.
From left to right in order, Patricia Rodríguez, Felipe Mora and Yaneth Escobar.
Photo. Retreat participants
From left to right in order, Father Franco Naschinbene, Jenny Trujillo, Father Alfred Mbaidjide, Brother Marco Farias, Yaneth Escobar, Luz Elena Silva, Hector Vela, Patricia Rodriguez and Felipe Mora.
By Patricia Rodríguez Cerquera, CLM consecrated from Colombia.
Janett, an active Comboni lay missionary
Janett Rocio Escobar Angulo, born in Tumaco Colombia in 1974, like many other people, arrived displaced to the city of Bogotá, only burdened with the hope of finding better opportunities that would give her and her family the security and stability that was taken away from them in their homeland.
The arrival to the city was not the most difficult thing, what really required temperance and resilience, was to learn and unlearn new trades that would allow her to earn enough income to be able to send it to her family in Tumaco; not to mention what she had always heard on television, but had never had to live … “DISCRIMINATION“; being treated in the most offensive, grotesque, demeaning and humiliating way in every daily situation, from taking public transportation to the offensive orders in each of her jobs. But “Defeat is only defeat if you don’t learn something from it”, today she thanks God for each of those moments, because those sad situations have opened the doors to live opportunities of joy and prosperity, besides finding people who helped her to be formed, to be today leading her beloved Afro processes.
The lack of opportunities for the Afro population and the issue of discrimination and violation of rights, made Janet, Carlina, Maria Angelica and Angela Preciado, in 2016, as part of the association Renacer Afrocolombiana, give life to the training program on rights, self-recognition and empowerment for Afro children, youth and adults. On their first opening Saturday, Janett and her three musketeers decided to occupy the Villa Gladys park with their first 10 children and begin the task that no one had wanted to take on; that of teaching the Afro community the voice, the mechanisms and the strength to shout, claim and assert their rights. With the passing of time and being part of the Afro pastoral, they found an ally in the process and the cause, the International Comboni Brothers Formation Center (CIFH), they began to support training in English and French since they had foreign brothers who were in the country, teaching their native language to children and young people who were part of the program.
In this way Janett and the Comboni Missionaries began to know each other and it was not long before they decided to strengthen this bond and become Comboni Lay Missionaries. Her knowledge, her personality and her dedication to the mission made her a valuable member of the lay team.
Currently the program is made up of more than 100 children, youth and adults in the Engativá district; the Comboni Lay Missionaries support the activities that are carried out with a monthly contribution to sustain the program; every Saturday they meet at the Antonio Villavicencio school from 10 am to 3 pm, where they receive training from different professionals; as part of the strategies taken to achieve its objectives, the trainings have been opened to mestizo children; this so that they can socialize the Afro traditions, their culture and their stories, generating empathy to reduce prejudice and discrimination from these early stages of life. This program also includes a snack and lunch.
After working in restaurants and family homes, Janett is now a member of the Afro pastoral, leader of the district and national programs on empowerment and promotion of the rights of Afro-descendant communities.
Janett and the Comboni Lay Comboni Missionaries of Colombia have an active mission process, thanks to the presence and the need to support a project that every day becomes more visible and benefits a more significant population of a sector of Bogota.
Prepared By Alexandra García
CLM American Meeting
On September 25, 2021, the American CLM Committee: MCCJ Fr. Ottorino Poletto, Beatriz Maldonado and Mireya Soto, with the accompaniment of Alberto de la Portilla, were pleased to meet with the CLM of America and some of Europe, to have a formative conference, given by Father Dario Bossi, with the theme “the vocation of the laity in the socio-political and ecclesial context of America“.
Father Dario Bossi is a Comboni Missionary, currently provincial coordinator of the Comboni Missionaries in Brazil. The theme was developed in three important points: Colorful spots (to understand the situation where we are), Christian lights (lights that from the faith and the Church help us to understand the reality and provide ideas) and CLM Mission (some ideas that as missionaries, in our case Comboni Missionaries, we can develop).
He explained that America is a continent with cultural richness, natural resources, and in the face of the storm that humanity is going through, we CLM have the commitment to dialogue and act in favor of the poor and the needy, hence the hope and the lights that we have such as the Encyclicals of Pope Francis in which he speaks of the commitment to nature and the need for a Church to go out; The mission ad gentes and our relationship as Comboni family.
The conference has been recorded and you can listen to it and analyze it (here below in Spanish) for further enrichment of our groups.
Our meeting ended with the prayer that Christ taught us, giving thanks for having gathered and shared.
“Divine works are born and grow at the foot of the cross“. St. Daniel Comboni.
Mireya Soto, CLM American Committee
