Europe – Page 101 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

“Let us cross to the other side”

20 June, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A Commentary on Mk 4, 35-41 (¡2th Sunday of O.T., June 21first 2015)

To cross boundaries
Last Sunday we saw Jesus by the Sea of Galilee teaching to a large crowd about the Kingdom of God in an inspiring language. Today we read how Jesus, on the eve of the same day, invited his disciples to get into a boat and cross to “the other side”. It is quite evident for me that this expression –“the other side”- has in the gospel a deeper meaning than just a geographical one. We know that the other side of the lake was populated by people of different culture and religious practices. As a matter of fact, several times in the gospels Jesus appears pushing his disciples to walk to other villages and towns and to go and meet Samaritans, sinners, pagans an other kinds of “different people”.
This missionary attitude of Jesus was assumed by the Church from the very beginning, after Resurrection, till our times. Paul, for example, was “forced” by the Spirit to cross the border from Asia into Europe (Macedonia); Francois Xavier expanded the Gospel to the Far East Asia; Daniel Comboni, with others, opened the borders of Africa to the Church… And son many other missionaries.
In our days, the Church cannot remain locked in a glorious missionary past. Also today the Church is invited by the Spirit to cross new geographical, cultural and religious boundaries to share the treasure of the Gospel with XXI century humanity: with refugees and migrants, with young people who look for a new future and old people who feel abandoned, people who move around as seep with no shepherd… We all should ask ourselves: To which side does Jesus invites us to cross today? Where are the boundaries to which that my family, my parish, my community should move now?

To get into the sea and resist the squalls
We know that in the Bible the sea is an image of the evil that we can meet in the world, with its dangerous waves and violent storms, that can destroy the small boat of our personal life or even the fragile community we belong to.
In fact, when we leave the small “protected world” of our routine, where we have everything under control, surely we face obstacles and problems that we are not sure how to overcome. When we leave behind the “existential walls” of our parish, family or community, most surely we will have to confront a hostile world, opposed to our way of life. The outside world can become a formidable threat to our weak faith and fragile community.
A moment like this is what Mark describes in todays’ reading, reminding us of the disciples lesson: they did not act as super-heroes; they acknowledged their fear and prayed very sincerely from their anguish. That was the moment to shout out to the Lord with great sincerity and conviction: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

…And the Lord was with them
Mark’s story brings to us the experience of those first members of the Church. They experienced persecution and strong oppositions; in those circumstances they doubted and were afraid, thinking that the Lord was sleeping and absent, but at the end they experienced that the Lord was very much alive and full or power over evil, in spite of their little faith.
For us, as for the first disciples, it’s very important that, in any missionary initiative, we carry the Lord in “our boat”. We should not go on mission only with our enthusiasm, strength and creativity. If the mission is just our own initiative, when the wind blows, most probably we are going to sink. But if we take the Lord with us (in his Word, his sacraments, his community, his Spirit…), when the difficult time comes, surely we are going to feel his presence, we will be able to shout out to him, He will answer and we shall reach the other side ready to spread the Good News

Fr. Antonio Villarino
Roma

Seed grows of itself

13 June, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on Mark 4, 26-34, Eleventh Sunday, Ordinary Time, June 14th

We have already left behind the Paschal Liturgical time (Lent, Passover, and Pentecost) and the solemnities of the Holy Trinity and the Body of Christ. We are now again in the Ordinary time reassuming the reading of Mark. This Eleventh Sunday we read a few verses from Mark’s chapter four. As a matter of fact, I invite you to read the whole chapter so that you can have a better idea of Jesus’ message for today. From that reading, I share with you two reflections:

1) A crowd near the lake of Galilee
As you know, Jesus stablished his operational centre at Capharnaum, a small town by the side of Lake Galilee. His presence in that town and surroundings caused a great impact and people rushed in hundreds to get near him and listen to him, because his words were so especially clear, simple, and relevant that their hearts were “burning”. Jesus, farmer among farmers, fisher among fishers, worker among workers, felt quite at easy with that simple people, exposed to the sufferings and hardships of life, hungry for truth and sense, who found no answers in rigid and sclerotic traditions little related to real life. On the contrary, from an affective nearness to their worries an everyday fights and from his contemplative experience in the desert, Jesus was able to express himself in touching parabolic narrations, explaining the mystery of God and his kingdom in a language related to every day’s life in the fields, de fishing ports and the ordinary life.
The gospel of Jesus is made to be understood and preached from the every one’s ordinary life. Or spiritual life must be measured, not so much by the fine words we can say, but by or concrete life and actions.
And all those of us who have a responsibility in passing on to others the Gospel of Jesus (parents, teachers, catechists, priests…) have to look at this Teacher who is able to explain the presence of God in a language related to the concrete life of people.

2) Seed does not need to be pulled up
Forgive me this obvious reflection, but I think that it can help us to grasp Jesus’ message in today’s gospel:
Discúlpenme esta obviedad, pero me parece que sirve para entender bien lo que nos dice Jesús en el evangelio de hoy: “seed would sprout and grow…. On its accord the land will yield fruit”. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like a seed that God sows in our heart, our community, our family… and it grows of itself, as far as it’s welcomed in a well-kept land. For the wheat to produce fruit it does not help that somebody goes and pulls it up; it’s of not use to try hard and pull it up. No. Wheat must grow by itself, from its inner energy that God has planted in it.
Don’t you think that quite often some parents look like they try to force their children to grow from outside and impose on them fruits that God has not meant for them? Don’t you think that sometimes in our communities or families we try to force people to be what they are not? Do no happen to ourselves that we try to force ourselves to appear before others as powerful and immaculate, with the result that we become bitter, hypercritical, and negative?
I think that Jesus, with this parable of the seed that grows of itself is inviting us, not to be lazy or passive, but serene and trustful; He wants his disciple to trust the Truth and Love, the kingdom that the Father has sown on all o sous, in our communities and families. What we have to do is to cultivate our piece of land, freeing it from stones and rubbish. All the rest will be done in us by the Spirit.
Fr. Antonio Villarino
Rome

Message of Fr. Enrique for the feast of the Sacred Heart

12 June, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

“We ask for the grace to become joyful and happy consecrated people because we carry in our heart the treasure of the love that flows from the pierced Heart of the Lord, which St. Daniel Comboni discovered as the foundation on which to build his mission and to which he committed himself without setting any limit. May the trust in the Heart of Jesus become also for us a source of an eternal love that will help us to live our consecration as the most beautiful gift that we have been given. Happy Feast day of the Sacred Heart.” Fr. Enrique Sánchez G., mccj, Superior General.

Consecrated in the Heart of Jesus

The words consecration and consecrated, with all their synonyms, can be enhanced and integrated in our lives, especially during this year earmarked for the religious and consecrated life, to the extent that we allow ourselves a moment for reflection and, perhaps even more, for gratitude for this gift.

At the same time, these words are likely to be emptied of their meaning and the richness they evoke, if we do not compare them with the experiences of our life; if we do not give, through our life, an authentic meaning to what we assert in words.

We are consecrated. Very little is needed to make this proclamation which, however, is not so obvious when we ask our life-witness to express the content of what has been the choice of our life.

Although it must be said that there are extraordinary examples, very close to us, of people who have treasured their consecration and whose life has been transformed into a light that can penetrate the darkest shadows, now we need to stop and ask how much our consecration to God defines and characterizes our identity and our acting.

To reflect on our consecration can become an extraordinary occasion to better understand what we mean when we identify ourselves as persons consecrated to God for the mission.

Our missionary consecration

To help us in our reflection, especially on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, I would like to share with you some brief thoughts that might be provocations for asking us to what extent and how much we are living our religious consecration and mission.

Pope Francis invited us to do a memory exercise, to recognize in the past the gift of our vocation, of our charism, letting flow from within our heart the gratitude and thankfulness for this gift. He recommended us to contemplate the present of our consecration to live it with passion, without making calculations, with the generosity and enthusiasm of the first moment, when in the silence and complicity of God we heard our name pronounced and dreamed of a mission without frontiers.

The Pope asked us to look to the future with hope, which means confidence in God, in his proximity, in the certainty that He continues to cherish in his heart a plan for humanity that no one can frustrate, because it will always be a project of love and love does not halt in the face of obstacles.

To live our missionary consecration in this way leads us to rediscover, to experience again the joy of the first moment of our call, and to say in simplicity: Lord, how great you have been in setting your eyes on me. You could not have bestowed on me a more extraordinary gift.

Being a missionary was the best choice that you have done for me; thank you, because you have remained faithful and because what has happened to me so many years ago continues to maintain its freshness.

Thanks for this missionary present that is a challenge to us. Your call is sometimes in danger of being overshadowed by so many obstacles that we find in our path. We lack your passion, your enthusiasm, your courage in not letting ourselves be overcome by the indifference of our time, the consumerism that surrounds us, the superficial hedonism that assails us with its traps that increase our selfishness and superficiality.

We need missionary passion, first of all to believe in you with all our heart, to find you in the brother who suffers, in the sister who is abused, in the young man condemned to live without the possibility to dream of an appropriate future, to come out of our shelter and comfort.

Lord, it is good to recognize with humility and simplicity that we lack the passion which is not afraid of sacrifice, renunciation, abandonment, the passion that allows us to leave everything to make of you and your mission the most important thing of our life.

You gave us a vocation that makes us privileged people, because for us you have chosen, as a place to meet you, the poorest, those farthest away, those who do not count in the eyes of our contemporaries.

“The hope of which we speak – says the Pope – is not based on numbers or enterprises, but on the One in whom we have placed our trust” (2 Tim 1:12).

We want to live, and we cannot but do so, in the hope of when we have been witnesses of your fidelity, your trust, your kindness toward us. We are not scared of tomorrow because we know that you have preceded us and prepared for us the morrow that will be completely different from what we could have established with our own efforts and our resources.

We are not afraid to decrease, to die, because we are convinced that, wherever you are, life cannot but win and that it will always be you the one to write the beautiful history of the mission, which will also become ours.

A consecration lived through small and large details

When we speak of consecration, I intend to say that we are referring to an experience, to a life that makes us live through the small and large details of our existence and of our daily work, as we fulfil the dream that we carry in our heart as the ideal that drives us to go farther and farther.

I intend to say that being consecrated is nothing but accepting with joy that our life is in the hands of the One who gave us our existence. It is to accept that we are the Lord’s possession, that we are or we are becoming God’s gift to humanity.

How many times we have heard that the consecrated persons are people who have freely agreed to give up everything to allow God fulfil his dream of love for humanity.

It’s nice to think so, because it helps us understand that the consecration is not a work that comes from our own will or ability, but an experience of great freedom, generosity and above all of deep docility.

What does it mean to be consecrated to God?

To be consecrated to God is to educate our heart to be always open and willing to what He wants to do of us. In this sense, consecration is synonymous with abandonment, obedience and courage, because with the Lord we know where the adventure begins, but we do not know how far He will take us.

To speak of consecration means entering a world in which our parameters are no longer applicable, because we enter the world of the mystery of God, which breaks all our logic and our calculations and turns everything upside down, as He becomes the protagonist of our history and the master of our existence.

And here we can think of many sayings in the Gospel: “You did not choose me, no, I chose you” (Jn 15:16); “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17).

What great strength resounds in Paul’s message when he remembers how he was chosen and how, in his ministry as an apostle, he has realised that “We know that by turning everything to their good God co-operates with all those who love him, with all those that he has called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

So, the question that arises is very simple: who is, after all, the one who is consecrated?

How many times have we to recognize that in our lives we have advanced because the Lord has not pulled back? How many times have we to realise that were not our qualities, our merits and our virtues that made us worthy of the gift of the choice that the Lord made us?

We have a great responsibility in preserving and developing the grace received from the day we said yes to the Lord. Will we always remember that God calls and does not change his opinion over time? To which loyalty does He challenge us?

St. Daniel Comboni’s witness

“Since I have an extreme need of the help of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Sovereign of Central Africa, the very joy, hope, fortune and the all of her poor Missionaries, I write to you, my friend, the apostle and faithful servant of the divine Heart which is so full of love for the most unfortunate and abandoned souls on earth.

How glad I am to spend half an hour with you, to commend and entrust to the Sacred Heart the most precious interests of my trying and difficult Mission, to which I have vowed my whole soul, my body, my blood and my life!” (Writings 5255-56).

The consecration of the Comboni missionary, to be a real source of happiness, will always have to try to respond to this clear conviction of Comboni, a consecration that will be born of the experience of love that flows from the Heart of Jesus. The Heart of God who has loved so much humanity and who had no hesitation in handing over for love his Son, his only Son.

It is from this love that our consecration originates and finds support. It is and will always be from this open Heart that we can receive the light and strength to live only for God and for his work. It is from the Heart of Jesus that we will have to learn how to become God’s people who find their joy in serving the mission with an undivided heart.

It will always be the Heart of Jesus to help us look to the future without falling into discouragement, sadness and disappointment, because from the Heart of God new things are always born for the good of all those who open themselves to love.

Like Comboni, we must learn not to be scared by the difficulties of the mission that we are called to live. It will always be a difficult and laborious work, but we must not forget that it is the mission of God, not ours. It is the mission of the Lord in which we are called to become mere collaborators and facilitators of his love.

As our holy founder, we too are invited and called to live fully the gift of the missionary vocation, willing to devote all our heart and soul, becoming men of deep faith, accepting with joy to witness through our poverty, our chastity and our obedience, and always trying to create environments of intense fraternity.

Even for us, the great challenge of the consecration will be the willingness to sacrifice everything for others, for those we meet in the mission. This also means acceptance of martyrdom, which will ask us to impregnate the heart of our brothers and sisters with our lives offered up in our daily existence, in humble and hidden service, in joyful acceptance of the surrender of ourselves to allow God to manifest his love.

Only if educated in this school of love, which is the Heart of Jesus, we will be able to experience in total freedom the choice for the poorest, and to give a face to the love of God, through the construction of a more just, more caring, more respectful world, capable of generating the happiness that we all carry in our heart as the only true yearning of our lives.

We ask for the grace to become joyful and happy consecrated people because we carry in our heart the treasure of the love that flows from the pierced Heart of the Lord, which St. Daniel Comboni discovered as the foundation on which to build his mission and to which he committed himself without setting any limit.

May the trust in the Heart of Jesus become also for us a source of an eternal love that will help us to live our consecration as the most beautiful gift that we have been given.

Happy Feast day of the Sacred Heart.
Fr. Enrique Sánchez G., mccj
Superior General

In the footsteps of Jesus – spiritual retreat in the streets of Berlin

11 June, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

On May 13, three women of the small group of German CLM went to Berlin, to make a spiritual retreat in the streets. We were anxious, how will that be? Full of gratitude we can say that it was worth it! The Jesuit Christian Herwartz and the Comboni sister Margit Forster affectionately accompanied us. Each of us made her personal and profound experience, going to places that made possible an encounter with God in a special way: the jail, a drug sales point, a meeting place for the homeless, tourist places in the center… Like Moses, we take off our sandals (fears, prejudices, judgments) and in the holy places we find God in a new way. Unfortunately, we had to return home on May 17. It was a brief but very rich experience, especially together. THANK YOU!

Barbara Ludewig CLM Germany

[Portugal] We live the call to mission as Christians moved by faith and not by work

3 June, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

On Friday May 22, we had another meeting of the CLM candidates in Viseu. The theme of this training unit was Laity in the Church – a lay and missionary spirituality presented by Carlos Barros.

We started watching a movie that touched me very much “Selma march of freedom” which chronicles the struggle that Martin Luther King had to fight to grant the right to vote for every person, which ends with an epic march from Selma City to Montgomery, Alabama, and prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

On Saturday Carlos told us of spirituality, has talked a lot, but some of the phrases that marked me were “spirituality is a path to God,” “is a love relationship with Christ,” which is “life fed by Christ”. Christian spirituality is not just for some, it is a lifestyle…

We had the opportunity to reflect on the identity of the CLM in Articles 4 and 5 of the directory in which they asked us to think of some questions:

How do I evaluate my spirituality in the light of these Articles of the CLM directory?
Through this training process, have I gained awareness about some aspects contained in these articles?
Are there any points in these articles where I feel that I have not yet succeeded? What are they? Why?
Do you think that someday you will guide your life by the principles contained in these articles?

During the Saturday morning, we were still surprised to receive the visit of Palmira Pinheiro – Comboni Missionary Secular, newcomer of the mission; she shared some of her missionary life.

After the meal, which was nice, and with reinforced powers, it was time to return to work. Carlos continued talking about spirituality, and more specifically Lay Spirituality where we discussed the role of the laity in the Church and, indeed, following Jesus is “a demanding and challenging task”. We must take an active role, being available to serve and not to be served. We must be radical to assume “the call to live the mission as Christians moved by faith and not by work”.

During the evening prayer we reflect on “Go you also into the vineyard,” where Jesus invites us to be part of his vineyard, not just religious, but all the faithful laity, all the baptized, because we are united by Baptism. Each of us is part of the Church, when someone is not present, the church is poorer.

Jesus also invites us to live a different life as Lay, he invites us to live detached from material goods, family ties (which is for me the most difficult to think or imagine …) and have the courage to go … not be afraid to say “Yes Father, I am here…”.

In the evening we received the testimony of Fr. Ginno Pastor in Skype (new technologies do wonders like this) where we hear his mission experience, always in Mozambique, where it showed that Fr. Ginno talked about it with love. His smile when talking about the mission, his words radiated love for others, an example of which was poor with the poor, someone who was certainly one of them while living in the mission… The phrase that touched me more of his testimony was “the smile of the other pays for everything 🙂 .”

The night dragged on because it was a great night, Pentecost, where we had a small vigil where each of us was able to share what is “being Church” writing in a bunch of grapes when we feel as Church…” I am church when…”.

On Sunday morning we participate in the Eucharist with the community of Viseu, and was nice to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit … it was a very special moment. I felt again the desire to be radical, to be different and do what I do by faith and not by obligation, as someone said, “If it is inside and not out of obligation this reflected”. It is necessary to believe in the words of Pope John Paul II: “Christ takes nothing away, only gives” and is with the certainty of this love for us, which I continued commitment as a Christian… and I hope every day to say the Lord “Here am I…”.

Andreia Martins (CLM candidate)