We continue this series of testimonies with Sister María Luz Sánchez Aragón.
Sister Maria Luz Sanchez Aragon is a Comboni missionary sister who has been working in Congo for more than 20 years.
She talks about all her years of missionary presence, especially her missionary vocation, her years of presence in Congo and her evolution facing the difficult reality that the country and the world continue to go through.
(video in Spanish)
The book “Africa, Cradle of Social Transformation” written by Domenico Agasso, which reconstructs the missionary journey and vision of Fr. Francesco Pierli [right in photo], was presented in Verona on Saturday, April 1. The volume traces the stages of Fr. Francesco’s life highlighting his vital experiences and the historical processes from which his research and praxis of social transformation developed.
What emerges is a profoundly Combonian journey, reflecting the ideas, values and style of St. Daniel Comboni’s Plan for the Regeneration of Africa with Africa. Continuity and discontinuity at the same time, as often emerges in Fr. Pierli’s own reflection. Discontinuity in that times have changed a great deal, with a quite different mentality and socio-economic structures. We thus encounter a thought that critically confronts the great social and cultural transformations of our time and operates a discernment in order to respond to the epochal challenges that arise according to God’s dream.
It can be understood then how from his origins in post-World War I Umbria, marked by strong tensions and demands for social justice, Fr. Pierli developed a particular sensitivity and interest in the social doctrine of the Church and the vocation to social and “political” responsibility of Christians. He lived the season of the Second Vatican Council and put it to good use, inspired by the vision of Gaudium et spes and Lumen gentium. He becomes involved with both the magisterium and the social praxis of the Church, and when, at the end of his term as Superior General of the Comboni Missionaries, he landed in Kenya, he founded the Institute of Social Ministry in Mission (now the Institute for Social Transformation) at Tangaza College (in the Catholic University of East Africa). It was 1994, a year full of events: that of the first synod for Africa, in which he participated as an expert; the first democratic elections in South Africa, sanctioning the transition after apartheid; but also the genocide in Rwanda, a predominantly Catholic country. The African Synod called on the Church to embrace the social mission of the church in response to the major challenges on the continent. The Institute founded by Fr. Pierli was the first response to that invitation: to form social ministers equal to such great challenges.
A living testimony of the impact of the Institute’s work came from Dr. Judith Pete, a former student of Fr. Pierli’s, who now teaches at the same university and is in charge of the UNESCO Universities in Africa program, which promotes the synergy between learning and service on the ground. In addition to recounting how her encounter with Fr. Pierli profoundly marked her life, she emphasized the importance of the pedagogy used in the Institute, which harmonizes theory and practice, professional preparation and attitude of service and integrity. Most importantly, he emphasized how the Institute for Social Transformation’s programs contribute to the formation of leaders dedicated to social transformation in Africa.
Prof. Mario Molteni, from the Catholic University of Milan, spoke, recounting the fruitful collaboration with Fr. Pierli and the Institute he founded. A collaboration that launched a master’s program for the training of social entrepreneurs, with a direct slant on start-ups with social impact. A program that was only possible to start because of Fr. Pierli’s courage and vision that made it possible to have an effective, open and creative counterpart in Africa. Today that program has spread to 20 African countries and in the next few years it will come to 5 more. It is not just an academic program in partnership with African universities, but a network of entrepreneurs and local business services for significant social impact, organized under an organization called E4Impact. Recently, this initiative was visited by President Mattarella during his official visit to Kenya, selected for its innovation and significance. Indeed, to overcome the socio-economic injustices and environmental unsustainability that are leading the planet toward catastrophic scenarios, we need a new model of development, as Pope Francis also often insists, for example in Laudato si‘ and with the Economy of Francis movement.
At the end of the event, Fr. Pierli was asked what has been the most difficult challenge of all these years. Without hesitation, he emphasized the difficulty of changing mindsets and attitudes, and power relations, that induce dependence rather than autonomy and interdependence in Africa. We still have not overcome the heavy colonial legacy. The journey for social transformation continues.
Original https://www.comboni.org/contenuti/115249
Here is the video of the book presentation with speeches by, among others, the author and Fr. Pierli himself.
“The first day of the week…” (Jn. 20.1)
Dear Confreres,
We send you our greetings in the Risen Christ!
Chapter 20 of John’s Gospel, in recounting the experience of Easter morning, invites us to contemplate the journey of faith of three protagonists: Mary of Magdala, Peter and the beloved disciple. Their itinerary of faith is also an itinerary of seeing: one passes from stopping in front of the evidence of an empty tomb (Mary) to a more attentive look at details (Peter), up to observation accompanied by the memory involving the mind and heart (the other disciple).
These are three gazes that open the heart of the community and make it the protagonist in writing “another ‘story’”, because they have become aware that the resurrection is understood to the extent that one believes the Word of the Gospel, and places love as the reason for one’s existence, so as to overcome moments of pain, distrust, discouragement and, above all, moments of “no hope”.
“Where there is love, there is a gaze”. Quoting this phrase from Riccardo di San Vittore, Bernardo Francesco Maria Gianni, abbot of San Miniato al Monte, during a course of Spiritual Exercises which he preached to the Pope and the Roman Curia, recalled the need to recognise “the traces and clues that the Lord never tires of leaving us in his passage through this history of ours, in this life of ours”. It is in that love that we must read Jesus’ gaze on all those he met. This is a perspective that today introduces in us “a paschal dynamic” that makes us aware that “the historical moment is serious”, because “the universal breath of fraternity appears to be very much weakened”, while “the strength of fraternity is precisely the new frontier of Christianity”.
The itinerary of faith experienced by the primitive community on Easter morning is not only a beautiful testimony but also – and above all – an invitation to us to know how to pause in front of today’s events, people and confreres. Our Founder, St. Daniel Comboni, knew how to “pause” before the events of his time, trying to imitate Christ, who could “see the poor and share their lot, comfort the unhappy, heal the sick and restore life to the dead; call back the wayward and forgive the repentant; while dying on the Cross, pray for his own crucifiers; and, having risen in glory, send the apostles to preach salvation to the whole world” (cf. Writings, 3223).
People who have eyes that “know how to look” and are willing to “waste time” for others manage to create spaces for relationships and become themselves a gift for others with a view to mutual healing.
Relationships, gift and healing, lived from the perspective of love-gift – with different rhythms and sensitivities, as happened “on that first day early in the morning” – allow us to transform our faith into courageous hope, and to redeem history and the dignity of so many brothers and sisters on whom today’s societies have placed – and continue to place – “a large stone”, because they are hostages of selfish interests, contempt and indifference.
Courage and hope were the attitudes repeatedly recalled during our meeting with the circumscription superiors which ended on 19th March. We are fully aware of the situations – often tiring and demanding – in which we live and which could lead us to live the life of the Institute as a commemorative event and, therefore, only to be remembered. Instead, we must have the courage to reactivate a human and fraternal circuit, which allows us to give a new acceleration to the work of evangelization that we are carrying out in the different realities in which we live, ever more convinced that “a renewed announcement offers believers – even to the lukewarm or non-practising – a new joy in the faith and an evangelizing fruitfulness. In reality, its center and essence is always the same: the God who manifested his immense love in Christ who died and rose again. He makes his faithful ever new and, although they are old, they regain strength, put on wings like eagles, run and do not grow weary, walk and never tire (Is 40:31)” (Evangelii Gaudium, 11).
We extend special good wishes to our elderly and sick confreres, to the populations recently affected by earthquakes in Turkey, Syria and tremendous environmental calamities in Malawi, parts of Mozambique and in Ecuador, and to all the people who suffer the horrors of war in different parts of the world.
May the Risen One support all of us with his grace and our missionary commitment, so that, moved by the strength of the Spirit, we may continue to be fruitful operators of justice, peace and fraternity for the humanity entrusted to us.
Happy Easter!
The MCCJ General Council
For those who live in the great overcrowded cities: that they may find there a place of welcome, work opportunities, and respect for their welfare. Let us pray.
We continue this series of testimonies with Father Ramón Navarro Catalán.
Fr. Ramón Navarro Catalán is a Comboni Missionary and has spent most of his time in Ethiopia, mainly in the Hawassa region.
He talks about all his years of missionary presence.
(video in Spanish)
