Comboni Lay Missionaries

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Second day of the VII International Assembly of the CLM

by
LMC Maia

The second day of the VII International Assembly of the CLM movement has been dedicated to the report of the Central Committee (CC), presented by Alberto (Spain), as head of the CC, a small structure that we created to promote the movement at an international level, to follow up on the agreements reached in the different international meetings. Thanks to having a person ready for this, many tasks can be carried out, and we must be patient to match the rhythm of the Central Committee with that of the different countries. The person in charge of the Central Committee also represents the LMC in meetings of the rest of the Comboni Family, allowing fluid communication that favors the valorization of the LMC movement. And of course, accompany the coordinating teams of the different countries and continental committees, and share the initiatives and paths of the different countries to learn and walk together.

Currently we are 450 LMCs in 21 countries. A great challenge is that, although in the last 6 years we have sent 41 LMC to international missions, only 16 LMC are currently in our 5 international missions, even though that is one of the priorities that is part of our identity. In this sense we recognize the need for accompaniment throughout life to sustain our missionary vocation. Likewise, we need to be clear about our missionary proposal to be able to offer it to those who come with interest in learning about this vocation. We need, like Comboni, people and economic resources. Strengthen missionary animation and, regarding the economy, feel the needs of other countries as our own while we do not stop seeking economic resources in our own countries. We are inspired by the dream of St. Daniel Comboni, who looked beyond the difficulties of each moment, without ceasing to be realistic, putting the needs of the mission at the center. Utopia always helps us walk.

Another important task of the CC is to accompany the international communities, remembering that the countries that send LMC abroad are co-responsible for this support. In this period since the Rome Assembly, JPIC has taken important steps, with work on ministeriality and the publication of two books of reflection on the matter. We recognize JPIC as an area of special interest for the laity.

In a movement with fragilities, lack of people and resources, taking care of spirituality is especially necessary as support and foundation. The CC report also especially reminds us of the need to reflect in each country on how it contributes financially to the International Common Fund. Currently more than 40% of our resources come from the MCCJ.

After sharing the report of the Central Committee, we have also had the opportunity to review how we have been progressing in the implementation of the agreements made in the previous Assembly held in Rome in 2018, collected in 96 proposals. Among so many issues, we can point out that we have advanced along the path, still needing to go deeper. We highlight the creation of the International Training Guide and the International Communication Guide, as a service to the different national LMC movements.

In the afternoon, we reviewed the process of ecclesiastical recognition as an International Association of the Faithful, discussing the draft Statutes of the International LMC Movement. Alberto highlighted that achieving this recognition will be a long-sought objective and will mean significant differences. The ultimate responsibility of the CLM movement will be for the CLM themselves, in their different international and national structures. We must become aware of this. However, the statutes will not be new, they will not include anything that is not already included in previous international agreements. It is therefore a qualitative difference. In the evening we always had a special moment, such as reviewing the different international communities, with the opportunity to have a brief video call with the communities of Acailandia-Piquia (Brazil), Mongumba (Central African Republic) and Carapira (Mozambique)[i]. This pleasant online moment closed with this message from Federica from Carapira: Every day we pray for you, so that the Lord Jesus has space in our open hearts and Ana from Piquiá: the desire to continue upon returning to Europe supporting the realities that are knowing in his ad gentes stage.

[i] In addition international communities, we currently have Arequipa (Peru) and Kitelakapel (Kenya).

Report day 1 of the Maia 2024 assembly December 9, 2024.

by
Asamblea Maia 2024

The day began with a delicious breakfast, in which we enjoyed the typical delicacies of Portugal.

The opening of the assembly was led by Alberto de la Portilla, in which important points were highlighted such as

  • It is time to show the good or the bad that we have done and from there to be able to grow, review the path and develop the growth of the groups from the different countries.
  • What has been developed for 6 years is brought to the assembly, the life of the LMC, dreams and future plans that we want to live in the community.
  • Everything that is spoken and discussed will be collected in a document to share with the other LMCs in each country and is the responsibility of each of the LMC members in each country.
  • The assembly seeks general agreements so that each country can adapt to its reality; we do not seek to go into detail but rather to seek a general line that helps us grow; Consensus will be sought for each of these aspects.

It continued with a reflection developed by Kenyan group; we began with a Swahili dance and song that talked about how great God is and that we can find him wherever we want; we learned its meaning and danced it to warm up. Following this, we proceeded to reflect on four questions that guided a 30-minute meditation, reinforced by some biblical texts that made us search for the presence of God and the Holy Spirit in the assembly.

  • We do not walk alone. How to travel together?
  • A transformative encounter. Lord, talk to me.
  • Mister; why me? Why here?
  • Saints and capable. What can I offer?

The next activity was the presentation of the countries, then we began with the report of each of the countries. In this presentation, the video or support material that each one brought was shown. These presentations were developed from the topics that they sent us to prepare the report by country. The following annotations that correspond to all the communities were highlighted.

  • The responsibility of the people who are part of the LMCs must be those of the LMCs themselves; so we must have the autonomy of these decisions with responsibility. However, it must be noted that the last person responsible for the people who make up the LMC is the provincial of each province.
  • In Egypt, they have three moments of vows or commitments, after finishing the first year with a commitment to service, after finishing the second year of formation another vow and after finishing the third year of formation other vows that lead to growth of commitment to the Comboni charism.
  • The situation of RCA is a unfavorable reality of a community; It is worth noting that these situations must always be shown to know what type of community a missionary faces when applying for this type of mission places.
  • In some places like Congo and others, despite having a large number of people making up the LMC groups, it must be taken into account that the purpose of the LMC must be to assume the commitment to leave their country to provide their services in a place other than yours.

The day closed with the exhibition by country of its culture, its typical products and its particularities enriched by its people and their charisma; Photographic records of the activity and the exposed stands are left.

A Plan, so ancient, yet so new

by
Comboni

«The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, For the Lord has anointed me He has sent me to bring the Good News to the poor; To bind up hearts that are broken, To proclaim liberty to captives, Freedom to those in prison, To proclaim a year of favour from the Lord » (Isaiah 61,1-2a)

«The Catholic, who is used to judging things in a supernatural light, looked upon Africa, not through the pitiable lens of human interest, but in the pure light of faith; there he saw an infinite number of brothers who belonged to the same family as himself with one common Father in heaven […] then, carried away by the impetus of that love set aflame by the divine light on Calvary Hill, when it came forth from the side of the Crucified One to embrace the whole human family, he felt his heart beat faster» (Writings, 2742).

Dear Confreres, Pax et Bonum in the Lord Jesus, the missionary of the Father!

It is with a profound feeling of joy and gratitude that we greet you on the occasion of the So-lemnity of Saint Daniel Comboni. This celebration reminds us that we must keep both the “memoria” (anamnesis) both of the Founder, lived with immense passion, and his death, accepted as a gift of love for the poorest and most abandoned, in such a way that the life and mission of every spiritual son and daughter of his may truly become “love incarnate” in our missionary service.

This memorial of the heavenly birth (dies natalis) of our Holy Founder challenges us to deepen his charism, as the living heritage that must animate us in matters of mission in the world of today as “missionary disciples” of Jesus, in a Combonian manner.

Recently, we recalled the 160th anniversary of the founding charismatic experience lived by Comboni on 15 September 1984 during the triduum in preparation for the beatification of Margaret Mary Alacoque, as he prayed at the tomb of Saint Peter in Rome. It was an experience that led him to conceive the Plan for the Regeneration of Africa. That Plan is not just a text, a mere operative strate-gy or a dream to cling to but the fruit of inspiration “from above”, from the Holy Spirit, that is, that “called” Comboni and sent him to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus to the poorest and abandoned.

Thanks to his great passion for the salvation of the Africans and his missionary enthusiasm, by his life he “gave flesh” to that Plan. After him, his missionary men and women – his authentic “sons and daughters” who make his dream their own – have continued to “incarnate” that Plan with their life, their generosity, their spirit of sacrifice and their apostolic courage. We continue to do this today, while broadening and updating the original inspiration of the Founder no longer in Africa alone but in every continent, with the same spirit (charism), in the world of our time, still inhabited by persons and peoples who suffer, who are marginalised, exploited, vilified, the victims of atrocious injustice and even killed. In recent months, the situation in Sudan has become particularly dramatic, due to a con-flict that seems to have no end.

take to heart the main insights of that Plan. We would like to list some of them.

First of all, the conviction that the evangelisation of Africa must be realised by the Africans themselves, that they must not be mere spectators but become the protagonists of a new history of their own of liberation and dignity.

Second, the heartfelt appeal addressed to the whole Church to commit itself in its entirety to promoting the evangelization of Africa, calling it to gather together and commit all the missionary forces existing in the world of that time and inviting them to cooperate in a true synodal spirit.

Thirdly, the vision of mission as essentially the binomial of “The proclamation of the Gospel” and “human promotion”. A century would pass before the Church convoked the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and Pope Paul VI announced the regular convocation of the Synod of Bishops (1965). The third Synod, in 1971, produced a powerful document capable of sustaining the living ac-tion of the Church regarding the problems of justice and peace on a global level. The following state-ment of the bishops is splendidly courageous and prophetic: «Action on behalf of justice and partici-pation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preach-ing of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation» (Justice in the World, 6).

We must not fail to grasp the prophecy, the actuality or the urgency of the missionary proposal formulated in the Plan, characterised by a true missionary spirit and strategies that are valid for our time and our humanity of today. It is not unjustified to see in the vision of Comboni a veritable harmony with the thematic of the Synod on Synodality taking place in Rome at this time and which we, the children of Comboni today, are called to make our own.

However, to discover the richness of the vision of the Plan and make it operational in our lives, we must adopt the attitude of deep prayer and docility to the Spirit that the Founder had. We ask the Holy Spirit to descend upon us as He descended upon him, enabling him to “See Africa’s hour” and to feel within himself an irrepressible desire to dedicate himself entirely as a “free gift” to a new Afri-can mission that would respond to the urgencies and challenges of his time.

Ultimately, it is a question of always having the courage to start from the Lord, to be driven by his Spirit, without ever falling into the temptation of self-referentiality, which not only impoverishes the mission, but also destroys it, just as the Rules of 1871 remind us: «Completely emptied of self and deprived of every human comfort, the Missionary to Africa works only for his God, for the most abandoned peoples in the world and for eternity » (Rules of the Institute for the Missions of Africa, 1871; Writings 2702).

It is obvious that the Plan conceived by Comboni, before becoming a written document, was al-so a dream and a passion, an uncontainable force in his heart that overflowed in charity. We can say that the Plan is the expression of a love so genuine and heartfelt that it became a source of mission.

We too need to have such love! Let us ask ourselves: what passions drive me to live the mission today? How does my heart leap when I encounter injustice, oppression, cold indifference, and the many other evils of our society today? In the quotidian of my life, is there still space, time and open-ness to God for His Spirit to enter my heart and sustain it? To what extent does my love for the poor oblige me to give myself completely to them, arousing in me such a strength as to transform my life into a gift of love?

In this “missionary month” of October, we have the opportunity to follow and live the Synod of Bishops. Let us take advantage of these experiences of ecclesial communion, in sincere listening, in fraternal welcome and in walking together, aware that the Spirit who inspired Comboni can also in-spire us and help us to overcome our weaknesses and produce fruits that are an expression of the per-ennial concern that God has for all his sons and daughters, especially the weakest and suffering.

We ask for our Comboni Family the gift of being filled with a love that becomes real, as a con-crete response to the challenges of today’s mission, always ready to make common cause with the poor.

Best wishes to everyone on this joyful solemnity!

Rome, 10 October 2024

The MCCJ General Council