Europe – Page 27 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

New school year

9 September, 2021 by Alberto de la Portilla

Fr. Francesco Pierli MCCJ and Sr. Teresita Cortés CMS share with us this reflection at the beginning of the academic year.

Dear Friends,

Let me take this opportunity of the approaching of the New Academic Year 2021-2022 to share few feelings anf few thougths with you. It is a great joy for me to be involved in this New Academic Year you are about to start. My mind goes back to the numerous years I was in Africa living with many of you the adventure of studying and researching together. If we are interested in succeding in whatever adventure we plugged ourselves into, it is important to shake hands with others. Beeing together it is God’s dream and an essential condition to be successful in whatever initiative we take. Fraternity and cooperation are two cornerstones of social ministry for social transformation from the very beginning. Let us continue to develop our passion and methodology for collaboration and togethernes men and women. Let us look at each other with appretiation and friendship. Our committment to collaboration assures God’s presence in our midst as Jesus clearly states in Chapter 5 of his Gospel.

Togetherness, mutual acceptance and collaboration are oustandig marks of social ministry meant for social transfomation of any environment. May yhe Holy Spirit grant us all, new joy and fraternity ever more. Fraternity is needed all over the world, and so as well for us to start anew in the new conditions we come to the University now.

I am aware of the hardships you are undergoing, both students and lecturers, in this time of global planetarian health crisis, due to the Coronavirus pandemic and othe catastrophies. I also had my part in times of isolation, loneliness and lack of socialization; not being allowed „to shake hands“. But now, let us be united and build anew our relationships. That would will be the way to grow stronger and we will regain hope and trust in a better future for our beloved Kenya and for the world. May the Holy Spirit show us ways to build bridges among individuals, families and nations and to sow the seed of collaboration. This hign value I am insisting about, is one of the strongest objectives of social ministry while bringing different ethnic groups, different religions, any diversity among cultures together. Especially bringing men and women together, according to the indication of God’s Word, according to the social teaching of the Church, becoming bearers of this new vision of Social Transformation which means to overcome even the old fashioned apostolic style where only men were supposed to be in leadership. I do not believe in a Kingdom of God built only by men; they alone do not generate life. New life comes only through „team spirit“ where men and women with equal dignity and mutual respect and understanding creatively generate the Social Transformation. This is already your Movement for Social Transformation….!!

I invite you, to look attentively and with contemplative eyes, at the picture which is at the apse of the main Hall at the Tangaza University College which shows how our equal footing, together male and female, create and bring equilibrium to God´s Creation. Let us start this Academic Year with „team spirit“, with joy, with new courage and new hope.

Thank you and be reassured of my daily prayer for each one of you.

Fraternally, Prof. Fr. Francesco Pierli MCCJ LTh. Sr. Teresita Cortés Aguirre CMS

ECONOMY, LAND OF MISSION

8 September, 20214 September, 2021 by Alberto de la Portilla

A new perspective on Europe and the world for the Comboni Lay Missionaries

Saturday 11 September 2021, 10h am – 1h pm (central Europe)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-_1UzNojFeGAiUMch1wFJQ

On the 20^th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York, the Comboni missionary and journalist Fr. Giulio Albanese MCCJ will talk about civil economy in the webinar “Economy, land of mission “, promoted by the European Coordination of Comboni Lay Missionaries. The meeting, in line with the “The Economy of Francesco” project, will be broadcast in live streaming, with simultaneous translations in English and Spanish, on Saturday 11 September from 10 am to 1 pm on the youtube channel of the Comboni Missionaries:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-_1UzNojFeGAiUMch1wFJQ

The recording of the meeting will later be available on the same channel.

Starting from a geopolitical analysis of the European continent, Fr. Albanese will reveal the mechanisms of the shadow banking system, one of the main causes of the increasingly unbridgeable gap between the North and the South of the world, further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The missionary will then reflect on the theme of solidarity, understood as the co-responsibility of citizens, believers and non-believers, in combating social exclusion and in taking care of the “res publica”, or the “common home” of humanity. The reference to the words of Pope Francis is clear, “ours is not an era of changes, but a change of era”.

Hence the crucial question: is it possible to reconcile business with the demands of the common good for a more equitable, just and supportive society?

The answer is yes and this is the key message of the webinar: appeal to citizenship, and in particular to the Comboni Lay Missionaries, so that we take care of the common goods together with local administrations, an invitation already sanctioned by the Italian Constitution in the last paragraph of the art. 118, based on the “principle of subsidiarity”.

“What to do then in practice, thinking above all of the needs for development and progress in the peripheries of the planet?” – asks Fr. Albanese – “It is clear that the missionary world must take the field, evangelizing even in the economic area. We need consecrated persons and lay people who are able to study new strategies as hoped for by Pope Francis in the historic summit of young economists in 2020 in Assisi ”.

Hence the really concrete proposal, from the point of view of the real economy, of an innovative model that involves civil society, the so-called “social business”. The objective of the model, conceived by the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (1940), Bengali economist and creator of modern microcredit, is the creation of enterprises with social purposes to be conceived and run as real companies, but with the imperative of social advantage instead of profit maximization. Keywords? Sustainability and the concept of shared wellbeing, never exclusive.

The meeting will continue in private form the afternoon, from 5 to 7 pm, as a laboratory for the European and extra-European Comboni Lay Missionaries, invited to reflect on the teachings of Fr. Albanese and the real opportunities to put the Yunus model into practice.

Father Giulio Albanese MCCJ (Rome, 1959) is a member of the Congregation of Comboni Missionaries and a journalist. He directed the New People Media Center in Nairobi and founded the Missionary Service News Agency (MISNA) in 1997. Author of 15 books published by houses such as Feltrinelli, Einaudi, EMI Editrice Missionaria Italiana, Messaggero di Padova, he collaborates with numerous newspapers and radios, including L’Osservatore Romano, Avvenire, Radio Vaticana, Giornale Radio Rai, apart from previous collaborations with BBC, CCN, Radio Svizzera Italiana. He has taught Missionary Journalism and Alternative Journalism at the Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome and has directed the missionary magazines of the Pontifical Mission Societies (Popoli e Missione and Il Ponte d’Oro). In 2003 the Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi awarded him the title of Grand Officer of the Italian Republic for journalistic merits in the South of the world. Since January 2018 he is also editor-in-chief of the Amici di Follereau magazine. He is a member of the Committee for charitable interventions in favor of Third World countries of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) and host of broadcasts and forums on issues related to Africa and the South of the world. He carries out his pastoral ministry in the Regina Pacis parish of Fiuggi.

Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM)

They are men and women of all ages – individuals, couples and families – inspired by the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth and the charism of his disciple St. Daniel Comboni (Limone sul Garda, 1831 – Khartoum, 1881). They live off their work and set up choices and lifestyles at the service of justice and peace and respecting the environment. They are part of the Comboni Family together with the Comboni Missionary Sisters, the Comboni Missionaries and the Comboni Secular Missionaries. Along with them, they are committed to carry out the Comboni project “Regenerating Africa with Africa” (1864) through periods of voluntary service in the South of the world (“missio ad gentes”) or where they live and work every day (“missio intra gentes”). CLM are present in Europe (Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain), in Africa (Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Togo, Uganda) and in the North, Central and South America (Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, United States).

Prayer Intentions of the Comboni Family September 2021

1 September, 2021 by Alberto de la Portilla

That the celebration of the XIX General Chapter of the Comboni Missionaries may light up their way in humble service to the mission of the Church. Lord hear us.

The heart of a Portuguese

28 August, 2021 by Alberto de la Portilla

This is the third time I have come to Portugal. But a pilgrimage to Fatima and a city break in Porto was a completely different experience than the three months I have spent learning the language, volunteering and living with a local family.

I have been a Lay Comboni Missionary since last October. On September 12th I will be officially sent on a two-year mission to Mozambique. One of the most important stages of preparation is a language course. From May 20, I lived in the village of Duas Igrejas (the name means literally “Two Churches”, although there is only one temple there) together with Gloria and António, a married couple cooperating with the Comboni Lay Missionary movement.

Initially, I compared the Portuguese reality to the Polish one. Portugal is a country with a standard of living similar to Poland, where in the past, due to poverty and joblessness, also many people decided to emigrate. A country where many people still practice their faith; they have a figure of Lord Jesus of Our Lady of Fatima in theirs gardens. Many catholic holidays are celebrated very solemnly there; among others non-working days are Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Fr. João Pedro Martins Ribeiro, local pastor of the three parishes (due to the small number of vocations, parishes are very often combined) presents a more pessimistic picture of religiosity in the country. He says that only a small fraction of the faithful goes to confession, is aware of what they believe and adheres to moral principles. Football is a religion for many Portuguese. Then the most important for them is to eat well and their favorite team to win the game. They go to church for the most important opportunities during holidays or at a funeral, when one of your friends dies – Padre João complains.

People in Portugal are very calm and conflict-free. I have witnessed many times like someone forced right-of-way, cut the road or blocked the passage. It is never used on this occasion horn or profanity. It just slows down or waits. Someone will make a mistake on the road, but I can also forget myself or not notice someone. Why should I react nervously to the mistakes of others? Better to be calm and understanding about everything – says Augusto, the extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and the working driver in the house of the daily stay, when I was a volunteer. Only once did I hear someone speaking a raised voice, I did not notice anyone drunk, I did not encounter any manifestation malice or aggression. The Portuguese are very helpful too. Repeatedly they let me leave mine a backpack in a cafe or ticket office at the station, they bought a beer or dinner when they heard that I had arrived to learn a language. It happened that when I ran to a train station late, the driver heard mine calling and waited for me to jump on the train.

I also experienced a lot of care and love from Gloria and António, who hosted me for three months at home. They took me to lessons and volunteering every day, cooked meals, took me to trips and bought a couple of language study books and two pairs of pants (after I destroyed my own, by unskillfully disinfecting the soles of shoes when entering the house). We joked that I was like them fourth, adopted, child.

Soon, as a child who still has a lot to learn, I will go to my new home in Mozambique.

I will get to know a new culture, have a new job and build new relationships. Just like in Portugal and before in Uganda, I will leave a piece of my heart there and come back gifted with pieces of hearts people that I will met there.

Bartek, Polish CLM

Prayer Intentions of the Comboni Family August 2021

31 July, 2021 by Alberto de la Portilla

That in all people the sentiments of fraternity and of belonging to the same human family may be strengthened so that we may build up together the values of justice and peace. Lord hear us.