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“Reasons of the Heart”
There are many reasons that make it throb.
But it is one, only one, the essence of the reasons, which sets the pace for all others “love”!
It is guiding our whole life.
But as human beings we are, and because more and more we live in a world of reason and for the reason, we see love as a chemical formula that we can handle according to our will.
The heart has its limits, we know!
We pull it down, we again turn it up and remove it afterward…
But is it have to be like that?! Can´t we learn? Can´t we be courageous? Can´t we believe?
Maybe, we just need a little courage, hope and faith!
Perhaps it will has no limit if we choose to face it, heal them, welcome them!
Perhaps the heart after all can be unlimited if we have the courage to decide that Love has no limits.
And if it is the passion of Christ in his pain for us, where we find the balm of mercy, we will heal our wounds immersing ourselves in His love!
It is not enough to ask, to thank, to pray!
It is mandatory to experience forgiveness in us and for us! Then to live on the other and for the other the joy of love…
Let us be a good legacy of his passion of open Heart, healthy and full of reasons for living…
Cristina Sousa
Maia, 27 May 2016
Message of the MCCJ General Council for the feast of the Sacred Heart
Dear confreres
On the vigil of the feast of the Sacred Heart, we feel invited and attracted to contemplate in a special way this Heart, fruitful expression of the entire life of Jesus. We invite you especially to reflect on that historical moment of Jesus’ death on the Cross. An event that changes the course of history. A historical and at the same time symbolic event, which keeps happening in the lives of all who are crucified with Christ in today’s world.
That year the Passover of the Jews was different. On Friday, the day of preparation, as all were getting ready for the important feast, outside the walls of the city, at the place of the Skull, three men were ingloriously ending their young life on a cross. One of them was called Jesus. Most of his life had been quietly spent in a small, unknown village of Galilee. Then, during his last three years, he had become a pilgrim on the roads of Galilee, Samaria and Judea.
He was doing good to all, healing the sick, letting himself be moved by the crowds especially when he saw them weary and without direction. His words full of authority were listened to with pleasure and warmed everyone’s heart. An influential group, however, looked at him with suspicion, considered him a danger to the status quo and its privileges. And one day, on the Friday before Easter, lead him to the cross. The day was rapidly setting like many others. Jesus was hanging on the Cross, already dead: “Seeing that he was already dead, instead of breaking his legs, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately came out blood and water” (Jn 19:33-34).
Near the cross of Jesus was Mary, his mother, and the disciple Jesus loved. They saw the heart, pierced by the lance, meekly opening up and were seized by the contemplation of that miracle. Other people came close, looked at it and believed. They saw water and blood come out of it as the fountain of new life for the world. Thus the words that Jesus himself had spoken shortly before in Jerusalem, on the Feast of Tabernacles, were fulfilled: “If any man is thirsty let him come to me! Let he come and drink who believes in me. As Scripture says: From his breast shall flow fountains of living water.”
As an inexhaustible fountain, this heart does not tire of quenching the thirst of all who approach him. Following Mary and the disciple whom Jesus loved, Mary Magdalene and Thomas, Margaret Mary Alacoque and Daniel Comboni and many others have found in this humble and merciful heart a new vision of the world and of life. They rediscovered joy and courage when their heart was embittered, strength and passion to throw themselves fully into the mission work when their hope was failing: “Now with the Cross which is a sublime outpouring of love from the Heart of Jesus, we become powerful” (W 1735).
The Feast of the Heart of Jesus, in this Year of Mercy, invites us to rediscover the supreme act of God’s love, right to the end. It is a call to learn from Comboni to contemplate the Heart of the Good Shepherd and to set it at the centre of our lives. When the confreres, the people or the difficult work of the mission wear us out and make us lose the enthusiasm and the joy of serving, we are invited to contemplate this Heart: “From the contemplation of the pierced Heart of Jesus may it always be possible to renew in you a passion for the people of our time, which is expressed through a gratuitous love in the commitment of solidarity, especially towards the weakest and most disadvantaged people. So that you may continue to promote justice and peace, the respect and dignity of every person” (Pope Francis to the Comboni missionaries, 1.10.2015).
The MCCJ General Council
Some are beautiful victories
Some are beautiful victories, small achievements born from battles with the taste of effort, commitment, hope, design, dream, but most are the result of a long journey of one who never gave up, despite the difficulties.
These small victories are joys that can be shared in the work team made up of people who believe in what they do, that with confidence and humility make possible every day the daily work of the prison ministry.
Today, finally, we began catechesis in the maximum-security prison of Nelson Hungary.
Our joy, along with those involved, came after a long wait, because of the necessary permits, bureaucratic entanglements that normally discouraged many… BUT NOT US! We have kept the faith and constancy in our goal trying to make possible an order made by the prisoners themselves, mediating with the “institutional” part who have no confidence in the recovery and development work with prisoners. Some believe it is wasted time, not worth it, that those who are in prison has no right, not even to seek God or themselves, just to be inside a dark cell. However, it is precisely in this darkness that comes the desire to “see”, to meet again, to embrace the mystery that strikes the human soul. Nobody has the right to deny the necessity and spiritual quest that is proper to the human being. Therefore, our struggle was to meet a demand that comes from a personal search, a desire to seek God and look to oneself.
Today begins a new path with a small group of prisoners, and finally, in a room where you can put in a circle, freely, without any impediment bars, handcuffs, dividers of physical space, security agents.
It is very exciting what is shared, strong, human, full of questions and desires. Roads that we built together, where everybody shares and enrich the other, where they teach one another, where emotions, joys and wounds of life to be reconstructed are communicated, a life that does not feel lost or ruined by the weight of guilt or conviction of individuals.
Be blessed this path, be blessed this thirst for God that magnifies the heart, that breaks borders and prison bars made of flesh and humanity in searching the path.
Hurrah for the life that is able to birth and grow, Hurrah for the people who help to grow, hurrah for the will to place on the road and not being afraid to do so.
Among the prisoners’ rights that must be respected it is the right to religious assistance.
All prisoners have freedom of religious worship, and the right to practice in their prison unit; nobody is forced to participate if they do not want to.
Emma, CLM in Brazil
Interview with Ana Obyrtacz in Radio Mary in Congo
Hi Anna. Could you introduce yourself to the audience? Tell us about your family.Good morning father. Good morning everyone.My name is Anna Obyrtacz. I am from Krakow in Poland. I am a Christian Catholic, Comboni Lay Missionary. I am 30 years old. I am in Kinshasa since 22 January 2016. I came here to learn French. I am still in Kinshasa for a week and then I will go to the Central African Republic for the mission for two years. I will work with the Pygmies of Mongoumba. The village is located about 200 km south of Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic.
My family lives in Poland and is awaiting my return, 🙂 but I hope they come to see me one day in Africa. I was born in a family of 4 children and I am the penultimate.
My family consists of my father Jean, my mother Joséphine, my brothers and sisters. My older sister is called Kinga after she comes my brother Christoper, then me and finally my little brother Michel. My older brother is married and is a father of two children, a boy and a girl.
- Is Poland a more Catholic country than Congo?
After the time I have spent here in Kinshasa, when I look at the numbers, I can say that in Congo as in Poland there are many Christians Catholic. However, we can also say that the numbers does not reflect the truth.
For me the comparison is difficult because we have not the same realities and I do not like to compare faith. Besides, I think it is not about numbers but the “quality” of our faith.
- How is your lay Comboni vocation?
People say that vocation is a mystery 🙂
I think my vocation began long before I think.
When I was young, I never thought about the missions. I always wanted to live and work in Poland, my country. But today I think the work is the same everywhere in the world, also people are the same everywhere in the world.
I met the Comboni Missionaries (MCCJ) in March 2012 in Krakow in a worship that they organized for missionary martyrs. In Poland, there are two Comboni communities, one in Cracow and one in Warsaw.
I was involved in missionary pastoral meetings with students.
I am also part of the missionary movement TUCUM associated with the Comboni Missionaries in Poland who exercise their missionary activity in parishes. They are people who want to live consciously and work together. Our activities: prayer, acts of charity, promoting the mission. We have a sign of belonging to the movement that is the black ring.
I also worked with children. It was a group of children in my parish. Then I also took a group of Missionary Childhood for children of my parish in Krakow. We had meetings once a week, study the Word of God and talk about missionaries issues. We invite missionaries to our group and we also watch missionary movies. We always pray for missions.
Also did volunteer work with a Polish foundation that helps patients of hematology and oncology.
Before coming here, I was working as a specialist in the department of investments – in a public institution for the construction and maintenance of public roads.
My whole life is a time of discernment of my vocation. Fully and truly, I want to live for God, yet humanly can often waver, I know there is Someone you can always trust.
God is with me every day, in every step of my life. He has prepared for me a path, and has shown me signs. It allowed me to discover my lay identity, my missionary identity and my Comboni identity. Then He helped me make the decision for a mission. God has taken away the fear and gave me strength and confidence.
The most important moment of my vocation has been the formation in the CLM community:
- Each month we had a training session to explore and discover the charism and spirituality of St. Daniel Comboni
- The individual prayer (meditation)
- Community prayer
- Discernment with others
- Spiritual direction
Every day I discover my vocation, for me it is a continuous process.
- Why did you choose Africa, Central Africa precisely to go to mission and not elsewhere?
After discovering my CLM vocation, I have not thought any mission-place in particular. I just knew I would have to go where I may be necessary or where I can be useful, as the words of our founder, St. Daniel Comboni says “for the poorest and most abandoned”. For me the place does not matter. As for the location, it was open to what God prepared for me, because I have confidence that He will choose better than I do, God knows better than me.
As International Comboni Lay Missionaries Movement, we have several international communities in Africa: Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Malawi and South America. We try to give continuity to those places where we are already serving, but we can also go elsewhere if necessary.
Choosing a place not only in terms of the profession, the preference of the person that part, but also, of course, of the need for the local church, our priority is the first evangelization and be near the poor, ensuring continuity of communities.
It is also important that the individual and coordination team in the country share the decision.
However, it had to be Africa or South America. During my training I was in Uganda for a month, this was my first experience in Africa. I think Africa has gotten my heart.
I have known the realities of our communities, and I knew that there was a need of staff in the CAR. We also talked about the difficult political situation, unstable and dangerous. In addition, I knew I had to learn French.
It was not an easy decision, I would say even difficult. I could have chosen something safer and easier. But, is it that my choice should be an easy one? Or should I go where God is calling me? We know that to do the will of God sometimes is not humanly easy. But I’m sure I have chosen the best. Therefore, as mission country, I decided to go to the Central African Republic.
- What have you learned during your stay these 3 months of Congo and the Kinshasa´s church in particular?
If I came to Congo, it was to learn the language, which cost me a lot. In addition, every day I had to learn to live in another reality that I left in Poland and has sometimes it has been difficult. Why? Because now, with the Internet, we have the facility to have constant communication with my family, with my friends in Poland, so we can be close.
For me, the mission is primarily to live with people. Through the various conversations, I came to know the reality that I was sent on the mission, a reality is left to live another.
I think the future will show what I have learned in Congo and if I was a good student.
Another very important thing during my stay in Kinshasa has been learning openness to the new. Despite being very different from Poland.
- What message would let to the youth and especially the African laity?
Seek the Lord in your life every day, in everything you do find out what He has prepared for you.
Young, live only God’s plan in your life because it is the best.
We know that life does not end on this earth, this is just a stage.
Be assured you are not alone. Despite suffering when you feel alone, God is always present.
Do not be afraid to live with passion and do what you love.
Another thing that my bishop told me before going to mission: “neither faith nor science, only love will help us to know and experience God”, and we have to tell the others that this is the greatest and first commandment of God. I tell everyone.
- What Congolese dish do you prefer?
I love fish, especially salted fish and the pondu, especially prepared by Irene. Irene is a Comboni Laity of Kinshasa with whom I lived during my stay here.
Thank you very much
Anna Obyrtacz CLM
