Comboni Lay Missionaries

Welcome Élia!

Elia

On July 3 arrived at Lisbon airport the CLM Élia- She returns from the Central African Republic after five years of missionary service in the  mission of Mongoumba.

After the reception at the airport from the CLM Pedro, Liliana and Flávio and sister Carmen, we went with great joy by to eat at the house of the Comboni Sisters in Olivais. In addition to the community of the Comboni sisters, where there were the Family of Pedro. During lunch, we talk and share mission´s adventures. It was a beautiful moment of conviviality. After lunch, there was still room for some delicious Welcoming´s cakes!

In the afternoon, Élia continued her way home in the Algarve, where she is now with her family.

We appreciate the availability of the Comboni Sisters and wish Élia a good return and readjustment to the reality of our country.

Welcome Élia!

Portuguese CLM

2 new members of Polish CLM comunity!

Adela e TobiaszOn 3 June – in Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ Day, 2 new members officialy  joined our polish CLM comunity. During the High Mass, Adela and Tobiasz formally showed their desire to follow their missionary vocation in Saint Daniel Combioni’s Spirit. They read their declarations among Comboni Fathers, friends and invited guests. They were thankful for faith, God’s presence in their life and for their vocation. Together, they underlined that because of their married love, they want to be a sign of God. As a comunity, we would like to thank God for Adela and Tobias and we pray for them so they were able to trust him with courage and let Him lead them. First step on this Comboni’s path is just behind them 🙂

The synonymous of “today” is “present”

hoje

What is the force that sustains us? Where comes the hope to continue dreaming?, to resist and seek a more human and happy society, fraternal for all? What moves us are the dreams of the reality we want, a reality that does not include situations of injustice imposed by social and economic inequalities. A reality that becomes what we want if we transform it, through our efforts, with our senses, with our choices. We can and must be builders of our personal and collective destiny, our creative freedom. Our passion and our faith gain strength when they are in direct contact with the victims of violence and injustice against the sacred and fundamental rights called human rights. Signs and resurrections are born from ourselves, from the union and strength of social movements that come from below, from civil and organized society… us! We can rain Justice, fertilize the soil and get the fruits to be born. It is possible, because we want to, we believe, we fight, we build. Fatigue, disappointment, discouragement, fear becomes a giant shadow if we allow it, but becomes small and insignificant if we stick together, if one fight is the fight of all. Among the strongest evils is the absolute indifference, is the one that dominates our daily life, a kind of blindness in the world that causes people to live in a bubble, blind and sterile, unable to hear the heartbeat of the world, forgetting in this beating is also ours. We are the world, history is ours, no one feels excluded, in the words of a song by De Gregori, We are writing history! We are part of an alphabet that is able to write wonderful things, if we choose it. Courage, dreams, hopes, dignity, freedom, justice, respect, imagination, fraternity … so many feathers with which to start writing, where we are the blank paper where start doing it.

Emma. CLM

Love is a rope that leads you to the top…

CuerdaBeautiful, is truly beautiful the catechesis I am doing with the prisoners. It has just started, but it is doing well and every time I go deeply in love, in fact, we are all passionate. It is a time of sharing, searching the depths of the soul.

This desire to be on the way to understand … to understand each other … to meet God.

We walked with stones in the heart, hard, heavy; we gradually try to scratch them, to make them small as pebbles, which can be removed from the shoe. Up to now, there are six prisoners who are part of the group and that is good, because the smaller group the easiest is to speak because of the intimacy that is created to say the important and difficult things in life. I am also very happy to have the opportunity to be among them without iron bars or divisions, sitting in a circle, in a space that helps to have proximity. It is important to be close, eye contact, listen carefully, take their hand to pray and finally embrace to say THANK YOU. It takes an hour and a half or so. I forget being in a prison, I don´t remember the red uniform they wear. I forget the noise of the other prisoners. We are so immersed in the depth of what is shared which could apparently be the title of a book by Virginia Woolf: “our own room” and it is in fact a space just for them, a space for us. I like a path that works human recovery and self-discovery, leading to a personal growth inside and this applies not only for them but also to me. It is an exchange, a give and take as the dear old but still relevant Paulo Freire said: “no one teaches anyone, everyone learns from everybody”. We can learn from every person, also from prisoners and their stories, and I am grateful.

Emma, ​​CLM.