Italy – Page 9 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Some are beautiful victories

19 May, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

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

Forgive us our debts!

5 May, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

From 22 to 24 of April, I participated in Uberlandia, a city of Minas Gerais, in the Regional Prison Pastoral Assembly, an annual meeting that brings together all representatives of the State of Minas Gerais who work in this ministry. The theme was: Ecumenism, Justice and Mercy.

A justice who is the mother of peace, justice that is done with Mercy and Truth, justice is not only done with reason, not only with the heart, but Justice which is reason and heart together.

Justice often suffer from a stifling bureaucracy, old and conservative, a corruption that is evil in the world, who forgets to be restorative, seeking the good of all, to be punitive and elitist. There is an African proverb that says “in the trials you should go with a sewing needle and not with a knife to cut”, a justice that works to bring the lost humanity, even when you are guilty, because only through an act of mercy and not of condemnation will come the change, life and hope. If I did not believe it, I could not do my missionary service in the Prison Pastoral Care, where three times a week I meet the prisoners of male and female prison. It is my daily Gospel, where the wounds of guilt bleed and cause pain to whom committed the crime and to whom received it: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”.

To know how to forgive, to listen, through a journey that is done together, guilty and victim, through a reconciliation that completely changes your life, the weight of guilt and the weight of hatred.

In the days of the Assembly, I strongly felt my commitment to this path, as well as my colleagues who volunteer in prisons. None of us receives a salary, or admiration from people, on the contrary, they see us as “friends of the bandits and vagabonds” because the prisoners are considered the world’s waste, an evil to be eradicated rather to recover.

Everything we do is the result of our passion and our conviction of faith for a prison which can educate and not just punish, which can be more dignified and respectful, who knows how to create mercy and peace.

Brazil ranks fourth among countries with the highest number of prisoners in the world, after the United States, Russia and China. Human rights are not welcome in Brazilian prisons and other prisons in the world, this is also our “struggle” for full recognition.

Overcrowding, nonexistent sanitation, mice make detainees company, physical and psychological violence, illegal activities. All this happens when you visit prisons, where humanity and legality have no meaning in a complete contradiction with a structure create to rebuild and secure these values. These are the reflections, proposals and commitments we talked in our meeting, which encouraged and inspired our YES to this pastoral, remembering that there is no crime or sin that can eliminate man from the heart of the Merciful God.

Emma, CLM

Starts the cause of beatification of Father Ezekiel Ramin

18 April, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

The diocesan phase of the beatification process of “Servant of God” Father Ezekiel Ramin – already proclaimed “martyr of charity” by Pope John Paul II – began with the first public meeting on Saturday 9 April in the Italian city of Padua. Father “Lele” Ramin, a Comboni Misionary of Padua, died on July 24, 1985 in Cacoal, Brazil. Research on the reputation of holiness, based on the “super martyrdom” shows an awareness that the religious died in defense of its own faith, of peace and justice.

The work on the rogatory process opened in the church of the Comboni Missionaries in Via San Giovanni Verdara in Padua, with the institution of the court on the process “super martyrdom” and the oath of components. After a moment of prayer, Archbishop Pietro Brazzale, general coordinator of the rogatory presented the motivations and meaning. This was followed by the oath of Bishop Claudio Cipolla and members of the Tribunal for the diocesan rogatory: the delegate judge Mgr Giuseppe Zanon; the promoter of justice Fr. Antonio Medio; notary attorney of the minutes, Mariano Paolin, and notary and deputy general coordinator of the rogatory, Msgr. Pietro Brazzale.

Remembering the past…

11 February, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

Five months have passed since my arrival in Brazil, I arrived on December 1, 2013 in Nova Contagem, on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.

The first months were not easy, as all beginnings, because of the new culture, language, customs, way of doing things very different from mine, in a place that I did not know. You have to go to mission open to re-learn and be patient with yourself and others, give yourself time to enter, find, meet, hear, interact, listen and understand. You have to know how to create a culture of encounter with the other and their difference, their time, their thoughts that allow us to identify the coordinates where you and me can start a shared way. We should not just relate superficially but, we have to “touch-meet” and be “touch and meet”, being willing to change. It is not easy when we are adults, when we have our own formation, our own way of thinking, it is sometimes painful, difficult, but it is important and enriching. Re-learn to know how to accept, re-learn to wait, to know how to re-learn to grow and, above all, know how to love. On mission, you have to be with your head, feet and heart, otherwise you live a partial and limited experience. In these five months, I have learned to do this and I still do, every day, with the difficulties and the problems that this entails.

I realized that I am finding God in a different way; I am living in a different way. The depth of gestures, events, situations, places, creates a dialogue with Him, more intense and deep. Share the Word of God in a small brick house, simple and poor, has a completely different feel and a perspective completely different.

Here in Nova Contagem I got involved in prison ministry, visiting the prison. Prison is an environment, hard, difficult, with many challenges. The first are those bureaucratic and time it takes to get to the identification and review. Most of the time I relate to prisoners standing behind an iron gate in a small space where you have to reach out for a handshake, negotiating with the bars. Are important moments of encounter, listening times, to greet, to promote human rights (prison ministry also aims to denounce the inhuman and unjust situations) and share the Word of God. It is an “intense” moment to pray the Our Father, hand in hand, with all the difficulties of the bars and then conclude with a round of applause to thank everybody.

In addition to the prison ministry, I am starting to learn the APAC (Association for the Protection and Assistance to the Convicted) system. It is an alternative to the prison system, where there is respect for the person and dignity. No police in these structures, no humiliating reviews, volunteers and the prisoners themselves run everything. An innovative system that does not punish, but educate and are educated together. Living the two experiences: APAC and prison allow me to see the differences, see how in APAC people is recover and in the penal system do not, because on one hand there is the respect for the individual and the importance of the person in prison, on the other hand the imprisoned is considered a waste of society, worthless.

They are two completely different worlds.

In the community of Ipê Amarelo, where I live, I help in the pastoral care of children. Up to now, I am dealing with families visiting and invite then to weigh each month as a form of control to combat and prevent situations of malnutrition, undernutrition and obesity. Going into some of the houses, which opens to me a reality made of so much poverty and deprivation.

Finally, another important moment in my missionary experience is the family group of addicts (drugs and alcohol). People involved are simple people, often women, mothers or wives who share stories of hardship and pain (who lost a son because he killed, who have a child who is using drugs, a husband with alcohol problems). The instrument of this group is simply to share and listen, tell us how to make a change. And direct individuals seeking recovery by offering help and support. There are a lot of strength and a lot of faith in these people, it is a group that “transform me” every time I participate. Every Tuesday I am pleased to participate and return home converted.

Meaningful to me is life in community, planning a common path with others, accepting differences, reflection and the experience of Comboni spirituality, love for God and Life. It is a journey of growth and discovery of others and myself.

Very important are the times of prayer together, where through the Word of God, we share our own experience and missionary group, a moment of personal and community relief.

Here, up to now, my missionary walk part from these meetings, these moments, these roads. I have still much to discover, but I am on the way and, with courage and faith to follow this path, reminding me that mission is not a matter of doing great things, but little things that are valuable.

02.10.2016 Today…

It seems like yesterday I arrived in Brazil, but it was two years ago and I am in the third.

I feel a little tenderness to read these words of the first moments. I remember, still, the first insecure and timid steps. Today, looking back, I see the way I did and am still doing, a beautiful path, sometimes difficult, sometimes falls, but always walk and climb. The mission will change you if you allow it for changing. It is not true that we have no expectations when we went out of our country, we had it and they fall when we start to shed our mentality and try to get into the mindset of the other, dropping our barriers.

Community life teaches much about this. Coexistence is an ongoing mediation and auto-meditation, discover and auto-discovering, sometimes fighting, sometimes through difficult times, but always trying to find each other. Each of us has its personality, its temperament and its wounds we carry and the fights are not so much with others but with your own wounds.

We need witnesses, be word embodied in action right where we live and this place is, in first place the Community.

“Community, place of forgiveness and celebration,” a place for sharing and communion.

Today my feet are strong and safe, but always in a walk of discovery and learning … barefoot.

Emma Chiolini, Comboni Lay Missionary

“I was in prison and you came to visit me”

30 January, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

pastoral penitenciaria LMC Brasil — Prison ministry group with Father Adriano.

Among the various pastoral activities in the parish of Santo Domingo, led by the Comboni Missionaries in Nova Contagem, there is also the Prison Pastoral, carried forward by 15 volunteers, including Comboni Lay Missionaries, as part of the parish.

Every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the group meets to visit the pavilions of the maximum security prison Nelson Hungría, located in Nova Contagem, with about 2,000 prisoners. The appointment is at 08:00 in the square next to the prison.

Prisons in Brazil, as elsewhere in the world, suffer high prison overcrowding due to a system with little attention to the recovery of the detainees.

Prisons of Minas Gerais, for example, can receive 32,000 prisoners, divided into 144 prisons, actually are 54,000 prisoners within the various units. This situation can only deteriorate the living conditions of prisoners, with a purpose of punishment more than re-education and re-socialization, with serious violations of human rights.

The action and commitment of the Prison Pastoral group, mostly made up of women, is to believe in the work of promoting human dignity, respect for human rights, and overcoming the limits of the current prison system in favor of a model that allows effective recovery and reintegration of the prisoner.

The most important of our pastoral action is the testimony of a God who does not discriminate any person in a place marked by contempt, prejudice and violence, making our own the words of the Gospel: “I was in prison and you came to visit me”. It is the teaching of Jesus, the method, the model, who heads the walk of this pastoral, recognizing the face of God in every person, even in prison.

There are many challenges and difficulties faced in our pastoral activities, such as excessive bureaucracy that often delays and complicates our work, controls, restrictions on visits, limited permissions; but this small group of volunteers face difficulties with courage. This also allowed in 2014, to create two groups of catechesis in prison and enabled some prisoners who had requested to receive the sacraments.

To this are fundamental the moments of ongoing formation we do each month, with a space dedicated for programming and training, allowing pastoral prison agent to know and learn the actions and information that will help improve visits to the prison and the relationship with prisoners. We also attend the training conducted by the diocese.

That’s the job of the prison ministry. A simple action, holding hands, meeting face to face, listening to the life stories of those who are on the other side of the bars in order to witness the justice and dignity of every human being, because as the Gospel says ” By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13, 35).

Emma Chiolini, Comboni Lay Missionary