All the members of our apostolic community are doing well, thanks be to God. It has been a while since I got in touch with you because, the roads being so bad, I avoid traveling to Bangui. The trip today, with all the stops, lasted eight hours. It becomes exhausting…
Today a new CLM arrived, Cristina who is from Gueifães, Portugal. She will study French a little more and then Sango, the local language. I pray to the Lord that she will adapt well and that she will learn Sango quickly in order to come to serve our people, especially the most neglected who are the Pygmies.
We brought with us a 17 year old girl who, beginning in 2016, started having a growth on her right breast. She had come earlier for tests, but they did not do anything to her and now it is as big as a football. On Sunday she started having pains on the other side and, since they came to ask for help, we took her along. They will begin with a total mastectomy and I hope it will only be a fibroma and not cancerous, that all may go well for her.
The episcopal ordination of Fr. Jesús went well. Eighty people came from Mongoumba and his two brothers, the sister-in-law, two nephews and four friends came from Spain. Out of his closest family, only his parents were missing because they are already 86, but they will celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary in February and their son will be celebrating the Mass of thanksgiving. It was an unforgettable feast! A week later it was repeated in Mongoumba. The church was packed and many people stood outside.
For the coming of Jesús we celebrated the novena of the Nativity with a good participation of the faithful.
At the beginning of January we had some very cold nights with temperatures reaching 10C, which is very cold for people who do not have proper houses or coats to protect themselves. I had never felt such low temperatures over here…
Always united in prayer.
A large friendly hug to all from CLM Maria Augusta
“Mission Volunteering and Spirituality” was the theme of the first formation session of the volunteers of FEC (Faith and Cooperation Foundation), held on January 13-14, 2018 at the Casa de Salud of Telhal, Sintra. Some CLM attended. Here we give you the witness of Ana Raposo, who attended this FEC formation session.
In this first meeting of FEC we discussed the theme of the “Joy of the Gospel,” with Pope Francis as our mentor. The joy of the Gospel calls us to be a Church on the move to protect our common home, a Church that looks at the world with joy, love and praise while promoting the common good and the care of our neighbor. It calls us to look within ourselves, to discover a “you” that turns into me, having as a mission to accept the will of God and lead to God who is already here, to light the flame.
This joy, this love, was lived during this weekend in the formation and in the Sunday homily. It was the splendor and joy that emanated from the pastor and his assistants in spite of their limitations and from the moderator, Juan Antonio, who made us look from different points of view as he was clarifying some of our doubts.
God the giver of love, Jesus the loved one, the Holy Spirit is love.
This afternoon our Cristina left for the mission of Mongoumba, in the Republic of Central Africa (CAR) where she will join the current local CLM community made up of María Augusta from Portugal, Anna from Poland and Simone from Italy.
As it was expected, it was a time of strong emotions, where we experienced a mixture of bureaucratic concerns such luggage overweight and the natural interior turmoils caused by the parting from family and friends for a long period of time, two years in this case.
Looking at Cristina say her good-byes and reaching the escalator that would cut our contact with her, I clearly felt that our mutual visual contacts were being stretched and almost hugged, as if to stay connected one more instant, but the escalator moved up and Cristina was gone.
On the way home I was still impacted by that scene, as if I had not had other occasions to witness departures that were just as emotional, and I was thinking of what type of strength was at the top of that escalator that could draw Cristina more strongly than our desire to be together just a little longer.
Looking into my own self, I believe that the answer can only be Jesus.
Jesus is the one who interiorly calls us to leave everything and follow him wherever he wants.
Jesus is the one who always wants to give the Good News especially to the poor and, by doing it through us, challenges us and involves us in an ever deeper encounter with Himself.
This decision to leave may seem to be selfish to some. But it is not.
This decision comes from a listening attitude bringing out an imperative of conscience that makes us do what we must do.
He is the one who calls us!
The pain of separation from family and friends proves that we are not dealing with a selfish decision, but rather with an altruistic one, greater than us.
And for those of us who are left behind, notwithstanding our sense of loss, we are happy because we see our loved ones live life to the full… replenished with meaning.
We will fully be part of this mission by our prayers, by the longing and the support we will give to the decision, even if at times we will not understand it.
I am grateful from the bottom of my heart for the witness of Cristina and her family, and for all the CLM and families who go through the airport, thus showing by their lives that the Spirit keeps on blowing where it wishes and impacting our small lives so busy in the daily grind.
The Christmas meeting of the Comboni Lay Missionaries took place on December 16 and 17 in Viseu, at the Comboni Missionaries’ house. The theme was “From the Family of Nazareth to the Family of the CLM.” Several CLM attended together with those in formation. It was a meeting marked by joy and by a family atmosphere, a Comboni family and a CLM family. It was a family gathered around a single ideal – namely, Christ – and the same Comboni charism.
On Saturday morning, the CLM Sandra Fagundez gave a presentation on San Daniel Comboni and the movement. Following that, we played a game that gave us the opportunity to discover more about the Comboni Family, the meaning of Christmas, Christmas in mission… as we continued reflecting and praying on the different meditation points. It was an experience of dialogue, of sharing that enriched us and brought into focus in prayer realities distant from our eyes and the entire Comboni family.
The afternoon brought us another surprise. By groups, we had the opportunity to: talk about Christmas in mission and their life experience with the elderly Comboni Missionaries who live in the house of Viseu; converse with the Comboni Missionary Sisters at their home on what characterize the various Christmas celebrations they spent in mission; and, at the family home of the CLM Marisa Almeida, to talk and share with a family which is also part of the CLM family, because with us it shares and lives the dedication and affection to mission. It was an afternoon when we were questioned and challenged by the many witnesses of lives fully lived and dedicated to mission.
After prayer and supper, we had a party where, once more, we shared fun, laughter, jokes and music (and where Fr. Felix delighted us with his accordion). We also exchanged gifts! Once again, it was a time of unity, during this happy and genuine time together, with the CLM family and the Comboni family at large.
On Sunday, The CLM Susana Vilas Boas gave a presentation on the theme of “From the Family of Nazareth to the CLM family” starting with a reflection and ending with a sharing. From the morning session I remember the idea of journey. The CLM is on a journey, as Comboni would say, with their eyes fixed on Christ – because only this way does the journey have meaning. This is in order to follow the example of the family of Nazareth: the unity of Mary and Joseph, its humble service to Jesus, its desire to fulfill the will of God and the total dedication to his will must be the example for the CLM family, so that it may fulfill the dream that God has for it, and continue on a journey of growth in order to serve in mission according to the style of St. Daniel Comboni.
The Christmas meeting ended with the Eucharist with Fr. Francisco Medeiros as the main celebrant and with the joy of having with us at lunch the family of the CLM Neuza Francisco.
This is the word I was looking for to sum up the Christmas meeting of the CLM: family. In prayer, sharing, being together, listening, this meeting has awakened in each one of us the notion that we belong to something bigger than ourselves, a spiritual family that accepts us and challenges to improve, to do and live our mission in the style of Comboni, with our eyes fixed on Christ, passionate about Him and about people.
It was almost Christmas Eve when I realized how close it was, while I was about to start praying on my own and I was going through the liturgies of Advent. I know that, if I weren’t here, everything around me would remind me of Christmas. The proliferation of Christmas advertising would have pointed me in the direction of these celebrations practically starting from the year’s third quarter in an astute and gradual game.
Between the lighting, the external and internal decorations, suggestions for the menus always more exquisite and the dress code for the Holy Night and the Christmas dinner, the magic aura one feels in the city streets, the typical Christmas carols (…) between one dinner or another with friends and groups from here and there, nothing would distract us, not even the most absent minded, from “what is about to happen…”
Here there is absolutely nothing of the sort. In the city one may see some “imported” signs of Christmas. But not here. The senses are not overwhelmed by this avalanche of stimulations. There is no cold weather and fogged up windows showing flickering lights. One does not hear seasonal songs. One does not feel, or want to join, the frenetic glut of shopping and gifts – and even less the last minute shopping and needs. You do not watch things alone at home on TV. The heat is too intense to even think of changing from your slippers, skirts, shorts and light shirt into heavier clothing. There is no yearning for salted cod and extra-virgin oil. There is no king cake, French toast, walnut cookies or sweets of this or that kind. There are no dreams of toys or promises of instant and quickly passing paradises.
I must confess that, on Christmas week, I was a little apprehensive for being my first Christmas in mission, for missing my family, for everything being so different from what I was used to, and even for not having had electricity or water, making communications difficult and stunting my creativity…
But, this year the Baby Jesus has taught me this much: Christmas is not an ornament. It may look like Christmas all around us, but it will not be if it does not exist within our own self. Christmas is also movement, journeying. We must constantly be moving in order to find it. If we want to see the ‘great light,’ we must get up and go out; we must go meet the mangers where there is human suffering; we must return to the stable of simplicity; we must return to the manger where God’s hope and human hope meet – but always trusting that, between the silence and the word we are looking for, a star will always guide us.
Christmas, I believe, wakes us up to bring us back to our roots, up to the original dream that God has for each one of us. The childhood of God is also our childhood. That is why, after a long wait, we find peace when, finally, we rest in God.
An interesting fact…
After independence, Mozambique became a lay state. However, December 25 was preserved as a feast day, not because it was Christmas, but as the Day of the Family. Thus, on this day, independently of one’s religion, families get together to celebrate the gift of Family (naturally, for the Christian community, this day means much more, because it is the day of Jesus’ birth, when Salvation and true Peace descended on earth). This way, quite deservedly, they get together to celebrate and gain energy for the year that is about to come – but, after all, is not Christmas also this? On Christmas, each time we celebrate hope we end up saying in our hearts that “there is a future for Humankind.”
I will leave you with part of a poem by José Tolentino Mendonça (“We are the manger”) that has resonated with me over the last few weeks:
We are the manger
It is within us that Jesus is born
Within each age and status
Within each discovery and each loss
Within what grown and what falls apart
Within stone and flight
Within whatever in us puts us through water or fire
Within the journey and the path that seem without an escape Hoping you had a good Christmas,
Best wishes for a Happy New Year
Marisa Almeida, CLM in Mozambique.
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All the members of our apostolic community are doing well, thanks be to God. It has been a while since I got in touch with you because, the roads being so bad, I avoid traveling to Bangui. The trip today, with all the stops, lasted eight hours. It becomes exhausting…
