Comboni Lay Missionaries

Missionary vocation

Campaña Manos Unidas

As every year the NGO of the Spanish Church Manos Unidas organizes various activities to raise awareness and involve Spanish society in development aid. In this case it was a march against hunger where children and adults ran to finance several of the projects of this NGO.

Manos Unidas has been supporting the missionary work of the Church in the world for many years. And we, as Comboni Lay Missionaries, also collaborate with it by contributing through our witness in the places of mission in various acts of this campaign as in the marches, in the hunger dinners or in the parishes where the campaign is carried out.

In this case also the program Witnesses Today of the regional television (Canal Sur) was present and took the opportunity to spread the event and make an interview with us that was broadcasted last Sunday.

We leave you today with this interview where we do a little tour on our vocation and missionary trajectory. (The interview is in Spanish)

Greetings to all of you

Alberto de la Portilla, CLM

Celebrating our Missionary Vocation

LMC España

Last weekend took place in Granada the national meeting of the CLM of Spain. It has been a very rich meeting in which we have had the opportunity to do missionary animation in many parishes of Granada and the province presenting the CLM Movement and our missionary vocation.

Moreover, this year our meeting had a special color since, besides celebrating our missionary vocation, we have celebrated as Comboni Family the missionary life of one of our most veteran companions of the Movement: Mª Carmen Polanco. Throughout her missionary life, Maria Carmen has always been a gift from God for all of us. We are fortunate because Mª Carmen began her life journey a few years ahead of us and so, we have someone to look up to. We are grateful for the value of having her as a reference in our own journey as CLM and we thank God for her shared life and dedication to the mission.

Mª Carmen, may the Lord continue to take care of you and bless you every day as He has done so far.

CLM Spain

Memory of Africa Project: María del Prado Fernández Martín

Hermana Prado

We continue this series of testimonies with the Comboni Sister María del Prado Fernández Martín.

Sister Prado Fernández, a Comboni Missionary, arrived in Africa in 1986 and lived for 30 years in different countries of the continent such as the Central African Republic, Chad or Congo until 2016.

In this interview, Prado tells us about her work as a missionary in areas such as health, education and pastoral care, making her work known through her journey. Above all, participating in the realities of the communities and what it has meant to her to share with the people.

(video in Spanish)

The Pygmy people, guardians of the Common Home

Laudato Si
Laudato

Jesús Ruíz, Bishop of Mbaïki (Central African Republic) tells us how his communities of the Aka (Pygmies) people celebrated Laudato Si’ Week. Jesus, who inspired the CLM movement in Spain, is visiting Spain these days and we had the joy of sharing an afternoon with him, in which his love for his communities shines through.

The Congo Basin is the second lung of the planet, and sadly the scene of similar environmental crimes to those we usually hear about in the Amazon. Only fewer voices tell us about this scenario of massive destruction of the equatorial rainforest. Jesús Ruíz promotes the integral evangelization of the peoples, in which the Easter of the Lord translates into the Aka people standing up against centuries of discrimination not only from the colonizers but also from the rest of the majority peoples of Central Africa.

The Aka are used to taking blows and bowing their heads. That is why leading a march with the slogan We are the guardians of the forest is of great value. It is a clear sign of the Comboni charisma. Like the rest of the native peoples in America, Asia, Oceania… the Aka are aware that they have guarded the Common House for centuries, in invisibility, and now their testimony shines because their environment is at serious risk of disappearing. We are indebted to all these communities.

Comboni Sisters Lucia Font (Spanish) and Lucia Premoli (Brazilian) are currently working with Bishop Ruiz and the Aka peoples, the latter as the Episcopal leader of the Laudato Si’ Commission. The experience in Amazonia has prompted the latter to concretize in Africa all the work that has been developed in Latin America. In nearby Mongoumba, the CLM community has been accompanying this people for more than 20 years. Our CLM Tere Monzón, who participated in this mission for 10 years, returns to Spain on the 9th.

Laudato SI

The momentum of the encyclical Laudato Si’ is mobilizing around the world for a change of system, because the current development model respects neither people nor the rest of Creation. “We need organizations to help us document everything that is happening in our territory, so that it becomes known.” The level of mercury pollution in the rivers, the loss of native species, the savage enrichment of a few minorities thanks to the national resources of this “poor country”. This is the direct request that Monsignor Ruiz makes to us.

CLM Spain

Memory of Africa Project: María Luz Sánchez Aragón

Comboniana

We continue this series of testimonies with Sister María Luz Sánchez Aragón.

Sister Maria Luz Sanchez Aragon is a Comboni missionary sister who has been working in Congo for more than 20 years.

She talks about all her years of missionary presence, especially her missionary vocation, her years of presence in Congo and her evolution facing the difficult reality that the country and the world continue to go through.

(video in Spanish)