We share the first of the videos we have prepared for the Extraordinary Mission Month. During the next several weeks, we will be sharing more resources for us to use in our Mission Promotion.
Spain
Extraordinary Mission Month
On the occasion of the centenary of the Missionary Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud munus, Pope Francis has called for extraordinary mission month to be held in October 2019 “in order to awaken always more the awareness of our mission ad gentes and rekindle with a new impulse the transformation of our life and of our pastoral work.”
The pope invites us to live intensely this missionary month through a Personal encounter with Jesus, our Witness, Formation and missionary Charity, as a challenge for our Christian communities.
“Baptized and Sent. The Church of Christ in mission to the world” is the theme the Pope has chosen for this month. In its 10 points it develops very well the missionary implications of our Baptism, encouraging a new missionary awakening, which necessary in the entire Church, in order to offer the message of Christ to today’s world.
May the celebration of this Missionary Month help us to see ourselves as missionary disciples because mission is “innate” to us and our responsibility, so that we may be a Church on the move.
Meeting of the Comboni Family in Spain
For another year the Comboni Family of Spain gathered in Madrid for a weekend together. Religious, seculars and lay members together dreaming of how to be family and sharing times of prayer, food and formation.
This year we were accompanied by a team of CONFER working on the theme of Shared Mission in various charismatic families.
Through their proposed dynamics and time spent in group work they helped us to understand the challenges of shared mission, the duties we have as a family, our strengths, our weaknesses, etc.
All of this emphasizing the importance of the process and without skipping steps. The importance to understand that it is not only a matter of performing concrete actions or facing concrete challenges, but the importance that they start from a comm life sharing, entertaining common ties and relationships, loving and understanding one another. To understand the importance of complement each other, which does not consist in abandoning what each branch is, its identifying traits, but rather putting at the service of mission our particular traits as a richness that makes us complementary.
It is always good to meet, to feel how each time we recognize each other better and understand being a Comboni Family through something transversal of our being Missionaries and Comboni missionaries. It is not something extra that the group needs to take into account, but a transversal entity that makes up out being and doing as missionaries.
We also recognized that, at the ecclesial level, we live in privileged time when many other charismatic families question themselves on how to be Church, in our case this is something that Comboni himself had in mind from the beginning. It is up to us now to pick up this charismatic and ecclesial intuition he had.
The attendance at the meeting was lower for a number of circumstances, including having it while having decided last year not to. But all those present at the end were happy to be there. We are convinced that we must journey as a family. We know that we have many challenges to face, including perhaps the resistance of those ho are not yet convinced, but still convinced that this is the journey Comboni wants from us.
Now it remains to us to carry out the commitments we set for ourselves, the lines to follow in our work,… To strengthen the participation in this yearly meeting coming from all over Spain, at times trying to meet in different areas where we have various branches. All this without forgetting the history and the journeys we have had as a Comboni Family, the work of mission and vocation promotion done together, the joint meetings of prayer and formation and the joing celebration we had as a family.
May the Lord accompany us in this journey and may Christ inspire us.
Hugs
Alberto de la Portilla, CLM
CLM European Community of formation in Granada
Last week I was able to spend a good amount of formation time with Carolina, David and Juan Eugenio in Granada. It was a time to get to know one another better, to pray together, converse, walk, cook, eat and to celebrate life and our missionary vocation, coinciding as it was with Comboni’s birthday.
During this week we also had time to delve more deeply in our history as CLM at the international level, to go over the agreements made in the African continental meetings and how could we avoid giving sufficient time to share on the conclusions of our recent general assembly in Rome. We always gave enough time to get to know the international situation of the CLM and especially of the continent where they will be going.
We also spent part of the afternoon looking at videos and pictures from Ethiopia and Mozambique, and from them we moved to discuss and find answers to the realities to be faced.
Then we gave quite some time to work on community life. Our community is always the base of our presence as CLM in mission and the fundamental point of reference in performing our missionary ministry, in feeding and living our faith. It is like the Cenacle of Apostles Comboni wanted in order to spread what we have within us. We spent time to unravel several practical aspects such, organization, community responsibilities, projects, the economy, and other deeper aspects like how to protect our spirituality, how to be a Comboni family, keeping contacts with those who support us and others. We did it calmly in order to really converse, exchange points of view and learn from each other. We ended this part studying the Charter of the international communities approved at the recent international assembly which is and will be the foundation of our presence in international communities.
We also had time to spend with the Comboni family of Granada: one evening with the men and another with the sisters. It was a good time to pray together and talk about mission. It was a good family time dreaming together of how Comboni dreamed of us.
We did not forget to give time to conflict resolution. We know that conflict is natural in our human situation and that conflicts arise in our communities as well. That is why we must be able to face them, resolve them and grow together as persons and as a community.
During these days, we picked an entire morning to go walking, to visit the beautiful surrounding of the Cahorros, with its vertical walls and the beautiful views of the Sierra Nevada. It was also an opportunity to tests our strength and to be aware that we have to be well prepared for the pilgrimage over the Camino de Santiago. We will have to take advantage of the remaining weeks to arrive to it in good shape. It is always nice to go out into nature and have time to converse in a relaxed fashion while walking and thank God for all his gifts.
We ended dealing with the theme of interculturality. It is wonderful to travel to another continent and share other cultures, but it is necessary to be properly prepared to know the people with whom we will live in the coming years, in order to respect their worldview, in order to share our faith making sure not to over stress our own worldview and try even unconsciously to impose it, but rather in a spirit of sharing and grow in our diversities.
We closed the week by spending the weekend with the CLM of the southern region of Spain. It gave us time to share, do some formation, revision of life, to analyze this time of preparation for those who will leave, recharge our energy for the daily grind, etc.
On Sunday we did mission promotion in a parish of Granada. David was able to give a short presentation of his leaving for the mission and we took the opportunity to chat with the parishioners and sell some trinkets to finance mission work.
Their time to leave for Africa is getting nearer. Let us pray that the Lord will be with them, guide them in this time of special formation, a time also of spirituality and prayer to prepare them for departure.
Thanks for this week together.
Greetings
Alberto, coordinator of the CLM Central Committee
“I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13)
How beautiful is the wood sculpture of Africa at the feet of Christ. I allow the gaze of Comboni to penetrate me, to contemplate me. And how much of me fits into that gaze. I remember someone who once told me “it is impossible that it will not penetrate you, and question you.” And I agree every time I see this image of our tireless San Daniel Comboni.
This is the image I contemplate above the altar in the chapel of the MCCJ house in Madrid, where today I will wait until 4:00 PM, when the CLM David will come to get me to go together for the weekend at Arenas de San Pedro, about 100 miles from here. I can’t resist to enter and spend a moment with the Lord. I pray to him for the mission. Not only for my own, but for everyone’s. The mission of those who are about to go. The one of those who stay. Also in separation there is love. It means to leave what we have and earn something better: the freedom of giving ourselves to Christ. Separation is not something simply physical. It means to go out of ourselves on a daily basis. At each moment. It is what I continue to look for today, but that today is becoming more “doable.” 
I leave my country looking for the wisdom and the grace I need so that, in the future, I will deposit my gifts in total surrender. So during the next few months I will be in Madrid, with the family I chose, the Comboni Family, for a missiology course. From the beginning, this program inflamed my heart and brightened my eyes, I must confess, just like it is with the anxious waiting of children the day before returning to school. This is what I am grateful for even today before this Africa at the feet of Christ: the opportunity to grow in wisdom and grace.
I know that I am fragile, but in a community that lives of and for love, I feel strong. Because “all I can in Him who comforts me” (Phil 4:13). “All I can in Him who comforts me,” I repeat. It resonates in me. Only in Him and through Him I could be able to go beyond myself, to go to meet love, to be free inasmuch as I trust in Him and in his hands, loving without measure. “God does not choose the able ones, but enables those he chooses.” Today I am understanding this quite well… and I pray to God that he may make me capable in the mission to which I have been assigned. This is for me and for those who are with me. Family. Boyfriend. Friends. People in general. Each in their own right, are part of this mission and I feel the need to bring them along.
“You become responsible forever, for those you have tamed.”
(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
And so it is… I pray for each of them, and for their mission. Pray for me as well, please. From the bottom of my heart, thanks for your trust… Not so much in me, but in God. Everything, including me, we are only possible in Him.
Take, Lord and receive
my freedom,
my memory,
my understanding
and my will,
all that I have and possess;
You gave it to me;
I return it to you, Lord.
Everything is yours,
dispose of it as you wish.
Give me your love and your grace,
and it will be sufficient.
(St. Ignatius of Loyola)
Keep in touch,
CLM Carolina Fiúza
