Daniel Comboni
Comboni Missionaries
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Who we are and how we live
The name Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus reflects our identity.
References to the mission, to Comboni and the Heart of Jesus are not simply figurative elements but con-stitute our being. In fact, these elements have been assumed and manifested in the lives of the missionaries who have gone before us and who, like the hidden stones of a great building, have helped to lay the present-day foundations of our identity.
Introduction
The name Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus reflects our identity.
References to the mission, to Comboni and the Heart of Jesus are not simply figurative elements but constitute our being. In fact, these elements have been assumed and manifested in the lives of the missionaries who have gone before us and who, like the hidden stones of a great building, have helped to lay the present-day foundations of our identity.
The Comboni identity contains some elements which are, at the same time, both fundamental and dynamic, since they define it, enrich it and continually renew it.
The Comboni identity consists in the ability to enter into the dynamic of the “missio Dei”, to absorb the charismatic experience of St Daniel Comboni and assume the Heart of Jesus as the source and model of life, in order to give one’s life for “the poorest and most abandoned”.
Missionaries
The mission is born of the Trinity: “God so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son” (Jn 3,16). Jesus continues to bear witness to and proclaim this “love” in the world by means of the Church, his Mystical Body.
The Spirit called Comboni to follow Jesus in his role as the Good Shepherd of the Pierced Heart and to proceed with the “dream” of saving Africa with Africa.
We Comboni Missionaries continue this mission: to love the people “as” Jesus loved them, working together that they may be ever more the protagonists of their own history and of the mission of God.
The mission requires of the missionary a journey of conversion which gives him the possibility of living the charismatic experience of St Daniel Comboni and of moving at the pace of the people to whom he proclaims the Gospel, knowing that one may die before seeing the results of one’s own work.
The missionary lives in constant tension with and feels challenged by the everchanging reality. He neither becomes rooted in nor is satisfied with the results achieved. He is fully aware that the mission ad gentes is only just beginning and he offers himself totally to God and to others so that Christ may be known and liberation offered to all.
The mission, understood as God’s salvific plan for humankind, continues to be present in the various stages of the life of the Comboni Missionary and in the work he carries out: evangelisation, formation, missionary animation, as his starting point and goal and the main purpose of his life.
* Starting from your own experience, describe how you see the mission today and how it evolves with time.
Comboni Missionaries
Moved by the impetus of this divine charity - flowing from the Pierced Heart of the Good Shepherd - Comboni, from his earliest years, feels seduced by the mission, on behalf of which he employs all his energy (W 2742; 3156). Comboni’s ever deepening awareness, not simply intellectual but as an intimate relationship, shows us the way towards the renewal of mission and of missionaries.
Many Comboni Missionaries have lived their fidelity to the mission to an excellent degree. They remain concrete examples of what Comboni asked of his missionaries: to be “holy and capable”, full of charity, the source of which is in God and in the love of Christ.
These missionaries have left their mark on the Institute in moments of particular importance and in the various sectors of activities: evangelisation, missionary animation and formation.
The Comboni Missionaries, with their eyes fixed on Jesus, are called to run the same course as Comboni in a new and dynamic way. The compassion of Christ causes the passion for the mission to be born in the heart of the missionary, a passion which commits him ad vitam and leads him to face difficult situations “of poverty and abandonment” (CA ’03, 37) - ad paupers - (W 2647) where he is called to carry out his mission-ary service.
* Recall the lives and missionary commitment of some confreres whom you have known, in whom you have admired some specific aspects of the Comboni mission.
The Heart of Jesus
The Heart of the Good Shepherd is the source of the missionary passion of Comboni (CA ’03, 34. W 4290). In the Heart of Jesus we find the stimulus and the explanation for the total self-giving to mission of Comboni and of the Comboni Missionary who is ever “patient and strong in bearing loneliness, exhaustion and apparently useless labour” (RL 2.2).
Daniel Comboni lived his missionary vocation forcing himself to conform his life to that of the Good Shep-herd of the Pierced Heart. He understood that the Heart of Christ beat for the Africans and for the excluded, victims of injustice and oppression, and was moved to make common cause with them (W 3159).
The contemplation of the Crucified One of the Pierced Heart brings us to see his face in the person of the poor and of the crucified of history, the most marginalised human groups, and creates in us the attitudes necessary to respond to the call of Jesus in others. The Cross of Christ and that of others becomes the inseparable companion of the Comboni Missionary (W 2723; 3392).
* Share a difficult experience of your missionary life. Where did you find the strength to face the reality of the mission with its difficulties?
How we live
The mission makes of the Comboni Missionaries an intercultural community of Priests and Brothers who live in solidarity with the people they evangelise: “The work must be catholic, not just Spanish, French, German or Italian” (W 944). This manner of living, sign of the Kingdom of God, becomes the inspiration and model for the Christian communities which are born of the conversion to Christ and his Gospel.
The way to live the consecration to the mission which Daniel Comboni proposes to the members of his Institute is that of community life: “a little cenacle of Apostles, of zealous and virtuous missionaries which emerge from his heart” (W 2648).
This cenacle has a centre: the Heart of God. The missionary is aware that it is the Spirit of God which “visibly precedes the apostolic action, unceasingly accompanies it and directs it in various ways” (AG 4); day by day he is open to its action, perceiving the signs of its presence in people and events, giving long periods of time to personal and community prayer.
* Being intercultural is part of the reality of our Institute. How do you live it personally? Do you share your cultural experience with others?
* Are there now new aspects of our Institute, different from those of Comboni’s time? What are they? How do they challenge us?
“When the winds of change start to blow, some people erect walls,
others hoist sails” (Chinese proverb)
How do we react?
The name Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus reflects our identity.
References to the mission, to Comboni and the Heart of Jesus are not simply figurative elements but constitute our being. In fact, these elements have been assumed and manifested in the lives of the missionaries who have gone before us and who, like the hidden stones of a great building, have helped to lay the present-day foundations of our identity.
The Comboni identity contains some elements which are, at the same time, both fundamental and dynamic, since they define it, enrich it and continually renew it.
The Comboni identity consists in the ability to enter into the dynamic of the “missio Dei”, to absorb the charismatic experience of St Daniel Comboni and assume the Heart of Jesus as the source and model of life, in order to give one’s life for “the poorest and most abandoned”.
Missionaries
The mission is born of the Trinity: “God so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son” (Jn 3,16). Jesus continues to bear witness to and proclaim this “love” in the world by means of the Church, his Mystical Body.
The Spirit called Comboni to follow Jesus in his role as the Good Shepherd of the Pierced Heart and to proceed with the “dream” of saving Africa with Africa.
We Comboni Missionaries continue this mission: to love the people “as” Jesus loved them, working together that they may be ever more the protagonists of their own history and of the mission of God.
The mission requires of the missionary a journey of conversion which gives him the possibility of living the charismatic experience of St Daniel Comboni and of moving at the pace of the people to whom he proclaims the Gospel, knowing that one may die before seeing the results of one’s own work.
The missionary lives in constant tension with and feels challenged by the everchanging reality. He neither becomes rooted in nor is satisfied with the results achieved. He is fully aware that the mission ad gentes is only just beginning and he offers himself totally to God and to others so that Christ may be known and liberation offered to all.
The mission, understood as God’s salvific plan for humankind, continues to be present in the various stages of the life of the Comboni Missionary and in the work he carries out: evangelisation, formation, missionary animation, as his starting point and goal and the main purpose of his life.
* Starting from your own experience, describe how you see the mission today and how it evolves with time.
Comboni Missionaries
Moved by the impetus of this divine charity - flowing from the Pierced Heart of the Good Shepherd - Comboni, from his earliest years, feels seduced by the mission, on behalf of which he employs all his energy (W 2742; 3156). Comboni’s ever deepening awareness, not simply intellectual but as an intimate relationship, shows us the way towards the renewal of mission and of missionaries.
Many Comboni Missionaries have lived their fidelity to the mission to an excellent degree. They remain concrete examples of what Comboni asked of his missionaries: to be “holy and capable”, full of charity, the source of which is in God and in the love of Christ.
These missionaries have left their mark on the Institute in moments of particular importance and in the various sectors of activities: evangelisation, missionary animation and formation.
The Comboni Missionaries, with their eyes fixed on Jesus, are called to run the same course as Comboni in a new and dynamic way. The compassion of Christ causes the passion for the mission to be born in the heart of the missionary, a passion which commits him ad vitam and leads him to face difficult situations “of poverty and abandonment” (CA ’03, 37) - ad paupers - (W 2647) where he is called to carry out his mission-ary service.
* Recall the lives and missionary commitment of some confreres whom you have known, in whom you have admired some specific aspects of the Comboni mission.
The Heart of Jesus
The Heart of the Good Shepherd is the source of the missionary passion of Comboni (CA ’03, 34. W 4290). In the Heart of Jesus we find the stimulus and the explanation for the total self-giving to mission of Comboni and of the Comboni Missionary who is ever “patient and strong in bearing loneliness, exhaustion and apparently useless labour” (RL 2.2).
Daniel Comboni lived his missionary vocation forcing himself to conform his life to that of the Good Shep-herd of the Pierced Heart. He understood that the Heart of Christ beat for the Africans and for the excluded, victims of injustice and oppression, and was moved to make common cause with them (W 3159).
The contemplation of the Crucified One of the Pierced Heart brings us to see his face in the person of the poor and of the crucified of history, the most marginalised human groups, and creates in us the attitudes necessary to respond to the call of Jesus in others. The Cross of Christ and that of others becomes the inseparable companion of the Comboni Missionary (W 2723; 3392).
* Share a difficult experience of your missionary life. Where did you find the strength to face the reality of the mission with its difficulties?
How we live
The mission makes of the Comboni Missionaries an intercultural community of Priests and Brothers who live in solidarity with the people they evangelise: “The work must be catholic, not just Spanish, French, German or Italian” (W 944). This manner of living, sign of the Kingdom of God, becomes the inspiration and model for the Christian communities which are born of the conversion to Christ and his Gospel.
The way to live the consecration to the mission which Daniel Comboni proposes to the members of his Institute is that of community life: “a little cenacle of Apostles, of zealous and virtuous missionaries which emerge from his heart” (W 2648).
This cenacle has a centre: the Heart of God. The missionary is aware that it is the Spirit of God which “visibly precedes the apostolic action, unceasingly accompanies it and directs it in various ways” (AG 4); day by day he is open to its action, perceiving the signs of its presence in people and events, giving long periods of time to personal and community prayer.
* Being intercultural is part of the reality of our Institute. How do you live it personally? Do you share your cultural experience with others?
* Are there now new aspects of our Institute, different from those of Comboni’s time? What are they? How do they challenge us?
“When the winds of change start to blow, some people erect walls,
others hoist sails” (Chinese proverb)
How do we react?