Daniele Comboni
Missionari Comboniani
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Workshop on the Rule of Life and the Word of God
Rome, Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Twenty three members of the province of South Africa met at Bertoni Centre, Pretoria, from the 8th to the 12th of October for a workshop on the Rule of Life (RL) and the Word of God. Fr. Francesco Pierli was the invited guest who helped us in the reflection. He led the group into a reflection on three main aspects of the Rule of life as a “secure guide” for the journey of the Comboni missionaries as disciples, apostles and cenacle of apostles. Under these three topics the group reflected on the actualization of the RL in our daily lives.
Fr. Francesco Pierli.
The most important thing for a Comboni missionary is to look at our RL not as a burden, but a source of inspiration for our vocational and missionary journey with St. Daniel Comboni. In the background of the constitutions we are prompted to discover the person of the founder, his life and dedication, as well as the life of so many confreres who preceded us and who lived intensively their missionary vocation. Only in this way the RL becomes alive and a source of unity, of identity and an inspiration for our missionary methodology, as it is stated in the letter of presentation of the GC.
We are grateful to the Spirit who inspired us in the making of the present Rule as a mature fruit of the Vatican II which asked the Institutes to recover the primigenia inspiratio. We acknowledge also the hard work of those confreres who in 1979 and 1988, reading the signs of times, offered us the gem of our Rule.
We realize that the presentation of the RL needs to be updated to respond to the present life of the Institute since many things changed in our reality from the time when it was approved in 1987. We expect that the commission of the Rule of Life may invite other confreres to comment on the RL taking into account that the Institute is today more international than it was twenty five years ago.
At the end of the workshop, we committed ourselves to make the RL a companion in our daily life at personal and community level. We consider that this is the best way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the RL.
We are grateful to Fr. Pierli who helped us to rediscover the treasure hidden in our constitutions and encouraged us to be faithful to them in our missionary service.
Fr Jeremias dos Santos Martins