Mission – Returning to the essential

ONGOING FORMATION AND COMBONI MISSION

Fr. Luigi Fernando Codianni
General Superior

1. A favourable time

This stage of ongoing formation represents a particularly important moment for the Institute, because it is part of the journey of reflection on the mission we are living. It is a sign of responsibility and charismatic maturity, since it touches the very heart of our identity.

In fact, it questions us about who we are today as Comboni missionaries, about what face of the Church and the Gospel we are called to witness to and about how to live the mission in the current context, with the resources and challenges that characterize it.

As a General Council, we believe that this process can become a true time of grace, if it is experienced as an opportunity, with the willingness to allow ourselves to be questioned and even provoked, and with openness to possible changes.

It is a journey that requires time and patience: it does not offer immediate answers or produce automatic results but lays solid foundations for the future of the Comboni mission. This is a significant step in the life of the Institute, which involves the personal, community and structural levels, and which also prepares us for the Chapter of 2028.

This process stems from a clear awareness: the context of the mission has profoundly changed, the people to whom we are sent have changed and we have also changed, as missionaries and as an Institute. Reflecting on the mission therefore means stopping, listening and discerning together what the Spirit is asking of us today.

2. It all depends on the willingness to walk together

Renewal processes do not work if they remain individual. This path of ongoing formation is intended to be a shared path, based on an attitude of listening and openness and on a concrete choice of co-responsibility. Without this willingness, even the most valid proposals risk remaining sterile.

3. Permanente formation is essential

This path of ongoing formation is not something "additional" to the mission, but a constitutive dimension of missionary fidelity. It helps us to reread our experience, to confront current challenges and to avoid the risk of routine, fatigue and self-referentiality.

4. Reflect on the mission to renew it

This journey asks us to question ourselves on how we live the mission today, with what attitudes and with what passion and creativity. Ongoing formation keeps alive the prophetic dimension of the Comboni charism and helps us not to live by nostalgia for the past, but by a creative fidelity capable of renewing itself.

5. Don't organize activities, but activate processes

Everyone's responsibility is to animate and animate us, motivate and motivate ourselves, accompany and be accompanied. It is important to create spaces for listening, dialogue and discernment in the circumscriptions and to foster a climate of trust that makes possible an authentic common journey.

6. A request for collaboration

We ask for your concrete support for this process of reflection. Each circumscription is called to incarnate it according to its own context and its own possibilities. The General Secretariat of the Mission is available, ready to collaborate and to welcome contributions, suggestions and proposals.

7. Conclusion

We live this time as a gift and not as a burden. Ongoing formation is an act of love for the mission. Only by walking together we will be able to continue to proclaim the Gospel with joy and credibility.

Fr. Luigi Fernando Codianni
General Superior