Letter from the General Council to the Communities Living in Lands Marked by Trial

“I Am with You”
“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20b)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We write to you as our world continues to be wounded by wars, violence, severe food crises, persecution, injustice, political instability, natural disasters and forced migration. Many of you live each day under the burden of fear, uncertainty and grief. Too many children are learning the language of weapons before they learn the language of hope.

As Comboni Missionaries, we cannot look upon this suffering from afar. It is present in our prayer, challenges our conscience and shapes our mission. Whenever one of the peoples among whom we live suffers, our entire missionary family suffers with them.

Saint Daniel Comboni understood that mission is born at the foot of the Cross. Not because he loved suffering, but because he contemplated the Heart of Christ, pierced out of love for the world. In that open Heart he discovered a God who does not save from the heights of his power, but by entering into our human frailty. For this reason, Comboni made one fundamental choice in his life: to make common cause with the poorest and most abandoned peoples to whom he had been sent.

Today, that choice continues. To make common cause with the least means to weep with those who weep, to hope with those who hope, to remain when others leave, to share the little bread that is available, and to safeguard the dignity of every human person when everything seems intent on destroying it. It means believing that no people are forgotten by God and that no periphery is distant from his Heart.

You, brothers and sisters who live in lands marked by trial, are not simply the recipients of our mission: you are teachers of our faith. You teach us that hope is not optimism, but a decision of the heart. To hope is to light a lamp when the darkness of night seems to prevail all around.

You teach us that fraternity is not a theory: it is sharing the little rice that remains with those who arrive after us; it is continuing to call one another brothers and sisters when war seeks to turn every neighbour into an enemy; it is believing in the power of the Gospel precisely when it appears most fragile.

We recognize the Risen Christ in your communities that continue to pray, in the catechists who persevere in their ministry, in the mothers who protect life, in the young people who reject hatred, and in the elderly who continue to bless. This is Easter quietly unfolding in history.

Violence seeks to convince us that death has the final word. We believe the opposite: the final word belongs to the God of life. For this reason, the Church continues to be a prophetic presence, and every disciple is called to defend the dignity of others by building bridges where others raise walls, by educating, healing, praying and forgiving.

Our missionaries, too, share this journey. They are not heroes, but brothers and sisters who have chosen, together with you, to dwell within this history because God himself continues to dwell within it. Their presence does not remove suffering, but it makes it less lonely.

To all those who are tempted to lose heart, we say: do not let your hope be taken away. Hope is not born from the fact that things are going well, but from the certainty that God entered into the darkness of the world and emerged from it alive.

Every time you choose reconciliation instead of revenge, every time you protect a vulnerable life, every time you share your bread and pray for those who persecute you, Christ continues to rise again.

As Comboni Missionaries, we wish to renew before you our yes: yes to the Gospel; yes to forgotten peoples; yes to justice; yes to a peace patiently built; yes to the dignity of every human person; and yes to a mission lived as a sharing of life. We will continue to make the voices of those who are too often ignored heard, to denounce whatever wounds the dignity of peoples, and to proclaim that no power, no weapon and no economic interest will ever extinguish God's dream for humanity.

The Heart of Jesus, opened on the Cross, continues even today to pour out mercy upon the world. May we too enter into that Heart and learn to look upon every person as a brother or sister, and every people as one family.

May Mary, Mother of Hope, walk beside your families. And may Saint Daniel Comboni obtain for us the courage to remain faithful to the end, with hearts open, hands ready for service and our eyes fixed on the Kingdom that is already growing—often hidden—amid the wounds of history.

You are always in our hearts. Every day. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist. Every time we pronounce the name of Jesus.

Fraternally,

The General Council
Rome, July 14^th, 2026