Always on mission: at departure and at return

Dear brothers and sisters, all of you who are here: today, 25 October, during Missionary Month, we celebrate my farewell as a Comboni missionary among you.

Comboni tells us: “The Missionary to Africa will often have to reflect that he works in an undertaking certainly of the highest merit, but one that is, nonetheless, hard and difficult. He will have to understand that he is a stone hid under the earth, which will perhaps never come to light, but which will become part of the foundations of a vast, new building that only those who come after him will see rising from the ground” (Writings 2701).

What an extraordinary image! Comboni does not compare the missionary to a statue erected in the middle of a square, nor to someone whose name will be engraved on a plaque.

He compares him to a hidden stone: a stone that nobody sees, that receives no applause and that will probably never see the building it has helped to construct.

Mission is also this: giving one's life to a work that goes beyond us, knowing that others will continue what we have begun and that, very often, they will reap the fruits of seeds that we ourselves have sown.

I arrived in Mozambique in September 1989. Thirty-seven years have now passed. The time has come to leave, to entrust others with the task of continuing the work and to learn, always from Comboni, to be a hidden stone in the building of the new humanity that Christ offers to everyone, without exception.

Two young Comboni missionaries will remain with you: one from Congo and the other from Mozambique.

When I look back on these years of service in Mozambique and, especially, here in Nampula, in the Santa Cruz community, the word that rises from my heart is: thank you.

Thank you to God, who entrusted this mission to me and granted me the grace of serving you.

Thank you to all of you for your welcome, friendship, patience, prayers, trust and kind words. Everything has helped me to become an ever more Comboni missionary.

I have not yet left, and I already miss you. My heart is aching with longing for you.

Longing carries pain, because it is born of absence; but it also carries gratitude, because it is proof that something wonderful existed between us. Longing hurts, but it is a treasure that grows richer every day.

The elderly man from the central community held on to me for a long time, weeping and bringing tears to the eyes of many others, including the children, who began to cry when they saw the young people and adults crying.

It is difficult for everyone. For me too.

The person responsible for the Liturgy said: “I promise not to forget and to continue putting into practice our commitment to economic self-sustainability, as you taught us.”

The person responsible for the Missionary Childhood group wrote to me: “I thank the padre for everything he has done for us. He has been our library. We too will continue explaining to others what we have received, passing on his teachings. Please pray for us. We will continue praying for you.”

Thank you!

Fr. Alberto Vieira, MCCJ