The Comboni Missionaries of Lisbon promote meetings between religious communities

Comboni Missionaries, Vincentians, Spiritans, and Servants of Our Lady of Fatima, who have provincial headquarters near one another in the city of Lisbon, Portugal, met on February 4 – the feast of St. John de Brito – at the house of the Comboni Missionaries. The religious celebrated the Eucharist and had supper together.

The meeting – the first in living memory – had the following objectives: to foster mutual knowledge; to promote more closeness between the communities; to share and reflect on the challenges to consecrated people today in their mutual relations and with the local Church. How to live and give witness to the different charisms, how to act in communion and cooperation with the institutes that are inserted in the local Church, were some of the questions the missionaries also discussed. In answering to these challenges – so said the Comboni Missionary Fr. Carlos Alberto Nunes (who is presiding at the Eucharist, in the picture above) – we feel the need and the importance of staying united in the proclamation of Christ and of cooperating and working together in the missionary activity of the Church. In this sense, we have decided to hold these meetings on a quarterly basis and to invite neighboring religious communities and pastors.”

In order that this communion and cooperation may not simply remain empty words, the date for the next meeting has already been fixed, May 20, at the house of the Servants of Our Lady of Fatima. The topics to be tackled, according to Fr. Carlos Nunes, will be: “mission, youth and vocation promotion, the service of charity, especially in relation to the migrants and the homeless of the city of Lisbon.”