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Pilgrimage to the first mission of Comboni in South Sudan
Rome, Monday, March 11, 2013
A group of more than seventy people gathered today, 11th of March, at Yirol, Lakes State, South Sudan, for a pilgrimage to Holy Cross, the mission in which Daniel Comboni arrived, with five companions of Mazza’s Institute, on February 14, 1858. A month and a half later, one of the members of the expedition dies and, on January 15, 1859, the survivors, with serious health problems, definitely abandon the mission among the Dinka. In attachment we publish the message about the pilgrimage – in Italian and English – of the provincial superior of South Sudan, Fr. Daniele Moschetti.
No one knows for sure where the mission of Holy Cross was situated. It was built on the banks of the White Nile, but in 155 years the course of the river has changed. There is a place called Kenisa – church, in Arabic – that could be the place of the mission, but the Spanish Comboni P. José Javier Parladé Escobar, after some research done within the local community, is convinced that the mission has to be located in Pan Nhom, where he recently built a chapel.
The pilgrimage to Holy Cross with the slogan “A thousand lives for the mission… on the footstep of St. Daniel Comboni” is part of the program of the Year of Faith of the Comboni province of South Sudan and the participants – mostly young people – come from the Comboni missions of Yirol, Mapuordit, Talì and even Rumbek. Some confreres and Comboni Sisters will also participate together with the three pre-postulants who in April will start their formative journey.
The pilgrimage is done by truck, on the first two days, and on foot, on the third day, when we plan to sleep at Pan Nhom or Holy Cross. The pilgrims will stop for some time to pray and be together with the Christians of the chapels we will encounter along the way. They will pray for protection, peace, justice and reconciliation in South Sudan and Sudan, and a common and peaceful future. They will also pray for the 115 cardinals who will choose the new Pope. The pilgrimage to the mission of Holy Cross was conceived for the first time in 2010 by the late Bishop Caesar Mazzolari of Rumbek – who wanted to raise on the site a memorial cross – but it was postponed due to the insecurity created by the conflicts in the region between the Dinka and the Nuer communities.
P. José Vieira.