Guide for the implementation of the XVIII General Chapter

Guide for the implementation of the XVIII General Chapter
and Programme of Activities
“Comboni Missionary Disciples”

MESSAGE
OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL

“I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:10-11).

“We are working for God; let us leave everything to God and he will help us. Our Work is based on faith” (W 6933).

“There are many well-identified Comboni Missionaries, generous and ready to give up their lives for Christ and the Mission; they spend their lives quietly, day after day, in the various services entrusted to them …”
(CA, No. 14).

Dear Confrères,
We greet you in the name of the Lord.
Around this time, you are receiving the Chapter Acts, fruit of the journey made during the General Chapter where you also were present through the contributions you made before the Chapter and your prayers of intercession during the Chapter itself. Now, with that same spirit of belonging and of love, by materially receiving the document, but most of all by means of your Assemblies and your reflections, you are welcoming the Acts. All of us now commit ourselves to receiving the General Chapter into our individual and Community lives. The Chapter Acts are a reflection of the journey and the sharing carried out on the life of the Institute: showing in a concise manner the dream, the vision and the desire for planning that emerged during the General Chapter.

The General Council, with the help of the General Secretaries of the various sectors, has prepared and wishes to present to you an instrument intended to be our Guide to the implementation, a plan of action and life that wishes to welcome and respond to the invitation that the Holy Spirit has given us by means of the XVIII General Chapter.

As you have already noted, some parts of the Chapter Acts are just suggestions or indications for a style of life and service that is difficult to take into consideration in planning; others are programmatic elements that must become specific activities. This Guide carries on the discernment which was begun in Communities and Circumscriptions and it has become a concrete proposal in the General Chapter: it proposes a journey for the Institute with concrete duties to which each one must dedicate himself, in the service proper to him, respecting specific deadlines. The fixing of deadlines is not an option but a duty so that the proposals may be taken up with due responsibility and urgency.

Our planning comes from our faith. All of us, in fact, believe that, in trying to respond with commitment to what is indicated by the General Chapter, we are responding to the invitation of the Holy Spirit, thus taking our place in the Missio Dei. We believe that when we are faithful to our Mission we are working “for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. … But then we are working for God; let us leave everything to God and he will help us. Our Work is based on faith. It is a language that few of the good on earth understand. But the saints understood it …” (W 6933).

The Guide concentrates on the themes of the Chapter, concerning which the participants carried out discernment and took decisions, seeking to indicate to one and all their proper tasks in the various levels of the Institute.

We are aware that neither the Chapter Acts nor the Guide to the implementation of the Chapter contain all the richness inspired by the Chapter itself. We want to leave room for the Holy Spirit working in our hearts, in our Communities and in the places of our witness and apostolate. At the same time, the Guide and the Six-Year Plans that are to be made, remind us with realism of what we may accomplish with the resources we have at this moment, taking into account the fact that they bear witness to our being.

We are heirs to a great gift comprised of the commitment, witness and dedication that so many Confrères hand on to us from all the circumscriptions and continents. In planning for the future, we do not wish to break this link with the past: we receive it and celebrate it with gratitude because it reinforces our feeling for God, our passion for his Kingdom and our dedication to his people.

The spirit of Pope Francis who inspired and stimulated us with Evangelii Gaudium, encourages us as missionary disciples, to cry out with our lives in order to wake up the world. Faced with our call and the Mission to which the Lord Jesus has sent us, in the Holy Spirit, we do not feel we are experts but recognise that we are pardoned Christians. For this reason, in a spirit of sharing the Mercy of God and His tenderness for humanity, we feel called to serve the wounded and those placed at the margins of our society.

In our planning, we have full confidence in God who will give us the grace necessary to live it and to accomplish it. Providence has placed at our side people who are Sisters, Secular and Lay Comboni Missionaries, collaborators, animators and workers in the Local Church who help us to live the Gospel and to serve in a better way, according to the charism of Comboni and our tradition.

By committing ourselves to welcoming responsibly this Guide, thanks to the prayers of Mary our Mother, of Comboni and our many holy friends and Confrères, we are making an act of faith in God and in what He will accomplish in our lives: “In the meantime, be happy, calm and trust in God, who can see all, who can do everything and who loves us ... You have placed all your trust in God” (W 172).
Rome: 15^th March 2016
185^th Anniversary of the Birth of St. Daniel Comboni.
Fr. Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie
Fr. Jeremias dos Santos Martins
Fr. Rogelio Bustos Juárez
Fr. Pietro Ciuciulla
Br. Alberto Lamana Cónsola