Meeting of young Comboni missionaries in Ethiopian Province

Therefore, they are in constant need of being evangelised, of conversion and of renewing constantly the theological, cultural and professional content and the methods of their missionary service”. It is in view of the above that, eight young missionaries gathered in Hawassa to share their experiences of mission, of community life and reflect on ways to help the progress of the Province.

The opening Mass for the gathering was celebrated in the evening of our arrival and was presided by Fr. Joseph Vieira. The following day, Fr. Joseph Vieira gave us input on the theme: “Young Missionaries following Comboni’s Footsteps.” In his talk, Fr. Vieira shared with us some important aspects of his missionary services in Ethiopia, South Sudan and Portugal. He reminded us of what our founder and father, Saint Daniel Comboni would like us to be, “a young missionary who is holy, upright, learned and most prudent. He has the spirit of God and a true zeal for souls: he is a perfect missionary”. For Comboni, a holy missionary is free from sin and humble.

Fr. Vieira explained that holiness implies teaching with authority like Jesus and hear, see, touch the Word of life. In the Writings, Comboni explained that it is love that makes us capable: “Love too is necessary to make these men and women do good work”, (Writings 6655). Fr. Vieira emphasized that the study of the local language is the first act of love in our missionary service. The ability to study the language gives us the key to enter into the culture, inculturation. Reliving his experiences as young missionary in Ethiopia, Fr. Vieira put it clearly in this term: “I remember that it was not easy for me to become a child again at almost 33, the age I started to study Guji with Robe in Qillenso. It was a very humbling experience not to be able just to say good morning without stumbling on the words. I took some two years to feel comfortable with the Guji language.”

To be capable, a young missionary must be ready to unlearn, learn and re-learn, thus, he must unlearn what is harmful and does not allow to connect; learn how to wonder and care; relearn how to weave life together. There is the need to be closed, compassionate and tender towards the people in the mission. The aspect of ongoing formation is very crucial for a young missionary as Comboni reminded us that a missionary must develop a strong awareness with God. a young missionary must embrace synodality, thus, with Jesus, with the apostolic community and with the local people. Finally, to be capable, a missionary must render his services with charity.

On the last day of our gathering, we visited some of our missions in the Vicariate of Hawassa. We were led by Fr. Nicola, delegate to the Apostolic Administrator of Hawassa. Also, in our team was Fr. Detomaso Guiseppe, who started the mission of Tullo. Our visit begun in Busholo Child and Maternity Specialty Hospital, which was began by a Comboni Missionary, some years back as a clinic. We proceeded to the Parish of Tullo and Fullasa. It is important noting that, the Parish of Fullasa is currently the biggest Parish in Ethiopia. In Fullasa, we visited their schools and clinic. We were also in Shafina, the youth centre in Hawassa and ended the visit in the Comboni Youth Centre, in Hawassa. During our visit, we prayed on the tombs of the Comboni Missionaries who lost their lives in the battlefield. Their love, fidelity to Christ and to the mission, is an inspiration to us, young missionaries, to embrace our vocation with love.
Fr. Joseph Anane

“Young missionaries following in Comboni’s footsteps”
Fr. José Vieira, in Ethiopia

First of all, a word of thanks for this invitation to share my life experience with you. It is a humbling exercise to go down Memory Lane and make sense of my missionary journey. I am not a preacher or a teacher. I am just an older brother who wants to share with you some aspects I strongly feel very important in the missionary service we offer through our presence in Ethiopia.

My missionary service has taken three mains facets:

• Journalism: 19 years (in Portugal and in South Sudan).
• First evangelization: nine years (from 1993 to 2000 in Qillenso and Haro Wato; and from November of 2021 in Qillenso).
• Service of authority: nine years (three years as vice-provincial in South Sudan and six as provincial in Portugal).

I did the Comboni Year of Ongoing Formation in Mexico (some eight months between 2000 and 2001). It was a big blessing to experience another way of being human and Christian.

What I intend with this reflection is to share with you some essential aspects of our missionary service dwelling on my own experience.

I titled this sharing “Young missionaries following in Comboni’s footsteps”. Our saintly father and founder is also our guiding light. We all share in his charism. For this reason, I will quote profusely from his Writings.

Daniel Comboni introduces Fr Stanislao to Bishop Luigi di Canossa as L’Unita Cattolica’s suitable editor with these wonderful words: “This young missionary with a facility and aptness of expression combines spirit and apostolic application, and is highly aware of the sublime nature of his ministry” (Writings 1554).

Some years later, he presents Fr Paolo Rossi, his personal secretary, as “a young missionary who is holy, upright, learned and most prudent. He has the spirit of God and a true zeal for souls: he is a perfect missionary” (Writings 4024).

These two quotes form like a snapshot of how St. Daniel Comboni wants you to be. And I am sure you, together and individually, embody all these qualities.

MISSIONARIES, HOLY AND CAPABLE

Bishop Comboni, six months before dying, asked Fr Giuseppe Sembianti, his formator in Verona, to prepare missionaries that were holy and capable (Writings 6655).

He did not want individualistic missionaries. In the same paragraph he says: “The missionary man or woman cannot go to heaven alone. [Alone they will go to hell]. They must go to heaven in the company of the souls they have helped to save”.

Then, he explains what is to be for him holy and capable: “So in the first place holiness, completely free from sin and offence against God, and humble. But this is not enough: love too is necessary to make these men and women do good work”.

1. HOLY

What is to be holy, today? Comboni says the holy missionary is free from sin and humble.

First of all, the only Holy One is God! He is thrice holy and the source of all holiness, as we pray in the Eucharist.

In Hebrew holy is kadosh, meaning separated. So, God is the thrice separated One. Separated from whom or from what? Not from us, for sure! The glorified Lord promised to be with us for ever. These are his very last words to his followers: “And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time (Matthew 28, 20).

Our Trinity is a community of love separated from herself! Creation springs from this overflowing holiness. We are born from God’s holiness.

For us to be holy means to be self-discentred, to move off from the centre of our lives and place God, the others and creation into it. This is quite a challenge. Since the Enlightenment that we live in a global individualist culture which I call I-ism. I took the centre stage. It is so powerful that the I is the only personal pronoun written with capital letter in English.

Comboni saw it clearly when he wrote that alone the missionaries will go to hell. Incidentally, the English translation of the Scritti left this sentence out from the Italian original.

In this journey of self-discenteredness, of holiness, the ubuntu wisdom that says that “I am because we are” is a great intuition and a natural remedy for individualism.

1.1. Teaching with authority

Matthew concludes the narrative of the Sermon on the Mount — his Gospel’s summary   — noting that Jesus’ teaching “made a deep impression on the people, because he taught them with authority, unlike their own scribes” (Matthew 7: 28-29).

How was it so? We know that Scribes and Pharisees derived their own authority from the teachers they had, the rabbinic schools they attended.

Yet, Jesus does not ground his own authority on a third party: he shares with his listeners his own experience of God as Abba — Daddy, from his long nights of prayer in lonely and deserted places on the hills. Luke writes extensively about Jesus’ payer life. He prepared himself for every main act of his mission with a night’s recollection.

On the other hand, St Daniel Comboni writes that “the missionary who lacks a strong awareness of God and a lively interest in his glory and the good of souls is without the right attitude for his ministry, and will end by finding himself in a kind of emptiness and intolerable isolation” (Writings 2887).

So, the missionary disciple is called to cultivate a deep personal relationship with the Trinity, in order to be able to share with people his own experience of God as Abba and to introduce and facilitate to the same experience.

Communitarian and personal prayer are key for a successful missionary service. We have to be contemplative missionaries, able to see the awesome presence of God within and around us, in the people we live with and minister to, in the vibrant creation surrounding us.

To develop our capacity of wonderment we can pray with the sun, the moon and the stars; with the rain and the fog; with the wind and the scents; with the singing of the birds as the new day breaks and the sounds of life as it ends; with the voices around us; with the cosmic silence… God is there, too.

Pope Francis reminds us in his message for the coming World Mission Day 2022 that “prayer plays a fundamental role in the missionary life, for it allows us to be refreshed and strengthened by the Spirit as the inexhaustible divine source of renewed energy and joy in sharing Christ’s life with others”.

1.2. Hear, see, touch the Word of Life

John opens his first letter with these words:

“Something which has existed since the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have watched and touched with our own hands, the Word of life — this is our theme. That life was made visible; we saw it and are giving our testimony, declaring to you the eternal life, which was present to the Father and has been revealed to us. We are declaring to you what we have seen and heard, so that you too may share our life. Our life is shared with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1John 1:1-3).

This is a key-text for me! To announce Jesus, I have to hear, to see, to touch the Word of life! The daily lectio divina, the prayerful reading of the Word, is the missionary prayer par excellence. Reading, praying and contemplating the Word that becomes life through our lives makes us touch — and witness — the Divine Mystery.

Christianity is not a doctrine or a moral philosophy. It is an encounter: with the Risen Lord and with our brothers and sisters from whom we received the faith, with whom we live it and to whom we hand it.

The Eucharist is itself a special place to contemplate, touch and get the Word of Life into our own life.

Writings contains an unsigned report to the Bishop of Verona about a revelation that one contemplative sister named as Margherita had from the “Little Brother” concerning Fr Daniel Comboni.

It says: “She saw a man who from his looks had to be a missionary; (a few days later when Fr Daniel arrived, she recognised him perfectly). He had beside him a beautiful person (the Baby Jesus) who, approaching the missionary said to him, pointing to a multitude of Africans: “Go and win all these souls for me, leave your Institute otherwise you will be unable to do so” (Writings 1395).

The report concludes with these words: “Since Margherita was still afraid that it was an illusion of Satan, she heard Holy Mass and received Holy Communion to ask God to let her really know his will: she saw the “Little Brother” come out of the Host, and radiate on the missionary a beam which formed the Trinity on his breast. The “Little Brother” said to him “You must be the Son of the Trinity, go and conquer all those souls” (showing him a multitude of Africans). Then, addressing Margherita he said: “You see what my will is, so help me, tell it to this missionary” (Writings 1396).

In the vision, the life of the Trinity is poured onto Comboni’s heart through the Eucharist, the source and goal of our life.

2. CAPABLE

Comboni explains that it is love that makes us capable: “Love too is necessary to make these men and women do good work”, (Writings 6655).

He follows Peter, who writes in his first letter:

“Give a shepherd's care to the flock of God that is entrusted to you: watch over it, not simply as a duty but gladly, as God wants; not for sordid money, but because you are eager to do it. Do not lord it over the group which is in your charge, but be an example for the flock. When the chief shepherd appears, you will be given the unfading crown of glory” (1Peter 5:2-4).

I wanted to start the second part of my reflection with this quote, because it describes the right frame of mind in order to be a successful missionary disciple.

We are all shepherds. Our missionary success is grounded on this commitment to work full of joy and eagerness, leading by example. It makes us happy missionaries.

2.1. Language

The study of the local language is the first act of love in our missionary service.

When I was leaving Haro Wato, in September of 2000, someone thanked me for having learned their language and for walking on foot like them.

This person told me in very few, simple and thankful words what the Conciliar Fathers wrote about Christian witness:

“In order that they may be able to bear more fruitful witness to Christ, let them be joined to those men by esteem and love; let them acknowledge themselves to be members of the group of men among whom they live; let them share in cultural and social life by the various undertakings and enterprises of human living; let them be familiar with their national and religious traditions; let them gladly and reverently lay bare the seeds of the Word which lie hidden among their fellows” (Ad gentes, 11).

This quote from Ad gentes is very important for us: it speaks about loving esteem, insertion and inculturation. And it tasks us with discovering the hidden seeds of the Word already present in the hosting community. This is quite a breakthrough: each culture expresses in its way and in part the Word’s mystery of incarnation.

As missionaries, we are searching after the Word’s seeds that lie hidden in the cultures we are sent to evangelize. We need words to dig out the seeds of the Word.

To study a new language after 30 is very challenging, especially when there are no schools or books, just some rudimentary grammars and dictionaries. On top of it, some of you had to study three new languages at a go: English, Amharic and the language of your assignment. A daunting task indeed to “struggle with the incredible difficulties of language learning and research” (Writings 4872) as Comboni puts it.

I remember that it was not easy for me to become a child again at almost 33, the age I started to study Guji with Robe in Qillenso. It was a very humbling experience not to be able just to say good morning without stumbling on the words. I took some two years to feel comfortable with the Guji language.

To learn well the local language and to know the local culture represents a very important investment for our missionary service, because it is its main tool of evangelization.

When I visited Mozambique in the summer of 2018 to preach two retreats to the Comboni Family I noticed that some missionaries who had started learning Portuguese in Portugal were still having some issues to master the language.

For some confers, the reason laid on the use of social media. They said some young missionaries spent their free time speaking in their vernacular with their relations across the globe. We are really conversant with the local language when we think and dream on it!

2.2. Culture

The study of the local language is the first step for inculturation — a key-word for our missionary service and a by-word for evangelization.

Daniel Comboni has a word for us on this, too. He says the Institutes in Cairo were also important “to enable the Missionaries and the Sisters to study Arabic, the different African languages and other languages required for the Mission. They come to know the oriental customs, the habits and characteristics of the Muslims with whom they deal on a daily basis” (Writings 2583).

It is in the local culture through its many expressions (sayings, foundation stories, dances, gestures, habits, practices, etc.) that we look for the seeds of the Word.

When I was in Haro Wato I used to go and visit Abba Shita’e, an elder of the Church, to read the Sunday Gospel together. We tried to see if in the Guji tradition there was something similar to what the Word of God was telling us. If one starts the homily with a local saying or story he will get immediately the congregation’s full attention.

On the other hand, the Word of God becomes familiar to the listeners, because they see that it is already present in their own culture. It is not something alien, coming from outside through the farenji.

I remember the joy it was for people to have on their hands the four Gospels in Guji. “Jesus speaks our language”, they said.

2.3. Unlearn, learn and relearn

The final document from the Synod on Amazon presents us with a very useful missionary methodology regarding inculturation: the conversion process of unlearning, learning and relearning.

The Final Document says that “the defence of the Amazon’s and its people’s life requires a profound personal, social and structural conversion. The Church is included in this call to unlearn, learn and relearn, in order to overcome any tendency toward colonizing models that have caused harm in the past” (Final Document of the Amazon Synod, nº 81).

The working document for the Synod had already explained this methodology:

“The process of conversion to which the Church is called involves unlearning, learning and relearning. This path requires a critical and self-critical regard that allows us to identify what we need to unlearn, what harms our common home and its inhabitants. We need to take an inner journey to find the attitudes and mentalities that prevent us from connecting with ourselves, with others and with nature. […] This process continues as one is open to wonder at the wisdom of indigenous peoples. Their daily life gives testimony to contemplation, care and relationship with nature. […] Therefore, we must relearn how to weave links that connect all the dimensions of life and to undertake a personal and communal asceticism that allows us to ‘cultivate a sober and satisfying life’ (LS 225)” (Amazon Synod — Instrumentum Laboris, 102).

Unlearn what is harmful and does not allow to connect; learn how to wonder and care; relearn how to weave life together. And this is conversion.

We are all ethno-centred. We learned life and faith through our own mother culture and we bring it with us. Our ethnicity is the lens through which we see the world and our place on it.

When I arrived in Ethiopia, the missionaries — male and female — prayed, ate and communicated mostly in Italian. Mahbere Comboni was written in Italian, retreats and provincial assemblies were done in Dante’s language, even the minutes from the Bishops’ Conference were in Italian.

I recall a small incident at my arrival arrival in Addis Ababa, on the morning of January 9, 1993. I came across with a missionary in the stairs. He greeted me in Italian. As I answered his greeting in English, he commented: “I hope you are not like Pedro Pablo”. I asked Abba Ivo, a Portuguese Comboni who was attending the Provincial Council, what that riddle meant. He explained that Pedro Pablo was a Mexican confrere who made the province speak in English.

There is a new trend in missionology that calls from the decolonization of the faith through unlearning our own expressions of faith, learning how to express it in the host community and culture and relearn new ways of living and saying the Gospel.

Nadi de Almeida, a former Comboni Sister from Brazil, did her research on the theme for her PhD dissertation. It is titled “Mission ad gentes and decolonization: a theological-pastoral approach from the missionary experience with the Pokot people in West Kenya”.

This missionary methodology of unlearning, learning and relearning re-expresses Jesus’ incarnation process — his kenosis — as presented by the Christological hymn that Paul inserts in the Letter to the Philippians (2: 6-11).

Using another biblical image, coming from outside, we are invited to take off our own sandals because the new cultural ground where we are standing is holy ground (See Genesis 3: 5).

We take off our own sandals (to unlearn) because we are threading over holy ground — reverently says Ad gentes 11 — and we want to feel it (to learn), to listen to it (to relearn).

2.4. Closeness, compassion, tenderness

Pope Francis offered to our XIX Chapter members another methodology: God’s own style of closeness, compassion, tenderness.

He said:

I think that you are called to bear this witness to the 'style of God' — closeness, compassion, tenderness — in your mission, where you are and where the Spirit will guide you. Mercy, tenderness is a universal language, which knows no boundaries. But you carry this message not so much as individual missionaries, but as a community, and this implies that not only the personal style must be taken care of, but also the community style. Jesus said this to his friends: ‘By your love for one another, they will recognize you as my disciples’ (cf. Jn 13:35)”.

The Pope affirms that closeness, compassion and tenderness are God’s style of being, the inner dynamics of the Holy Trinity that spill over through the loving work of creation and redemption, the Missio Dei.

In Pope Francis’ own words, this Missio Dei — to which we bear witness and in which we partake through our missionary service — is carried out through closeness, compassion and tenderness with the people we serve and with the ones we live in community.

Closeness, compassion and tenderness: these three passwords the Pope — as a good Jesuit — gave us for our missionary life, form the GPS coordinates that lead us to “a new missionary era for our Institute, full of life and vitality” that the Chapter members saw in our Institute’s horizon.

The Pope told us also that we work not as individual missionaries, but as an evangelizing community that has to be close to the people, compassionate and tender.

The Comboni communities, these Cenacles of Apostles we form in four continents, are laboratories of the presence of God’s Kingdom, laboratories of love that makes us close, compassionate and tender to one another and to the people we serve as missionaries and to attract new vocations.

The Pope reminded us that it is love — and not the cross — that singles us out as Christians. And it is love — and not rules and regulations — that keep us together as an evangelizing community, and away from envy, jealousies and power struggles.

2.5. Ongoing formation

Ongoing formation is a very important tool for the conversion of unlearning, learning and relearning.

Our relationship with the people who welcome us into their lives has to grow into a spousal relationship, an alliance of love and respect with which make with them for life.

We only love what we do know. So, we have to study its history, cultural expressions, social organization through whatever means we have at our own disposal: the community libraries and the internet are a good help. So are the bookshops. And our chats with the elders and the catechists. We need to read and to listen!

It is important also to follow the country’s situation through the different channels of information that we can access, including our own missionary magazines.

Since the Word of God is alive, we have to refresh our own theological studies. Our Theology Degree is not the end of our academic formation nor our basic formation the conclusion of our growing process.

Some of you are natives of the digital and the smartphone is your tool of choice. If you do not have patience to read from a hardcopy, search uncle Google for the contents you need to keep up-to-date. But, please, read! And use the social networks to tell your experience of God, to report your own stories, to share your missionary journey.

2.6. Synodality

Twenty two years ago, that man thanked me for having walked on foot. Well, in those days we did not have much choice. We could reach very few chapels by car or motorbike.

Pope Francis brought back the theme of synodality, the ability of walking (and working) together and dedicated a three-year synod to the theme For a synodal Church. Definitely, he is making the Church less clerical and more synodal. This is also the roadmap of our own conversion.

Synodality is not the newest ecclesiological fashion coming from Rome. It is the return to the origins. Jesus called himself the Way (John 14: 6). The Church, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, is referred to as the Way eight times (9:2; 18:25. 26; 19: 9. 23; 22: 4; 24: 14. 22).

Our missionary service is a journey together, a synod:

• First of all, with Jesus — who calls us because he loves us (Mark 10: 21), “to be his companions and to be sent out to proclaim the message” (Mark 3: 14), “to all towns and the places he himself would be visiting” (Luke 10:1). As missionaries, like John the Baptist, we prepare Jesus’ visit to his own people, “because of the faithful love of our God” (Luke 1: 68. 78).
• Then, with the apostolic community: the confreres we live and work with; the sisters;  the catechists and the elders of our parishes; the youth, girls and women; the local Church (of which we are part). Fr. Francesco Pierli wrote in his book Comme Eredi that the missionary’s obedience is also to the members of the local communities.
• Finally, with the local people — being present in the special moments of their lives (like births, marriages and funerals, blessings), visiting them and going to the marketplace; with the authorities (especially those we have to relate due to our work), development partners, lay volunteers, religious and traditional leaders, etc.

We are not lonely pastoral agents. Jesus sent his disciples in pairs, two by two (Luke 10: 1). Our living together is our first act of evangelization. Our communities are evangelical laboratories. We are part and parcel of the Comboni and Christian communities, of the local Church and of the society in which we live. We have to claim and express this sense of belonging.

To be the cenacle of apostles Comboni wants us to be (Writings 2648) we need to be together with one mind and one heart: to plan together, to work together and to evaluate together (sometimes evaluation is left out).

The community is not just a place for working better. It is a living space. Comboni notes that “as we share our hardships, we should likewise have our joys in common” (Writings 1591). It is important to celebrate together!

The MCCJ community of Wau, in South Sudan, had a very interesting practice: in the evening, some of its members would seat in the veranda each one reading his own book and sharing the more interesting insights with the others!

Finally, the Comboni Sisters have a special place among the groups we have to live and work with. Comboni noted that “the Sister of charity is as useful to Central Africa as the missionary; indeed the missionary would do little without the Sister” (Writings 5442).

2.7. The service of Charity

The mission is not ours, but God’s. We, Comboni missionary disciples, are partakers in the Missio Dei, in God’s Mission.

The Council Vatican II reminds us that “the pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father” (Ad gentes 2).

And it goes on:

“This decree, however, flows from the ‘fount-like love’ or charity of God the Father who, being the ‘principle without principle’ from whom the Son is begotten and Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, freely creating us on account of His surpassing and merciful kindness and graciously calling us moreover to share with Him His life and His cry, has generously poured out, and does not cease to pour out still, His divine goodness.” (Ad gentes 2).

Daniel Comboni, on his turn, wrote that “the missionary life is charity” (Writings 5859).

This making God’s love real to the people we minister to assumes many different forms: pastoral care, schools, clinics, public libraries, hostels and many other different projects.

Luke notes in his Gospel that everyone wanted to touch Jesus “because power came out of him that cured them all” (Luke 6: 19).

Pope Francis writes on Evangelii gaudium:

“Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people” (nº 270).

It is through the service of charity that we can touch the healing power of Living Lord, be cured from our own illnesses and exercise our sense of belonging.

The question I have been struggling with throughout all my life is the assistance to concrete persons in need. It is a big challenge in our service of charity to individuals to help them without paternalism or creating dependency, promoting a sustainable charity, instead of annulling the mechanisms each human community has to assist its needy members.

One example: traditionally the Guji people felt responsible for their weaker members. However, with our arrival in Haro Wato, they tended to discharge this responsibility on us. We had many means to help the poor. A way to recover this social responsibility was to tell the people: “We help by doubling your help; if you give one birr to the person in need we give one birr; if you give one hundred, we will give another hundred.”

Then, there is also the issue of Catechists— at least in my pastoral area — who see themselves as the first beneficiaries entitled to our assistance even though they get some money as a token for their work.

3. MISSIONARIES WITH A HEART

Daniel Comboni writes in the Rules of the Institute for the Missions of Africa (1871):

“When the Missionary in Africa has a heart burning with the pure love of God, when he keeps his eyes fixed on the contemplation of the great goodness and sublimeness of the work for which he spends himself, then all the privations, the continuous hardships, the greatest trials become a paradise on earth for his heart; then the cruellest of martyrdoms and death itself become the dearest and most eagerly desired reward for his sacrifices” (Writings 2705).

One year later, in a report to Propaganda fide, he adds: “He [the missionary of Africa] is moved by the pure vision of his God, and so, in all these circumstances, he knows how to sustain and nourish his heart abundantly, whether he gathers the fruit of his apostolate either sooner or later, by his own hand or by that of another” (Writings 2891).

Pope Francis, on his part, states that “the primary reason for evangelizing is the love of Jesus which we have received, the experience of salvation which urges us to ever greater love of him” (Evangelii Gaudium, 264).

Our mission springs from the Trinity’s heart to the hearts of the world through our own hearts. We are called to share with our neighbours the love with which Jesus loves us. To make his presence real also through our loving. This is our mission sacrament, an extension of the Eucharist.

The heart is the space were we meet God and we meet each other. We are missionaries with a heart. We are Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus.

I entrust each and every one of you to Jesus’ trespassed Heart and recall his words: “Your perseverance will win your lives” (Luke 21, 19).

Thank you. May God bless you all.
Hawassa, September 21, 2022
Fr. José da Silva Vieira, MCCJ