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The Comboni Province of Malawi/Zambia is celebrating 50 years of existence
Tuesday 31 October 2023
Celebrations are continuing to mark the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first Combonian missionaries in the province of Malawi-Zambia, which took place at the end of 1973 with the coming of Father Giuseppe Gusmini to the archdiocese of Blantyre. The following year, the first four parishes in the south-east of Malawi, around the Mulanje mountain range, were entrusted to the first Comboni comers. The jubilee celebrations began last August in the diocese of Lilongwe (Malawi).
On 29th October, it was the turn of the Comboni missionaries from the Shire Area, in southern Malawi, to celebrate the important anniversary. They did so by inviting to Lirangwe, one of the first missions taken over, as well as the seat of the first provincial house, Father Luigi Casagrande (still working in the mission of Chikowa, Zambia), who was the first provincial superior when the Malawi-Zambia province was established in 1984.
Guests of honour were the Archbishop of Blantyre, Mgr Thomas Mzuza, a Montfort missionaruy, father Michael Nyoani Mumba, provincial superior, a member of the Malawian parliament, and the local chief. Making the occasion a real celebration were many Christians from all over the parish, from distant chapels, and from parishes once run by Comboni missionaires, such as Phalombe, Chiringa, Muloza, Gambula, Mthawira and Chipini.
Concelebrating with the archbishop were thirteen Comboni priests from the province. Also present were two Comboni brothers from the Lunzu technical school, three scholastics and 21 postulants.
Undoubtedly, the person most sought out, greeted, and ‘blessed’ with words of profound gratitude was father Silvio Zanardi, the eldest of the Comboni missionaries in Malawi, today still working in Lilongwe, but very well known and loved in Lirangwe for having been there as parish priest for many years.
Archbishop Mzuza found words of great appreciation for the work done by Comboni missionaries in the Blantyre archdiocese, starting with the mission in Mulanje, with the ‘great’ – and still remembered – father Gusmini, followed by many others. He then praised their involvement in important interdiocesan initiatives, the first and best known of all being the launching of the Inter-Congregational Seminary (ICS – an institute of philosophy and religious studies, founded by the Association of Male Religious of Malawi 1986), which became the Inter-Congregational Institute (ICI) in 2010, based in Balaka. This important work has seen father Pino Giannini engaged for years, together with Montfort missionaries and Carmelites, driven by the great vision of having a real philosophy faculty, today able to host 130 postulants and nuns from various religious Institutes and Congregations.
St Daniel Comboni wrote: “The missionary works in a work of the highest merit, yes, but supremely arduous and laborious, to be a stone hidden underground, which perhaps will never come to light, and which becomes part of the foundation of a new and colossal edifice, which only posterity will see rise from the ground" (Rules of 1871, Writings, no. 2701). Fifty years ago some missionaries came. They literally spent themselves for these people, but they did not work in vain, for they laid the foundations of something truly great. And today they are considered 'ancestors' by tens of thousands of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, their true 'posterity'. «Yesterday – Fr Michael Zeitz, Comboni missionary, said –, in Lirangwe, I felt this truth clearly, touching it almost with my own hand.»
