Sr. Milagros Plaza, Comboni sister: “Nothing Belongs to Me”

I come from the Barranca neighbourhood, north of Lima, Peru. The day I made my first communion, a great desire to be a missionary was born in me. But over the years I had forgotten that dream. But when God calls, sooner or later he will make himself heard again. And so, it was.

During my law studies at university, a friend invited me to participate in a prayer group. And there I deeply felt his call. I contacted the Franciscan nuns because as a child I attended one of their schools and they made me love the spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi. But the nun in charge of the vocational journey told me: “Francis will never leave your heart, but what you want is to be a missionary”.

So, I tried to talk to the Sisters’ of Charity, where I was already volunteering. But I felt that that was not my path. One day, my spiritual director, an Augustinian father, gave me a mission magazine of the Comboni Missionaries in Peru. Reading those articles something clicked in me. I felt that this would be my path.

During my first visit to the Comboni Sisters, one of them said to me, “We are exclusively missionaries. We leave everything to announce the Gospel.” It was that radicality that I was looking for. I decided to inform myself by reading many books. Slowly the spirituality of the founder Saint Daniel Comboni became part of me. The time had come to decide. I knew about the difficulty of my parents who wanted me to take a different path.

I went to Ecuador to begin my preparation first in the postulancy and then in the novitiate. When I returned, my mother saw me happy and gave me her blessing to be a Comboni missionary. When I had taken my vows, I left for the United Arab Emirates, then my missionary life took me to Israel, Kenya then to my homeland Peru and now I am in Italy.

In all the places I walked with the people and built up many experiences. I remember in Peru I worked with the Episcopal Commission of Social Action. In particular in the pastoral care of prisons, with women and young people. So, I began training in the methodology of the “Schools of Forgiveness and Reconciliation” (ES.PE.RE.).

With this workshop, which is made up of 10 modules (six on forgiveness and four on reconciliation) I began a journey that was not only personal but also communal, especially in the neighbourhoods of the outskirts of Lima where violence was very high. Through this method, together with many lay people, we created safe and reliable spaces where people could find a place of peace and become reconciled.

I became passionate about everything related to this topic: pedagogy of care, restorative justice workshops, culture of peace, and resilience. I opened a listening office for adolescents and young people. Those who were deprived of freedom in a rehabilitation centre. The results were incredible.

When I was in Nairobi, Kenya, I worked in the Jesuit Refugee Service. I participated in the prayer group of a parish where I began to create connections, something fundamental for me. Once I had established the connections in this group of refugee women from various parts of Africa, I proposed the ES.PE.RE method to them. It was very beautiful to see how people were transformed. It was like finding God smiling and free. Before starting an activity, I spent a moment in prayer and entrusted the project to the hands of the Lord. Because nothing belongs to me… and, you know, it worked, the Lord has never abandoned me.

Comboni Missionaries